Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2020/March

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National snooker championships

Would the national snooker championships (as a whole, not by year) be deemed notable? The German Wikipedia lists quite a few articles for these: [1] which would be easy enough to translate.

Would these be of a be of a benefit to the project? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:44, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

looks like we already have:
Would it be worth translating the ones on the German wikipedia, such as the Danish, Australia New Zeland, Belorus, Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:59, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
Personally I'm of the view that most notable sporting events have notable people participating. If there are no (or few) blue links in the list of winners, I'd be inclined to give them a miss. On that basis Italy looks a dodgy inclusion. Nigej (talk) 09:15, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
The German wikipedia doesn't even mention Italy.Looking through the German ones, Malta, Iceland and Scotland are certainly ones that should be translated. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that blue links in prose = notable, as I've worked on hundreds of pool articles that (at least at the time) tonnes of redlinks, but that was more to do with the bios not having been created, rather than not notable. The fact these are amateur championships would suggest there would be more less professional players, as they would have to wait a few years for them to become notable in the regular way. We do have Channel Island Snooker Championship which is notable for tenure (ran for 80+ years). Sometimes the event is notable, even if the people playing aren't. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:12, 15 August 2019 (UTC)

Snooker events timeline

I'm working on a pool article for Daryl Peach, but I found out he was a professional snooker player before pool. Not particularly successful, (Highest ranking was around 200). I don't think he ever made a competitive stage, but should these articles still have the performance timeline? I have no idea how you build them. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:55, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Ranking events start

Hi! I'm hoping someone has an explanation as to how this works, when did the world rankings officially start? I know they were originally based on the World Championships only, but Ray Reardon has the 1974 world championship as a ranking event, but that he wasn't world number 1 until 1976/7. It's not listed as a ranking event in our season articles until that season either. Should the world championships before 1976 be listed as world ranking events in Snooker season 1974/1975 and Snooker season 1973/1974? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:56, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

See List of snooker ranking tournaments "The first rankings were produced after the 1976 World Snooker Championship and were based on performances in the 1974, 1975 and 1976 World Championships. Because of this system, the 1974 World Snooker Championship is regarded as being the first ranking tournament." So the events were only "ranking" in hindsight. Not sure when the "ranking tournament" concept really took off, but it was much later. Nigej (talk) 10:04, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
Makes sense. Should we have conflicting information (and no note), such as the finals on bios being down as ranking events, but the events themselves on seasons being listed as non-ranking? Or, should we have a generic note for this? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:20, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
The concept of a ranking event can't have got started until the 1982/83 season when 2 others were added to the system. Before that there was talk about so-and-so being the nth ranked player but not of a ranking event as such. Nigej (talk) 10:53, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

2019 Paul Hunter Classic

Hi! I'm working on the above article, and apparently there was a qualification event? https://cuetracker.net/tournaments/paul-hunter-classic-qualifying-event/2019/3110 Cuetracker] lists the results, but we can't use it to cite anything, and I can't find anything about it, nor about the winner (who is either 13 or 14 according to other non-RS sources). Can anyone find the results, or mentions to this qualification in an RS for me? I've been searching for ages. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:20, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Could this be helpful to you? Best Wishes, --BlueFire10 Let's talkabout my edits? 14:37, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
:0 this is excellent work. Thank you Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:05, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

Can someone provide the source of the prize fund of the tournament? WS said the total price money was £20,000 while the article said it was €13,500--218.102.55.116 (talk) 03:59, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

I've looked everywhere! I can't find a better source. This one's causing some issues with the current DYK, and the GAN. Anyone got any ideas? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:47, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Lee Vilenski Snooker Scene, October 2019, page 3, "Barry Hawkins beats Kyren Wilson to win Paul Hunter classic," has: winner €5,000; runner-up €2,500; semi-final losers €1,000; quarter-final losers €500, last 16 losers, €250. (I make that a total of €13,500). No mention of whether there was a prize for highest break. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:52, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Infobox template

Hi! I'd like an Infobox template to use for billiards players. The snooker one seems to be designed for professional players. There are lots of players who play both both snooker and billiards, and women sometimes compete against men, e.g. in the World Snooker Championship and the World Billiards Championship. What about if the following were added to the existing snooker template, to accommodate amateur world titles, women's titles, and billiards world titles? I appreciate that none of the following titles are as notable as the WPBSA World Snooker title! Also, I'm not sure if it would be better to create a completely new template or templates, given the ranking links etc. in the snooker player infobox template.

  • Comment Generally amateurs and juniors (with the odd exception) are not notable, so I don't think we should be adding amateur records and titles to the infobox. The infobox essentially exists to summarise a notable player's professional career. We have {{Infobox pool player}} as well as {{Infobox snooker player}} so I don't see why you can't have a proper {{Infobox billiards player}} template (which unhelpfully redirects to the snooker template). In the case of somebody who has been a notable professional in several disciplines an infobox (or sub-group) for each discipline should perhaps be added. The infobox at Allison Fisher which mashes her snooker and pool career looks a mess. I know that SMcCandlish does quite a bit or structural work across cue-sports so maybe he can provide a few helpful suggestions. Betty Logan (talk) 05:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
Thanks. I've had a go for billiards (i.e. English billiards) at User:BennyOnTheLoose/Infobox English billiards player - not sure why it's displaying my homepage as part of this for me, I'm hoping that's due to the current location. Any feedback or comments welcome. For anyone not aware, billiards tournaments are mainly open - no professional/amateur distinction, and women can compete with men (and are on the same ranking list). BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:41, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
It might be more practical to re-develop the pool one into an "infobox cue sports player" for more generic use (aside from in pro snooker, which has a whole bunch of stats and stuff not found in other disciplines). If you want to keep fine-tuning on a per-discipline basis, I don't really have an objection. But if you mean English billiards, it should use that term (even if it's not common in the UK). Just "billiards" by itself is a generic classifying term (including pool and snooker) in a some English varieties, and is also apt to imply three-cushion billiards more specifically in some of them, or (with regard to players before three-cushion was developed) balkline billiards. Due to the ambiguity, a player infobox for English billiards would need name order twiddled a bit, as in the category names for it: "infobox player of English billiards", to avoid implying "England-native players of billiards"  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:54, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
SMcCandlish Thanks for this. I particularly note the good point about the template name. My knowledge of other cue sports isn't wide enough to develop an "infobox cue sports player" but I'd use it if it becomes available. Do you have a view on whether it's appropriate, in the absence of a more generic template, to have a separate template for women snooker players? The links in the current Snooker player template are for the professional game, which with some exceptions (e.g. women taking part in the World Championship alongside men) are not applicable for women. I've looked at a couple of other sport biography infoboxes. They don't have the same sort of links as the snooker player infobox has, and seem to work for both men and women (e.g. in gymnastics, football, and tennis). BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
Realistically, we should just have a parameter in the snooker infobox that is |women=y which changes the links to the correct tournaments. I will at some point work on changing the pool infobox to a more generic one, but it's not really something I know a lot about (billiards that is) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:45, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
If we make a |non-pro=yes for the snooker player infobox, then it could also be used for the (uncommon but present) notable amateur players. I would hope to keep the non-snooker infobox[es] a bit simpler. Snooker is a bit like baseball; it's a "big sport", with lots of stats, and lots of obsession about the stats, so we need a lot of parameters. The other cue sports really aren't like this, and there's nothing wrong with more generic and simpler parameters in them, though a few particular disciplines do have some stats that might be worth tracking.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:08, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
From the bit of work I've done with BLPs for pool, the big thing is having a decent way to display all of the different ranking systems. Snooker is pretty easy, it's got one ranking system for professional players (well, there is the one-year list, and top-ups and the challenge your), but my understanding is that there was going to be ranking points for the seniors tour? The current pool infobox doesn't really discriminate between professional and amateur, but that also because the sport doesn't really do this either (to my knowledge). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 21:54, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

"Professional" field in infobox snooker player

MOS:DATETOPRES says "Do not use incomplete-looking constructions such as 1982– ..." but we do it all the time. Should we (a) ignore MOS:DATETOPRES (b) Change "1992–" to "1992–present" or "1992–pres." or (c) simply use "1992" until they retire and then use "1992–2022" Nigej (talk) 18:47, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I prefer 1992 on its own. That's how I update the same field on the pool articles. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
I think 1992 on its own implies he was professional in the year 1992, period. I prefer "1992–" but if we have to change it to comply with MOS:DATETOPRES then the example given in Template:Infobox snooker player should probably be altered (that's where I went for my guidance here), plus we would need to change the infoboxes for all of the non-retired players (for consistency). Rodney Baggins (talk) 23:01, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
In the golfer template the field is called "turned professional", which is clearer. Of course golf is different in that once you're a pro, you're (generally) always a pro even after you've given up competitive action (there is a separate parameter "retired"). But we could have a second alternative parameter (turnedpro) which produces the text "turned professional" and where we use a single date. When they retire we go back to using the current parameter. Maybe all too complicated. Nigej (talk) 05:50, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
I don't think it's that important to have two parameters. We could easily go date—present and solve the issues. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:53, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

nowrap

Could I get some consensus of the use of {{nowrap}} on players names in articles? It seems common for people to add {{nowrap|[[Ronnie O'Sullivan]]}} and similar longer names to the templates such as the results table and qualifying. WP:NOWRAP is quite clear on it's usage, and should be reserved for things like converting data. This does cause some issues when viewing on mobile. Does anyone have a specific reason for adding these templates? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:55, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

The lowest resolution we should support is 1024 pixels wide per WP:RESOL. So basically Wikipedia is designed to be accessible on desktops, laptops and tablets but not on mobiles. You are never going to get a table with more than a couple of columns to look good on a mobile. Betty Logan (talk) 00:17, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure, I understand, but considering we have a mobile view, we should really be supporting it (I read somewhere that about 20-30% of Wikipedia traffic is on mobile, I'll see if I can fish it out.) I personally think nowrap causes issues on regular resolutions as it can make the results table wider, rather than longer, which isn't great. Is there any reason to put nowrap to keep players names on the same row? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:58, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
See https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=latest-20&pages=2019_World_Open_(snooker) which shows that we're getting 10,000 hits a day of which https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=mobile-web&agent=user&range=latest-20&pages=2019_World_Open_(snooker) shows that slightly over half of these are from mobile devices. Nigej (talk) 13:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
In the past we've had editors who seem to have been only interested in how the article looks on their device, seemingly unaware that other users might have different requirements. My own view is that we shouldn't be using nowrap. Surely the browser should be sorting this sort of thing out. Nigej (talk) 18:52, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Champion of Champions qualification tables

Could I have some input on how these should look? They are currently huge tables that are pretty difficult to read on mobile. We also have different versions, so ones that look like 2016 Champion of Champions, and the one used today on 2019 Champion of Champions.

I'd prefer to keep this consistent, and potentially have something like the following:

Tournament Date of tournament final Winner
2018 Champion of Champions 11 November 2018 England Ronnie O'Sullivan

And information on date of qualification left to be in a list below. Any thoughts? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:23, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Draft:2019 IBSF World Snooker Championship – Women's

Hi! I'm having some problems with making a table to show the final match details and scores in Draft:2019 IBSF World Snooker Championship – Women's (at the end of the article). I've had to put it as several tables for now. If anyone can fix this for me, I'd be grateful. There's more to do on this article apart from this, but that's the bit I'm stuck on. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:55, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

I managed to get the table together, so hopefully it's OK now. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 09:00, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
I fixed a few errors that was causing issues with mobile view. Is there a reason the winner played in the tournament - were they not professional at the time? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:08, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Looks like the relevant IBSF policy is that "The current top 128 Ranked World Snooker Association Main Tour Players (or the figure as announced by the WPBSA for the current season) will be ineligible for selection by their National Associations for all IBSF Championships." BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
So, it basically doesn't effect the women at all? Interesting. Any ideas why Reanne Evans didn't play? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:44, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Not at the moment - until we see women in the top 128. I think this year the event clashed with Champion of Champions which Reanne Evans played in. I don't know about other years, my guess would be lack of funding. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC) I'll add a bit into the Reanne Evans article for better coverage of her achievements in the women's game - like her 90 match winning streak! BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:39, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Six-reds and Ten-reds variants

Hi. There are some IBSF and World Women's Snooker events that use a Ten-red (not Tenball) format, and I was looking for an article or article section on Ten-red snooker to link to, but didn't find one. There's an article on Six-red snooker, a mention that snooker is "(sometimes played with fewer red balls, commonly 6 or 10)" at Rules of snooker, and a list of variant games at Snooker#Variants. According to the WPBSA rules - "A simplified form of snooker (i.e. six reds) ... can be played with any number of red balls." (I think that might have been better with an "e.g." rather than an "i.e.") I'm not sure how to include 10 reds and/or update Six-reds without causing confusion. Assuming that I've not simply failed to locate what I was looking for, any suggestions? BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:43, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Six-red snooker needs cleanup anyway. I'd recommend creating a redirect from ten-red snooker, and either creating a subsection in Six-red, or leaving it as a {{R with possibilities}} Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:19, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Calendar section

The calendar section in Snooker season 2019/2020 and preceding seasons has been problematic for some years, with a number of edit wars over that period. I have put forward a proposal at Talk:Snooker season 2019/2020#Calendar section. Nigej (talk) 08:17, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Inconsistent performance

Any reason why former Minor ranking events are only showed as MR on the performance tables?

I'm looking at the 2015 Gibraltar Open on Marco Fu and Michael White Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:34, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I suppose the point is that Minor-ranking events were not Ranking events, and so including them in the "Ranking tournaments" section would be confusing. Presumably they are not regarded as sufficiently important to have their own section in the performance tables. I can see that we have some confusion of terminology since eg List of snooker players by number of ranking titles does seem to treat them as "ranking titles" in some sense. Nigej (talk)
At the very least, they have more to them than non-ranking tournaments? How can we simply ignore them happening? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:03, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
There's a list here: List of minor-ranking tournaments. We do list final appearances (eg Marco Fu#Minor-ranking finals: 3 (1 title, 2 runners-up) but haven't included them in the performance tables. Whether this was some conscious decision I don't know. One problem is that there were different names eg European Tour 2013/2014 – Event 3 was also the 2013 Bluebell Wood Open, see List of snooker players by number of ranking titles#Ranking tournaments. Another problem is that the tournaments don't fit too well into the performance table style. In many cases we might end up with 20+ extra rows (depending on how we sort out the names). Nigej (talk) 18:45, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

"Shoot Out" or "Shoot-Out"

I think it was originally "Shoot-Out" (https://www.worldsnooker.com/spaceman-into-orbit-with-shoot-out-triumph/) by changed to "Shoot Out" some years ago (https://www.worldsnooker.com/flying-finn-is-shoot-out-king/) perhaps in 2015. Probably we use "Shoot Out" in future. Nigej (talk) 09:40, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. It's a weird one, as no one really seems to know, I've seen the same sources say both. I've also seen "shootout". Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:12, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
I see you have made some changes Nigej, I'd suggest changing the article titles over anything else as preference, as if there were issues, that has more visability. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:17, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
I've changed references to 2020 Snooker Shoot-Out to 2020 Snooker Shoot Out. Moving Snooker Shoot-Out to Snooker Shoot Out needs a RM. Can do if you think it's a good idea at this stage. Nigej (talk) 13:33, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I have had Snooker Shoot-Out changed to Snooker Shoot Out. A look through https://www.worldsnooker.com/category/shoot-out-news/ seems to indicate that World Snooker has consistently called it "Shoot Out" (although it is still in "Shoot-Out News") since it became a ranking event in 2017. For 2016 we have Shoot Out here https://www.worldsnooker.com/flying-finn-is-shoot-out-king/ but Shoot-Out here https://www.worldsnooker.com/coral-to-sponsor-snooker-shoot-out/ (which is somewhat earlier). From 2011 to 2015 they mostly use "Shoot-Out" (eg https://www.worldsnooker.com/licence-to-thrill-bond-wins-new-snooker-shoot-out/), except for 2013 when they use "Shoot Out" (https://www.worldsnooker.com/glittering-gould-is-shoot-out-king/). The images in the infoboxes at 2011 Snooker Shoot-Out and subsequent editions use "Shoot Out" but most of the references seem to use "Shoot-Out". Overall I'm feeling that the ranking events (2017, 2018, 2019) ought to be "Shoot Out" but less confident about the earlier ones. Nigej (talk) 09:10, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Sports reviewing idea

I've floated some ideas in the hope of increasing participation for FAC reviews of sports related articles at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports#FAC reviewing of sports articles if anyone is interested in the idea or has a better one. Kosack (talk) 09:50, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Notability

There are comments at Talk:1992 Grand Prix (snooker) that may be of interest. Otr500 (talk) 13:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Power snooker and tenball

Hey, I've seen the above added recently to the list of results on BLPs. Any ideas if they should be included. I didn't see any issues, but I've seen it reverted a couple times now, so we should get a consensus. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:29, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Both are clearly variants of snooker and as such in the same category as six-red, shoot-out or Snooker Plus if we back further in time. As such I have no problem with them being in the results section. Anything played on a snooker table by snooker players with snooker balls with breaks made by scoring red, colour, red, colour, etc are variants of snooker to me and nothing like pool. The fact that the balls start off in different places surely fits with the very definition of a "variant". If we exclude these two then logically we should exclude six-red and the shoot-out. Nigej (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Both six-reds and shoot-out snooker are documented in the official rule-book: [2]. They are essentially the same game, except with a timing element or fewer balls, but the balls are worth the same and still set up the same, the scoring is the same etc. Snooker-plus, Tenball and Power Snooker are certainly derivatives but I question whether they should be counted as variants or an alternative format. They seem to combine different disciplines and are different in a fundamental kind of way. It is difficult to argue that a game is snooker if the official rule book is not applicable. Betty Logan (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
I suspect that six-reds and shoot-out are in rule book only because they are current while the others are defunct. Also the shoot-out has other differences like ball-in-hand for fouls and the requirement that a ball must hit a cushion. It seems to me we're simply talking about degrees of difference between them and the normal game; some closer, some further away, but to me they're all variants. Nigej (talk) 18:13, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, we should include tournaments that are recognised by world snooker.

Power snooker looks quite likely, especially as it seems it was setup by World Snooker and Barry Hearn -[3], [4], [5]

Tenball is a bit harder to sell. As far as I can tell it was setup, organised and broadcast by ITV. The involvement with WPBSA is tenuous. If anyone can find a source calling it a "non-ranking tournament", then I'm inclined to keep it.

The fact that the rules are in the rulebook by world snooker is a little irrelevant. The tournaments aren't current. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:47, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

PS - looks like Tenball was also a Hearn invention - [6]. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:50, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Power Snooker wasn't a WSA event. It was independently organised, but sanctioned by World Snooker, in a similar vein to the World Series and indeed Hearn's own Premier League. Betty Logan (talk) 19:24, 24 December 2019 (UTC)


Nigej what are you talking about Power Snooker and Tenball are not Snooker events. different scoring system, power balls double points etc. nonsense talk.

Snooker season article moves

Hi all,

I've been wondering, why are our season articles listed as snooker season 2019/2020, rather than 2019/2020 snooker season? I always have to pipe links, as you could never use the current titles in a sentence. Any thoughts? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 22:17, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think this has been disputed before. Looking back, the snooker season articles were renamed in September 2010 by Christopher Connor who changed the titles to put the years first "for consistency with other articles", examples: Snooker season 2004/2005 and Snooker season 2010/2011. Then in April 2011, Armbrust changed them all back again, with the years at the end of the title, using an apparent WP:OTHER argument, examples: Snooker season 2004/2005 and Snooker season 2010/2011
I vote to change them all back so the years come first, as you've suggested, as it would be a lot easier to link from other articles without having to pipe links every time. I don't see that there's a consensus in any other sports to put the years at the end of the titles. See 2019–20 figure skating season. I don't know if the two editors I've mentioned above are still on the scene? Rodney Baggins (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
the other argument is consistency with our events. The article isn't the World Snooker Championship 2019. If no one has any objections I'll do a formal RM. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:27, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
I don’t have a problem with that, but it should be “2019/2020” per MOS:DATERANGE. Armbrust The Homunculus 20:09, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
apologies, that was a typo. That was the intended location. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:35, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

FA/GA lists

Hello, can anyone tell me why the featured articles list is annotated with "(current)"? Surely the fact that we're listing them here shows that they are current? Was the plan to include a list of nominated FAs at some point too, hence the need to specify the ones that have already been promoted? I've noticed that the three articles in the FA list are also in the GA list – when an article is promoted from GA to FA, does it cease to be a GA or is it considered to be a GA and an FA simultaneously? I've altered the headings to use sentence case, e.g. "Featured articles" instead of "Featured Articles" because although FA does stand for "Featured Article" when used as a label for an individual article, the general term is not capitalised, see WP:FA. That's the sort of finickety thing that I notice!
Cheers me dears, Rodney Baggins (talk) 16:05, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a remnant from me copying it from WP:CUE. We did once have a list of FACs (and formerly nominated articles), as well as B class. Feel free to change this into a more aesthetically pleasing version (when this was done, we had about 10 GAs. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:39, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

Power Snooker

Hi all,

There's been a few reverts on Power Snooker regarding if the article should be referred to as a being a former snooker tournament, or as a cue sports game.

Note: I have notified the other IP user on the talk.

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:45, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Surely the clue is in the name. "Barry Hearn, stated Power Snooker is "designed to be faster and more exciting" than the traditional format of snooker". So it's not the traditional format of snooker, it's a variant of snooker. The set-up of the balls and the rules were adapted to force a "power" break-off like in pool. What other cue-sport goes: red, colour, red, colour, ... What am I watching here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZQRt1S5rt4&t=437s Clearly snooker. Nigej (talk) 15:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
You wouldn't include Power Snooker century breaks and high breaks, and fastest breaks and other various records in a player's official stats. For example, O'Sullivan's highest break is 147, not 368 or whatever he got in the Power Snooker event. So if we don't recognise the stats as official snookers stats why would we include the results?? It shares some characteristics with snooker but it is clearly a snooker/pool hybrid. Betty Logan (talk) 19:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
No, I wouldn't include Power Snooker century breaks and high breaks, and fastest breaks and other various records in a player's official stats. That's because it's a variant of the "the traditional format of snooker" (as Barry Hearn said) not because it's not snooker. Cricket has separate records for first-class, one-day, 20-20, etc. because they are different variants of cricket. To say that one-day cricket isn't cricket makes no sense. Nigej (talk) 20:09, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I think the point has been missed here. The argument was more on if the article should talk about the tournaments 2010 Power Snooker Masters Trophy, etc or the game itself. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:12, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Ideally it should relate to the variant but if these were the only two events that ever took place it might sense to combine them, just for practicality. See eg Snooker plus which redirects to 1959 News of the World Snooker Plus Tournament#Snooker plus, there being only one event that used this variant. (in which thankfully there were no breaks over 147 otherwise we'd be having another debate) Nigej (talk) 20:37, 10 January 2020 (UTC)
There's a bit more to it than just these tournaments. [7], [8], [uk.blastingnews.com/sport/2018/06/rejuvenated-power-snooker-set-for-2019-return-002618971.amp.html] etc.
I'll leave it to others to decide on this, but as regards Snooker plus, I'll just mention that the News of the World 1958/59 tournament is listed in the "championships" section of the 1967 Billiards Association and Control Council Handbook (page 104) with a bracketed note "(Skr.-Plus)". The front cover of the booklet has "The Billiards Association and Control Council Handbook and Rules. English Billiards, Snooker, Volunteer Snooker, Snooker Plus, Records, Notable Achievements, General Information." (I don't have copies of the rules pages.) Morrison's Who's Who in Snooker mentions that Jackie Rea made the record break of 156 at snooker plus, but doesn't say when or under what circumstances. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Nigej i really don't know what you are talking about power snooker has no link to snooker, power balls, double points, power zones i agree with Betty. it is a cue sports tournament at best. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.167.166 (talk) 00:01, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

One day cricket stats don't count towards test match stats the same way power snooker stats don't count as snooker stats. One day cricket is like six red snooker. it has the same scoring system but has less balls. power snooker has different scoring systems and rules etc. it is therefore not snooker. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.167.166 (talk • contribs) 00:25, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

So a stableford golf event is not golf because it has a different scoring system? Match play isn't golf because it has a different set of rules to stroke play? Honestly, you just seem to be making up arbitrary distinctions. And as noted above, Snooker plus was an official variant at one time. Nigej (talk) 07:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
Yep. And "has no link to snooker" is utterly absurd. It's like saying sliders are unrelated to hamburgers.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:58, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

On the "what is it?" and "what about stats?" questions, I concur with Nigej. In particular, our infobox and perhaps our entire article on any player need never mention their stats in some minor variant of the game like this, because it is minor. It may be just notable enough for coverage as a game and tournament series, but it isn't encyclopedic enough to shoe-horn into every player bio that might conceivably qualify. That is, see WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE policy. On the "what is/should be the scope?" question, I would think that the article should mostly focus on the game per se, since anyone can still play it, whether any tournaments exist or not. However, the tournaments are not independently notable (as events or as a series of events), and should just be covered in the article as a section, and mentioned in the lead, since the lead should be a proper summary of the article. In short, the encyclopedic reason someone's apt to be interested in this is mostly likely as a variant of snooker, since it appears to have existed before organised competition, and it has appeared as a game (with a championship title) in BACC rulebooks. The events are clearly intimately bound up with the game, in that the game would likely never have become even marginally notable if the intent of its introduction hadn't been a fast-paced (and presumably more TV-friendly) snooker variant for pro competition. That it ultimately failed is entirely incidental.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:54, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Elements of pool

IP has just changed the lede to say:

This cue sport was a variant that was derived from the games of snooker and pool. - despite saying in the previous sentence that is now an article on the tournament, and not the game itself. However, the article doesn't mention pool - nor do any reliable sources. I don't see how it has anything to do with pool (which, itself is several different sports), I reverted this, stating "What part is like pool?" and was reverted back with: the person who breaks off continues with a second shot ala pool. the word racks comes from pool , plus the formation 9 balls in a diamond is from pool. Clearly this is wrong - you don't get a second shot after the break in pool. I reverted again with "Literally none of this is true. "Rack" is a originally billiards expression, a player in pool doesn't get a different system on the break from snooker, and the diamond isn't even the only type of rack in nine-ball. You might as well say Six-red snooker is a crossover with pool as it has a similar triangle to one type of six-ball".

Then reverted again with: six reds is nothing like this. PS has elements of pool but you don't want to see it - What I see is kind of irrelevant. This article is being changed steadily, and I'm not entirely sure why. I'd change back to stable and quote Bold, Revert, Discuss, but I don't want to break WP:3RR. Could we revert and discuss? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:35, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

I have returned it to the start of the year version. Probably worth asking for semi-protection if the IP user(s) do(es) not discuss here.
as they have now reverted this, and clearly aren't here to discuss, I would report for violation of WP:3RR. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:39, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
I did a RFP instead. Anyway the main point is that no one has come up with a real reason why Power Snooker is not snooker but Six-red and Shoot Out are. I'm still waiting. All I can think is that some people feel that it is too far away from "normal" snooker in some rather undefined way. Nigej (talk) 20:17, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
I think the main argument for the inclusion of 6-red and Shoot-Out is that they are formally included in the rules of snooker. That seems pretty definitive to me, that the rules of snooker have been extended to include these variants (which are only tweaks in the format at the end of the day i.e. fewer balls and the addition of a shot-clock). If Power Snooker was at some point listed in the rules of snooker (meaning that the formal rules included them at the time these events were played) I would accept that as a conclusive end to the debate. However, if Power Snooker was never incorporated in the formal rules then I think it is original research to infer that Power Snooker is a variant, unless of course there is some evidence to suggest that World Snooker acknowledges these events in the official title counts of the players. I don't think simply appearing in the calendar is enough; World Snooker has organized cross-discipline events in the past such as the Lindrum Masters, and under the old regime a charity golf event even appeared on the roster! Betty Logan (talk) 04:46, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
We seem to be confusing two issues here. 1. was it an official event/variant. 2. was it snooker or not. The point at hand is the latter: was it snooker or not? I'm certainly not claiming it was official, I don't know either way. I'm simply saying it's clearly snooker. If someone organises a running event completely outside any official body/rules, that event is still a running event. To somehow claim that it's not running because it's unofficial makes no sense. I've played many rounds of golf with unofficial rules. I was still playing golf. Clearly at some point the difference become so large as to make it a different sport. eg disk golf which doesn't use golf clubs, golf balls or golf holes, but that's not the case here. Nigej (talk) 10:27, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. And "is it snooker?" is basically a Wikipedia-meaningless, pseudo-philosophical question that has nothing to do with our content. It's WP:OR to suggest that snooker plus "isn't" snooker when the sources say it's a form of snooker. That is, it's just defiance of the sources and of reality, and an exercise in the fallacy of equivocation to try to personally redefine snooker to only mean what you want it to mean via some subjective criterion.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:28, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
Personally I'm quite happy for it to be removed from say Ronnie O'Sullivan's "Performance and rankings timeline" as being unimportant, not for the reason stated there "power snooker and tenball are cue sports tournaments. They are not non-ranking snooker events. do not add to this section." https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ronnie_O%27Sullivan&action=history Nigej (talk) 09:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

There is clear consensus here that, as a sport, it is a variant of snooker. Nigej (talk) 20:27, 29 January 2020 (UTC)


Nigej that is your opinion because you think that, others like Betty logan and myself do not agree. you do not speak for everyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.251.192.95 (talk) 20:38, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

World Snooker Tour

So, World Snooker has officially re-branded as the "World Snooker Tour". I feel this is going to cause us some issues. How are we going to disambiguate between the World Snooker Tour, as in the professional tour, and the "World Snooker Tour" governing body? It seems a bit odd to me, as the WST are in charge of other events outside of the actual Tour (such as the Challenge Tour, Q School etc.). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:01, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The World Snooker Tour article focuses on the main tour but it actually covers all the tours World Snooker (now the WST) operates, so I don't think it presents much of a problem. We probably don't need to disambiguate at all, we can expand and just make the article more comprehensive, just tweaking the wording where it is needed. For example, the opening sentence "The World Snooker Tour is a circuit of snooker tournaments organised by..." can be changed to "The World Snooker Tour administers a circuit of snooker tournaments organised by...". Betty Logan (talk) 22:32, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
I was actually thinking more about in other articles. We quite often say "qualified for the World Snooker Tour by winning Q School..." And in other places "event was organised by World Snooker". It might be prudent for the future to say events are run by the WPBSA, rather than World Snooker. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 22:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
World Snooker Tour? That's just weird and makes no sense to me! Their web address has changed to wst.tv which is also weird. Makes it look like they're based in Tuvalu! All our refs will now redirect to that root so website params will need to be changed in existing citations. What a complete PITA. I'd continue to call them World Snooker for now as I expect most people will still call them that as it makes more sense. In my other sport, figure skating, the National Ice Skating Association (NISA) recently rebranded as British Ice Skating (BIS) which is also a complete pain in the butt, but at least it still makes sense grammatically, which is more than I can say for the World Snooker Tour! These people clearly have no consideration for the hard-working editors here at Wikipedia who are trying to keep on top of everything that's going on... Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:13, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

Snooker season date formats

Hi folks, we need to clear up a bit of confusion that has arisen over snooker season date formats. On 3 Jan, Lee Vilenski opened this RM to move Snooker season 2019/2020 → 2019/2020 snooker season (and all previous seasons to match). During the discussion it was suggested that a better solution would be to move to 2019–20 snooker season based on the fact that most other sport seasons on Wikipedia are represented using the XXXX–XX year range format. This may have been an example of WP:OTHER but seemed logical and the outcome of the RM was to move Snooker season 2019/2020 → 2019–20 snooker season and all the affected articles were moved on 13 Jan. I then realised a few days later that Snooker world rankings 2019/2020 had the same problem and I opened an RM on 15 Jan to move Snooker world rankings 2019/2020 → 2019–20 snooker world rankings (and all previous seasons to match). However, during the discussion it was pointed out by SMcCandlish that most reliable sources that report on snooker tend to use the XXXX/XXXX or XXXX/XX year range format and that maybe we should be following their lead rather than trying to fit in with all the other sports here on Wiki. One of the points of ambiguity is the question of what 2019–20 actually means. Might it be meant to indicate the two full years 2019 and 2020, rather than an unspecified range of dates spanning the two years? Would the 2019/2020 (or 2019/20) format be a more logical way to indicate a range of dates that span the two years rather than including the whole of year 1 and the whole of year 2? Because of the confusion I thought it best to close the RM and bring the discussion over here. Mac has done a lot of digging into the available sources and written a comprehensive report on his findings, which would suggest that for the most part we are looking at the XXXX/XXXX (or XXXX/XX) format rather than XXXX–XX. (He might like to summarise again here?) I tend to agree with his findings and am now concerned that we moved the snooker season articles in haste and that it might be an idea to request another move to 2019/2020 snooker season with an equivalent move to 2019/2020 snooker world rankings. If we can agree a way forward here first, it would make the RMs a lot smoother. At the end of the day, Lee's original idea to move Snooker season 2019/2020 → 2019/2020 snooker season was largely to avoid having to keep piping season links in snooker articles, e.g. [[Snooker season 2019/2020|2019/2020 snooker season]], which has always been a bit of a headache. Rodney Baggins (talk) 06:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

  • The RM was correct. There is nothing in the MoS that says that 2019-2020 means all of 2019 and all of 2020. If that has ambiguity, then it has the same one as 2019/2020. Given how the en.wiki consistent style of seasonal sport events is xxx-xx (or xxxx-xxxx) such as 2019–20 NHL season, and even when viewing this with a wider wiki perspective then it is the same one used for television schedules (2019–20 United States network television schedule), nature events (2010–11 Queensland floods), civil events (2019–20 Hong Kong protests) and most importingly, is also consistent with other rankings 2010–11 ISU World Standings and Season's World Ranking. --Gonnym (talk) 08:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    To follow up Gonnym's point, I think a consistent "seasonal" date format across Wikipedia reduces the ambiguity rather than increases it. Iregard ambiguity as a red-herring because the first sentence of the lead should explain exactly what the article covers. Just because World Snooker is a bit contrarian (on many issues) doesn't mean Wikipedia has to follow its lead. Betty Logan (talk) 15:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    I suppose this is an argument between accuracy and consistency. I'll abstain from providing my own input (I don't think it matters too much, so long as we are internally consistent). For what it's worth, the only really important part to me is that the daterange being at the beginning of the titles, to stop them being piped at all times. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:26, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The RM wasn't "correct"; it was simply one possible outcome. I've provided a pretty solid pile of usage-in-sources research at the abortive 2nd RM, showing it was probably not the optimal choice. I'll repeat it here for convenience:
Evidence that YYYY/[YY]YY format dominates in snooker coverage:

I predict [and will below add links showing what I find, as I find it] a fairly clean split between general news sources and snooker-specific ones, since the news sources do not appear to entertain the idea that two styles of date-range expression (for different purposes) even exist. And they're riddled with style oddities that are either endemic to British and sometimes broader Commonwealth news-style writing (e.g. dropping of full points after non-contraction abbreviations, which is contraindicated by non-news British style guides like New Hart's Rules and Fowler's Modern English), or are simply idiosyncratic house-style vagaries like "Dates that require AD or BC should be set as one unhyphenated word (76AD, 55BC), with the letters in small capitals after the number", which is different from what academic and other non-news-style guides want to see, in one to two different ways – spacing for sure, and the small-caps thing is only favored by a few of them). Anyway, The Independent also uses YYYY-[YY]YY style (usually abbreviated and with a hyphen, as we'd expect for the genre) [9]. However, even some general news sites use YYYY/[YY]YY formats for snooker seasons, including The Metro [10] and News Now [11].On the snooker-specific side, the organizations that actually define these seasons, WST/World Snooker [12],[13], WPBSA [14], and WWS [15] all rather consistently use YYYY/[YY]YY format (as shown on those links to their own websites and by what's aggregated from their feeds by Pro Snooker Blog, the editor of which also uses that format in his own material, including via @ProSnookerBlog on Twitter [16], though you have to load several screenfuls to find results with year-range strings). WST/World Snooker in particular sometimes uses full YYYY/YYYY format, even in tabular data [17]. SnookerHQ [18] use YYYY/[YY]YY formats. Inside Snooker mostly uses style [19],[20],[21],[22],[23], but not with 100% consistency [24]. Same goes for Snooker Hub [25],[26],[27],[28] (versus some YYYY-[YY]YY instances [29], and even at least two weird cases of the aberrant YYYY – [YY]YY [30], with an en dash but a needlessly spaced one); that seems to be a content aggregator with multiple sources, so many not have its own house style. Snooker Canada uses YYYY/[YY]YY [31]. I can't check EuroSport because of this nonsense, without using a VPN. IBSF amateur snooker uses seasons that don't cross a year boundary, so they just use YYYY [32][33]. Snooker Central uses [YY]YY/[YY]YY [34] (including sometimes the extra-lazy YY/YY variant, which is rare [35], since it looks a lot like DD/MM, especially common in the US, or MM/DD which may be more common in Canada, etc.). Grove Leisure's GroveSnooker uses YYYY/[YY]YY frequently and consistently (e.g. [36]). Snookerbacker uses YYYY/[YY]YY including the long form [37], and the short form in tabular data [38]. I found one case of YYYY/Y at Pro Snooker Blog, which seems simply to be a typo since the rest of the material by the editor uses YYYY/YY. Snooker USA is the only snooker-centric site I can find taht consistently prefers YYYY-[YY]YY [39], but what they write generally appears to be following AP Stylebook, the overwhelmingly dominant style guide for American journalism (and widely divergent from other US style guides like Chicago Manual of Style), and American snooker isn't the same game, nor does the competition system related in any way to the originally British and now world-rules game, so it may be off-topic. Firmly on-topic, Snooker.org uses full YYYY/YYYY ranges consistently [40].

Splitting the differences, there are some sites that are sports journalism broadly, neither general news nor snooker-specific. SportsMole inconsistently uses YYYY/[YY]YYYY in a snooker article [41] but YYYY-[YY]YYYY in some other contexts like football/soccer [42]. I didn't find any snooker-specific hits with season year ranges at Eurosport [43], though I didn't drill down into all the article-body content (the site blocks US visitors, so I would need to use a VPN to get into it).

In conclusion, there really does seem to be a pretty consistent convention to use the / format in snooker-specific material, it's just ignored by various everyday, broad news sites because they insist on - across all topics and usage, as their house style, regardless of any clarity consequences it can have. To get at these results above, I used built-in search functions at the sites in question when they produced useful results without grueling effort, and otherwise used Google Advanced Search narrowed to specific domains. I avoided cherry-picking (even accidentally) to the extent possible, and have annotated above when I found inconsistencies. If the RS review had suggested that snooker material had largely abandoned the / approach in the intervening years since we last looked, I wouldn't argue against dropping it here too (despite it being a less ambiguous format for year-boundary-crossing single-year seasons). There is a general MoS principle to use a specific style (even if not MoS's default or the most logically sensible) for a particular thing if that style is overwhelmingly dominant in RS for that specific subject. And for WP:CONSISTENT purposes, we try to be consistent for "like" cases within a category first and foremost, rather than try to make everything consistent across categories if it contradicts all the sources (and thus reader expectations). Here, I think YYYY/YYYY format is what to use for snooker seasons (at least the pro ones), with the /, and with full four-digit years in all cases so that we don't have YYYY/YYYY in some titles and YYYY/YY in others in the same category.
Whether we use / or - format, see the rest of Talk:Snooker world rankings 2019/2020#Requested move 15 January 2020 for why to not use things like "2019–20" the the tiles of a series of articles. The fact that MOS:DATERANGE permits abbreviated years of this sort in a few circumstances does not require them in any, and they are an especially poor idea in such page names.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

snooker.org reference

Hi all,

I noticed how much we rely on the snooker.org reference for articles, specifically those for the draw of tournaments. I've written a template to make this a bit easier, and is something we can put on articles quickly.

{{snooker.org}} is the template, and uses wikidata to generate the correct url for the event. It's still a work in progress, so if you use it, please let me know if it throws up any errors, or if there's something additional you would like it to do. Currently it uses the following parameters:

  • 1=If the article is yet to have the parameter on wikidata, you can manually add this.
  • title=If the title of the event on snooker.org is different from that of the article, then you can define it here. You don't need to worry about the disambiguator (snooker), however (it'll automatically remove this).
  • fixtures=There are two different refs you can get from snooker.org, one that is a fixture list, and one that is the default results. Setting this to any value changes the template to the former.

I've added this to a few articles to test the template, and once we're happy, it can be something to add to the results section of all 1994+ articles.Let me know what you think. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:29, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

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