Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2023/October

Too many flags (part 2)

It seems to have become the norm, for the main draw in tournaments, to use "flagathlete" in the first round, and then "flagicon" for subsequent rounds. I personally think it would be far better to leave out the flags altogether after the first round, or after the flag for a player has been indicated once. I know that some people like to indicate that a later round will be a player from a particular country, before that player's identity is known, but I'm not keen on that practice either. Anyone else have an opinion?  Alan  (talk) 18:05, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

That latter usage would not pass MOS:FLAGS. Also agree with the first part; after their initial introduction, they don't seeem to serve a purpose other than decoration/distraction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:13, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with leaving them out after the "first" round. Doesn't seem to serve a useful purpose. We've already made some progress in this area, removing them from the centuries list and also from the referee in the "final" section and this would be a good next stage. Nigej (talk) 06:53, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks to both. There's a bit of a problem though with the upcoming 2023 Shanghai Masters tournament, which uses a "24TeamBracket-Byes" template. Since the "Last 16" column is the first appearance of the top eight seeds, their opponents should, I think, also use "flagathlete", otherwise the column would look a bit odd.  Alan  (talk) 07:20, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

On a similar issue, see 1980 World Snooker Championship#Main draw where we use flagathlete in round 2 even for those who played in round 1, presumably to maintain a common look in the round 2 column. Not a big issue for me either way. Nigej (talk) 07:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes - I think that's OK. So we just remove all flags from the quarter-finals onwards.  Alan  (talk) 07:36, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I've just done the 2023 European Masters as a tester. Does that look OK?  Alan  (talk) 08:05, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

See 1998 German Masters#Main draw where the alternative approach (the use of flagathlete) is used for round 2. Nigej (talk) 08:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with removing flags after the round where new players are included in the draw shown. For consistency, I'd prefer using flagathlete wherever there is a flag in the draw. (1927 World Snooker Championship recently passed as a featured article, with two rounds of flagathlete.) We should not indicate with a flag that a later round will be a player from a particular country.Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Snooker#Nationalities_and_flags should be updated to reflect the consensus, once we have one. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 08:21, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

That perfectly illustrates my point Benny. The pop-up flags for Tom Carpenter are wrong.  Alan  (talk) 08:31, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't much like that approach, because it still uses flagicons. One example of where {{flagicon}} can be a problem is shown below:

• Perrie Mans (RSA)
• Perrie Mans

If you hover your mouse pointer over the {{flagicon}} in the second bullet point, you will be shown the current South African flag, which is incorrect for Perrie Mans. Also, in my opinion, these large flag pop-ups can be hugely distracting.  Alan  (talk) 08:24, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, I'd prefer that the flags in the semi-finals and final in 1927 were removed. I'd never noticed the pop-ups before, but that is another reason not to use flagicon. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 08:48, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

For the 1927 article, the problem only occurs once for Tom Carpenter:
Tom Carpenter (WAL) is OK but Tom Carpenter is not.
If you take out all of the flagicons then the problem goes away.  Alan  (talk) 09:09, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

There's a specific exception in MOS:NOHOVER for "abbreviations" (which is what flagathlete uses, indicated by the dots underneath) which makes flagathlete preferable. Don't get the point about the current flag. For me when I hover over RSA I get a box with just "South Africa".in it, exactly the same box I get when I hover over RSA in the first example. Nigej (talk) 19:13, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

That's odd. Hovering over any flagicon gives me a large, very distracting, bl**dy annoying, flag. And in the two cases mentioned above - the wrong flag.  Alan  (talk) 19:57, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

@Nigej: I think I've figured that out. In your "Preferences" page, "Appearance" tab, "Reading preferences" section, switch ON the "Enable page previews" option (the default which most users will have) and you'll see what I mean.  Alan  (talk) 20:26, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Well done. Didn't know what I was missing. Nigej (talk) 20:31, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Well I've switched it off now in my preferences, since these horrible flagicons are unlikely to go away any time soon.  Alan  (talk) 18:49, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

- I’m unclear what benefit there is in not using common sense. If two players from the same country are playing each other in the same round, then it is logical that a player from that country will be in the next round in that part of the draw, so adding the flag is useful for readers. Flagicon is used because it is a placeholder thats meant to be replaced with the flagathlete template when the winner is known, since flagathlete cannot just display an empty flag without an athlete being linked [afaik]. I think the old system is better and unilaterally changing it without any wider discussion has already caused multiple previous editors, including myself, to add the flag to pages, only to find they are reverted. This requires more discussion than just a couple of days on a talkpage without bringing in other editors. I would also note that one of the users who commented in this discussion is someone who, as far as i can tell, hasn’t made any edits to any part of the snooker articles other than to quote a rule in this topic, which feels like there is no actual consensus on this issue. — CitroenLover (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2023 (UTC)

If it's "obvious" already, then it's not "useful".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:39, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

This issue (adding flags for future rounds) is not new and was discussed here (March/April 2023), and I'm sure has been discussed before then. Anyway, if we remove all flags from the later rounds, the issue would disappear. Nigej (talk) 05:34, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

For me - flagicon should be avoided for the reasons already stated and the examples shown above. If you must use a flag as a placeholder, then flagathlete works OK, as in  (CHN), but doing this I think violates MOS:FLAGCRUFT, one exception being wildcard players whose nationality is known but their identity is unknown.  Alan  (talk) 08:14, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

The above suggestion where as a community we put in the flag for the next round isn't great in the first place, as we have no guarantee that the next round will actually have either player in it (could easily withdraw), at least with a players name you can say they are set to play each other.

I'm all for anything which minimises the use of flags. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Something I thought I'd never see anyone say in a sport wikiproject; most of them seem "addicted" to flag icons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:44, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

You know me Stanton, always one to moan about cruft! Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:30, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: that chance is like zero. If you had say, ronnie and carter in a round, and lets say ronnie withdraws, carter just gets a bye to the next round so would be listed in the draw for the next round. If carter then proceeds to withdraw as well, then carter is still officially in the next round, even if he then withdrew.

Ultimately, i think the template as used on 2023 European Masters looks daft without flags in most of the columns, as it implies all the players are neutrals not competing under a particular nation after the first round, and it is also very inconsistent with the rest of the pages, as we’re now asking editors to go and update hundreds of pages to make them all consistent with each other. After which, we’ll come to a new conclusion and have to repeat the process, in an unnecessary needless cycle of minor edits that don’t really improve anything. For me, this just screams of an unnecessary project to satisfy a random rule rather than a bit of common sense being applied to the situation. CitroenLover (talk) 12:14, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Well, realistically they don't compete under a nation, that is just their sporting nationality. The argument that something is "a lot of work" is always a poor one when trying to make something better. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:30, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Surely it is true that "all the players are neutrals not competing under a particular nation". Ronnie is not competing for England in any sense at all. So "common sense" would say that we should remove all the flags. Personally I wouldn't want to go that far but there are many editors who believe that the use of flags in "individual" sports is grossly overdone. Also, the argument that everything has to stay the same for ever is a very poor one IMO. If we've been doing it badly for all these years then we need to change. As to the "hundred of pages" issue, it's a fair effort I would say, but certainly for the RD1- style templates it can be handled by WP:AWB quite readily (indeed I've written something already). For the "RoundN" templates it's trickier. Nigej (talk) 16:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Currently 1226 articles use {{Infobox individual snooker tournament}}, the vast majority of these using one or more "brackets" I suspect. Nigej (talk) 17:06, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

The fact that these are not really nation-versus-nation competitions is actually a good reason to remove the flags entirely. As for flags being removed from later columns indicating that "all the players are neutrals not competing under a particular nation", that couldn't be a reasonable interpretation since they're all in the preceding column[s] for the larger, earlier stages of the competition.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:37, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

I am somewhat confused lately as to why Wikipedia Sports, which seemingly passed quite happily for many years on flags has suddenly gone "OMG! Not the flags!" And thus, started to remove them all in seemingly random and disunited ways. Previously you could rely on sports to have a consistent presentation. Increasingly that is not the case, and I don't understand why the sudden change in approach. The presentation looks just fine with the flagathlete template. It looks ugly to put them in Round 1 and not after that; it actually looks like a mistake. Don't take my word for it: people have gone to "correct" it several times on the Shanghai Masters already. I would argue that far from "if we've been doing it badly for many years then we need to change", actually, if we did it one way for 15+ years and it wasn't an issue, then it isn't one now either. We are creating a problem that doesn't exist. 91.110.52.214 (talk) 17:50, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Something being done for a long time does not make it the way it needs to remain. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:08, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

We're not talking about the slave trade here, we're talking about some pictures of some flags. That something has been done for a long time does create a custom and practice, which wikipedia has successfully followed for 15 years or so, until this year for whatever reason. If a policy has been amended without due reference to that custom and practice, then the problem isn't the articles: The problem is the policy. Expressed differently - I take the point that just because something was always done one way doesn't mean that it was right. However, it doesn't mean it was wrong, either. 91.110.52.214 (talk) 09:12, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Again, see WP:CONTENTAGE. "It was here for a long time" is never a good argument against deletion of anything here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:05, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

And the answer to the anon's question is two-part: 1) Many of these articles pre-date various provisions of MOS:FLAGS and have simply not been edited to comply yet; and 2) the membership of wikiprojects changes over time (several years ago the sport ones seem to have been dominated by huge fans of flag icons, and that is no longer the case).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:34, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

There are two options:

1) Revise all of the articles in all sports (darts, snooker, motor racing, tennis, golf...)

2) Revise MOS:FLAGS

To my mind, 2) is the more sensible one, since provisions that were changed and added there were not in keeping with custom and practice, and therefore may have been made without due consideration to the issue of sport articles on here. 91.110.52.214 (talk) 09:10, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

The manual of style on flags says nothing about “don’t use flags”, in fact it just discourages emphasising nationality or rewriting history. Why is this being quoted as a policy when it doesn’t say “stop using flags on sporting articles”?? I don’t get it now, the policy says that they should be used where appropriate and there is no policy against their use in the way we have been using them for years. Heck it even says common sense should apply, yet we seem to be using no such thing and just rigorously following the style guidelines as if its a hard-and-fast “rule” that cannot be changed or ignored. — CitroenLover (talk) 10:09, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

"discourages emphasising nationality" is why this discussion is happening. These flags are emphasizing nationality when it is not important (these are not country-versus-country competitions).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:10, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

It seems to me that consensus on this issue is a bit unlikely, and so it's probably best to maintain the status-quo for the time being. I've reverted my edits in the 2023 European Masters and will carry on working on it in my sandbox for now. The main reason I started this thread is my dislike of using {{flagicon}} which can sometimes show the wrong flag in the hover pop-up, two examples of this can be seen earlier in this thread. Using {{flagathlete}} does not have this problem. Snooker players do not represent their countries, they only represent themselves, except in team events such as the World Cup or the Nations Cup, so there is a valid argument for removing flags altogether from tounaments where the players are not representing their countries. From a personal point-of-view, I don't like flags. They are divisive and cause arguments, as is clear from this thread.  Alan  (talk) 11:56, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

With respect, no reader sees the flags on snooker pages as “emphasising nationality”, this is a daft reason to push for removing them, Also, at the same time, broadcasters of snooker tournaments are placing flags next to player names on scoreboard graphics anyway, which suggests the broadcasters want to display that information to viewers, so we shouldn’t be doing less than the broadcasters of the tournaments. And as we’ve seen already, this isn’t something you can just change and hope no one will notice, people keep adding the flags onto pages, because its a well established standard, and they don’t understand why these are being removed. — CitroenLover (talk) 11:59, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

You wrote: "broadcasters of snooker tournaments are placing flags next to player names on scoreboard graphics". Not for the Shanghai Masters though.  Alan  (talk) 12:18, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Its a slow process, BBC started introducing them into their coverage from 2021 UK Champs, then WST followed suit with their produced events [home nations, european series]. Hong Kong Masters also had flags used. I assume China will follow in their other events, as Shanghai Masters follows a specific design principle for their coverage so might not introduce them. — CitroenLover (talk) 14:44, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

I can not imagine why they bother.  Alan  (talk) 19:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

No flags on the Eurosport and Discovery+ coverage of the Wuhan Open. Good, I don't like flags, national anthems, or other jingoistic nonsense.  Alan  (talk) 11:49, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Again, no flags on the Discovery+ coverage of the NI Open qualifiers. Good.  Alan  (talk) 09:14, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Also - there are only ever two at most on the screen. The 2023 World Snooker Championship page has 291 flags, mostly flagicons. That's way too many.  Alan  (talk) 14:39, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

If it helps, ITV Snooker have now joined the WST and BBC graphic overhaul by putting flags up on their updated graphics for the scoreboard. This just rather indicates the broadcasters want us to know the sporting country of a player. -- CitroenLover (talk) 12:08, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

WP is not a broadcaster, and unlike TV and online-media production companies, we are not big on visual decoration and gimcrackery just for the sake of visual excitement.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:15, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that snooker isn't a sport "where national flags are commonly used as representations of sporting nationality" (as it says at MOS:INFOBOXFLAG), however the issue is one of balance. Repeating the same flag again and again in the same bracket, still seems excessive to me. Nigej (talk) 13:06, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

I think ITV have done this for some time. However, as stated before, there are only ever two flags at most on the screen. Our tournaments have hundreds. And here's a thing, if you have "Enable page previews" switched ON (the default), and hover over any player's name, you'll get a pop-up which will tell you (among other things) the player's nationality. How many times do users need reminding that O'Sullivan is English or that Ding is Chinese. For the vast majority of current players this is fairly common knowledge.  Alan  (talk) 08:45, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually the only place ITV used flags was on the head-to-head / end-of-match stats prior to this season, but its whatever. And we should write pages in the assumption that people are either not logged on, or not using that setting. Writing a page on the requirement that a setting has to be enabled means the page is written incorrectly imo. While there are a lot of flags on the pages, its obvious that many long term readers and anonymous editors don't agree with the removal of the flags, and this talkpage post is indicative of the lack of consensus to be made, so until a clear cut "winner" emerges in the debate, its better to keep with the status quo, even if that status quo goes against "Wikipedia Rule #12345": common sense should apply for this imo, not just strictly following every rule as written [replaced a previous sentence in this comment that came across as too inflammatory and negative]. -- CitroenLover (talk) 12:55, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Having "Enable page previews" switched ON is the default. If a user is not logged in he/she will not be able to switch it off. I just checked. I would also assume that most logged-in users won't have bothered to change it. I only know about it because of an exchange with Nigej earlier in this thread (timestamp 20:26, 10 September 2023).  Alan  (talk) 15:06, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Northern Ireland Open

I've created a stub for the 2023 Northern Ireland Open. It needs a lot of work, and the qualifiers start next Monday.  Alan  (talk) 16:33, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Does anybody know the seed numbers for the NI Open? They are not on snooker.org who usually have them. Maybe we have to wait until the Wuhan event is over.  Alan  (talk) 12:44, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, seedings will be based on rankings after the Wuhan Open. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 09:40, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you.  Alan  (talk) 10:11, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Top 32 seed numbers from snooker.org now added in.  Alan  (talk) 18:23, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Do you know why it's not showing up on the "Hotlist" on the project page?? HurricaneHiggins (talk) 09:40, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Not a clue.  Alan  (talk) 10:37, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

I think, because it's not part of WP:SNOOKER. Should be added to the talk page. Nigej (talk) 10:58, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Just done that.  Alan  (talk) 11:09, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Great, thank you! HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:12, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. There is a tool out there somewhere which allows something like this to generate based on words in the article to generate likely articles that would meet the Wikiproject's purview, and rank it on recent edits - but I tried that with the cue sports wikiproject a long time ago and it just generated a load of articles that had the words "cue" and "pool" in it; mostly for villas and the like. Our one is much simpler in that it generates a (daily?) list of most edited articles that have our WikiProject stamp on the talk page.

Basically, if you see an article that is snooker related, put our WikiProject template on it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:27, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I've created an article for the Scottish Open since the qualifying starts on the 30th October. Needs work.  Alan  (talk) 20:24, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

IP user updating scores mid-match

There is an IP user (86.141.88.95) updating scores mid-match. I reverted one edit but he/she reverted it back. I don't want to risk breaking the 3R rule, so I'll leave it for now. I put a message on his/her talk page but he/she blanked the page. What to do?  Alan  (talk) 13:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

This IP user (86.141.88.95) is likely the same person as the previous one (86.141.88.95) that was deleting your edits of the Wuhan Open final scores. Both IPs have a bunch of snooker live score edits and a single minor edit on this page, very bizarre. AmethystZhou (talk) 17:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

86.141.88.95 also deleted this thread on this page (clearly an act of vandalism), but it was quickly restored by Suonii180.  Alan  (talk) 07:44, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

You shouldn't delete other editors bona-fide talk page comments. It is allowed in certain specific situations, eg if it's nonsense or per WP:NOTFORUM or in your own talk page. Obviously in all cases the actions remain in the edit history for everyone to see. Nigej (talk) 08:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I didn't delete anything. The IP-user deleted THIS thread.  Alan  (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I knew that. Sorry for the bad phrasing. Nigej (talk) 13:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I've made a request for some action, at WP:RPPI. These are usually quite quick but it seems to be a slow Admin day today. Nigej (talk) 17:56, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Maybe we should do this for all tournaments.  Alan  (talk) 06:39, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

We're not allowed to pre-judge whether "vandalism" (or whatever) will happen, but when it does, WP:RPP can be a useful action when the activity relates to IP users. Obviously there's no guarantee that the admin will agree to it, even if someone asks for it. For registered users a different approach is better, focused on the specific editor(s). Nigej (talk) 06:49, 23 October 2023 (UTC)