Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics/Olympic conventions

From WikiProjectMed
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.
*****

This page is currently being restructured and reorganized. While your contributions to this page are appreciated, it is unsure whether they will be counted as of yet. For now, please voice your opinion about this page and any suggestions you may have on the main WikiProject talk page. Thanks for your support!

*****

Please Read

New project proposals

Please make all new project proposals on this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Olympic conventions/topics. Adding them below without first suggesting them on the topics page will probably result in their deletion.--Josilot 03:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This includes adding discussion topics, too. Please no not place anything on this page except for comments unless they have been on the "/topics" page.

Tally of Consensus

The discussions are making a good turn out and I believe that one week from the time that each resolved was posted will be when I tally the comments of the community and a consensus for each resolved will be made. Feel free to post your feelings on this, as this is also important.

List of tally dates

The following is a list of the resolveds and the dates on which a decision will be made. All decisions will be made after 5:00 by either Jared or another appointed person, as this will lessen confusion. Clicking YES in the tallied column will bring you to the main page of this article, on which the decisions of censensus have been made.

Tally Dates
# Resolved Date
1 A single table... Decisions will be
stopped momentarily until
the deletion debate is over.
2 Countries should be ranked...
3 Competitors medal templates...

List of Resolveds

Re: Old Resolveds

All decided resolveds have been moved from this page to here, so as to keep this page cleaner. Do not edit anything on that page, as that is an archive of previous debate.

A single table should be used to display results tables.

(See Athletics at the 1900 Summer Olympics)
Maybe if we put the name of the event with an "extended results" link below it, linking to the event page of that year? tiZom(2¢) 19:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree to the principle that clarity is good. Is this any different than, say, making clear that the list of links under the "Nations" section of a Games' main page links to that nation's results for that Games rather than to a generic article about the country? I would imagine it could be done with a sentence at the top of the table, just as it's done with the nation pages. -- Jonel | Speak 22:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. That was exactly the intent, I thought. It will be especially important to have a consistent format that works both for historical Olympics (where results may be hard to find, and therefore, the pages might be medal results only) and for current Olympics, where events can almost have too much information. In the latter case, I like the idea of using the "event summary table" as a front-end navigation piece where you can follow the link to very detailed event-specific pages if you want to read further. If you only want to see the sport overview, you can get that in a single page view (in most cases) without having to scroll endlessly through a very page single sport page. Andrwsc 21:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Countries should be ranked in alphabetical order, not regarding rank at all.

  • Comment. Why should Wikipedia rank countries, which are not comparable??? It makes sense to say how many medals the US had won, or East Germany or Germany or Russia- but it makes no sense to say US ranks number one ... I would list the countries with their medals alphabetical!!! without a rank (by the way - that also the soul of the Olympic - it don't won't to say - this or this ist the best. Or why do you want to say the US is the first (the best) - in the winter games the US was always among the best but never "the" best. -Thomas (East) Germany
    • Comment. These are olympic GAMES, so must be a winner. By random of (as mention in some previous posts) politcis, geographics, economics, so far it has taken the role of those countries to win the games. Let's have olympic spirit, and not take personal biased partial thoughts about any country to present the (real) data in a desired way.JD 14:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I never considered that option, actually. It would be interesting if we had two charts in one article. One that ranks the countries in order of medals won by the gold standard and one chart that ranks the participant nations in alphabetical order. Could be a legitimate compromise for the all-time medal chart disputes. --Caponer 19:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. But again I have to say: we can't try to please everyone. Myself, I don't believe we should have 2 tables on a page. I do like the alphabetical idea, but I also like seeing a rank...so what if Norway or US or china is in 1st? The fact that you get to see it looks good. But I am starting to see how it looks bad to the little countries who only have 2 participants. But this is why we'e discussing this. But I definitely think that there should only be one table, one page per olympics. We must make a decision. Someone else want to voice their opinion? --Jared 19:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think there is a reason for this: "Note: The IOC does not officially recognise global ranking per country." I will give only a few examples for Germany (because this is the countrie I come from) why the rank-system makes no sense: 1. you can't add East Germany and West Germany because this have been two teams - in some competitions East Germany and West Germany both won a medal witch would never happen if they had been one countrie. 2. You can't compare 30 years of East Germany with for example 100 years of the United states - ranking this is nonesense. 3. You can't compare Norway (Population only 4,593,041 (114th) with Germany (Population 82,000,000) - because in the last years Norway was one of the most successful teams (per person) - much more than Germany - East Germany was also always very successful not only from this point of view. It makes realy no sense to rank United states (300,000,000) with Slovenia in one list. 4. there is no consecutive history: -examples: there have been years some countries boycotted the Olympic games (1980, 1984) and others participated in all years, to add the 1904 Summer Olympics medal count is realy funny because there have been only 42 sportsmen from other countrys than the US, in the years after the wars Germany for example was not invited (sure for good reason) - success is success of single persons not of hole nations - but for sure persons in countries with a good sport infrastructure have it much easier. ... and so one (there are much more arguments. -Sorry for my bad English - but I had to say this. Greetings - Thomas (East) Germany
  • Comment. - Depends on the context. The context for this vote is too vague for me to state a opinion. Crunch 23:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The line needs to be drawn. See above for a concurrent debate called Countries should be ranked according to the type of medal they have, not the quantity. This debate seems to be getting a lot of support, and alternatives shouldn't be discussed until it fails. After all, what would happen if both passed? This page is supposed to decide conventions that Wikipedia will use for pages relating to the Olympics, and two contradicting conventions should not be getting voted on at once.--Josilot 23:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If theyre ranked alphabetically, and you wanted a small medals standings table, which countries would you include? Honestly, this is a rediculus idea - the thought would never even cross my mind - so I'm against it. I think that you need ranking of some sort - otherwise, why don't we give every athlete a Gold medal and send them all home? Reuvenk 04:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This argument is along the same lines as the misguided folks who dont want to have Johnny play beanball in school because kids could get hurt and the ones who dont want to give grades in school because it could ruin the childs psyche. As someone already wrote, why not just give medals to all and make everyone happy. As for those taking shots, the US has nothng to apologize for regarding its success. Jealousy is not a logical debate. So what if America comes out on top, why apologize for it? Also, its interesting to see totals can compare a country like the US versus small Norway and huge India (though to be clear, I am NOT proposing a per capita as that is illogical which can be explained if called upon. Rickywiki 08:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. It have nothing to do with "the US has to apologize for regarding its success" - the fact is that there is NO such success, because the USSR nearly always beat the US- you are maybe right about the fact of small vs huge countries - but the time of participation (for example 5 times vs. 20 times) is important - and America was in comparable way mostly not on top (vs. USSR and sometimes even East Germany) - that you speak about the top-"success" of America only shows that the medal count is misleading - many normal (american) people which are not very into history will think: Oh we have always been the best.- its like "the misguided folks" who want to give grades with the same valuation for a 6 year old boy and a 12 years old- Thomas
  • Oppose. Not much to say that hasn't all ready been said. --Omnieiunium 18:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The point of a medals table is to have a ranking. John 18:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. But I think we could very well have an alphabetical table too, for easier finding of a specific country. John Anderson 02:07, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. You who propose this are being English-centric. IF we want to play all fair, do you realize differenet languages have different alphabets and different alphabetical order. In English, some countries would be in a certain order, in Spanish, these countries would be in a whole other order and so on and so on Which is fair?Rickywiki 10:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC) – Also, what precedence is there for alphabetical. There i splenty of precedence for both a medal list by GoLD and a list by TOTAL in Europeans, N AMerican and Asian media and publishing outfits.Rickywiki 11:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. So? This IS the Wikipedia in English. There are also Wikipedias in almost every other language on Earth. When writing in English, the alphabetical order should be according to the English alphabet and the English names of countries. In the Spanish Wikipedia, it should just as naturally be according to the Spanish alphabet and the Spanish names of the countries, in the Chinese Wikipedia according to Chinese conventions and so on. I don't see that this could cause any problem, as long as correct translations are made. I think this is fair. John Anderson 14:39, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The countries shouldn't be ranked in alphabetical order. Trying to keep as simple, clear, and compacted as possible the information of the medals in the medal table is the best. Wikipedia is for providing information, if someone is interested in doing a further in-depth analysis, (s)he can just take the information from the tables and present it (outside Wikipedia) as (s)he would like. From my point of view analysis of data is not one of the main goals of Wikipedia.JD 14:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • neutral Nick C 14:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Thecrookedcap 21:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It is a ranking - thats why people come here. Crspe 12:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Shadow007 06:23, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Competitors' medal templates should include the gold/silver/bronze medal images

  • neutral - I'm referring to the templates used through {{MedalTop}} and related templates. They're off right now. Suggestions beyond including or not including the images would also be very welcome. -- Jonel | Speak 01:54, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think we are starting to get carried away with the polls. This is already a goal of the Sports Olympics WikiProject.--Josilot 01:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC) I didn't realize that the images had been taken down and a debate had been started about them. But my point that we're starting to get a little egregious in our number of polls is still valid. Perhaps new polls should be discussed first in the chat page.--Josilot 04:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. I understand that, but it is something that affects every athlete's page, and also, it's just really hard to get people to notice the Talk page on the {{MedalTop}} template. If we could just use this section here to draw people's attention to that page, then that would be great. We could use more input/ideas for that template. tiZom(2¢) 02:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Given how fast some of the Olympics pages are going, I don't see 12 polls as excessive, especially since some of the issues have been lingering with some editors doing one thing and other editors doing something completely different. Sue Anne 03:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Personally, I think the medal boxes look better without them. If the consensus is to have them, I would a) remove the cup thingy in the middle as it doesn't seem to represent anything and just looks confusing and b) change the color of the "bronze medal" to more closely match the bronze medal background color. Sue Anne 03:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I liked them. The additional load factor is trivial, especially compared to pictures of the athlete in question, and the table looks like it's missing something when they were removed. I have no problem with removing the cup thing from them, although I don't feel one way or the other on that. On the polls question, I don't think we're getting poll happy. Rather, I think we're now asking the questions that allow us to standardize our approach. This is normal and needed. -- Don Sowell 19:44, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Especially for a topic that is so varied. I mean, there are SO many pages regarding the Olympics, and not really centralized place (until now) to discuss things. I think that we should be as particular as possible here, so that everything ends up more organized in the future :o) tiZom(2¢) 21:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion Topics (yet to become resolveds)

Total Medal Counts Must Include Info on How Often Nations Participated

The total medal count sites seem to be dominated by a bunch of self-reinforcing US patriots determined to make the US look much better than it deserves. For example, a recent total medal count makes the US look twice as good as the USSR and other rarely participating nations, exploiting the fact that the US has been a single political entity since the first Olympics in 1896, while the USSR never participated before 1952 and does not even exist any more. However, the USSR beat the US almost every time both nations participated (Winter total medal count victories: USSR vs USA 9:0, Summer: 6:2, Total: 15:2). Actually: Summer games would be 7:2 If you include the Unified Team which is basically USSR under a different name.

One way around this extreme US bias would be to insert an extra column listing how often the various political entities really took part in the games, to make clear that such tables are really comparing apples and oranges. In addition, there should be a separate table stating the number of medal count victories per nation in relation to how often they participated.

Those who are systematically trying to edit history by suppressing such crucial pieces of information disqualify themselves from being considered as serious discussion partners, no matter how many pseudonyms they invent to support their claims. Medalstats 10:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. gee medalstats, then we could also have a population column, cause that makes a difference and then we could have a GDP column and then a weather column (maybe how many inches of snow versus rain on average falls per year, OK) because it is unfair to African countries in Winter and unfair to Canada in the summer.

This is foolish. The only one with an agenda, it appears, is you, no matter what name we go by.

Look, the fact is, success of a nation depends on MANY things: athletics, money, geography, population and even politics. The numbers are what the numbers are. The fact that the US has been able, through the Olympic years, to stay a stable complete country (as have MOST countries in the world, so no bias there) does have a mitigating factor to the total. Why deny it.I'm sorry you find it so aggregious that it is the US mostly comes out on top. I find this less a US patriotic issue and more you being a US basher. Sorry, taht jsut does not play in the book of logic, As for the years of Soviet dominance, you clearly can see that if you visit each seperate Olympics total. Leave your petty hatreds out of this discussion.

Finally, this discussiuon has gone out of bounds. NO other listing takes into account all these things. The choice shouidl stay: In order by GOLD or in order by TOTAL. NO suppression of crucial pieces of info being systematically averted. Got any other conspiracies? Rickywiki 11:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Josilot, of course I am not anti-US, I am anti-bias. Sure, the US would win the total, but the additional info would put this in perspective, and show that the USSR and others were much more efficient in the sense that they achieved a lot with comparatively little effort (few participations). Patriotism is ok, but self-aggrandizing patriotism and suppression of crucial information is not, and will backfire. I do hope you do not want to reinforce this (actually often unjustified) cliche of the self-aggrandizing ugly American. Medalstats 12:04, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I support this based on the title. I do feel that if you make a list of the countries total medal count, you should include number of Olypmics competed in. It just makes more sense to me. --Omnieiunium 18:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. More interesting than simply the number of Olympics would be the total number of events entered. eae 18:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. - Add a column with "Appearances" to each of the three medal counts (summer, winter, total). Interesting information and good suggestion, regardless of the rant above.
    • Comment. - If we're making clear that we're comparing apples to oranges, we would have to indicate in the table that most athletes were students or had regular jobs or whatever, while those from socialist nations were paid by their governments to be athletes, thus giving them a big advantage in training time, focus, etc. Not including this crucial piece of information shows our extreme Soviet bias. Those who oppose it disqualify themselves from being considered as serious discussion partners. After all, in Soviet Russia, medals count you!! -- Jonel | Speak 01:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment. - Yes, he disregards other users' opinion. But you, in your turn, IMHO, are speaking as if your arguments were monolite and undoubted. If "those from socialist nations were paid by their governments to be athletes", then all the Westerners in amateur federations and the IOC between 1952 and 1991 were just fools - because they didn't insist on the total ban of athletes from the USSR, isn't it? Russian sources claim, that most athletes from the USSR were students and had regular jobs, but of course, it's a Soviet bias, isn't it? :) Arguments like yours were not popular, when the USSR existed, but gain their popularity now, when they have a weak opposition. Cmapm 12:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment. - I really must start using sarcasm tags. The text in the "support" paragraph is sincere, the following "comment" was set off because of its purpose as an argument to ridiculousness. I was trying to find an argument as weak as his, and was not actually supporting the inclusion of that notation. I was hoping the Soviet Russia jokeline at the end would make that clear. I am in agreement with you, and am sorry about any confusion. -- Jonel | Speak 12:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment. - Sorry, sometimes I don't understand the satire :) and was indeed astounded, reading such things by a man, whose contributions to Olympics-related articles consider very significant. You are back on my "Respect/credits" list :) Cmapm 20:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. John Anderson 01:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. - An idea could be to also create some medal count tables for different time periods, since they would probably show some interesting differences. I would imagine to have a table over the Olympics before the First World War, one for those between the World Wars, one for the time of the post-war era (Olympics of 1948 to 1988, perhaps also including 1992, since this was just after the dissolvment of the Soviet Union and the former Soviet states competed together as the Unified Team) and one for the time since then. Perhaps other periods would be more interesting? John Anderson 01:41, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Thomas
  • Oppose. - Strongest possible oppose I can think of. The list of all time medals won happens to be lead by the USA, live with it. The list was not "designed" to do anything than to give the reader a ranking of all nations who won medals. This POV fork about the USSR leading the US so many times is ridiculous. We could add disclaimers about all the unethical practises that were employed by USSR/East Germany and the like as well which totally skews the list in favour of them. This proposal by Medalstats is purely USA-bashing. If people want to know who lead the medallist at any particular olympics they can look it up and find out the information for themselves. What is Medalstats going to do with other nations who have only competed a few times, or what of the nations that now are no longer existant like Bohemia who competed once or twice in the pre-war years? Also, to say that a list shows US-bias is totally ludicrous. Could Medalstats explain how a list that reflects facts be "designed" to make the US look better? Lastly, I am extremely offended and concerned by Medalstats' language in this matter.--Kalsermar 15:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kalsermar, take it easy, I think Medalstats is right in principle, and something like what he's suggesting should be inserted, otherwise you really get a very misleading US POV picture. He also posted a cool idea in the topics section about a table of medal count scores for all pairs of nations. Never seen something like that, and think it should be done. Them medals 09:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Am I misunderstanding something here? This item is listed as "resolved", and most votes support the creation of an extra column in the total medal count tables. So why haven't the articles changed accordingly? Them medals 15:56, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment. Well firstly, it shouldn't have been a resolved in the 1st place. I don't know how it got in that category because it opposes one of the format debates above. Secondly, everything will be tallied one week from its inception on this page. See the main page. Don't do anything unless the final consensus is written on the main page. Also, do you know how much work it would take to do this, not to mention that most people probably wouldn't look at it or understand it! Jared 18:52, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment. - Not sure how it conflicts with anything else. I'm adding a version boiled down to the basic concept of a single column of appearances to the medal counts. -- Jonel | Speak 20:00, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment. Jonel, that would be against the policy of this debate, nevermind the point of a debate, to do what you want to do it you deem it fit. DO NOT add one of these columns to the tables until this topic has become a decided resolved. --Jared [T]/[+] 21:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment. WP:AGF tells me not to assume that you're being deliberately obtuse and argumentative. I think it was pretty clear that I meant I was adding a discussion topic based on the fact that I did that and did not change any tables. Beyond that, such a column has clearly gotten some support here, so unless there is clear consensus not to add it, WP:BOLD indicates that adding it would not be inappropriate. I'm not going to, but that's more than anything because Madchester's point below (actual discussion) is much more convincing for me than your continued reshuffling of discussion. -- Jonel | Speak 22:01, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment. I am sorry I misconstrued your comment. And in case you weren't aware, WP:THIS IS A DEBATE tells me that whatever the people say goes, and I am referring to the resolveds above. Those will go into effect first, and if this debate is a contrasting one, it will never be moved to debate status. And since this is a discussion (not a resolved), this topic is yet to be debated and might not even become a real debate. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:27, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Is this convention even applicable? Knowing how many times a country has particpated in the Olympic Games is nice, but what's more important is how many athletes were sent and how many events were contested by a country. Someone like Kostelic can win 3+ medals on her own, yet an Olympic hockey team (of 20 players) can only win one medal. Likewise, some Olympic discplines have more medals for the taking than others. For example, there's only 3 events in the bobsled, but there's 10 events in speed skating, so there's obviously more opportunities for medals in the latter event. Someone like Cindy Klassen (speed skating) or Ian Thorpe (swimming) wouldn't have been able to win so many medals at a single Games if they had particpated in a different sport. --Madchester 20:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Interesting point. Simnilar to this is the fact that there are so many more sports period in these days. Had the USSR existed from 1896 to 1936 for instance it wouldn't have had nearly as many medals as it does. Likewise, to counter some of Medalstats points, the US won proportionately more medals I would bet if you counted them as a percentage of medals available in the early olympics. Should be make a table for that too? No, of course not. Bottom line is, a total medals won table is just that, a simple adding up of totals and that is exactly what they should remain.--Kalsermar 21:46, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is somewhat unecesarry table I agree, Basically, not all countries participates in every olympics, this gives advantage to the nation who participates in almost every olympic games like the United States. The Soviet Union did not even compete until 1952 and they are no longer after 1992. I am not being Anti-American but I really find this table bais if not just completely unecesarry. I really think the madal table per Olympic Games are the ones that are important.
  • Oppose. I am sharply opposed to this topic. As per my discussion bullets above, creating a separate column, while it may be appealing to some people, would be a complete eye-sore. It would also be confusing to the reader who looks at it; how is anyone supposed to be able to figure out anything with this column...what is it supposed to prove? As for your comment, Medalstats, stating that we opposers are trying to "edit history by suppressing such crucial pieces of information", this is completely obsurd; we are simply trying to show history to our readers, and then they can do whatever they want with the information. We can't make them look at something they don't want, and that is why we're having this discussion. If there are more people supporting this idea then opposing it in the end, then so be it. All I am trying to do is show people my view on things (which happens to be the same as a few others, too)...let the people decide. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:36, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question. I'd also like to make a comment: shouldn't it be regarded as a good thing if the US was able to compete in the olympics almost every time, remain a stable country, and remain a large entity? Why should we make the US stoop to the levels of other countries if it is so strong and has people who were able to compete in every olympics? If the US is this great it should be rewarded by being at the top; and for those countries in turmoil or just don't have the will to work hard enough to get participants ready for every olympic games, it should be regarded as that country's fault and they should not get as high ranks for their lack of ambition. Am I the only one who sees it this way? --Jared [T]/[+] 23:47, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A country like Great Britain has competed in all Olympics since 1896. Even so, the number of athletes that they sent have shown vast fluctuations historically. They didn't send many to the earlier North American Games because of travel costs, so they had fewer medals. Likewise, during the 1980 boycott they sent a dramatically smaller team, but scored 20+ medals because of fewer quality athletes. The fact that the number of particpants (and medal sports) changes with each Games, simply stating the number of times a country has participated in the Olympics doesn't reveal any useful information about the medal count; there are many other dependent variables that are unaccounted for. --Madchester 17:58, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I like this idea, it will answer some concerns about bias, adds an additional data point and doesn't hurt anything. It also ends the need for POV explanations inside the article itself. Rx StrangeLove 03:19, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The point of the table is to give information on total numbers of medals won, which is exactly what is being portrayed. Also per Rickywiki and unsigned (the oppose above me). They make some good points. Copysan 08:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support! I just stumbled across the page "total olympics medal count" following a link from the winter olympics medal count, and started feeling an urge to participate in the discussion. I believe this "total olympics medal count" is one of the most misleading examples of spin doctoring at Wikipedia. Obviously one must state how often sombody participated before you state how many medals they won. The idea of pairwise medal count scores is great, too. Wintermetal 21:39, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is a ridiculous idea. While I am not opposed to a seperate table that lists the number of games participated in, I don't think that the information belongs in the medal count table. The medal count table is for one thing: the medal count. Nothing more, nothing less. Medalstats's idea for counteracting this supposed (and I believe fictional) US bias could be taken even further by finding an average number of medals per game or even a number of medals per athlete participating (e.g. In 2006 the US won 0.12 medals per athlete, while Norway won 0.26), but on a seperate page linked from the main page. It does not belong on a straight medal count table. Rascalb 08:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Am I the only one who sees this vote contaminated by sockpuppets/meatpuppets in the support column?--Kalsermar 19:39, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the three suspected sockpuppets never use the templates (supportvote, opposevote, etc.) in any of their comments. Coincidental, non?--Madchester 23:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question. I'd like to propose an alternate measurement. Rather than the Total medals won, which does not take into account any other factors, a better measurement would be % of potential medals won. e.g. If the USSR won 10% Gold medals in all of the events they entered, and the U.S. won 11% (or 9%) it would be possible to compare the two in a meaninfull way. (Graham Richards)129.33.49.251 21:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I think it adds value for all to add this simple statistic. For overall tally, add number of games entered. For yearly tallies, add number of events entered. I think it is also interesting to know ... for sure the hosting country enters more events than in other years and it would be interesting to know by how much. Crspe 12:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. None of these proposals in explaining the "discrepancies" between national medal counts are practical. There are a lot of factors involved, often in combination with one another. We can't simply pinpoint one variable, and claim that it's fully responsible for such differences in the tally. We shouldn't be conducting original research in deciding which factor is deemed to be the primary cause of tally differences, since it is against Wikipedia policy. --Madchester 16:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Feel free to write a WP article about the various reasons that the medal counts are the way they are. Feel free to include the number of Olympics each country has participated in, the rules on professional participation, the comparative sizes of nations, the money focused on sporting by each government, the climates of the countries, and the million other factors that go into the medals and how they're won in that separate article. But once we open up the medal count table to including these additional factors, there is no clear stopping point - we would have to include all of them. And including all of them would destroy any usefullness that the already questionably useful chart might have. - Don Sowell 17:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I oppose this largely due to the xenophobic attitude of the person who proposed this idea. The only person here with an agenda is you, Medalstats. Look at it this way. The pages that we are discussing are called "medal count" pages. The point of the pages isn't to show which countries had the most dominance in the years that they participated. The pages are for counting medals, plain and simple. We are just trying to stay true to the point of these types of pages. How you purported our intention to be "self-reinforcing patriotism" and expected people to believe you is beyond me. And like Don above me said, there are a number of factors that affect how many medals countries win. If we were to add this column you are suggesting, we would have to add a dozen more, which is simply ridiculous, and has no place on a simple medal count page. King nothing 2 10:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If we rank by medals won, then we should include number of participations, like in the majority of tournament rankings - when number of games won is pointed out, number of games played is pointed out too. Cmapm 12:29, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I wholeheartedly agree with this proposal, in all `Total Medal Tallies' there should be some indication of when that country has competed at the Olympics, and how many Olympics that country has in fact competed at. The tables should not be ranked by this, but it should be part of the table for information purposes. In 100 years into the future, people will ask who on Earth the Soviet Union was, never heard of that country - but if its established by convention that the participation dates of all the countries are recorded alongside the list it will not be a problem.
  • Oppose. While this information is interesting from a statistical analysis point of view it has no more place on a medal table than does each country's population, wealth, events entered etc etc. Shadow007 07:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Medal Statistics of Medal Count Winners / Deletion Debate

First of all I'd like to sincerely apologize for those parts of my earlier text above that could be classified as offensive - please accept my apologies! The outcome of the debate above, however, seems to be roughly 50-50 or so. This encouraged me to make an (in my opinion) POV-free and informative table providing medal statistics for the Olympic medal count winners of all Summer & Winter Games as well as for the most successful countries / organizations that had several National Olympic Committees (NOCs) in the past, such as USSR/CIS, Germany (East, West), and the EU, to the extent that these are widely recognized and a general interest in such matters is reflected by other articles inside and outside of Wikipedia (numerous sources are given in the article's talk page). The table shows the total number of medals and participations as of 2006, the average number of medals and golds per Games, the number of medal count victories and gold count victories (also per Games), and the average number of people per medal and per gold (rounded). Light background colors gold, silver, bronze indicate the first three in various categories. Entities with several NOCs are separately listed; their medal counts are based on the sums of the medals of their NOCs. All data is taken from Wikipedia sources. Here is the table: Olympic Medal Statistics: Medal Count Winners. Recently, however, someone nominated this table for deletion. Of course, I disagree with this deletion proposal, although I agree that the article can be improved. The deletion discussion can be found here: this article's entry. Comments are welcome! Medalstats 14:50, 3 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In both figure skating and skiing, the female events should be refered to as the "Ladies' events"

Note:This topic is up for debate again because of a possible mistake in consensus. Please see below for more information.

I'd like to point out that "ladies" (and not "women") is the official and correct terminology in the sport of figure skating. Yes, it's sexist and anachronistic, but that's the way it is.

References:

Dr.frog 13:19, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, Dr. Frog, that it may be used in other sources, but the Wikipedia community has decided to use Women's for all events. --Jared [T]/[+] 20:20, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not only in figure skating. All skating and skiing disciplines use the term ladies.--Nitsansh 21:43, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The official IOC site uses both, so I don't think it really matters. It's quite trivial if you ask me. King nothing 2 21:48, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As far as possible, Wikipedia should use the technically correct terminology of the specific subject of the article. I also question whether the people who made this decision really have the authority to speak for the "Wikipedia community". E.g., why were people involved in editing the figure skating article not alerted to this being an issue before this supposed "community" imposed its decision? Would it be right for me to get a group of people together who know nothing about luge to impose decisions about technical terminology used in luge articles, without asking the luge people for their input? Dr.frog 22:53, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well see the problem is that some people don't know, and they tried their hardest to look for IOC-true facts. The IOC does in fact use both terms, so I beieve both are acceptable. The fact isn't that the Wikipedia community is ignorant; it is that people like you did not show up in time! I appreciate your attempt at repeal. If enough people support this debate, it will be reinstated. --Jared [T]/[+] 01:38, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The gender terms are determined by the international federations. ISU and FIS use the term ladies for all skating and skiing events. Together these 2 sports make up the majority of events in the winter Olympics (to be precise, there were 27 events for ladies and 10 for women in Torino).--Nitsansh 23:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So it is also time-dependent, right? Gene Nygaard 22:40, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. - If the official sport organization commities, and the athletes themselves, and anybody that truly has a say in the sporting community all agree on Ladies as the correct term for their sports (both Skiing and Skating), then who are we to say otherwise? Maelwys 15:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are you sure you aren't assuming at least some facts not in evidence? Gene Nygaard 22:32, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Google hits
women's figure site:olympic.org 139
ladies figure site:olympic.org 18
women's skiing OR slalom OR downhill OR aerials OR moguls site:olympic.org 429
ladies skiing OR slalom OR downhill OR aerials OR moguls site:olympic.org 23
  • neutral You make a good point there, Gene. I mean, some sites refer to the events as such, maybe even the IOC, but I guess this issue can be related to the Metric issue we've been "battling" about recently: WP:MOSNUM says to use a space between unit and number for all pages, even the olympics ones (but this doesn't mean that I'm fully giving in ☺). So all of the Olympics pages should use women, even if some sites use Ladies. Although the fact that I voted neutral comes from the fact that if the event itself is called ladies, it should be called ladies, just as we wouldn't call the 400m Sprint the ".25 mile Sprint"...it is logical, but its not all that true. --J@red [T]/[+] 22:55, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A "wins" table should be included in both of the all-time counts (Winter/Summer).

Click here to view the proposed "wins" tables.

On the Winter Olympics medal count page, somebody made a "Wins" section in which they listed the number of times each country has "won" a Winter Olympics game (by won I mean they ranked first in number of golds for that year). This listing was just in plain text though, so yesterday I turned it into a table. I was wondering if you guys think the "wins" section is a good idea. If so, I will add these tables to the Summer Olympics medal count page and the Total Olympics medal count page. They would look something like this: Click here.
King nothing 2 07:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. To be honest, I think adding these tables will simply add gas to the flames. I prefer to present the raw data in a reasonable and logical manner, and not try to interpret the results in any way. Andrwsc 07:32, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea, but you must include a column saying how often these nations participated, otherwise it will reek of US POV. The USSR won almost every time they took part! The US leads just because it participated almost every time. Wintermetal 09:07, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well hello, mister sockpuppet. I'm getting quite tired of your annoying attempts to add frivolous information to otherwise simple tables. It's funny that you don't see the irony in your claim that all the medal count tables "reek of US POV." We are trying to provide simple, unadulterated numbers. The only person trying to push their POV is you. King nothing 2 11:12, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It seems to be a good idea, but there is no real winner of the Olympics; I think these tables will just be a mess on the pages, and they will trick readers into thinking that someone actually wins the olympics. Yes there may be a country with the most golds, but the IOC forbids stating a medal count, let alone a winner. (The preceding unsigned comment was made by me: Jared 13:17, March 2, 2006)
  • Comment. I'm actually not sure myself if this belongs on the overall medal count pages. Let me reiterate that this wasn't even really my idea. Someone made the "wins" section on the Winter Olympics medal count page, and I thought it looked like crap, so I made it into a table. Then I came here to see if people thought the section should stay. I myself am not even sure if it should.  :\ King nothing 2 07:36, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Far too problematic. While medal counts may be ranked by number of gold medals it does not automatically follow, in my opinion, that this amounts to "winning" the Olympics. There is far too much room for debate and it should be opposed on that basis. Shadow007 07:06, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Would the "winner" of a particular Olympic games be the country with the most medals or most golds? There is a reason that the IOC does not support the idea of a country winning the Olympics. The Olympics are more about the competition than who the winner was. Assigning the title "winner" does not fit with that ideal. Rascalb 09:02, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The olympics don't have a "winning country", even the ranking system is unofficial. If the IOC gave out a "supergold medal" during the closing ceremony, to the country with the most golds than it'd make sense to include this. But there is absolutely nothing at the olympics about this, so why should we care? Maelwys 12:14, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. --Nitsansh 15:54, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olympic_conventions should be adopted by the WikiProject Sports Olympics - and to serve this end and promote fuller and consistent project based debate be renamed Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Olympics conventions

Some of the problems of the use of this debate (as good as it has been) have stemed from it not being part of a proper WikiProject. One exists for the Olympics and I am proposing that this debate should become a formal part of that WikiProject and be renamed into that "namespace". Issues surrounding the establishment of wikipedia policy would also be mitigated if we treated this rather an agreed way of working largely amoungst ourselves and we should be up for persuading our colleages and fellow editors of the wisdom of our agreements. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 14:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. As the creator of this page, I totally agree, as this will get us more support and the backing of a WikiProject. I do ask that all consensuses from this forum shall be kept and used until new debates come up to oppose the current ones. We don't want to lose all of the work we've gotten in the past couple weeks, right? --Jared [T]/[+] 02:05, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose on procedural grounds. Whether or not Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics wants to adopt this renegade improper page needs to be decided on Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics. Maybe you could get the participants on this page to petition for inclusion there. Of course, they'd also be well advised to wait until the 8 days has elapsed in the nomination of this page for deletion before acting. Gene Nygaard 02:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talk Page comments

Here, you can make any comments you would normally make on a talk page. Add another subheading to the bottom using three "=" signs if what you want to talk about does not have a heading already.

Thanks

Thanks for setting this process up. It seems to have been very successful thus far: civil, and consensus being reached on all points to date.

I like your little coloured discs: we should have them on all vote pages (although it is moot to point out that Wikipedia is not a democracy).--Mais oui! 09:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yeah, the support, oppose, and neutral circles were already in wikipedia, so I decided to make the other two just because I could. haha. They seem to be working well. you don't have to read the whole thing in order to figure out what their angle is! --Jared [T]/[+] 13:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I was told that I cannot use these templates anymore, (see the template on the main page) because they are against a previous consensus. I really like them though, they make it easy to spot whether there is a support or oppose, etc vote. Is it possible to have another debate about bringing them back. I'm sure there would be a lot of people to support me. --Jared [T]/[+] 21:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, that is lame. I like them. Oh well. I personally hate the Keep and Oppose anyway, it really makes it freaking impossible to decipher what is going on. --Omnieiunium 21:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Medal tables

There are a lot of different formats around and I think they need to be standardized.Regards, Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 22:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scroll down mate. --Omnieiunium 22:32, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page move

Uhm... I find the page move to be quite unhelpful. If we're going to get consensus on conventions, comments are necessary. Having the main project page simply be a list of votes and specifically telling people not to add commentary there is unwelcoming and could very well discourage rational discourse. Until the move, Wikipedia:Olympic conventions was a wonderfully helpful page for discussing conventions. It was an example of how polls here should work, and a counter-argument against Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Deleted/June_2005#Template:Support_and_Template:Object_and_Template:Oppose. Now that it's just a list of people's "votes", I don't find it helpful, especially since it is parallel to the discussion. If we want to have the project page be a list of conventions already decided on through discussion on WP talk:, that's fine. But a vote parallel to the discussion? Not so great. -- Jonel | Speak 01:22, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Jonel on this one and found the move and reformat to be rather jarring. After going to Jared's talk page and reading the long comment by Josilot I understand the thinking behind doing what you did, but I don't agree with it. Also, the whole 1500m vs. 1500 metres vs. 1.500 metres, etc. is a critical piece that seems to have reached consensus but is now no longer on the main Olympic conventions page. That doesn't seem to make any sense. Sue Anne 01:27, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me Jared got halfway through the reconstruction and stopped. This definitely needs cleaned up. All of the votes from this page in support, opposition, or neutral to a poll should be reflected on the project page. --Josilot 02:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, after reading Jonel's argument about having the vote parrellel to the discussion has given me a lot to think about. I think I agree with his point. Maybe the supports/opposes from the main page should be added here, for now anyway, until the format of this page has been finalized, to remove confusion. The idea, to me, was to separate polls from proposed polls. But since Jared already started a new page for proposed polls, that point seems mute.--Josilot 02:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK I'm going to try and fix this now, hang on.--Josilot 02:30, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Done. All discussion and voting is on this page, and outcomes will be summarized on the project page as they are available.--Josilot 03:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I appologize for the inconveniance. It seemed like a good idea to have discussion on one page and true votes on another. I realize not that it doesn't work; it was really too confusing. Thanks for pointing out my mistake. --Jared [T]/[+] 21:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reformatting Page

I don't understand this constant reformatting of the page with seemingly no discussion of others that are heavily involved in the Olympics. This most recent one is a bit flabergasting in splitting up the two different discussions regarding how the whole length of something is done. Sue Anne 21:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be glad to address your concern. There are certain topics that were introduced from the beginning that were acceptable for this discussion. Further along down the line, however, people kept contributing resolveds that either stated nothing, were comments, or were not acceptable for this debate. They were kept in the page because they had many comments on them already. I just completed this moving of the articles because the resolveds that will actually become wiki policy should be separate from the ones that are just discussion, or they are redundant or opposing to a current debate. I chose the ones I did from careful observation of the comments and history of the page, seeing which ones came first, etc. If there are any that you think should be moved to the top, please say so. I may have been quick to do something like this, but I am the creator of this page, and I know what I had in mind when I made it. You are right, though, in that I should discuss the layout of this page before I change it. I will do so next time, if I deem it necessary. Thanks for voicing your concern. --Jared [T]/[+] 21:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Top three places in demonstration events

In demonstration events, should the top three places be first, second and third, rather than gold, silver and bronze? Andjam 02:57, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. No medals are awarded for demonstration events. Also, don't count these in any tables. -- Jonel | Speak 05:35, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Metric numbers like "fifteen hundred meters" should be written "1500m".

Nothing whatsoever of any utility was "decided" in this hopelessly ambiguous discussion.

This mixed together four or five different issues in one jumbled heap.

  1. whether the number part should be in words as "fifteen hundred" (or "one thousand five hundred") or in digits as "1500"
  2. whether the units should be spelled out or should use the symbol
    1. if spelled out, whether "meter" or "metre" spelling should be used
  3. Whether there should be a thousands separator in numbers of four or more digits
    1. and if so, whether it should be a comma, a point, or a space
    2. this is probably the point discussed by most commenters
  4. If the symbol is used, whether or not there should be a space between the number and the symbol as prescribed by MoS

Since there is no reasonable conclusion to be drawn from any voting on such an ill-defined proposal, this should not be listed on the project page as something "resolved". I intend to remove it from that page. Gene Nygaard 17:06, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, its even worse than that, because there is also the issue about whether or not the rules should be the same for headers, for running text, and for tables. Gene Nygaard 17:13, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gene, you may just have tuned into this debate, so if you have, these exact issues you speak of were discussed and decided with enough consensus to show that the genreal Wikipedia community agreed. There were in fact two different resolveds on the main page of this article that dealt with this issue; the first, as you mentioned, dealt with the comma/space/dot in the number itself. The other debate (click here to see the resolved) was in regards to all of the other issues you mentioned. The results of the two resolved debates now require all metric numbers in Olympic pages to be written like so: '1500m, or 15km, or 4 x 10km. To see the actual archived debates that occured, see the following links:
Dealing with the format of the numbers.
Dealing with the format of the unit.
I'm glad I could be of help. Please do not hesitate to respond here or leave me a message on my talk page! --Jared [T]/[+] 17:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The first one resolved nothing. It may have served to narrow discussion somewhat for the later discussion (which I will get to later), but it resolved absolutely nothing. It does not belong on the project page.
Note further that while there have may have been some stupid decisions made here, nobody has decided to improperly italicize the unit symbols, as you have charactarized the rules in your reply. That's also a no-no in modern rules for teh use of unit symbols. Gene Nygaard 17:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be rediculous; I only italicised it to distinguish each one, naturally they'd be in normal font. And of course it resolved something. It resolved the fact that there should be no commas, dots, etc. Maybe the resolved isn't as clear as it should be, but if you read the whole archive, you will understand what the people had to say. --Jared [T]/[+] 18:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be silly, yourself. The important point is that even if something were resolved (a point I certainly do not concede after reading the discussion), the question of what might have been resolved is not made clear on the project page, and including it there is worse than useless because of the misleading six or seven other possible issues (now that italics have been added, and I've corrected some "1500M" entries in the past also). I'm just removing that one. Gene Nygaard 18:50, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't in your power to remove that. Further, I still don't know where you're coming from with the Italics because I conceeded that it was for my purposes only. Additionally, I think the resolveds do a fine job of displaying what it means; 1500m means no comma/dot/space, lowercase abbreviation with no space between the word and the unit. It couldn't be much clearer. But you do bring up a good point and I will make a summary of each resolved on the project page. Thank you for sort of bring up this point. I hope you can just put this behind you now. If you don't like the outcome of this debate, then that's the way it has to be.
Gene, I agree with you on this one. Originally after the discussion on whether or not it should be written out as "fifteen hundred", 1500, 1,500 or 1.500, the question was raised over whether it shoudl be 1500 metres, 1500 meters, 1500m or 1500 m. I tried to add to the original discussion the discussion about the second issue and Jared decided that it should be split into two different discussions. All that the first "resolved" decides is that it should be 1500 not 1,500 or 1.500. Even though it says it should be 1500m, that question is still very much up in the air. The "community" seems to be fairly evenly split regarding 1500m or 1500 m and does nothing to answer your questions about whether or not things should be different when used in headers, text, tables, etc. Sue Anne 22:51, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure if you guys read my whole comments, but apparently you don't see that there was a whole other resolved that, well, "resolved" this issue of which you speak. Read the archives and you will see there are two debates which address both of these concerns. As for when it should be used, obviously, if we don't specify, we mean all the time. So in this case, 1500m or 10km or 4 x 5km should be used on everything: tables, page names, articles, etc. And don;t go and try to fix it all, just leave what's there be and make all new stuff using these new consensus-decided rules. Thanks for your concern. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:17, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Don't be talking out both sides of your mouth, Jared. Up above, you claimed that what was "decided in that first issue was only dealing with " the comma/space/dot in the number itself".

Now, let's make it absolutely clear what your understanding is. What exactly is it that you think is a "decided convention" based on the first issue you listed, the one that forms the header of this talk page section? Nothing with any subsequent decisions, just what was "resolved" in the first discussion.

So, given that we don't know what the surrounding context is, so that we do not know whether the "metres" or whatever are an adjective or a noun, and ignoring any issues of whether or not these are italicized or boldface, please answer the questions below for the following examples:

  1. fifteen hundred metre
  2. fifteen hundred metres
  3. fifteen hundred meter
  4. fifteen hundred meters
  5. one thousand five hundred metre
  6. one thousand five metres
  7. one thousand five meter
  8. one thousand five meters
  9. 1500m
  10. 1,500m
  11. 1.500m
  12. 1 500m
  13. 1 500m
  14. 1.5km
  15. 1,5km
  16. 1500 m
  17. 1,500 m
  18. 1.500 m
  19. 1 500 m
  20. 1 500 m
  21. 1.5 km
  22. 1,5 km
  23. 1500mtr
  24. 1,500mtr
  25. 1.500mtr
  26. 1 500mtr
  27. 1 500mtr
  28. 1500M
  29. 1,500M
  30. 1.500M
  31. 1 500M
  32. 1 500M
  33. 1.5 kms
  34. 1,5 kms
  35. eight hundred eighty yard
  36. eight hundred eighty yards
  37. 1760yd
  38. 1,760yd
  39. 1.760yd
  40. 1 760yd
  41. 1 760yd
  42. 1mile
  43. 1mi
  44. 1760 yd
  45. 1,760 yd
  46. 1.760 yd
  47. 1 760 yd
  48. 1 760 yd
  49. 3 mile
  50. 3 miles
  51. 3 mi

In the above list, tell us, in your humble opinion

  • Which of the above were determined to be unacceptable by the first discussion listed as resolved?
  • Which of the above were determined to be acceptable by the first discussion listed as resolved?
  • Which of the above were not addressed by the decision in that first discussion?

That ought to give us a starting place for future discussions.

BTW, I most certainly do have the power to change that project page. You don't "own" it. Gene Nygaard 23:16, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you are on fire! Haha. Firstly, let me define what a resolved is. A resolved is something that if supported or agreed upon, that is what is the new policy will become, or that is the solution. By supporting the first statement, that the number should be written 1500, you support that there should be no comma or period or space. That is what was decided. (If you read the archive carefully, somewhere in the middle of the debate it was noted that you were in no way supporting the meter/m/ m/ metre thing.) So please don't accuse me of talking out of both sides of my mouth...I know what I'm talking about. So as for the questions you posted above, none of them were addressed in that particular resolved and therefore cannot be answered. The only thing that was addressed was blatently clear: do you support or oppose writing the number in the form 1500. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:24, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, are you saying that I forgot to add the following, which would be acceptable:
  1. 1500metre
  2. 1500metres
  3. 1500meters
  4. 1500meter
  5. 1.5kms
  6. 1,5kms
and that numbers 9, 14, 15, 23, 28, 33, and 34 are acceptable if we only consider the first "decision"?
and that numbers 35 to 51 remain indeterminate after the first decision?
There is no way in hell that any such conclusion can be drawn from what is written on the project page, and it is doubtful that any vote whose terms where changed midway through it can have any validity whatsoever. I'm deleting it again. Gene Nygaard 23:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're still not getting the point. The first debate has nothing to do with the unit, forget its even there! It only deals with a 4 digit number, in which it was decided to have no comma period or space. What are you not understanding. You have not legit. reason for removing this from the page! --Jared [T]/[+] 23:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Was a determination made that 1-8 are not acceptable? Or did the decision only deal with whether or not there should be a thousands separator when the number is spelled out, not that the number should be in numerals rather than spelled out? Gene Nygaard 23:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it only dealt with the thousands separator. It would have perfectly correct to use the examples 1-6 directly above, but ever since the debate over how the unit should be written, they heave since been made incorrect. With the combination of the two resolveds, the only correct way to write it is 1500m or 10000m or 15km, etc. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus on any subsequent issue dealing with measurements. Gene Nygaard 23:58, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course there is...in fact, your next subheading is that debate. See this page and heading for the the consensus on the debate you believe didn't exist. --Jared [T]/[+] 00:29, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said before, see Wikipedia:consensus. There is no consensus in an unpublicized straw poll with 6/9/1 results. See also the part about whats missing in the new section below. Gene Nygaard 01:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was definitely publicized, as the tag had been on the olympics pages for almost 3 weeks now. Anything over 50 percent should be more than enough, especially seeing that you could vote neutral too. If you don't think this is right, then so be it, but even if you put if up for debate again, what do you think will happen? Will there magically be people swarming in to vote? I don't think so. You'll get the same results. Just think of it this way: what would you rather?...

  1. Never to have had the debate and have 4+ ways of writing numbers.
  2. The way it is now-- you didn't get your way, but wikipedia is uniform.

Pick one. --Jared [T]/[+] 01:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. I never saw any notices on any Wikipedia pages. There are few if any such pages which link to either this talk page or its project page.
You won't get the same results. I'll be voting for following the MoS standard. My vote is, of course, for the space between the number and the unit symbol, making that one related to length only now standing at 9/7/1, farther from a consensus than you were before. Gene Nygaard 04:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While I would like to see a consensus on how this should be done. I don't think that a 6/9/1 vote is enough, especially when the result goes against what is currently in the Manual of Style. I also think Gene raises some valid points about things being further defined when it comes to whether the measurements are in tables, headings and text. Sue Anne 02:03, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is also a difference between preset measurements (such as a 500 m distance in short track speed skating) and measured quantities (such as a 53.28 m discus throw). Furthermore, while "commas" and "periods" were apparently a matter of discussion in the "1500m" issue, apparently nobody has noticed that the decimal marker cannot be avoided in things such as that 53.28 m discus throw. It should, of course, be a period, a full stop, whatever you want to call a dot on the line. That is the English language standard (the old British raised dot has pretty much fallen by the wayside) and it is the English Wikipedia standard. Yet the Wikipedia article from which I got that measurement has it as "53,28m". Gene Nygaard 04:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of course you would use a dot for a decimal place; this is English and that is how we do it. I think this discussion is done and If you'd like to bring this up again as a new discussion topic, be my guest (as long as its on the right page). --Jared [T]/[+] 19:57, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The abbreviation for a metric length should be written in the following way

A 9/6/1 vote is not Wikipedia:Consensus as claimed on the project page. Note also that Wikipedia is not a majoritarian democracy:

The problem is that people take the results of a poll as a mandate to do something based on the numbers that turn out—which it is not. It is explicitly stated that Wikipedia is not a democracy—the saying that "what is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right" applies.

Gene Nygaard 18:28, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course Wikipidia is not a democracy, but there are times, like this one, when there are so many different ways of doing something that one has to be agreed on. The way to do this is to find the general consensus of the community; in this case, 56% of the community believed that the abbreviation should be 1500m, which is plenty to make the judgement. When I created this series of pages, this is what I had in mind. If you read my purpose on the main page, maybe you will see my point better. We are not trying to extract votes from people; on the contrary, we are trying to see what people think. These resolveds that have been through weeks of debate are just here for a final ruling, like if there is a revert war for who's right. They are also for format of future pages...this is how most people like it so this is how it should be. You may go against the debate if you wish, but know that 56% of the people who view your edits will only revert them and there's no way to stop that. --Jared [T]/[+] 18:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, this isn't an issue like the article title, where there is only one slot available. It is more like the American English/British English issue, where more than one result is possible. Furthermore, we also have the MoS to contend with, and I am likely to continue my editing on the basis of its suggestions. Not all issues need to be decided, and not all right away. This is one that has not been. It can be be left undecided for now. Gene Nygaard 23:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note further that this "resolved issue" suffers from a different problem not present in the earlier discussion. Like that one, this one deals with metric units only, not English units. However, unlike that one, this one explicitly deals with length only, by its terms not applicable to any other property. It does not address the issue of the units for other quantities such as time and mass.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but this is an Olympic related page for olympics related issure. we don't have to deal with MoS or mass or english units, just what we would face in pages related to the Olympics. Therefore, you're argument makes no sense! A resolved is supposed to deal specifically with one thing, and one thing only. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:32, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, WTF do you suppose is used to measure the results in Weightlifting at the 2000 Summer Olympics? How are the participants classified into groups in that event, as well as the jodokas classified into groups in the Judo at the 2000 Summer Olympics? Similarly for the weight classes of all the various wrestlers and boxers and the like? Gene Nygaard 23:55, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I see you found a loophole. I guess this isn't covered since it is only refering to length, but I would still think that common sense would let it be covered under that resolved. But you're right. Even if another debate was started, they're so similar that you would get the same results as you did on the length ones. And P.S., watch your language. This is supposed to be a friendly forum, not a free-for-all. --Jared [T]/[+] 00:33, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I am another person who has only just found this debate too, and I don't agree with the result, which rather undermines the claimed consensus.
I think the Olympic pages should conform to the MOS. I agree that it makes sense to have all numbers (distances, weights, etc) in figures, but the figures should be written in the usual stype for English (with commas every three places - millons and thousands - and decimal point, and colons for times hh:mm:ss.s), and there should be a non-breaking space ( ) between the figure and the unit, which should be written as far as possible in SI style (e.g. metre). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Spot on - Agree - no more to say. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 13:51, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Use of medal images in Resolved:Countries should be ranked according to the type of medal they have, not the quantity

Given that the debate is currently still undecided when it comes to the medal images, I think it's incredibly misleading to use the cartoony medal images on the "official" resolved page. Sue Anne 02:08, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point. I will change it to "Gold", etc. written out, if someone hasn't done it already. --Jared [T]/[+] 19:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's missing, in this bogus forum?

One of the first things I noticed here, unlike any WikiProject I've been involved with, in something on the project page inviting people to list themselves as participants in the project, and inviting them to participate in the discussions even if they haven't listed themselves as participants.

I also noticed that there were no categories at the bottom of the project page. So I decided to look into it a little bit more. First of all, I'd expect to find this on either Category:WikiProject Sports or Category:Sport WikiProjects, two categories whose merger has been proposed. But this project is not listed there.

However, there is a Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics which does exist and is legitimately formed in accordance with Wikipedia:Wikiprojects.

As such, I am pointing out that this whole bogus "project" has no legitimacy whatsover, and that whatever the "owner" of this project page decides to declare "decided conventions" are of no standing whatsoever.

Of course, Jared already knows that. He has listed himself as a participant in that project, which declares on its page that no descendant projects have been defined, and the only similar sister project identified is Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports team listing. Gene Nygaard 01:58, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, I'd like to point out that this isn't a WikiProject, it is merely a collaboration to achieve an unofficial consensus on potention olympic conventions. Therefore, almost everything you've said is meaningless. Next, it is not you're job to sit in your computer chair and tell this forum how bad it is. There are a lot of people who have found it successful, and would be happy to go by the new conventions. Which leads me to my next point; think of this collaboration like the ADA (American Dental Association): It is set up so that people who have their products go through it (like toothpaste) will look better and more legit. It is not required to pass the ADA standards, but using them would be beneficial. That's exactly the concept I had in mind when I started this forum. If your sole purpose here is to badmouth my work, please refrain and do that elsewhere. --Jared [T]/[+] 02:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I took your comments, so I added a list on the main page for users who contributed (which would exclude you) and a UBX for the "forum". I added this as a sort of sister project to the olympics one. Thanks for the suggestions! --Jared [T]/[+] 02:48, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2006 Winter Olympics diploma count

I created 2006 Winter Olympics diploma count to salvage the table that was deleted from 2006 Winter Olympics medal count. It was decided not to include the top-8 placements on the medal count page (which is fair enough, since they aren't medals); but since the choice of eight isn't arbitrary (they are the one's who get olympic diplomas.. i don't know much about them, but google certainly seems to confirm they exist), it seems worthwhile to keep this informative, and well-made table.. hopefully people don't object? Mlm42 12:37, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I totally agree with this; the resolved specifically stated that there should be "only medals and not top-8 placements in Medal counts. It was written specifically like this so that a new table would not be constructed, as the table you created is a medal count. I'll let you respond to this before I nominate it for deletion. Another thing you could do is put in your user namespace, as in give it a title like User:Mlm42/2006 Winter Olympics diploma count. This would get it out of the actual Wikipedia namespace because truthfully there should be only 1 table, and this one exceeds the limit. --Jared [T]/[+] 20:05, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So the logic of the argument for deletion seems to be: 1) medal counts should only include medals, 2) tables that list more than just medals are still medal counts, and therefore 3) tables with more than medals shouldn't exist. and although i'm going to have diffuculty poking holes in 1) and 2), i don't like the looks of 3), because i think they should exist.. they are notable, verifiable, and even nice to look at. the problem with the argument, for me, is the ambiguity of the phrase 'medal count'.. i mean, i can't stop you from putting it up for deletion.. but what is going to be your reason? i don't see which criteria it qualifies for.. i would guess that the outcome, if not to keep, would be to merge with the medal count page.. Mlm42 21:35, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
We've already decided that a merger is no good; we only want one table. I agree that it is nice-looking, to a point. Why don't you take my suggestion, put it on your page, and on the 2006 medal page (the real one) make the link say "User-created Top-8 count medal table" or something of the likeness. That way, wikipedia will only have one POV medal count instead of 2 or more. I appreciate your care for the table, though. Thanks. --Jared [T]/[+] 22:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
hmm.. i hate to make this a sore point, but i don't like the way you're using the royal 'we'.. if you really want it gone, you'd better put it up for deletion; i'm not convinced that either table is POV.. numbers are numbers, and it seems pretty neutral to me. and for the record, i didn't make, or improve the table in any way.. i'm just trying to keep it around. Mlm42 22:16, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that you are just trying to do a good thing (as noted in my last blurb), but we (as in the general wikipedia community, as I am speaking on their behalf) don;t deem it fit for being in the article namespace. And maybe I didn't say it clearly enugh, but by POV, I meant one type of table, and that's all we need. If you won't budge, I will put it for deletion. --Jared [T]/[+] 22:34, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Jared, you can't have it both ways. In the topic directly above this one, you say that this is an unofficial consensus. Yet, here you claim that you are speaking for the "general wikipedia community". Is it official or unofficial?
I don't have a huge opinion on whether or not the diplomas page should be there or not. If someone wants to create a separate page for each Olympics, I say why not? Sue Anne 23:26, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

By unofficial, I mean it is not recognized by Wikipedia as one of their policies, but it is an ediquitte that everyone should go by. Second, don't get me wrong...the top-8 aren't that bad of tables, it just is too much to show...if we could show everybody's POV on every page, there'd be at least double the amount of pages. I want to avoid this now before people start making these for every olympics, as two tables is too much to digest. One table that the majority agrees upon is good. Do you guys see my point? --Jared [T]/[+] 00:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olympic Guide

I am very happy with this Olympic Convention page. It's resolving a lot of issues that are important, especially considering the volume of Olympic-related articles out there. Rather than list a bunch of random conventions, though, might we be able to turn this into an all-inclusive guide to creating an Olympic-related article? It would be a lot of work due to the variety of types of Olympic articles (e.g. Greece at the 1996 Summer Olympics, Mark Spitz, Biathlon at the 2006 Winter Olympics), but I think it would be a tremendous help for everyone. tiZom(2¢) 21:53, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olympic conventions now a subpage of WikiProject Sports Olympics

I have determined that there was consensus during the recent mfd discussion for the page at Wikipedia:Olympic conventions to become a part of this WikiProject. I have thus moved the page to Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Olympic conventions. I would hope all parties can now seize the initiative to work together in building on the progress made at that page, and integrating it into this wikiproject. I also hope the conventions identified there, which I have for now marked as proposed, can be strengthened by discussion of all parties. Happy editing, Hiding talk 23:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with Template:MedalGold and the like

The sorting of Olympic medal categories is a mess. I am just fuming about this. Since this page hasn't been sorted out yet, please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports Olympics#Total inanity, Template:MedalGold and the like. Gene Nygaard 11:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Olympics/Olympic_conventions"