Talk:Steve Davis

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Contents 1 NPOV 2 Remove flag 3 Davis's ranking 4 "Interesting"

[edit] NPOV

Nice article, I expect it will be getting a few hits given that Davis has made his 100th final.

I'm always a little troubled by statements like "widely considered to be one of the greatest players of all time". They're so difficult to get NPOV, and many articles - especially about musicians - are just cringeworthy in trying to portray their subjects as great, influential, legendary etc. OTOH, we can be too coy, and actually distort the facts that way too. Is there any body of opinion at all that doesn't consider Davis to be "one of the greatest players of all time"? Isn't the debate merely whether he is the greatest? After all, this is a guy who was so awesome and dominating in the 80s that he almost bored us all to death! --kingboyk 02:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you about the musicians, but the great thing about individual sports is that you have an objective means of comparing players. You can easily justify "one of the greatest players of all time" simply by mentioning the number of world championships he's won, the number ranking finals, the number of years ranked number one, and his total prize money. --Auximines 14:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

In this vein, I said a while ago that he is widely considered to be in the top two or three players ever but this was subsequently removed, although "remains one of the world's leading players well into the 2000s" was allowed to stay.

Snooker is sth I know a lot about. No one with a real knowledge of this sport can reasonably assert that Davis' achievements do not mark him out as one of the very best and most successful players ever. Saying that he is in the top three is incontrovertible, even allowing for the styles and pressures of different eras. Does anyone agree or disagree? Bigpad

Please read carefully what I wrote. Is there any body of opinion at all that doesn't consider Davis to be "one of the greatest players of all time"? Isn't the debate merely whether he is the greatest?. I was actually saying that in an attempt to be NPOV and neutral the article was watered down. Davis is indisputably one of the greats, on statistics alone, and the article should not be afraid to say so. --kingboyk 02:50, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

It is actually misleading not to include this information since he was unquestionably the best of his era. Whenever there is a discussion regarding the greatest player of all time the same four or five names crop up and his is always one of them. To refer to him as "one of the greatest" is a subjective opinion, but it's a genuine reflection of how his fellow professionals regard him and therefore should be included here. The crucial point is that it is not the sole opinion of the author of the article - it is the recording of a general consensus within the sport. 213.122.29.250 14:16, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't matter whether it's popularly held to be true, it is a subjective determination that cannot be measured, is not encyclopedic but journalistic language, and very definitely violates WP:NPOV. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Remove flag

To cut down the size of this and other snooker player articles, I propose to remove the country flag as the subject's picture is there. The flag only needs to appear if a suitable usable picture of the subject/person can't be provided (e.g. there isn't one of Tony Meo). The article also specifies their nationality. Other sports don't automaticaly add the flag, e.g. see David Beckham or Johan Cruijff Patrick.

I agree about the flag and the photo. It looks messy and pointless. I removed the flag from Paul Hunter's page since there is no good reason for it being there but someone keeps putting it back in. 213.122.112.103 22:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Any further discussion of this issue belongs at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:08, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Davis's ranking

The article is written as if he dropped out of the top 16 at least once. When was this?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.156.33.151 (talk • contribs).

Davis was out of the top 16 in 2000/2001, 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. That's the only time in the past 25 years that he has been. SteveO 20:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Interesting"

I think the story of the origin of the nickname needs to be linked to the ironic book title in the prose. Not suggesting a particular edit, but it seems that they book mention should follow the nickname origin-story, pretty much immediately. I don't know if that means just move some stuff around or if it means have a whole subsection about the nickname. I'll leave that to other editors. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)