Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics

• Archive 1 — March 31, 2006 – April 5, 2006
• Archive 2 — April 22, 2006 – October 24, 2006
• Archive 3 — November 20, 2006 –

To start a new discussion section, please click here

[edit] Re-open discussion

I'd like to re-open this discussion. First, let me apologize for my slightly over-the-top reaction before my short (as it turned out) wikibreak. It was a bit unprofessional of me. I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking Nyttend. I was just a bit frustrated at having a "parallel" set of pages and infoboxes.

Having said that, I think the issue raised ought to be dealt with. Basically, the question is how we want to organize the "top-level" articles in the "Nation at the Olympics" series. I had created a few Winter Games summary articles (e.g. Norway at the Winter Olympics and Germany at the Winter Olympics) before the holidays, but before I continue, I'd like to get consensus on the structure and content.

Here are my suggestions:

1. As per comments above, I don't think that the Summer/Winter pair of articles should be the main method of navigation. Really, only about 20 nations (~10% of total) require this split. 54% of nations have never attended the Winter Games at least once. Therefore, Cuba at the Olympics (for example) strikes me as a better top-level page than Cuba at the Summer Olympics. Of those who have, quite a few are warm-weather nations who sent 1 or 2 athletes each time. Do we really need Mexico at the Winter Olympics as a separate article? Therefore, I think those nations could and should have their entire Olympic history in a single article. "Big" nations like USA, URS, GER, FRA, etc. can and should have multiple summary articles.
2. I'm concerned about the currently poor quality of the existing summary articles. There were good intentions to have tables showing the number of participants and medals for the nation, by sport and by games, but these were not completed past 1908 or so in most cases. See United States at the Summer Olympics for an example. I think it will be very difficult (or at least, time consuming!) to complete these, so I would suggest we start with something more modest. The "Medals by Games" and "Medals by sport" tables I put on those Winter pages are actually fairly easy to generate. I have an Excel spreadsheet with all the winter medal tables broken by sport, so I can crank out those pages very quickly. I intend to do the same for the summer medal tables. Would anybody object if I re-wrote many of those articles so that they were more like Soviet Union at the Summer Olympics (for example)?
3. Looking at Total Olympics medal count, we see that only 40 nations have won 60 or more medals all-time, which means that 92 nations have won between 1 and 53 medals. That's a somewhat arbitrary cut-off point, but I think it is manageable to include a full list of all medal winners for those nations on their Olympic summary pages. Some examples of where this is already done are Trinidad and Tobago at the Summer Olympics, Ireland at the Summer Olympics, and List of Olympic medalists for the Philippines (which I'd like to merge with Philippines at the Summer Olympics). As you can see, there is a wide variety of formats of those pages, and I'd like to see that standardized somehow. For nations like the USA, it would obviously be prohibitive to list all the medal winners in an article, but we can certainly link to Category:Olympic medalists for the United States (whose subcategories ought to be populated over time).
4. There are about 100 nations who have never won a medal at any Games, and for those pages, I don't think it makes sense to include those aforementioned tables, with a lot of zeroes.
5. The summary sport pages (such as Diving at the Summer Olympics) all have all-time medal tables, which currently link from each nation to their summary Summer or summary Winter pages as appropriate for the sport. This can continue, or be replaced by a link to a single "...at the Olympics" summary page if desired. I can easily modify the {{flagIOC}} template so that the following behaviour takes place:

   • {{flagIOC|USA}} links to United States at the Olympics
   • {{flagIOC|USA|Summer}} links to United States at the Summer Olympics
   • {{flagIOC|USA|Winter}} links to United States at the Winter Olympics

6. I really don't like the idea of putting the total medal counts in the infoboxes, which was Nyttend's main addition to the original template. I just think that makes that section very uncluttered. Does anyone agree? I had contemplated something like this when I developed the infobox template, but decided that the middle section should be used for per-Games pages only and the only parts of the infobox that ought to be on the summary pages were the top and bottom (appearances) sections. We need to find some sort of consensus on what looks best, so that we can merge to a single infobox template again. It will be awkward to maintain a parallel set of templates.

Comments? Andrwsc 20:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, so here's what I think:

1. 1. I like the idea of just a single page, and double where applicable. I haven't thought this through, though, so don't take this as a finalized "vote."
   2. No objection.
   3. I don't think we should have a cut-off point per se, but I think editors will realize when there are too many names on a page! Your cut-off point, though, seems reasonable.
   4. No tables for non-winning nations. Although they definitely deserve pages. Even nations that have never competed could get pages. It's a possibility, but I don't know if there's info out there about non-competing nations. Maybe Non-competing nations at the Olympics or something of the like.
   5. The change of Sport at the season Olympics to ...at the Olympics may be controversial. I think if the move is made, it should be along with "Nation at the Olympics" changes too. The problem I have is that some sports have been contested in each of the two seasons. Plus, it seems right to specify which Olympic games they are a part of. Like I said, I'll sit on it. I misunderstood. I think a link to Nation at the Olympics would be in order, given that pages are switched to those locations.
   6. Somehow, I do like the idea of total medal counts. It seems reasonable, and gives some sort of overall number on which to base the nation's participation. I say keep them.

→ JARED ^(t)  23:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Totally agree. We just have to eventually reach a decision on which nations deserve a single "...at the Olympics" or double "...at the Season Olympics" articles.
2. Hmmm... Yes, those two medal tables are far easier to insert than the per-year tables with competitors and events entered and medals. But, in my case, I've recently created (and completed almost immediately) Portugal at the Summer Olympics, and seeing all that being reverted, it's kind of frustrating. Still, I recognize my nation was easier to deal with in this issue, since I've completed all "Portugal at the YYYY Summer Olympics" and the data was far smaller than if it was the USA or Soviet Union (that leads me to think I should move Portugal at the Summer Olympics to Portugal at the Olympics and add the Winter data...).
3. There's a topic here about a template I made which could include a list of all medalist by a country – here – but it wasn't commented by many. It's a matter of discussing it...
4. With the above mentioned template, that could also be dealt with, by simply not putting it.
5. Don't have an opinion.Now that you've explained in a more analytical way, I see no obstale on doing that. The template brilliantly already comes with that possibility ;)
6. Ditto.Yes, yes... Once again, I didn't understand it at first but I agree with keeping only a "total medal count" on the main "Country at the Olympics" infobox.
   Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jared. For #5, I think you misunderstood my point. I'm not suggesting that we change the name for any of the sport articles. I'm suggesting that we have options of what the links should point to on those summary pages. For example, on Diving at the Summer Olympics, the all-time medal table shows the United States with 48 gold, China with 20, etc. My point is that those wikilinks could be set to either "Nation at the Summer Olympics" or "Nation at the Olympics". We have the technology to do either. All the editor has to do is choose to add "Summer" in the call to the {{FlagIOC}} template or not.

For #6, I offer a compromise. Take a look at Belarus at the Olympics (for example), which uses Nyttend's modified infobox. In my opinion, the large section with total/summer/winter medal counts is overkill and not terribly attractive because of the three sets of boxes. If we want to maintain medal counts on these "summary" pages, then I suggest we only have a single set of counts. If the infobox is on a "... at the Olympics" page, then the total count would be used. If the infobox is on a "... at the season Olympics" page, the the appropriate subtotal would be used. In all cases, the first column would have a link to the appropriate count page. I think I can do this as an extension to the existing infobox template without having to create a new one. But I still don't like the three sets of counts, especially where unnecessary (e.g. look at Chad at the Olympics) Andrwsc 00:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the misunderstanding! Haha. I get it now. I just read too fast. As far as #6, I like the compromise too! The three lines are quite ugly, so one will be sufficient, with the total counts. → JARED ^(t)  00:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

1. One page or two ought to depend on size of pages; if one, both Summer and Winter should redirect to it; if two, the basic should be a disambig to the two. Where to draw the line, of course, is the tough question.
2. I'd say add the tables you want right to begin with (the "medals by sport" overall table is definitely a plus) and let the more extensive tables grow. They only go through 1908 at this point because that's as far as I've gotten adding detailed results (I'm working on 1912 at the moment). Portugal is a beautiful example of what I'd like all of them to look like eventually. The number of competitors the country sent to each Games is, in my opinion, a very important piece of information. I could do without the number of events entered and especially the number of entries, but I like being able to look at the Portugal at the Summer Olympics page and being able to tell when Portugal won its first medal in judo.
3. I think a list of all medal winners for each nation would make sense. If the list is small enough, it could be on the main page. If the list is medium-sized, it could be a separate article, linked from the main page. If the list is huge (really, probably only the US and USSR), it could be broken into a few lists by sport. The Philippines one, for example, could definitely be merged.
4. If the tables are of all zeroes, text would be a better way of saying it. But if the number of participants is included, the table is nice. Also, the table gives an easy visual way of telling when the nation competed and when it didn't.
5. Wouldn't this just be a consequence of #1?
6. Going with "undecided" on this one. -- Jonel | Speak 00:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Jonel, I fully agree with your per-sport tables as the goal for all pages, and I certainly don't want to undo the excellent work that Parutakupiu put into completing the Portugal page! However, the "work in progress" countries don't make good stubs. I'd prefer to see that data added all at once rather than have incomplete tables for extended periods of time.

I think that number of participating athletes and number of medals is wholly sufficient. I find number of events and entries to be a bit too much detail, and will certainly be a bear to complete! Andrwsc 01:10, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Future editors: please, drop out at least the "entries" column! What a dull it was to complete that. The "events" column was also a bore, but I recognize some importance about it. But the most important are really the "competitors" and the medals. I would've ended so much faster "my" page if those columns were dropped out. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've already been deleting "entries" in places, when I've edited pages that have had it. There is some usefulness in it, but it's far too much work for what it's worth. "Events" I'm ambivalent about, so whatever you guys decide is fine with me. As for the works in progress, I guess you could just comment out the incomplete ones and they could be uncommented when finished. Doesn't undo any work, I can keep adding as I go, and the display isn't full of half-finished tables. -- Jonel | Speak 01:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources?

Hello all. As I mentioned to Andrwsc, there is a sequence of articles missing that I was meaning to help with: the event-specific articles for the Swimming events at Sydney 2000. Surprisingly enough, though, I have encountered great difficulty finding an online source for the results. The medalists are very easy to find out, but the complete results, which would serve for us to create entries similar to those made for the events in the 2004 Games, those seem to be very difficult to come by. Arguably, I might be somewhat inexperienced in retrieving this particular kind of information, so perhaps I could get a little help in finding those sources? Incidentally, I was able to find the results for other swimming events as far back as 2003, but going back all the way to 2000 seems to be too much for the more "mainstream" websites out there. Redux 21:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Redux. I - and plenty of others - use the official Olympic reports as main source of data. They are stored under PDF format here. Sidney 2000's swimming results can be seen at this link. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 21:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

For later Games, the official report is really all you need for results. They can be found at the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles website (linked by Parutakupiu above), at least up through the 2002 Olympics. Bill Mallon has an excellent series of books with complete (or at least, as complete at possible) results from the earliest Games, though those books can be hard to find sometimes. There are a couple websites with fairly complete results listings (the best of which I've found as yet is, unfortunately, in Polish), but for Sydney 2000 the official report is easily available and useful. -- Jonel | Speak 00:29, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you both. I have already retrieved the pdf file for the Swimming results, and will begin creating the event-specific articles for the Sydney 2000 Swimming competition. I'll probably be following the order on Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Again, many thanks for the references. :-) Redux 11:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Redux, before you continue much further, I urge for you to look at how we're trying to format results pages now, specifically to use the {{flagIOCathlete}} and related templates for rendering of the flags and country codes. I see that you've started work on Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics - Men's 50 metre freestyle using the 2004 page as a prototype for visual appearance. Might I suggest you look at how a page like Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's C-1 500 metres is formatted. The advantages of using that template are significant -- you automatically get the correct flag image and size without having to hard-code the image file, and you also get an automatic link to the appropriate "Nation at the 2000 Summer Olympics" article, which is one thing we want to do. Links to United States after a swimmer's name are far less useful than links to United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics, for example.

If it would help, I could spend some time on your work in progress to show you what I mean, or I could stay out of the way, if you prefer. Please let me know how you'd like some help, if any, but I still strongly request that you try to use these templates for any new pages you create. You can also look at the recent work of Parutakupiu for diving events in past Games, where he has also been using the flagIOC templates effectively.

As far as the 2004 pages are concerned, one of my goals is to bring them all up to the current style in time for the 2008 Games, when we anticipate a boatload of new editors to tackle the Olympic results pages for a few months before they move on to other parts of Wikipedia, leaving a few of us hard-core Olympic nuts left to clean up. I really want the 2004 pages to be rock-solid so that they can serve as effective prototypes. I have already updated a few of the 2004 sports (sailing, canoeing, triathlon, diving) but obviously there is still a lot to do.

Thanks! Andrwsc 18:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Since I was almost done with that article, I concluded adding the results. I'll see the code you indicated and hopefully, upgrade the page. Redux 12:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Would you object if I edited the page? I have some tools that assist with this kind of re-formatting quickly. I'd like to get one swimming event done so that it serves as a prototype for others. Andrwsc 19:20, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Please, do! Any help is greatly appreciated! We should all pull in to make this and all articles the best that they can be. :) Redux 21:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Have done! I've taken a first pass at it and updated all the swimmers to use the flagIOCathlete template. This actually corrected three flags which were different in 2000, plus also created the links to the Nation at the 2000 Summer Olympics pages. I also changed the nav box format as per discussion elsewhere on this talk page.

I'd still like to make another pass at this page to fix a couple of things. First, I find it difficult to see the times since they are not all lined up. I used tables on the canoeing pages to solve this problem, so I will try to do the same thing here. Second, I find it verbose and unnecessary that the heat rankings effectively duplicate the same list of 80 swimmers, just organized by time instead of heat. I think this can be fixed by adding a "heat rank" column with the "QS" indicators for the top 16 to the heat listings.

Please don't take these comments as a criticism of your work, because that's not intended! I realize you used the 2004 page as a prototype and that's exactly how it was done. My goal is to go back and fix up the 2004 pages the same way.

One other comment, and this is for anybody, is what should we do with the "Records" section at the top of the page. I can see how it was useful for Wikipedia to show for the 2004 pages, but I'm not sure what we should do for all of the past "Swimming at the yyyy Summer Olympics" pages. Do we want to include the records in effect at that time, or should we just delete this small section altogether?

Andrwsc 22:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Like I said, we should make the articles as good as they can be. I'm not starting any of the remaining articles for the Sydney 2000 swimming events until we've come to a definitive version for the 50m freestyle article, which I will then use as a model after which the rest of the articles will be created.
As for the records table, I do find it useful to show what were the OR and WR standing at the time of the competition, which is, after all, what the athletes were looking to overcome at the time. Many sports almanacs feature this kind of information when giving results for specific events. Perhaps it's just a question of making it clearer that we are conveying the records in existence at the time — and which, especially for the earlier games, might have been surpassed a long time ago.
Other than that, I believe the Heats' general ranking does serve a purpose. True, it repeats the results given in each Heat's listing, but it provides an easier-to-read larger picture of the first stage of competition. When we have +10 Heats listed, it is somewhat difficult to visualize how the athletes did when compared with those who participated in other Heats (which is actually what the competition is about: each athlete is competing with all the other 79 for a berth in the next stage, and not just with the other 7 in his or her heat). Example: it may be difficult to read from the separate listings how an athlete who placed last in his or her Heat was actually in the top 20 of the general rankings (only those who qualified are distinguished easily, because we "mark" them with the big "Q"). An eventual "heat rank" would help, but it wouldn't be as easy for the reader to visualize, since s/he'd have to go back and forth through the separate heats' listings — so by the time you find out who was 20th overall, you don't even remember if you saw who was the 19th place. :-) Redux 02:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, on the other hand, the current layout makes it more difficult to find how a particular swimmer fared overall. You have to remember the name & time from the heats, then scan down a different list to find the same person again. It just seems quite redundant to me. Let's see what it looks like without the second list and decide from there. Andrwsc 18:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Why not simply do both? Put an overall rank in the the heat results to make it easy to find out how the fourth-place finisher in heat 1 did overall, and have the overall list to see who was .01 seconds better than your favorite Laotian swimmer. It's not like we're running out of paper here. -- Jonel | Speak

My concern was not with the amount of space, but with the readability of the resultant page. I prefer to see as much of each event as possible together in one table, instead of multiple presentations of the same data. For example, look at Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's slalom C-1, where I show the whole event in a single table instead of different tables for the preliminary round, semifinal and final. A similar approach has been taken with Diving at the 1984 Summer Olympics - Men's 10 metre platform etc. On the other hand, Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's decathlon repeats the points data after each of the 10 events. That seems like overkill to me - I wonder if there is a better way to present that? Nonetheless, I have reformatted Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics - Men's 50 metre freestyle to include the heat rankings after the heat results, so I encourage comments on that. Andrwsc 22:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm having a little bit of a problem with the formatting (whichever version) of the Sydney 2000 Men's 50m freestyle event because of the gold medal tie, which meant no silver medal and sikipping "straight" to bronze. For instance, when I implemented the new medal board, the word "none", which I wrote in the silver medal slot, is showing followed by two brackets, which is likely a side effect of the fact that the template wasn't created to accomodate this kind of input. I'm probably missing something silly, so it should take a fresh perspective to fix that. Redux 13:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Think I've fixed it - the brackets were actually in the wikicode. -- Jonel | Speak 18:00, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Jonel. :-) Redux 21:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Greenlight

The 50m freestyle article looks good. Is this the final version, or are we considering further adaptations? If we have arrived at a final version, I will start using it to create similar articles for the other (many) events. Only one thingy: this particular event (men's 50m freestyle at Sydney) had a gold medal tie, which resulted in there not being a silver medal; originally, I had written a "none" line on the medal board for the silver medal (whose code Jonel fixed, etc), but this seems to have been eliminated when the board format was reviewed. Was this done on purpose or was it accidental and that line should be restored? Redux 14:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I've made a couple more changes to the page. First, I added the references (essential!). You should be able to re-use these with only minor modification for the other events, namely use the corrent link for the swimrankings.net page for the specific event. The book reference can be used unchanged for all swimming results pages; there is no event-specific portion of that reference markup.

The other change was to introduce new templates for the small medalist table at the top of the page (as per ongoing discussion below), and this goes to your question too. I had removed the "none" for silver as I thought it wasn't necessary here, especially with the explanatory line of prose. We need the "none" in the main page 'matrix table', as there has to be a table cell in that format and I don't think it looks good left blank. On this table, there is no need to include it.

Lastly, I'm still not 100% convinced of the necessity of the heat rankings list, even though I included it with the table format. We had a bit of a discussion before, but now that we can see how it looks, I'd still like some opinions. If you really want to go ahead and include that similar section for other event pages, then be bold and go for it, but I think the page is suitably readable without it and that would save you some time. Andrwsc 19:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Few things -- I don't think there's any need to make the font size larger for the heat headings... simply bolding them will do. The periods with the place numbers also seem extraneous. I also think the table looks better with class=wikitable, but that might be just me. -- Jonel | Speak 21:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The font size increase was supposed to match the visual effect of an equivalent header (i.e. ===Heat 1===) but that could go. I had forgot to ask for comments about not using the wikitable class. Now that you bring it up, I think wikitable is mandatory where there are lots of columns (e.g. at Triathlon at the 2004 Summer Olympics). However, in this case, I thought it looked better without the table cell borders mostly because it's viewed not as one big table of results, but as a series of races with 8 swimmers each. The heat headers aren't as prominent, and the "QS" and "QF" labels don't stand out as much either. As for the periods after the place numbers, I totally agree with you when wikitable is used, but without the table cell borders, I thought it looked better without.

So, to make it easier to comment, look at this version versus this version. (If we go with the wikitable one, I will remove the periods with the place numbers at that time.) Andrwsc 21:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Event page formatting

This is a continuation of a thread or two above, but I thought it would be a good idea to bring it out to a new topic. Specifically, I'd like to get consensus on how we format the individual event pages.

[edit] Race results - table or wiki list?

First, I'd like to see some comments on how race results are shown. One option is to simply use wiki markup like "#" for numbering, as shown in this edit of Swimming at the 2000 Summer Olympics - Men's 50 metre freestyle. I have taken the liberty of reformatting using tables (as shown in this edit], in case it is not top edit). The tradeoff here is that the first format is easier to create, but the second one (I think) is clearer to read because the times are lined up, tie results are handled properly (i.e. you can skip over numbers in ranked lists) and the TOC can be shown because heat headings are embedded within the table. The downside is that table markup isn't as obvious to a casual editor. My question to this WikiProject is: should we standardize on the more complex approach, in an effort to gain better visual presentation, or do we want to make it easier for new editors to make these pages?

Table. Much better look. Especially helpful for ties. New editors are certainly welcome to use numbered lists; it's pretty easy to change the formatting for them. -- Jonel | Speak 23:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Table. Having the heat times and ranks all aligned because they have their own column - instead of letting the swimmers' name length deciding that - is much more important, in my opinion, to the goal which is to display the data in the best and clearest way. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 00:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitely table. It just looks nicer. → JARED ^(t)  21:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medalist summary - which table format?

Second is the way in which we present the small summary table of medalists at the top of the page. There are several formats out there, and I really think we ought to converge upon one. Here are some options:

1. (from Athletics at the 1900 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres

Gold	Silver	Bronze
Frank Jarvis United States (USA)	John Tewksbury United States (USA)	Stanley Rowley Australia (AUS)

2. (from Athletics at the 1912 Summer Olympics - Men's shot put

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's shot put	Patrick McDonald United States (USA)	Ralph Rose United States (USA)	Lawrence Whitney United States (USA)

3. (from Wrestling at the 1904 Summer Olympics - Men's freestyle light flyweight

Gold	Silver	Bronze
Robert Curry United States (USA)	John Hein United States (USA)	Gustav Thiefenthaler United States (USA)

4. (from Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's C-1 500 metres)

Gold	Andreas Dittmer Germany (GER)
Silver	David Cal Spain (ESP)
Bronze	Maxim Opalev Russia (RUS)

5. (from Weightlifting at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's 105 kg)

Gold	Dmitry Berestov Russia (RUS)
Silver	Ferenc Gyurkovics Hungary (HUN)
Bronze	Igor Razoronov Ukraine (UKR)

...and several others, but mostly those haven't been updated in a while.

Here are my thoughts. I prefer the "vertical" format (#4 and #5) for a couple of reasons. I think it looks better for events in which there are teams of 2-4 people (for example, Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics - Men's K-2 1000 metres). Also, you don't have to deal with different column widths for the three medalists. I had been using format #4 for a while, but after seeing Jonel's usage of format #3, I switched to format #5 in a few places. I think format #2 suffers because the entire Event column is redundant to the pages on which these tables will be seen.

Anyway, if we get consensus here (perhaps on #5 as a hybrid of all the styles), I'd like to start adopting these everywhere applicable, perhaps creating a template or three to assist.

I think I've used 1, 2, and 3 recently... The horizontal format is nice because it's consistent with the sport pages (which is why 2 is what I'm using at the moment). I'd prefer them without the medal images. The point about redundancy of the event name is well-taken; I'd say #1 is the way to go. -- Jonel | Speak 23:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to speak to you about this and I'm glad Andrwsc mentioned it now (always you! :)) - I kinda like the horizontal display (it ocuppies space in a better way), but I also agree with Andrwsc that for non-single medalists situations the vertical display is free of column-width changes. As opposed to Jonel, I've been recently using #4 on all diving summary tables because I took that version from the events pages at Diving at the 2004 Summer Olympics (edited by Andrwsc), but I personally prefer #5 also. Better looking, indeed. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 00:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Here is how a three-person event would be rendered each way:

Gold	Shirley Robertson, Sarah Webb, and Sarah Ayton Great Britain (GBR)
Silver	Ruslana Taran, Ganna Kalinina, and Svitlana Matevusheva Ukraine (UKR)
Bronze	Dorte Jensen, Helle Jespersen, and Christina Otzen Denmark (DEN)

or

Gold	Silver	Bronze
Great Britain (GBR) Shirley Robertson Sarah Webb Sarah Ayton	Ukraine (UKR) Ruslana Taran Ganna Kalinina Svitlana Matevusheva	Denmark (DEN) Dorte Jensen Helle Jespersen Christina Otzen

I prefer the former, and I guess I'd like to use the same style for 1 and 2 person events too. Beyond 4-6 people, the vertical listing / horizontal medalist style might be better, but I have an idea for that. More to come in a future discussion, but I have some ideas of how to treat team sports differently from the medal summary & medal table approach that works so well for individual multi-event sports. Andrwsc 01:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The first table, definetely. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I was experimenting with some templates and came up with {{OlympicGoldMedalist}} etc. (see example usage here). If we get consensus on the vertical format, this would greatly simplify its implementation. We can decide upon the medal icon etc. independantly (e.g. #5 vs. #4), as it would only take 3 edits to update all instances at the same time.... Andrwsc 19:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, So here's my take. I agree with Jonel, in that I like # 1, 2, and 3. Somehow the horizontal is more appealing to me. I don't know why, but it just is. After ruling out #3 because of the icons, which I agree really aren't too appealing and needed, and ruling out #2 because of redundancy, I am left with #1. If someone could really convince me to use #4, I would do it, but for now, I am more partial to #1. I see how it could get overwhelming with the number of people, but it looks so empty with only one or two people... and the multi-person horiz. table above doesn't look half bad.... → JARED ^(t)  21:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as spatial aesthetics (if it exists) goes, the horizontal table also appeals a bit more to me. It stretches from one side of the page to the other. But I also like the vertical box and the way it can take multiple names in a more fluid manner. I'm growing divided on this - I leave it to you to decide. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 02:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Event series boxes

Lastly, and I think we have probably closed on this issue, but I'd like to get some feedback on some more examples of the new navigation box style. I added a few more sports, as there are some interesting situations:

1. User:Andrwsc/Test3, intended to replace {{AthleticsAt2004SummerOlympics}} — are we all ok with this?
2. {{SwimmingAt2000SummerOlympics}} — similar style, but event names are longer so the series box is wider. Is this still ok?
   • See this template's talk page for a suggested alternative.
3. {{CanoeingAt2004SummerOlympics}} — also a similar style, but more differences between men's and women's programs. Also uses an intermediate color shade for a sub-heading to separate the two disciplines. How does this look?
4. {{SailingAt2004SummerOlympics}} — makes more substantial use of the sub-headings as the men's/women's/open programs have very little overlap
   • Addendum: I've already changed the sailing template as per Jonel's suggestion below. this edit is described above, to compare with the current one
5. {{WeightliftingAt2004SummerOlympics}} — totally abandons the men/women side-by-side format in favor of a completely vertical format, but I don't see any alternative. Perhaps I could use the old names for each weight class (e.g. "bantamweight" for men's 56 kg class and women's 48 kg class, etc.) but these names seem to have been abandoned in recent Games and the numeric name is the only identifier for the weight class now. I still think the template looks fine, but comments would be welcome.
   • See this template's talk page for a suggested alternative.

As always, thanks for thoughtful feedback! Andrwsc 23:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The side-by-side looks good. With swimming, the events can be abbreviated, which will help the width. The sub-heading from canoeing is fine, when there are multiple disciplines. I'd say stick with the side-by-side link even for things like sailing and weightlifting, where there isn't much overlap. It won't change the length much, but it's a better look and makes everything more consistent. I'd say use it even if there's only one gender (i.e., early games or the equestrian "open" style). -- Jonel | Speak 23:52, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I've modified the sailing template as per notes above, but I'm at a loss how to organize the weightlifting one. Is this what you have in mind? Would you sort them numerically (creating a "weave" of men/women) and/or combine 69kg onto one row even though men's 69kg is lightweight and women's 69kg is probably middle-heavyweight? Suggestions welcome! Andrwsc 01:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say to sort them numerically in order to keep it organized. If the sailing box will have three columns and men/women/open already appear in a weave-like fashion (which i don't like much but it's for the good of consistency) then why not? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't know. I've got both sort orders in User:Andrwsc/Test5, and the second one looks odd to me. Andrwsc 01:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

On the other side, the first one, as is, would be better if divided with gender-specific sub-headings and the weights wikilinked. But that would just go against what Jonel suggested and you applied to {{SailingAt2004SummerOlympics}}. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

You mean, exactly as {{WeightliftingAt2004SummerOlympics}} looks like now, or a variation of that? Andrwsc 01:35, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. That's what I stated on my thoughts (see below). And if this style is kept it should be also applied to other weight-categorized sports (i.e. Judo). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Let's stick with the side-by-side. Tables look very clean and organized this way.

1. OK
2. OK (don't see how a slightly "fatter" swimming events box would create any disturbance on the article text body)
3. OK (can't see any other way of diving disciplines without drastically messing with strucuture)
4. OK (no visible alternative!)
5. OK (before reading your description I also thought about the traditional names, but they'd expand the box width and decentralize the weights - the most important, defining values!)

I say: let's get to work! GREAT JOB, Andrwsc *claps* Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 00:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that! Andrwsc 01:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I had another minor question about the event series boxes. Should the word "events" be in the heading? For example, look at the latest revision of {{SwimmingAt2000SummerOlympics}}. It seems a bit clearer to me. Andrwsc 21:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I personally like #1 and #3 (haha, again!). They have a small name for each event (so there's no repetition) and if needed because of multiple disciplines, separate sections of the template. That, I think it key, to separate disciplines. It's more aesthetically pleasing! Anyway, those are my choices. → JARED ^(t)  21:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean, Jared. We're not comparing different renderings of the same sport, but looking at different sports, each of which has it's own quirks. So I'm glad you like the athletics and canoeing boxes, but what would you do to improve the swimming, sailing, and weightlifting ones?

I whipped up a few more easy ones last night too:

{{ArcheryAt2004SummerOlympics}}

• {{BadmintonAt2004SummerOlympics}}
• {{CyclingAt2004SummerOlympics}}
• {{FencingAt2004SummerOlympics}} (one point of discussion about this is that I thought the word "Individual" was redundant in the event name, so I have "Foil" and "Team foil", for example, instead of "Individual foil" and "Team foil")
• {{TennisAt2004SummerOlympics}}
• {{TableTennisAt2004SummerOlympics}}

I did a rowing one too, but didn't want to stomp on the existing template at that name just yet. All of these are fairly straightforward and are visually consistent. Of course, once we agree on how to handle weightligfting, then judo, taekwondo and wrestling follow suit. Andrwsc 21:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Well I wasn't sure whether we were shooting for just one template for consistancy, or variations based on the sport. I myself don't care, and I think that the design should fit the sport. So based on that, I give approval (straight yes/no) to the following:

1. 1. 1. Yes.
      2. No. See that talk page. Maybe that won't work, but there's too much redundancy.
      3. Yes.
      4. No. Seems weird with the columns like that. And maybe say "Mixed" instead of open.
      5. No. Obviously, men and women's separate sections are in order.

And your most recent ones are fine. → JARED ^(t)  00:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure that a "one size fits all approach" will work, but I'm trying hard for as much consistency as possible. As for your comments:

• I agree that your version at Template talk:SwimmingAt2000SummerOlympics is a lot more visually appealing, but it sort of bends the "rule" of using sub-headings for multiple disciplines (like on the canoeing and cycling boxes). The alternative would be to use abbreviations such as "free", "back", "fly", "I.M", etc. I vote for your version, despite the "rule break".
• An earlier version of the sailing template had the "open" straddling the men & women columns (which were much closer togather). I will try to play with that. As for "open" vs. "mixed", I know that the IOC medal database uses "mixed" exclusively for all events, but for this sport, "open" is the terminology used. (Check out the Sydney results for sailing, for example.)
• I'm not sure which version of the weightlifting box you are saying "no" to. The current one does have men & women's events into separate "sections", just without the explicit sub-headings that an earlier incarnation had. I removed those headings and wikilinked "men" and "women" instead of wikilinking the weight class so that the template would be more visually consistent with the others. (Plus I right-aligned the weight classes, which looks quite nice, and is something I would do to your version of the swimming box too.) Andrwsc 00:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Now that I've thought about it, I'm OK with the sailing template. There must have been a misunderstanding on my part of the terminology. As for the Weightlifting one though, I think you misunderstood me; what I am advocating is this revision, where there are separate sections for men and women, because obviously none of the weight classes match up, so it would be foolish to do it the way it is now. The reason it works well for sailing is that there are two overlaps, which justify it. This one has none. → JARED ^(t)  00:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think "foolish" might be a bit harsh! ;) The only differences I see between the current revision and the older one you link to is that in the current version, the sub-headings are removed (as they are implied by the column of "men" links and the column of "women" links), and the wikilinks themselves are applied to "men" and "women" instead of the event name. I agree with Jonel here, it is a lot more consistent to do that, even for situations where only one gender applies. Look at his {{AthleticsAt1912SummerOlympics}}, for example. Your version here is interesting. It is visually inconsistent with the others, however. Andrwsc 01:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the choice of words, I was doing something else, so I wasn't totally focused! Anyway, you're right that the two revisions aren't too different, which is why I made the one on the talk page, but as you said, it is pretty different from the others. It does make it more compact, though. IDK. → JARED ^(t)  01:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

(back up left) The one sport that I foresee to be problematic, and where your solution might help, is wrestling... Multiple weight classes for men in two disciplines, and differnt classes for women in one discipline only...

I went back to your swimming suggestion and right-aligned the distances and unbolded the sub-section headings, and I like it. Maybe it would be worth looking at an athletics template with a similar treatment, making sections out of track, road, field, and combined events. I remember somebody wanting to carve up Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics this way. Perhaps the style is that "real" disciplines (such as those in cycling, canoeing and wrestling) would have a bold sub-heading and a non-bold subheading would be used in cases like swimming and athletics, where it might aid readability to apply some groupings to long lists. Andrwsc 01:25, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, so maybe do the wrestling similar to how I suggested it. Also, it may be a good idea to section them off by bolded disciplines. It seems like the way to go, especially when it comes to larger lists like athletics. (And when a discipline is too big [Swimming], then you just section it un-bolded.) I hadn't touched athletics because the list isn't that wide and repetative, but now that you bring up just straight discipline sectioning, I could reconsider that. → JARED ^(t)  02:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New template, take 2

Another pair of templates for the [[Sport at the Summer Olympics]] pages. {{OlympicYearHeader}} and {{OlympicYearFooter}}. Basically just to clean up the events and nations tables on those pages. Any thoughts on these? -- Jonel | Speak 01:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I like this one too, but does it or does it not take into account the possibility that a page "Sport at the XXXX Summer Olympics" has yet to be created? Because this could mislead someone to think that said sport was not at the Olympics during a certain year when it really was. → JARED ^(t)  02:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Great job, Jonel. Anything that could clean out that link-overloaded header on every nations/events table is welcome! ;)

As for Jared's question: you can rest assured that won't happen (at least for all the Games held so far) because you can see all "Sport at Year Summer Olympics" pages exist as shown here (only a few demonstration sports are missing). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 02:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a very clever idea! One thing that would need to be added, in my opinion, is a way to handle sports that didn't get added to the program until relatively recently. For example, the table at Synchronized swimming at the Summer Olympics really should not be any bigger than that. There is no need to show a whole lot of blank columns from 1896-1980. (Unless of course, we just use your template for the "old" sports and leave ones like this alone.)

The other thought is that we need to handle Winter Games in this template, or a parallel one.

As for the possibility of missing pages? I can assure you that there are no missing pages for sports in which medals were awarded. I went on a bit of a redlink-fixing spree about 2 weeks ago and added all the remaining missing sport pages (e.g. shooting in old games, all the sailing, a few missing wrestling, some fencing, etc.) - and even added a couple of demo sports to boot (Water skiing at the 1972 Summer Olympics and Badminton at the 1972 Summer Olympics). Not to worry that your template will miss something it shouldn't! Andrwsc 18:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking about your first point, about the leading blank columns, but I think doing that with a single template would be beyond my template-making skills. It could probably be done with a "startyear" parameter. I might try tinkering with it. As for winter, it could be done with either a parameter ("season" or the like) and conditional statements based on it to display the summer or winter years, or a separate similar pair of templates for winter ("OlympicYearHeaderWinter", with the original renamed accordingly). Parellel templates would probably be the easier way to go. -- Jonel | Speak 20:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I managed to manipulate this template in order to apply Winter sports as well (I even solved the "Biathlon"/"Military patrol" duality issue). See the template code here and how it's displayed here. We could also code the template just to show the years where he sport was contested, instead of displaying a gray unlinked year. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 20:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Since these header/footer templates are to be used mainly on the top-level "Sport at the Season Olympics" page's tables, I'd vote for leaving out the noncompeting years since the reader can find info on which years that sport was competed. I'd like this topic to be decided soon so the templates (in whichever version chosen) could be applied immediately. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 00:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say go for the version without empty years. -- Jonel | Speak 04:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article checklists

On a related note, I think we ought to "retire" {{WikiProject Olympics Sports Table}}. I don't think it's been completely maintained (e.g. synchronized swimming still doesn't show up in it!!) and I think the set of templates visible from Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Templates is a much better way to see at a glance what redlinks still exist (only a handful of demo events as I write this).

Similarly, {{WikiProject Olympics Country Table}} and especially {{WikiProject Olympics Winter Country Table}} are quite out of date. The full set of "NOCinxxxxOlympics" templates has been diligently maintained, so I think the best way of navigating the complete list of "Nation at the year Olympics" articles is by viewing Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Templates. There are no redlinked articles for any of the per-nation per-Games type. All that remain are the overview "Nation at the Olympics" and/or "Nation at the Summer Olympics"/"Nation at the Winter Olympics" pair, and I'm working on that as per previous discussion. Andrwsc 18:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I've used it often in the past, but never truely questioned the validity of it. It is very useful, but if it is not up to date, then it's not worth keeping (except for historical purposes in an archive). I just have always used those to gauge the Olympics pages of WP. → JARED ^(t)  20:32, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More templates

As I was following Andrwsc's idea of creating a category to contain all the per-Games pages of a certain Olympic event (in the case I'm working with, Category:Diving at the Olympics - Men's springboard) as an complement to the already existing "Sport events at the Year Season Olympics", I also tried to devise a navigation template that would follow this idea. What I came up, for now, was one template containing all the springboard events (men and women) at year Summer Olympics (User:Parutakupiu/Springboard) and another linking to all the platform events (User:Parutakupiu/Platform).

As you can see, I tried to put both individual and synchronized women and men events on one template, to prevent creating multiple ones. But I guess they're a bit big, even with a collapsible option (I'd think they should be non-collapsible as with the "Sport at Season Olympics" counterparts). What you think of them? Helpful? Redundant? And about the format? Suggestions?

P.S.: I'm a bit of a template freak if you have noticed :P Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 19:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2008 events

In my efforts to create a pages with similar names, I have created this list of events at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Listed is every event to be contested (except Sailing, which I'm not sure how to name properly). Please feel free to edit it in any way you wish; it lacks structure right now, I was going to make each sport its separate section using =={{User:Andrwsc/Olympic sport header|Archery}}==. So anyway, I think it's important to come up with the correct names of events down to the spacing, capitalization, and abreviations, so please comment, if you get a chance to look at it! → JARED ^(t)  19:55, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jared, for sailing I suggest you use the names I chose here: Category:Sailing events at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The other suggestions I have are to omit the "12-team" etc. qualifiers for the team events, and to spell out "metres" instead of "m" in the shooting events. I think your sandbox page is a good place for us to see all the event article names in full and get consensus (especially as we are cleaning up the 2004 pages as well), so I would spell out all article names in full and not use the pipe trick to abbreviate any links. Andrwsc 20:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Jared, I agree with Andrwsc you should list fully the article names so it's easier to detect any flaw and make suggestions. I don't know if you followed the naming pattern on other similar pages or/and you used the IOC naming (which can be confusing and inconsistent with what we have around here). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 00:18, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I realized after I did the whole thing that maybe listing the full name would be better. My initial intention was to use it as a check list to see if the article had been created or not, but it's more useful without the piped text. Basically, what I did was I looked at the 2008 program and used the event names there and matched them up to the 2004 events. For those that didn't match up as far as naming goes, I either left them blank or went with my best guess (even if it didn't match previous years).

The metres thing I didn't notice until the end, as well, but I found it weird that the shooting events were "m" not "metres." And the "12-team" thing I just did because there was no precedent otherwise, so I went with the IOC event name, but it is a little unnecessary. I'll take care of the list here and there. → JARED ^(t)  01:31, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Update. I have reorganized the list and counted all events on the list and that number (302) matches the number on the schedule. I had two extras I had to take out, and two I forgot to put in, so good thing I got the count wrong in the first place because otherwise, I would have never noticed! Anyway, so maybe take a look at that if you want. I just think it will prove useful when we want to rename some of the other existing pages or when we want to create new pages for the upcoming games. → JARED ^(t)  23:19, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Jared. I've noticed one thing I never did before: why do some athletics' events bear the word "metre" while others use the plural "metres"? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{Olympic Games}}

OK, so I thought of an idea in regards to the template placements on the bottom of events pages like Swimming at the Summer Olympics, Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics, or even 2008 Summer Olympics. So, for example, on Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics, there are currently two templates listed there at the bottom. I think it would be more efficient to have the templates stemmed off from another template. And what better template to do this with than {{Olympic Games}}. What I suggest is that we add two parameters to this template: {{{Games}}} and {{{Sport}}}. If either is defined when {{Olympic Games}} is called, then those associated templates will be included in the transclusion and the Olympic Games template as we know it will retract. See this sandbox page of mine for the example template. It would work like this:

{{Olympic Games |Games=2008Summer |Sport=Swimming }}

would call the following template:

Swimming at the Summer Olympics
1896 • 1900 • 1904 • 1908 • 1912 • 1920 • 1924 • 1928 • 1932 • 1936 • 1948 • 1952 • 1956 • 1960 • 1964 • 1968 • 1972 • 1976 • 1980 • 1984 • 1988 • 1992 • 1996 • 2000 • 2004 • 2008 See also: List of Olympic medalists in swimming (men) and List of Olympic medalists in swimming (women)

The only problem that I have now, which is really not too bad, is that the {{{Games}}} parameter requires that the year and the season be right next to each other without a space, because of the name of the template that it is calling. I tried to use {{#replace:2008 Summer}} which would in theory remove the space placed there by the user, but apparently StringFunctions are not yet implimented on WP. On the other hand, the {{{Sport}}} parameter will work fine with sports like Water polo because there can be one space and the second word should be lowercase. Tell me what you think. It was just one of my little ideas, so I decided to try it out. Thanks. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Jared. Anything that can save us from extra work is welcome. I like the idea, I just don't know about the preferable order of the "events per year" box and "sport per year"; if there should be a specific hierarchy. As long as it remains consistent for all other pages. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't too sure on the order either. I went back and forth before deciding on this. I think that on a page like Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics, the choice here seems logical because you start with the main Olympic Games box, listing years; then you go to a specific year box, listing sports; then you go to the specific sports box. Now, what made it hard for me was that logically, the specific sports box should have been {{SwimmingAt2008SummerOlympics}} because this would list the sport for that year, not go back up one level. But given that we're changing the appearance of these templates, it could not be done this way, so I decided just to put the Sport at the Season Olympics template last.

Taking it from the other perspective, the "broken link" is between Olympic Games and the next template down, if you go in the order of Olympic Games → Sport at Olympics → Sport at Year Olympics. This template also makes logical sense because you're going from a list of years in which the sport was contested to all the sports in that one year.

Personally, I like it how it is, but that's just my opinion. It seems that 2008 is the first way, 2006 is the second way, and 2004 is mixed, so it doesn't seem that there has been precedent. Otherwise, though, I think it's a good idea to just do it. And if there's ever a problem with the layout, it is all controlled from the main "Olympic Games" template anyway, so it could be easily switched. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  01:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. The last should really have been the "sport at year" box to give a hierarchical sense, but its use on the bottom is out of the question now. So we're left with this order which indeed seems the most logical, giving priority to the "events at year" box.

About having to concatenate both year and season on the "Games" parameter's string, there are two solutions:

• Use the #switch function so that a string specified like "YYYY Season" comes out as "YYYYSeason";
• Change every "EventsAtYYYYSeasonOlympics" template title to another with "YYYY" and "Season" separated.

But as you can see, they are both HUGE tasks and and become a useless effort when one just has to remind to write the strings all together instead of apart. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:29, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess another option would be to split the Games parameter into two: {{{Year}}} and {{{Season}}}. I might seem kind of ridiculous, though. But maybe it would be better, IDK. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  03:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Leave it this way, for now ;) It's only a SPACE! :P Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 03:50, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Usage of Olympic pictograms

I've noticed, that someone added one self-created wrestling pictogram into all "Wrestling at the NNNN Summer Olympics" articles. Even where official pictograms were available, they were replaced. As there were unique sports pictograms designed for many Olympics, I believe that replacement to be inappropriate and confusing. I see those self-made pictograms to be appropriate in articles and templates, that refer to "Wrestling at the Olympics" as a whole (for example, in {{Olympic Games Wrestling}}), but not in ones, that are limited to wrestling events at particular Olympics. Cmapm 10:03, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Official pictograms are encumbered with copyright. Parutakupiu was kind enough to create these pictograms and release them into the public domain. Since free content is a major goal of Wikipedia, the free pictograms are better than the official ones. They also serve to give a consistency across Wikipedia pages. -- Jonel | Speak 12:51, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I hadn't found any understanding here before, and have no hope to find it in the future. Now you even don't bother to address my points, showing, that such free pictograms could be held equivalent to each set of official ones. This reminds me "standardization" of the education by using textbooks in one language for all races and peoples :) Go on with your "nice work", guys :) Cmapm 13:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I recently uploaded the 2008 pictograms under the {{Olympics-logo}} license, which I think will work for the purposes of this encyclopedia. I think that it is good to have a set of common pictograms, but I also think that where available, the per-games pictograms are fine to use because they're under a fair use license, and they're only used (each one) on one or two pages anyway. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  20:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Model sports page?

OK, so recently I've been trying to come up with what the best layout for a "Sport at the XXXX Season Olympics" page. I've run into a problem right off the bat in regards to the basic structure of the page. I myself like the table that lists all of the medal winners in one place, like the one at Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics. Here, everything is connected, it's organized, and it's easy to look at everything at once.

Fine. Now, here's where the problem comes: that layout makes it hard to allow for an explanation/summary of each event and what happened during the events. I feel that as the main page for that sport, before being broken off into subpages, this page is important in conveying the gist of each event. A page, for example, that does this is Alpine skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics. This page doesn't have the table at the beginning, but rather it has each event sectioned off, a summary of each event, and a little box for the medal winners in each section. Again, though, the problem with this is that there's no easy way to see all medal winners at once.

I think that somewhere in there there's a happy medium. I want to see what someone else will come up with, but I think we should still put a table at the top, and then do a summary for each event at the bottom (without the individual medalist boxes there). The problem, though, comes when you have 32 events like in swimming and there is not really enough room to put summaries. You could do it, I suppose, but would it be fine?

As we get going into the 2008 pages, I think it's almost imperative to fix up the 2004 sports and sub pages because they will serve as models. If they're not up to par, it'll be a nightmare sorting through them all after the games are done. I hope we can come to some sort of consensus here. If anyone sees a page that could serve as a good model or create their own, please show it! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  21:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Hey, Jared. I've come up with this idea which can conciliate the existence of both the medal per event table and the introduction of a small summary text for each event. The underlying template easy to insert on the already existing tables and only requires an extra parameter - the summary text itself (apart from an optional column number parameter for tables that have colspan=2 for each medal). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I am certain that pretty much every event will have it's own page for the 2008 Games (e.g. Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's 100 metres), and I think those pages ought to have more prose commentary than they typically do now. I also think that the main per-sport pages (e.g. Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics) could potentially have a "Highlights" section, but of course, the choice of what is a highlight is somewhat subjective. If we really want to see a per-event prose summary of every event on the main page, then Parutakupiu's proposal is a really good idea! It reduces the potential clutter but makes the text readily available.

I also strongly agree that we need to get all the 2004 pages up to "gold standard" quality in the next few months. There seems to be just a handful of us who edit Olympic articles all the time, but we will be deluged with new editors around the Games, and I believe it is essential that we just point them to the "gold standard" 2004 pages and tell them to follow that style exactly, not inventing something new and unique. At various times in the past few months I have brought some of the 2004 sports up to a good level (e.g. Sailing at the 2004 Summer Olympics, Canoeing at the 2004 Summer Olympics and Weightlifting at the 2004 Summer Olympics), but there is still a lot to do. Andrwsc 00:04, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I like that proposal. At first, I wasn't too keen on it, but I looked at it a bit and decided I liked it! I think that if we could put in each box where, when, etc the event was contested and anything else of interest, that would be a good place put two or three sentences without making a whole bunch of sections for like 42 events. Great idea, it should work just fine. I've been looking at the 2004 articles recently (notice the operative phrase...haha). Well, I've edited a few, sub-paged a few, etc. They seem to be overall in good shape, and may just need some polishing. The ones that'll be the most work are the ones that cannot be broken down further, like Basketball at the 2004 Summer Olympics, but I think that one can just be reorganized and it'll look a million times better.

So as a timetable of sorts, I say we just keep trying to find stuff that works for us, and then when we pretty much have it down, by then we'll probably have filtered through the 2004 pages some more. And then we'll do a final run through, making them all similar in appearance and maybe adding the summary template that Parutakupiu suggested. I don't think that's priority to do now, but I just wanted to know the direction we were going in. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  02:02, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, everyone. I was linked here after editing Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympics. I have a serious problem with the details link. It's v. v. easy to ignore. I've spent some time bluelinking figure skating medalists (not in the past few months, but before that. Too busy trying to catch up with current skaters) and I never noticed that details link. I've just scanned past it. Those pages with detailed results are very cool and very useful and I find it aggravating that I only stumbled upon it through "what links here" instead of logically from the 1908 page. If you take a look at some skating pages, there's a tendancy to link specific pages through the name of the discipline, such as men's singles and pairs. I changed the links to link from the discipline names because I think it's much, much more logical. Awartha 21:32, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

At one point I had a problem with the details link, too. At first, I just thought it was unnecessary, but then I realized that by putting it there, it would better show the fact that there is a whole other page to be seen. But, again like you said, I think we still have that problem. For some pages like athletics, there are these massive, 40-something-odd pages that are chock full of info, and yet they are only found by clicking on this one tiny "details" link. I think it's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's enough to show that there's other pages. Maybe we should put the {{AthleticsAt2004SummerOlympics}} templates on the main page too to offer one extra way to link to the page? Not at the top, but maybe down some. I'll check into that. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  21:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

... or we make a version of that template that would look like all the other navigation templates we put on the bottom of the page. I could attach them to {{Olympic Games}} like I did the others. But I think we've already discussed this before and it was a no. I don't know. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  21:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m		men		women
200 m		...		...

And while we're on it, I was looking at the events per sport year templates and decided that they might look good with the neutral pictograms. So here's this for example. You can change the positioning of the image or its size or anything if you want. I think it looks nice and is yet another place we can display our new wonderful images! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  22:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

	Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m		men		women
200 m		...		...

Suggestion 2, by Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 22:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I like either of the above. I'm more partial to the first one, I'm not sure why. Maybe it just seems neater. But it does take up a lot of space in the middle. That's why I like the second one. So I'm not sure. I'd go either way. ( I just made my image smaller, 30px→25px. ) _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: I think that just wikilinking the event names in the medal summary table is insufficient. My {{DetailsLink}} idea was inspired by pages like FIFA World Cup, where something like that is used to good effect. If that is abandoned, then I am ok with the idea of using the "article series boxes" on the main pages, especially now that we are reducing them to a more aesthetically pleasing format. The previous, large, gaudy boxes were not a good idea, I think.

As for adding the pictogram to those boxes, I like the idea, but I think it would look way better if the white part of the pictogram was transparent, so that the background shading showed through. I'm not an SVG or PNG expert; does anybody know if that is possible with those image formats? I like the narrower version better. Andrwsc 23:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I definitely think we should keep the detailsLink. I, for just a moment, changed it to read "event details" and it didn't look too bad. If the problem is not noticing it, this would be our best option; see the revision history. As far as the pictograms, you must be viewing it in IE. I knew right away because I noticed this before myself. I always use FireFox now, so it is transparent on my screen and it looks a million times better. I don't know what you would do in IE to fix this? are you using 7.0? _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:19, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

• Let's keep the {{DetailsLink}} but, perhaps, search a way to make it more noticeable;
• I'm being the most objective possible here: I prefer my version which looks tidier, like Jared himself admitted, but it might not work that good when the event names aren't so small as on the example...
• I use Firefox and the pictograms are transparent... maybe it's a browser thing?

— Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

(Reset.) This is very minor, but we're going for consistency. I was just wondering which template should be used on the medal tables on the "Sport at Year Season Olympics." I've been going over each page one by one and fixing up the little stuff before I move onto the big problems (I've already tried to tackle baseball and archery). So, should {{flagIOCteam}} (ex.) or {{flagIOC}} (ex.) be used in the tables. I've been putting them all in just flagIOC but somehow I think it'd be nice to have the IOC code along with the nation name. But then again, it's just more info in the box. I doesn't matter to me at all, really, I just want them all to be the same.

I started out just using {{flagIOC}} (without country code), but have switched over to using {{flagIOCteam}} (with country code) consistently for a while now. I think including the country codes yet again on these tables is important (especially for years like when FRG and GDR co-existed, for example.) Andrwsc 19:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

And while we're at it, I wasn't sure how to do the big medalist boxes like the baseball one so as you can see I just made it a column. Any suggestions on that? _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  19:26, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I've got some ideas for team sports, as I think the existing format doesn't look great. My "working source code" is on another computer, so I don't have anything to show right now, but the gist of what I'd like to do is:

• use a vertical, rather than horizontal format. That is, three big rows, with gold, silver and bronze teams stacked vertically. This also scales nicely to a few oddball situations where there were two bronze medal teams (e.g. Water polo at the 1900 Summer Olympics)
• use a bigger flag (like 60px) and bigger team name. The standard flag icon size looks great in a table of lots of events, but for team sports, with only 1 or 2 events per Games, the small set of medal winners needs to stand out more.
• list the team members in 3-4 columns within each big table row. I was experimenting with different formats, and I think it looked better than a single long vertical list (such as Baseball at the 2004 Summer Olympics#Medalists) or a comma-separated horizontal list (such as Field hockey at the 1980 Summer Olympics#Men's Medal Winners). That field hockey table is pretty close to what I have in mind, but with the team names in columns (i.e. a table within a table).

Of course, this sort of formatting would be encapsulated in a template or three to keep things consistent. I will try to post my ideas here tonight so we can discuss some more. Andrwsc 19:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I figured using the codes would be nice. And as far as your envisioned table for big teams, from what I read it sounds good, but I'm not too good at visualizing things. I'll be able to understand better when you post it later. But for now, I think that would be good because it takes up space horizontally (i.e. across the page, not down). I think that is better. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  19:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New graphic layout for the WikiProject

Hi all! Since I've become a member of the Olympics project, I've grown much respect for our work and for some members which are more active with their contributions. That's why I get a bit frustrated, when I look at the project's main page, due to its poor, poor graphical layout - it deserves much better!

That's why I've decided to do some testing for of a possible new graphic look for the project's page. I must say, before anything else, that it is not an original idea, since I "borrowed" the template from another extremely active project, which I liked a lot. Of course, I made changes in terms of colors and minor structural variations, to become more "unique" to our project. Don't be worried by the absence of the "structural guidelines"; I'm thinking about putting those in subpages.

Here's the test page – User:Parutakupiu/Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics.

As usual, I'd be glad to hear opinions and, if possible, suggestions on how further improve the layout and expand the page's content. Cheers! Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, can't actually remember the last time I looked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics. This talk page for it, yeah, but not the actual project page... Anyway, your mockup looks good (much better than the current one). Good work. -- Jonel | Speak 04:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol, yes, that happened to me also :P. That is one of the problems - the supposed-to-be main page is pratically abandoned because everything is discussed on the talk page. For now, I still haven't worked out a solution to dynamize the page, but I'll think about it. Take your time to see my page draft. Oh, and thanks ;) Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:37, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is a very good idea. The page before was not too appealing, and me as well, I hardly ever went to that page. I created [[WT:OLYMPICS]] for the sole purpose of bypassing the main page! Haha, but now I have no reason not to use it!

Now, something that's been brewing in the back of my head is the title of this wikiproject. I was not here when it was created, but something leads me to believe that this was a full-out branch of the Sports wikiproject. Now, while that may have been fine then, I don't think we are at all affiliated with that project, so it doesn't seem right to have "Sports" in the name of ours. We've become a stable, stand-along project that has a whole lot of work to tackle. But the problem is that this is how everyone has always known the project. It seems logical to remove "sports," but it may not be recognized and accepted right away. So anyway, I just wanted to throw this out there and see what others think.

Again, cool page! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  14:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I fully support you. It should become "WikiProject Olympics" only, because we don't work only on Olympic or Paralympic sports, but also on Olympic competitors, so the current name theoretically restricts the project's scope. And yes, we've become a stand-alone project and don't have any connection with the supposed parent WikiProject Sports. What could we do then to change this? It might be easier now that we have an admin among us :D.

Another thing: other projects have their own system of article assessment and peer-reviewing. Do you think these could be applied successfully on this project?

Back to the new layout draft: should I write more things? Have I forgotten to mention anything? (I've just remembered to list the Olympics-related stub categories and templates). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 17:53, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Parutakupiu's new page layout is a terrific improvement and long overdue! I'm glad someone tacked that problem. I think the next step would be to try and summarize all of our page layout decisions, document how to use the standard templates, etc. I'd also like to see an updated "to do" list. The previous ones we had been using only really showed missing articles, but pretty much everything is at least stubbed now, so the next step is to document what pages need cleanup to ove up to our current "model" layout, etc. Andrwsc 18:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! My wish would be to implement it right away but, as you said, there are many things we have to update and create (documentation about template and article structural/graphical layouts) before installing this new layout. The "to do" list is also great; it could be for example annexed to the project template (would appear on every page transcluded with it) or in a specific template that could be added to a userpage. I'd like to help (and be helped) on this because I sense it's a big task. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 19:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Glad to see someone else likes my suggestion! I think that if we have consensus here, all we have to do is move it and all subpages. As far as the assessment things go, I think it would be appropriate to come up with our own (or steal a) set of reviewing guidelines, like the ones for WP Sports. It would get our Wikiproject up to par as far as where the other ones are, which is helpful. We would also be able to gauge where we are as far as progress if we organized articles by importance and quality. So in short, yeah. Maybe I'll start working on it, and I think stealing most of the work from WP Sports would be my start!

From what I've seen on your mock-up page, everything looks fine, but I haven't gone into detail with it yet. I'll look through the "ugly" version to see if some things were not carried over. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  19:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

If it's only a matter of "moving", then it's easier than I thought - I figured we had to address a "higher regulatory power" or something... I'm gonna take a look at WP:COUNCIL to be acquainted with the WP processes. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 19:29, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

That would have been by best guess. But maybe there is someone else it should be reported to. I've started the assessment thing (Wikipedia:WikiProject Sports Olympics/Assessment). I've added the parameters to {{OlympicsWikiProject}}, too, so all we need to start doing now is assessing. There is a "to-do" list already nested in there, too, but I haven't created the template yet. Just click on the redlink if you want to start it. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  20:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed it. Great work! Now I just have to settle in all the new changes, lol (and start assessing articles!). Man! Evrything was created automatically; there's already a "unassessed class articles" category filled with pages! :D Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 21:05, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

There is something wrong with the {{OlympicsWikiProject}} though because the categories are only displaying some of the pages that are in them. I'll have to check it out later. Also we have to decide on basic things like "How important are Sport at the Year Season Olympics pages?" or "What should sub-page importance ranks be?", etc. These should all be the same. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:30, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

(Indent) Well, you have already assessed Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games as Top-importance, which is obviously right. Maybe Olympic sports and "Sport at Season Olympics" pages too? As for "Sport at Year Season Olympics", maybe perhaps a High-importance? What do you think? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

(You edit conflicted me!) OK, so I broke this off because it will warrant more discussion. Basically, since most of the articles in the Olympics jurisdiction are similar/the same, just with different content, we should decide now what each page should be ranked on the importance scale. I'll list the different types of pages:

In the table, I gave my own opinion about the importance rankings of the types of pages. Feel free to add your own suggestion for importance, as well as other page types I may have forgotten. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  00:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You missed one of my past projects: Lists of Olympic medalists and its sub-pages (e.g. List of Olympic medalists in boxing). I think these are mid to high importance, as they complement the respective sport pages. Also, I think Olympic sports is high importance, and perhaps Demonstration sport is mid to low.

We also need to document the criteria of how to assess each of these types of pages. I think each type has distinct levels of completion. Andrwsc 00:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Nothing like graphic display to better understand. I agree with the proposed importance-scale, considering the importance hierarchy, except on one: I think the medal count pages could be "Mid" because it's pratically a summary of the competition and people like to see "who won the Games" or "where was X country placed". Nice table, btw. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, so right now I'm AWBing the template into the stub-classed articles. I'm just using all the links on the Category:Olympic stub page and its sub-pages. I'm a good ways into it.

You're hitting pretty much every article on my watchlist tonight. ;) Andrwsc 04:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

We have the "machine" running: I've put the assessment quality and importance categories as subcategories of Category:Olympics articles by quality and Category:Olympics articles by importance and have made these two subcategories of Category:Wikipedia 1.0 assessments, so that now EVERY DAY we have a bot that will automatically count all articles included on all these categories and show the statistics here (I've put this table on what will be our new frontpage). I've already "ran the bot" so this table has all the stats of our project :)

All left to do is assess, assess, assess! Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Anyone have a problem with 1916, 1940, and 1944 pages being "Low" importance? Seeing as how they weren't, you know, actually held. -- Jonel | Speak 04:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It's fine with me! Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Can someone with more technical know-how fix {{OlympicsWikiProject}} so that Category-class pages say "this category..." or something of the like rather than "this article..."? Probably Template-class needs it too. -- Jonel | Speak 18:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. The template banner will now read "This category..." or "This template...". Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 19:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, pretty ;). Good work, thank you! -- Jonel | Speak 19:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I've been tagging some hundreds of Olympics-related articles for 3 days and only today I've come across with template pages. I've been assessing them as "Low importance" but perhaps we should not assess importance for templates/categories (non-articles) but only for articles, those pages that can really be developed further and further, don't you think? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 03:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Those templates should all be pretty stable now, and if any tweaks are required, it will usually be by one of us "regulars", so I think keeping an assessment on them is probably overkill. Andrwsc 03:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Then, if you don't mind, I'll update the project banner so that only articles show the importance scale (Top-Low) – templates/categories/disamb. pages will just show their "type", which merely includes them on the Category:Non-article Olympics articles. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I've added another row for Olympic stadia. I've put Low as default but some historical stadia, like the Panathinaiko Stadium, probably could be labeled as Mid. What do you think? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 16:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tagging competitors

I'm relatively new to the project, so I'm curious, do athlete articles get tagged (well, obviously they do because Ian Thorpe is) and what importance would they have? Low? -- Scorpion 04:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was me who tagged Ian Thorpe, because it's one of the four FA connected with the Olympics. But I do have the same doubt as to how far can this project extent: only the competition or the competitors themselves? If yes, what should be their general importance? "Low"?

There couldn't be an Olympics without Olympians, so maybe we should just tag the medallists as opposed to every single athlete that ever competed. -- Scorpion 05:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

That's very true. I would say that we're doing assessments from the Olympics lens, though, so a competitor, unless he/she is very important/noteworthy in the Olympic context (Nadia Comăneci), should be considered of low importance. But again, there are always exceptions. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  05:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we could go with Scorpion and tag, as low-importance, every Olympic medalist, for starters, and with Jared and re-evaluate the article's importance when we stumble with a noteworthy Olympian (medalist or not). No? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, tagging athletes ise tricky because athletes are so varied. You have some (Clara Hughes, Kerri Strug) who are famous almost solely because of the Olympics and others (mostly pro athletes like NHLers and tennis players) whose Olympic victories had little impact on their careers at all. Either way I think we shouldn't tag too many pro athletes. -- Scorpion 05:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

So what should be the limits? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure. I was just looking through the featured sports content when I found Suzanne Lenglen, Nellie Kim, and Bill Russell, all featured articles. Now, they're competitors, and won medal(s) but should they qualify for assessment? _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  05:36, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. It's becoming hard to define borders as far as an Olympian's weight on the Olympics and vice-versa are concerned. We can't just simply tag everyone because it will result on the admition of a HUGE amount of pages, but we can't easily forget this issue and don't tag at all. Perhaps it should be best to tag case-by-case. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm starting to second guess myself, now. Should Sport at the Year Season Olympics - Event really be low importance? I mean, most of the pages are stubs and you cannot get too much info on the pages from the past, but I just wanted to be sure I make the right decision before I start tagging a whole bunch of pages. It seems right, because no one else would really see them as crucial except maybe us, so I think low importance is fine. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  17:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd definitely say those are "low" importance. They're great for those that are interested in the details, but not really that interesting for a wider audience. Anything that happened in a particular event that is especially important should definitely be summarised at the Sport at the Year Season Olympics, if not the Year Season Olympics article. -- Jonel | Speak 17:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize it's taken me a bit longer to respond. My wikipedia-time is fairly limited, and I've been trying to spend about 50% of that time doing admin-backlog things. This raises an overall important question for the project and for Wikipedia notability. Do we think there should be an article for every Olympic athlete or do we think there should only be article for every Olympic medalist? If we are going to defend AfDs on Olympic athletes that they are notable due to their participation in the Olympics, than I think it's important that we as a project tag and assess those articles. I would tag all non-medalists as low, all medalists as mid-importance and then certain medalists as high. --Sue Anne 23:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

What a wonderful solution! Seriously, though, it is good because it takes care of the problem of notability by saying "Look, the person competed in the Olympics" and thus is notable in that respect. But, again, they're not that important, so stick them in the Low importance area. Good. Then we've got the medalists who are quite important. If you've gotten a medal, then it should be noticed, so mid-class is good enough for those who have medals but you don't hear about them. For those medalists (or athletes for that matter) whose name can be directly tied to the Olympics by a large amount of people, they should be listed as "High Importance." I hope this clarification is what you were thinking of, Sue Anne. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  23:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

In my early days on this project, I suggested that we only consider medal winners as notable and do not wikilink every athlete in results listings, but was roundly shouted down. I understand that just getting to compete is notable today, but this poses a problem for past Games. I would estimate that there are probably around to 100,000 different people who have ever competed at any previous Olympic Games. If we say that a goal of this project is to create an article for every competitor in every Games, we're talking about a significant percentage of the entire article space!! Andrwsc 23:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Is this the assessment criteria for Olympians' bios, then?

Competitors			Importance
Medalists	Historical	Jesse Owens Dawn Fraser	High
	Non-historical	Fani Halkia Otis Harris	Mid
Non-Medalists			Low

I think assessing non-medalists is undertaking a herculian task and even distinguishing notable from non-table non-medalists is beyond necessity. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 02:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I would, respectfully, disagree. Many of the articles are going to be created by people not interested in being part of this discussion (i.e., Darius Dhlomo), and I think it's important for those articles to have a WP:Olympics tag and a low assessment. Having some system in place pre-2008 is going to help with the flood of new articles that are going to hit. --Sue Anne 02:21, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

When I was making up the table, I actually put a row for the non-medalists assessing their articles as "low-importance"; but then I thought (and still think) it would be a very extenuous task, even if they deserve it just for being Olympians. My doubts lie mostly with this category of competitors. Anyway, I've put another row in the above table. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 02:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd definitely agree that all Olympic competitors should be tagged as falling under this project. Yes, there are a lot of them, but Wikipedia is not paper and there is no deadline. Most of the article creation is done by those who don't follow these discussions (Darius is, of course, the most prolific though the 2008 Games are quite likely to bring a whole lot of temporary enthusiasts). I don't think we really need to push creation of competitor stubs, though I am of the opinion that it would be good to have articles on all of them and have created quite a few myself. But we really should tag them and have at least a few eyes on them. -- Jonel | Speak 06:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

If we're looking for three tiers (low/medium/high), then I think these definitions make sense. It will probably be tricky to distinguish between the "historical" and "non-historical", though. Also, I think there is a huge difference between a medalist in an individual sport (or as part of a "small" team like relay, doubles, etc.) and a medalist in a team sport. Andrwsc 06:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Uuh, yes, there's still the importance of an Olympian as an individual and part of a team. In this case, perhaps the impact status of the team should reflect on their members? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 16:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikiproject independence

So Jared, how are things with the "independence" of the project from the Sports "father"? Do we need an authorization or can we simply change the name and address all consequent changes? I wanted to start installing the new layout for the project, even if it's still a draft. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 03:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

We're good. I left a note on the WP Council talk page and on the WP Sports talk page and it looks like everything is OK. There's apparently no process.

It doesn't look like anyone got my joke though! I did that Declaration of Independence thing, but I guess they took it to mean that we don't want to have anything to do with WP:SPORTS. Well anyway, I think we're good. If I don't get a negative response on this page by anyone within a reasonable time (by later today, maybe), I'll do the move of the pages.

And by the way, your new layout is looking good! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  20:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I see you went ahead and started changing the name and implementing my layout. Great. The graphical portion is pratically finish, so it is mostly the data content (rules, documentation, guidelines) that needs to be added in time. I'll try to remove the "Sports" from other pages you left behind. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 18:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, the big thing will be the categories, because you can't really just "move" them. There aren't too many though, and most pages are categorized through {{OlympicsWikiProject}}. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  19:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gambia at the Olympics

You may remember me from the discussion of "NationsinOlympics" some months ago. I just was notified that someone had proposed deletion of Gambia at the Olympics for non-notability. I'm not aware of what you as a project have decided about these articles, so would some of you project members please comment on the talk page? Thanks! Nyttend 14:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Membership update

You've already been "warned"... so what do you think of it? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 03:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. I don't think it's so much a way to get rid of those who don't contribute, but a way to keep tabs on who is able to help out when help is needed (but that's pretty much the same thing). Anyway, I reapplied, but I see you haven't yet! (You must still be trying to get out of doing the rest of those pictograms! Haha, just kidding!) _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  10:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No, no. Not in that way. It is just a way to check who is really interested ;) (Don't worry, I'm not running away :P) Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 17:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Naming issues, etc.

Hello all. I've been assessing articles and trying to populate the GA category as much as possible recently. I've gotten 2012 Summer Olympics bids GA'd and have two more on the GAC list as we speak, and I'm working on editing some more. A problem I'm facing, which is semi-related, is the naming of the bids pages. For example, the name 2012 Summer Olympics bids rolls off the tongue nicely, but I think it is incorrect; it should probably by 2012 Summer Olympics bids. If not that, something that has Olympics with the "s". Also, the "subpages" of the main page, like London 2012 Olympic bid work out fine, because "Olympic bid" describes "London 2012" but if we were to change the main page, we'd have to change this one too, and we'd have to add in "Summer." I don't care how we do it, or if we even do anything at all, but I just wanted to point out that these pages were probably created a while back and this (possibly) incorrect style has been used ever since. Comments?

Also, I'll probably try to FA Olympic sports pretty soon, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. I'm trying to source some of the stuff, but if anyone can find any relevant pictures, material, etc, to add, that'd be helpful. Also, I was not sure whether I should link each one of the "dots" on the tables. It'd be a lot of work, but I think it'd be the best thing to to because it is a list. And we need to make a better system in regards to the demo sports.

And FYI, we're at about 2000 articles assessed, but something tells me there are a lot more out there... a lot more! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  17:34, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Congrats on the recent nominations and good luck with the future ones ;) About the naming, the two possible choices are "Year Season Olympics bids" or "Year Olympic bids". Anyway, I don't think you have to "mess" with the specific bids' article name; just because the main page refers "Summer Olympics", the particular bids don't have to, since a viewer will reach them through the main page, knowing they are Summer bids. If not, the bid's article lead will say it so. So, imo, you just have to correct "2012 Summer Olympics bids" to "2012 Summer Olympics bids".

As for the Olympics sports page, I'll take a look and see what can be improved. But, once I asked if I should link the dots on the Diving at the Summer Olympics event table, to each event page, but was adviced against, so I don't know...

More than 2000 - woohoo! - and currently there aren't unassessed articles! Great job, people! And yes, there are MANY articles left, mostly the "Country at the Year Season Olympics" type. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 20:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

BTW, shouldn't Olympic sports be ranked "Top" importance, instead? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 20:40, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Done (I don't know why it wasn't!) _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  21:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Diving Qualification

Hello, I just added the first qualified teams for the Diving synchronized events. But there's a problem. China as the host nation is automatically qualified, but China also qualified as one of three medal winners in at least two competitions during the World Championships. Does this mean the 4th placed teams at the WC also directly qualify for Beijing, or will the additional place be given at the World Cup as well. Here are the qualification standards . But I don't think, they are all that clear in this regard. Neville Longbottom 14:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've found the answer myself. A PDF document on the FINA website said, that the top three finishers plus the host nation qualify, this has to mean the fourth ranked team is qualified as well. Neville Longbottom 14:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion nomination

List of cities that failed in their bids to host the Olympics has been nominated for deletion (nomination page) as redundant to Bids for Olympic Games and Bids for Olympic Games (ballots). -- Jonel | Speak 21:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Voted. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD

It's not too important, but I'm just putting it out there that List of cities that failed in their bids to host the Olympics was nominated for deletion. I would really have no problem with it, but I wanted to see what you thought. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  21:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Too slow! I got in 2 minutes ahead of you ;). -- Jonel | Speak 05:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Haha. I didn't even look! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  22:09, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Made a listing of multiple olympic gold medalists

I've worked my way through lots of Olympic results and statistics and made List of multiple Olympic gold medalists. It lists about 300 athletes who have won 3 or more Gold medals in the Olympics. Idealy we should maybe list them all, but they are simply too many, so I had to stop somewhere and decided on 3 gold as a good cut-off point. The list is then 46k, which is acceptable. The table is sortable every way, so it's usefull also to easily look up which athletes are the most winning from a particular nation, sport or period. I'm happy with it myself, but would like input on any way it can be improved. And in particular I'll be thankful for any corrections or additions. I've tried to double-check everything, but I'm sure there are still typos or mistakes in there. And there are most likely still some athletes missing. In particular I expect there are maybe a few sailors, rowers and maybe some less famous teamsports athletes that are still missing. There are also 5 redlinks, meaning that we still lack articles on at least 5 athletes who have won 3 gold medals in the olympics. I couldn't find any list like this on the net (that would have made my job much easier...) but if anyone knows about a list like this, it would be interesting to see it so we can compare and see who I've (or maybe they) missed. Thanks! Shanes 21:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a great list, Shanes. In fact, this could perfectly be a see also article for the Olympic Games section Olympic champions and medalists, since there is also a summarized tabled list of the type. I think your "3 gold medal" lower limit is quite accceptable considering the reasons you mentioned. Great job! I'm going to tag it for the project. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! There doesn't seem to be any objections to the list, and after further proof-reading I've gone ahead and added the link to the Olympic games and Lists of Olympic medalists articles. Shanes 13:35, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Old shooters

How are the many medals won by old shooters in the early olympics treated in statistics and such? I've found that there are quite alot of them, especially American shooters, who in various team-events up until 1924 took home quite alot of gold. But do they "count" all of them? I'm a very confused, because sources list varying numbers. Say you want to answer the question "Which American has won the most olympic medals?" The answer that most trivia nuts will give you is Jenny Thompson with 12 medals. And the article on her also states this. But if we're to believe olympic.org's statistics this is wrong. Who is it then, you ask? It's Carl Osburn. (Yep, that's a redlink). He won 13 medals from 1912 to 1924, 6 of them gold. Impressive, and we don't even have an article on him. An American. But do all of these medals "count"? The other source I use when I look for stats is the quite reliable, but much less oficial, databaseOlympics.com which lists him with "only" having won 11 medals[1]. Olympics.org lists him with 3 medals in 1924, while databaseOlympics.com lists only one, it doesn't mention two team events in 1924.

Does anyone know what the deal is with all these shooting medals? Shanes 02:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, what I can say to you is this: as far as medalists data is concerned (who won which medal and how many), we use the IOC's database as main reference, since it's the official source of the Games (even though I sometimes suspect some mistakes concerning some events in earlier Games). But you can always double check any of the varying numbers you find with the official reports which are archived and available here.

Suspect? There are some blatant errors in there (usually along the lines of giving two different nationalities for the same competitor), as well as plenty of missing team data. But it is still official, so... -- Jonel | Speak 05:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe they even "obliterated" some diving events, just for the sake of labeling them with the same name. But it got quite confusing with different sources giving different names for events won by the same divers... I didn't want to "dive" any deeper. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:30, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Hope this helps. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 04:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I followed my own advice (curiosity) and checked the 1924 Paris Games report and found out why databaseOlympics.com list only 11 medals whereas the IOC lists 13 medals. Despite being part of the American medalist team in two shooting events, Osburn didn't actually participate (no shots on target), so formally he didn't contribute for that result. My guess is that the IOC gives him the medal for being a member of the team, but databaseOlympics.com does not because of his non-participation. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 05:05, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I didn't know about those reports. Yes, that he was on the team but didn't actually shoot must be the reason for the conflicting stats. That IOC lists him as still winning the medals could be just a mistake, but it could be that being part of a team was seen as important enough that he earned the medals by simply being available to shoot and giving support and advice. I don't know much about shooting, but it could be that some shooters were better at shooting in some conditions (wind for instance), and the whole "who shoots next" is decided by the team there and then, but who ever shoots they all get the medals. But that's just speculations. Another explanation could be that they've been awarded recently. I think I remember something about IOC changing the rules for at least some team sports (soccer in particular), where everyone on the team now get medals even if they haven't played. If this is correct, it could be that they also gave previous non-participating team members medals. I don't know. The simplest thing for us is probably to just take the IOC-stats as facts and go with them. But I must say I don't feel like removing the "most medals" part from the Jenny Thompson page just yet. It's even the first thing mentioned on her US-team profile page[2]. I bet she's proud of that feat and that she haven't even heard about Carl Osburn :-). But I'll go with the IOC-numbers for the List of multiple Olympic gold medalists page. Whoever writes the Carl Osburn article will have the task of explaining the medals. The bonus, 13 medals or 11, is most likely a WP:DYK there for whoever writes an article on that forgotten sharp shooter. Shanes 06:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it's better to follow the IOC stats. In terms of medal attribution, I think there aren't any controversial mistakes (unlike with some sports events and nationalities). Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 15:14, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The whole pre-1932 Olympic shooting programme was a mess. And the sources for it are confusing as heck. Events tend toward an average of 2.7 names apiece, depending on which source you look at, usually with substantial disagreement on the distance the shots were fired at. Adjectives such as "free", "military", "army", and "rapid fire" are tossed about seemingly at random. Good luck figuring anything out for sure when it comes to early shooting contests. -- Jonel | Speak 05:15, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

As Jonel pointed out, there are a lot of inconsistencies between even the IOC medal database and the official Olympic reports, both of which are our primary sources. I believe that any other references should be treated as secondary, but copious footnotes can help explain situations where these secondary sources are probably more accurate. Some examples of where we've done this:

• In athletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics, Albert Coray is described as a "Frenchman" in one of the reports, but the IOC medal database shows him winning the silver medal in the marathon for USA, but also winning a silver in the 4 mile team race as part of a mixed team (which implies he wasn't American...). Despite the inconsistency, we follow the IOC medal database with respect to whether FRA or USA gets that marathon medal, but we have footnotes to describe the situation. We also have explanatory text at France at the 1904 Summer Olympics.
• In Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympics, the IOC medal database shows the silver medalist in ladies' pairs (Dorothy Greenhough-Smith) as from GER instead of GBR, and this error carries through to make the overall medal count inaccurate. I put an appropriate footnote on 1908 Summer Olympics medal count to explain this.
• In Athletics at the 1900 Summer Olympics, the winner of the marathon (Michel Théato) is still shown in the IOC medal database as from France despite later research discovering his nationality from Luxembourg. Therefore, we still attribute that medal to FRA with respect to medal counts, but explain the situation on pages like Luxembourg at the 1900 Summer Olympics.

Good luck sorting through all this data! I'm currently working on creating per-sport and per-Games medal tables for each nation at the Summer Olympics (similar to what I did for the Winter Olympics on pages like Switzerland at the Winter Olympics) and I'm finding (and fixing) errors on our Wikipedia pages for every Games I've examined so far. Let's just say that our WikiProject is quite challenging with respect to ensuring accuracy... Andrwsc 15:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm starting to understand that. Explaining possibly confusing or wrong information in the primary sources in footnotes sounds reasonable. I'll try do that myself. I'm thinking about writing the IOC to ask them about some of the biggest inconsistancies. Has anyone done that before? It could be that I'll never get an answer, but maybe they'll be glad to correct any mistakes in their database. I think I'll just ask about Carl Osburn first, and if they respond, we could prepare a whole list of conflicting information, like the examples you mention, and see if maybe both us and them can get it all straighten out, or at least some of it. Might be worth a try. Shanes 16:16, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with getting any info out of those copyright-obsessed :P Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 16:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Peer reviews

Hey, a request has been made for a peer-review of Rugby union at the Summer Olympics. Could some of your please have a read of the article and give any feedback? Would be greatly appreciated. The comments page can be found here. Thanks! - Shudda ^talk 01:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

(Changed heading to reflect this -->)Also, I had nominated 2012 Summer Olympics bids for PR, which is located here. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  11:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Partial comments given. More to come ;) Btw, I raised a question on Talk:Olympic sports. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 17:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures in articles

I want to address are use of pictures in various Olympics-related articles. Specifically, I'm concerned with the use of photos in Cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics. The main goal of Wikipedia is to create a free encyclopedia. These images do nothing to promote that goal, and they may harm the goal. While there is some claim of fair use, the copyright notice on the NBC Olympics pages make it clear that these images are not free, and not fair use.

© 2006 NBC Universal. All rights reserved. Any use reproduction, modification, distribution, display or performance of this material without NBC Universal's prior written consent is prohibited.

I think we are doing great work as part of this project, but I feel we need to pay much closer attention to making sure it's free work. --Sue Anne 06:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless someone was at every event of the Olympics who is willing to give up their galleries of pictures, it is impossible to find free alternatives of these pictures. You just cannot do it in the quantity that we need them. That said, I was the one who uploaded the pictures making that assumption, so I uploaded them as copyrighted, but fair use. If it would make you feel better, I could contact NBC and try to see if I could have permission to use some of the pictures now and in the future. I just think it's impossible to get free alternatives, and thus this is the best we can do. I understand where you're coming from totally, but you must understand my view.

If these are the only pictures that are available, and we're not allowed to use them, then each and every Olympics page on events (nevermind the ones from past years that don't even have published pictures) would be incomplete and could probably never get up to the status that we want. Regardless, I'll contact NBC when I can about this and see what I can do. Thanks for bringing up you're concern, though, Sue Anne. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  11:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

First off, we don't need any of the pictures. Having pictures is nice and improves the "encyclopedia" part of "free encyclopedia", but the overuse of fair use images is highly detrimental to the "free" part. Especially when we're stretching fair use as we are with, e.g., Cross-country skiing at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Also, if you do contact NBC, make sure you ask them to release the images under a free license (permission for Wikipedia is insufficient). -- Jonel | Speak 12:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm really busy now, but I'll take care of that in the near future/when I get around to it. I know it's important! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  02:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Userbox

How about this for a new userbox? It's easier to identify as Olympic-related, I think... tiZom_(2¢) 15:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... the Olympic rings' colors and arrangement is definetely something easier to identify with... except that the "Sports" has been dropped from the project name. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 16:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if you could maybe come up with something that doesn't have "sports" in it, that would be ideal if you want to create a new userbox. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  02:01, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oooh...how about this?

This user is a member of the Olympics WikiProject.

We have a winner!!! Andrwsc 05:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Nice! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  11:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Undoubtedly the best proposal (not because it has my pictogram :P). But allow me to add some touches:

This user is a member of the Olympics WikiProject

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Parutakupiu (talk • contribs).

Yep, gotta use our "Olympic template color" of #bfd7ff! Andrwsc 16:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I just took the blue shade from the rings, and lightened it a little. But I like this blue a lot better. Hey Parutakupiu, can you take a look at the image? The shapes have some black bordering that I couldn't fix. Think you could take care of it? And hey, do you guys think this should be the image that we put on our Olympic-related templates?

Which specific templates do you have in mind? Andrwsc 18:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(tiZom, I've already uploaded a better version of your colored image) So, do we keep the current version ({{User WikiProject Olympics}}) or do we go for one of the versions displayed above? Is a voting needed? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 18:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medalist lists

I have been playing around with some different formats for listing medalists, and I'd like some feedback on some of my work. Please see Austria at the 1952 Winter Olympics and/or Algeria at the Olympics to see some examples. I used the sortable table class, and created some new templates so that the medal column would sort properly and the athletes would be sorted by last name. I rather like the results.

We have several different styles for presenting these lists, and it would be nice to standardize on one. Some random examples:

1. Canada at the 1932 Summer Olympics — probably the most common style, using standard section headings for the medal type and a simple bullet list for each medal
2. Norway at the 1952 Winter Olympics — same idea, but the little medal icons have been inserted into the section headings
3. United States at the 2004 Summer Olympics — adds another layer of organization, grouping by sport within each medal type
4. China at the 2004 Summer Olympics — similar to USA 2004, but also adds a horrible, crufty "by date" table to the list
5. Brazil at the 2004 Summer Olympics — also similar to USA 2004, but adds pictures of everybody which stretches out the list and messes up the page layout considerably
6. Brazil at the 2000 Summer Olympics — quite different, but inspiration for my work. Uses a tabular format, assisted by templates like {{MedalCountryTop}} to aid formatting. Sue Anne created these templates and has used them on several 2000 pages already.

I really think we ought to standardize on something. I latched on to the sortable table idea as a possible solution because it allows the user to easily sort by medal type or by sport, which I think was the motivation behind the extra level of hierarchy of style #3. It also uses a certain amount of color coding (with the little medal icons) as per styles #3 and #6, but without excessive amounts of color, in my opinion. To be honest, I'm not 100% fond of those medal icons, but they do serve a useful purpose in a large sortable table and are not purely for decoration.

As you can see from my two "guinea pig" pages above, these tables would be used on both per-Games pages and also the summary per-nation pages (where an extra column for "Games" is added).

What do you folks think? Andrwsc 18:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Andrew, I like your sortable table. I created the table on the 2000 pages simply because I thought that the bulleted lists weren't all that effective or good looking. My only problem with your template is that it uses those horrible medal images, which are a huge pet peeve of mine. I don't know if any of you have been watching the FINA World Championships, but they do a really nice (1) (2) (3) in a colored circle. --Sue Anne 19:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Where did you see the improved icons? Swimming at the 2007 World Aquatics Championships still has the common ugly ones (albeit under different image filenames). I was also thinking that a simple colored medal shape with 1/2/3 would look best! The IOC medal database uses something like that too. Andrwsc 19:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Andrwsc, you already know my thoughts, and now that you listed the different organizations found on several pages I strongly believe that your idea mixes very well all of them!

As for the "ugly duckling" medal icons, it would be my pleasure to create a new set :) So your idea is a simple coloured circle with correspondent podium place inside, right? I'm on it! Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 21:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

(Me and my hurries...) How would you prefer them? With the same (small) size as the current icons or bigger (better quality) and then, if needed, reducing them through [[Image:...]]? Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 21:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a comment: Those medal images are ideal candidates for SVG format. Also, I like the sortable table as well. Kudos! tiZom_(2¢) 22:29, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I actually created them myself, editing the SVG text files by hand to make them very small (346 bytes each). How do these look: , , and ? Andrwsc 23:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

They look good! I was thinking of adding a background gradient, but yours do the job nicely too. The numbers are not very centered, but that's only visible in bigger size... and me being unnecessarily perfectionist :P Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 23:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, the numbers are centered horizontally as per SVG spec (using text-anchor), but not vertically. Here is the relevant source code for the gold medal icon:

<?xml version="1.0" standalone="no"?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.0" width="16" height="16">
<g>
<circle cx="8" cy="8" r="8" fill="#e0be00"/>
<circle cx="8" cy="8" r="7" fill="#ffd700"/>
<text x="8" y="12" text-anchor="middle" font-family="Arial" font-size="11" font-weight="bold" fill="black">1</text>
</g>
</svg>

I suppose I could fiddle with the "y" value for the text element to align it better. I wasn't happy with the output of inkscape when creating such a simple vector image (two circles and a text character), with all sort of extra crap in the file (pushed it out to about 2K in size) so that's why I handcrafted them. ;) Andrwsc 00:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't bother youself. These new medals do the job greatly as I've already seen ;) Good job. Parutakupiu ^{talk || contribs} 01:07, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

(Unindent.) That all looks fine. I'm just wondering why now we think that the little circular images are fine? It seems like we've always been against them (with the colors and the words working just fine) but I was just curious as to the push for images. I'm fine with them, I guess; it doesn't really matter to me because it gets the point across. And if you do use the images, the numbered ones look much better. As for a more common general style, I'll have to look into that. _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  02:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I guess the issue is where we should or should not use those icons. Certainly, I've been promoting their removal from places like medal table headings (by creating and using {{RankedMedalTable}}, {{MedalistTable}}, {{OlympicGoldMedalist}}, {{Infobox Country Olympics}} and its offspring, etc.) where the text label and background color is perfectly sufficient. However, when I started experimenting with the sortable medalist tables, I found it quite useful to have the color coding in that first column, so that you could quickly see if that column was the current sort key or not. I tried changing the color of the table cell background, but I thought that the result was a bit overwhelming. Take a look at Australia at the 2000 Summer Olympics (with no disrepect to Sue Anne's work!) to see what I mean. Also, I wanted the sort order of that column to be gold/silver/bronze instead of alphabetical order (bronze/gold/silver), and putting the icon in front of the text string helped reinforce that. Now that the icon has a 1/2/3 label, that really makes it obvious. Of course, I believe strongly in consensus, so if we agree that we should abolish the icons altogether, then I will remove them from those templates, but hopefully the new ones are aesthetically pleasing enough to keep. Note that I'm not advocating their use in all those other places! Andrwsc 03:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USOC portraits

The USOC portraits of the US Olympic teams have been frequently used in bios of US Olympians. I myself uploaded many of these last year under fair use. However they are actually fair use replaceable of a living person, and it has since been determined that we cannot use these simply to show what the person looks like. As such, they will have to be deleted. Does anybody have any objection if I just delete them without having to tag and wait for a while? If people don't mind, then I am happy to delete their USOC fair use ones for them without the paperwork. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)