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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject National Football League and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject National Football League and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25Auto-archiving period: 3 months

DragoLink08: ANI discussion regarding requested range blocks

Gentlemen, Cuchullain and I have filed ANI reports regarding User:DragoLink08's continued disruptive editing and sock-puppetry. I have also requested appropriate range blocks for the University of South Florida IP addresses that have provided him with an escape hatch to continue his sock-puppetry for the past three years. Many of you have had to deal with Drago's disruptive editing of the color schemes for navboxes, infoboxes and tables. Your input at ANI is requested. Dirtlawyer1 (talk)

Untangling the NFLPA Game

Hello, I've previously made a few requests here asking for volunteer editor assistance on articles related to the NFLPA, as I've been working on their behalf to help update articles of interest (by proposing changes, not by direct editing, I hasten to note).

The NFLPA has now asked me to take a look at the article titled NFLPA Game, and boy, it's quite a mess. The article seems to be covering three different games, but treating them all as if they were the same thing. The issues with the article have actually been raised previously on Talk:NFLPA Game, but it doesn't look like any kind of conclusion was reached.

Based on the research I've done, and input from the NFLPA themselves about the situation, here's what seems to have happened around the idea of an "NFLPA Game" (note that the following leans heavily on primary sources; although I'm well aware that press releases are not the most desirous sources, they are currently among the most complete):

• 2007-2010 — The Texas vs. the Nation game is held in El Paso, TX, with NFLPA involvement
• 2011 — The game moves to San Antonio—some sources still give this the name "Texas vs the Nation", while others call it the "NFLPA Game" (and one source specifically states that this was the "NFLPA Game, formerly Texas vs the Nation").
• 2012, 2013 — The NFLPA Collegiate Bowl at Home Depot Center in Carson, CA begins; although the NFLPA was also involved here, this is a distinct game from the previous "NFLPA Game." Also note here that, in 2012, there was no Texas vs. Nation game.
• Further complicating matters, however, there was a Texas vs. Nation game in 2013, but as a completely different entity, and with no involvement from the NFLPA.

It seems like untangling this, and deciding what to do about creating new articles, setting up redirects, etc., is going to be a bit complicated. Rather than just propose a solution to this, I'd like to get people's input and build consensus about how best to handle this situation.

So, what do people think? What's the best way to deal this mess? Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:05, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thank you for raising this. It is a confusing situation. My research has found sufficient independent media coverage to support the notability of both sets of games. My suggestion is two articles, Texas vs. The Nation Game for the games in Texas that have been played with "Texas" and "Nation" teams (2007-2011, 2013), and NFLPA Game (or if preferred, NFLPA Collegiate Bowl) for the games in California (2012- ) that use a different team division. Of course each article would have to cross-reference the other, and the NFLPA's involvement would be mentioned appropriately in both. I recognize that this is not a perfect division, in particular because the 2011 game arguably fits in both categories, but it seems the most logical way to divide them. --Arxiloxos (talk) 15:48, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

I think that sounds like a pretty good solution. If you're interested in putting some time to it, Arx, maybe we could each take one? As noted above, I don't edit articles directly in situations like this, so I'd probably prefer to take NFLPA Collegiate Bowl—that being the more official name—and write it in my userspace, then offer it up for review when ready. Thoughts on that? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

Hi Arxiloxos and all, I’ve now drafted a version of the article for the NFLPA Collegiate Bowl, to start addressing the issue of the current NFLPA Game article conflating two sets of games. You can find it in my userspace. I’ve also started a discussion about this on Talk:NFLPA Game. I’d really appreciate feedback there, especially with regards to the best way to handle setting up this article. On that page, I've offered my suggested solution. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:11, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

NFL Draft trade references

I brought this up on the 2014 Draft talk page and I don't think anyone saw it— does anyone know why all the recent draft articles have a separate reference group for trades? I don't see any benefit to splitting up the references: you can always just click the number to find the one you're looking for. It makes the prose look really cluttery to have links that say "source 1" and "source 2" instead of just the numbers. –Thatotherperson (talk/contribs) 02:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

2012 NFL referee lockout

I've mentioned here previously that I'm working with the NFLPA to improve some articles on Misplaced Pages, and because of my financial COI, I'm asking volunteer editors to help with these improvements.

Most recently, I've proposed some updates and changes in wording for 2012 NFL referee lockout on the article's Talk page. One small change was made from it, but it doesn't look like anyone has yet considered the other suggestions. Would anyone else here mind taking a look? I'm happy to answer any questions over there. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 20:25, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I'll get to it in less than an hour. ZappaOMati 22:28, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done ZappaOMati 23:06, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I see that it is—thanks much! WWB Too (Talk · COI) 11:57, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

A few more suggestions for 2012 NFL referee lockout

Hello again, I'm hoping to get an editor or two to take a look at some additional suggestions that I recently posted on the Talk page for the 2012 NFL referee lockout article. Since I have a financial COI with regard to the article, as I'm currently working with the NFLPA, I'd appreciate it if someone here has a moment to pop over to take a look and, if appropriate, move the changes over into the article. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:05, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

And just to close the loop, this was also  Done. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:28, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

2,000-yard club up for featured list

Hello, I have nominated the article 2,000-yard club for featured list status. There has no been much input, however, and it would be much appreciated if members of this WikiProject could provide sound and objective comments and analysis on whether the article meets the featured list criteria. Thanks! Toa Nidhiki05 21:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

National Football League GA review

National Football League is up for GA review. It looks close to passing once some small fixes are made, but before I sign off, I wanted to solicit opinions about whether the article sufficiently covers the "main aspects" of its topic. Is there anything you feel needs to be added? Comments welcome at Talk:National Football League/GA2 under the "Outside Comments" section. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:22, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm happy to say User:Toa Nidhiki05 has now brought National Football League, this project's top article, to Good Article status. Congratulations! -- Khazar2 (talk) 02:01, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Fyi, I've changed one of the project's to-dos to bringing the NFL article up to FA (the goal was previously to get it to GA) as a result of this. --Batard0 (talk) 19:17, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Mass check needed

Gcveintee (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Gcveintee has been changing/adding numbers for NFL players for months now, with incorrectly formatted refs. He hit an article on my watchlist so I verified his changes. They were incorrect. I spot checked four random edits - all incorrect.

• Matt Asiata - ref leads to
• Lamar Miller - ref leads to
• Cedric Peerman - ref leads to
• Johnathan Franklin - ref leads to

Given that these were the first four edits I spot checked, it's a good bet most of edits are wrong. --NeilN 13:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It appears to me that the data the user is adding are correct, but the ref links go to the wrong places. Is this right? If so, I think the user should simply be encouraged to fix the links...which it appears you've done. --Batard0 (talk) 14:22, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I did not check if the data was correct but what concerns me is that they were changing already established numbers in some cases. Sorry I don't have more time - real life calls. --NeilN 14:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The data for Ryan Swope was correct, but the link was to a page for a Central Florida running back. It's certainly an issue that he's putting incorrect sources on pages, but the content seems to be accurate outside a few minor errors (initially listed Swope's numbers as from Central Florida's pro day). Luchuslu (talk) 15:55, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

He's continuing to put incorrect references in, despite being pointed to this conversation. I've added another message that will hopefully get his attention. While he might have good intentions, if he continues, a WP:CIR block may be required. --NeilN 21:33, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

I dunno, it might be required eventually, but it seems a little extreme for now. In my view, he's adding a lot of correct information, which is a net benefit to the encyclopedia even if his link locations are wrong. Other editors can come around and clean that up; as long as he's not putting in bad numbers, I think a gentler approach is merited. Let's also consider the possibility that he's not all that familiar with Misplaced Pages and isn't looking at his talk page. The best course may be a very temporary block that would force him to go there and discuss the issue. I think we should be careful not to sound hostile, as it's quite possible that he just hasn't seen the talk page and would change course immediately if he did. --Batard0 (talk) 04:08, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I agree, a 24-hour block would get his attention. The information is correct, but just sourced incorrectly. Probably a newbie trying to do his best but being a little sloppy. Luchuslu (talk) 15:17, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Heads up on probable upcoming NFL Draft page moves

Just a heads up, User:Dicklyon has recently been moving every NBA Draft article from (example) "2013 NBA Draft" to "2013 NBA draft" citing MOS capitalization norms. Not sure if anyone wants discussion of this before he continues to move NFL Draft pages (he has already started) but if you don't agree you may want to address it now. If you all agree with the moves, then obviously no issue. Rikster2 (talk) 02:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think moving the draft to lowercase draft is a good idea, since most sources seem to list them with the capitalized D. ZappaOMati 04:32, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

What sources are you looking at? I was looking at books. Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

While I think the way the moves have been done hasn't been the best (without consultation of projects beforehand, etc., in a community that's supposed to be about consensus even after it became clear they weren't uncontroversial), I personally agree with the basic idea behind the move. The manual of style on capitalization says[REDACTED] avoids unnecessary capitalization. This seems like a case where capitalization is indeed unnecessary. "NFL Draft" may be the branding the NFL uses for its drafts, but it seems to me that it's more commonly described as the "NFL draft" by news organizations and others outside the league. This one's open to debate, obviously. We should let User:Dicklyon know that there is a discussion here referencing him. --Batard0 (talk) 05:51, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

That was me just before you. Notifications work. I was being a bit bold, having not found much pushback on such changes yet (just a few "I don't care for it, but whatever" types of reactions from some similar pages). Dicklyon (talk) 07:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I think we should stick with capitals, at least for the NFL Draft. The league seems to use capitals when referring to the event itself, although they do use lower case when referring to the draft as a concept. See here for my source on this. – PeeJay 19:41, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not in our style to copy the style of the specialist organizations promoting their own stuff; see WP:SSF. A much more relevant set of sources on how it's styled in general usage is this. Per MOS:CAPS (the only relevant guideline here, as far as I know), we should then choose lowercase, no? Dicklyon (talk) 19:49, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

In all honesty, I see this Google search as a more reliable source than the ngram. I don't know how Google compiles its ngrams, but the standard Google search seems to show that most contemporary sources use the capitalised version. – PeeJay 20:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The n-gram compilation is from books, which are usually more reliable sources than random web pages. And the web search mostly shows you titles and headings, which is why you see so many caps there. If you actually click through to pages, you'll find that many don't use caps in the text. Like the very first hit, at nfl.com, with NFL Draft as title but "Get the latest NFL draft news..." as text. And the NFL Draft 2013 ESPN page that says "ESPN.com has full coverage of the 2013 NFL draft." And the 2014 NFL Draft - CBSSports.com - NFLDraftScout.com page that says "CBSSports.com provides full coverage of the 2013 NFL draft..." – Dicklyon (talk) 23:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Like I said, the event itself is treated as a proper noun, hence the capital letter. As a concept, the draft is no longer a proper noun, so there is no need for the capital. Besides, I've just read MOS:CAPS and I'm guessing the relevant section would be "Proper names", which says we should follow "standard usage". Well, from what I can tell, standard usage (at least in contemporary sources) doesn't seem to favour one over the other, so we should stick with the status quo. – PeeJay 23:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what this means: "the event itself is treated as a proper noun". The treatment of the term, such as "2013 NFL draft" on CBSSports.com and "2013 NFL draft" on ESPN.com suggest that using WP style per MOS:CAPS would not conflict with the style used by other major publishers, treating it as not a proper noun. In cases like this, where the recommendations of our MOS are not different from what we see in sources, why would there be any question? Dicklyon (talk) 23:54, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

You must know full well that I was referring back to my comment earlier where I noted that the NFL refers to the event itself as a proper noun, i.e. using capitals. – PeeJay 23:56, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, no, I figured at least that your "is treated as" referred to someone other than the NFL itself, since we already established that general usage is what's relevant here. And the pages at nfl.com are not consistent anyway. The "event" is the "NFL Player Selection Meeting", and the draft is what they do there; we don't need another proper name for that, just because the NFL likes to capitalize concepts important to themselves. The articles are mostly not about the meetings, beyond their lead sentences; they're about the drafts that happen there, the players, the teams, the order, etc. Other publishers use lowercase, so there's no reason we can't just go by own MOS and do the same, is there? Dicklyon (talk) 00:20, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

• The capital D is pure vanity capitalisation. I believe Dicklyon is doing us a favour in downcasing: it's not a title, and readers shouldn't have to think it is and then realise it's not – even subconsciously. I'm quite satisfied with the evidence from books that he has offered above. Tony (talk) 02:49, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

It might be helpful at this stage to know what precise part or parts of the MOS are being relied upon in this discussion about capitalization of these names. Once we have that sorted out, I think it will be easier to ask the simple questions we need to answer to sort this one out. Any takers? --Batard0 (talk) 04:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS says in the lead: "Misplaced Pages avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names or for acronyms. Misplaced Pages relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Misplaced Pages." I don't know of other specifically relevant provisions. Dicklyon (talk) 06:15, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks much for this. So it seems to me the question we have to answer is: Is XXXX NFL Draft consistently capitalized in sources? If the answer is yes, it is a proper name by Misplaced Pages's definition and should be capitalized. If not, it is not a proper name by Misplaced Pages's definition and should not be capitalized. My initial reaction from the discussion above is that capitalization is not consistent: sometimes it's capitalized, sometimes it's not. Since there's no consistency, it should not be considered a proper noun under Misplaced Pages's definition and should not be capitalized. Is this logic sound? Are there other parts of the MOS that point the other way? --Batard0 (talk) 06:41, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not even that mixed, once you discount caps in titles and heads; pretty much nobody uses caps for these. I posted n-grams at the basketball case. Here they are extended to NFL. Dicklyon (talk) 23:13, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I just want to second Dicklyon's comment. Most (if not all reliable sources) lowercase draft. Hot Stop talk-contribs 23:45, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

These figures seem to show at minimum that there's no consistency, which under my understanding of the MOS means that lowercase should be used. I'm not sure if they show that lowercase is "standard" usage (whatever that means; is something "standard" if it's used half the time? Or must it be used 99% of the time?), but as far as I know, that's not a test we need to consider here. I'm still wondering what the arguments on the other side of this debate are. --Batard0 (talk) 04:05, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

List of New England Patriots players

Thought I would get some feedback from you all regarding the list of Pats players article. I feel the article (as are many NFL Football teams player rosters) is unworkable now. If all past players are added, then all the awards info will make the article way too long. I thought I would keep it simple and sortable. Example is found below. Thoughts????

Also, sports teams have article names listed as (Team) all-time roster, others are list of (Team) players....should we standardize??????.....Pvmoutside (talk) 13:26, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Some form of standardization is probably desirable. If you want to go all-out, look to Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (look through it; it's sorted by letter), which is probably currently the best sports all-time roster article out there. --Batard0 (talk) 16:32, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Carolina Panthers FAC

Hello; I have nominated the article Carolina Panthers, a top-importance article on this project, for featured article. If passed, this would be the first article on an NFL club to become a featured article. All editors of this project are invited to comment on the featured article candidacy. Toa Nidhiki05 19:10, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Errr...

John_Mangum_(American_football) - John Mangum - Richfife (talk) 16:51, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The latter is the older page, and it appears the former was a copy/paste of some sort (first edit to it was in 2011, tag was from 2010), might as well merge it. NFLisAwesome 18:59, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done -- The Writer 2.0 17:31, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Need help with final resolution on NFLPA Game article

In May I posted here asking for help untangling the situation with the article currently titled NFLPA Game. The problem, as I explained then, is that the article has two separate games confused. Having discussed the issue on the article's Talk page with User:Arxiloxos and User:Dale_Arnett, I've developed separate drafts for a standalone article about each game. (Once that's done, NFLPA Game itself should either redirect to the game with current sponsorship, or disambig the two; after some consideration, I prefer the former option). My drafts for each are as follows:

• User:WWB Too/Texas vs The Nation
• User:WWB Too/NFLPA Collegiate Bowl

As of two weeks ago, it seemed that we had arrived at consensus on the two replacement drafts, however since then Arxiloxos and Dale have either been away from Misplaced Pages or busy on other projects. I would move these live myself but for the fact that I am a consultant to the NFLPA and do not wish to run afoul of COI guidelines nor Jimbo's stated opinion that "paid advocates" should never edit articles directly. Would an editor here be willing to review the articles and take them live, if they agree they are in good shape to do so? Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 14:12, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I just read the NFLPA Game and my head was swimming. I'm inclined to agree that there should be two standalone articles and I'll take a look at your drafts in the coming days and may make some changes as needed. After that, I can't see why those shouldn't go live. I also noticed you're looking to clean-up Domonique Foxworth which I'd be happy to help out with. I helped bring NFLPA to featured article status so I'm familiar with the territory. -- The Writer 2.0 19:47, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Writer! Let me know if you have any questions about either of the two drafts; I spent a good deal of time in research getting the details just right, though it was tricky. As for Foxworth: I'd been talking about the article with an editor who suggested I find sources and he would add them. However, as you point out, that hasn't happened yet. If I can help you with that as well, let me know. Lastly, great work on NFLPA, very good stuff there. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 13:22, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

This has been  Done. 17:19, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

players that get released/cut/traded during the offseason or preseason of the new league year

for example, William Powell was just cut by the Arizona Cardinals, in his career history, should we list their last year with the cardinals as 2012 or 2013? I believe the new league year starts in March at the start of free agency, so any player that is released from the team after that date, should they be considered on the team for the 2013 season? Edday1051 (talk) 00:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Rules and positions

It strikes me that the articles on football rules and positions (and types of plays and so on) generally aren't very good. This seems like something worthy of trying to improve, but I'm finding it somewhat difficult to locate sources that discuss the history/evolution of rules and positions, which would be pretty essential to make these articles comprehensive. Anybody have ideas or tips on this? --Batard0 (talk) 16:23, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

As far as sources go, I can wholeheartedly recommend the following:

Beginner sources

• NFL.com's Beginner's Guide to Football is an excellent resource for a basic overview of the game aimed at beginners. There is not an in-depth look at each position, but it does give a broad overview of most positions. The source is a little outdated, however - it says kickoffs are at the 30-yard line, not the 35-yard line as is done now.
• The BBC's NFL in a nutshell is a good overview of the game. It is similar to the NFL resource in that it discusses the role of positions broadly, but it is also older.
• NFL 360 is perhaps the best source in that it is modern and aimed entirely at beginners to football who live outside the US. Unlike the others, it provides a nice video overview of all major positions but the fullback.

Overview sources

• The Dummies website has a good number of articles on positions. The Dummies Guide to Football is itself a good source, because it is partially written by Hall of Fame defensive end Howie Long. Dummies has broad overviews of all positions as well as special teams positions, in addition to specific articles on, among other things, tight ends and receivers, linebackers, and punting unit positions.
• This ESPN.com article on the fullback is a good resource for the modern role of the fullback in the NFL.

In-depth

• The rulebooks for the NFL, NCAA, and NFHS define positions, numbering, and place rules on which positions can do what. May take a bit of digging to find the info.
• David M. Nelson's The Anatomy of a Game is one of the best resources for the evolution of football out there. It mainly focuses on the college game, but covers everything from 1869 to the 1990s. I have and have read the book, and there is certainly a lot of information on the evolution of positions in it.

I'm sure there are many more sources needed, but these sources should be a good place to start. I'd certainly be willing to help work on this idea; the position pages need the work. Toa Nidhiki05 17:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Wow - these sources are excellent. I'm impressed. Position pages sound like a good target; what about trying to improve the quarterback article and seeing where that goes? Too ambitious to start with? My initial take is that it needs much better sourcing, the position could be defined better, there's a lot of extraneous information in the "dual threat" section, and the evolution of the position should probably be explained more clearly and succinctly. I'll try to make some efforts on it in the next couple of days – it would be great to collaborate and make it better. --Batard0 (talk) 17:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I found this book, large portions of which one can view for free. Looks like a pretty reliable source for the history of the position; I'll try to nail down that part of it. --Batard0 (talk) 17:37, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Seems like a good place to start; it's the flagship article of football positions, after all. Getting a good history section will be vital because the quarterback used to be a blocker. Aside from that, getting a good quarterback article could set a good precedent for the style of other position articles. I can get a sandbox copy up and ready if you want so we can tinker around with the article format more. Toa Nidhiki05 17:41, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. Sandboxing is also probably a good idea; we should think about what the ideal structure is – possibly a description section that covers what the position is today followed by a history section explaining its evolution. Should definitely play around with it, because the way it is now seems fairly disorganized. --Batard0 (talk) 18:38, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

I've got the sandbox up here. It might be good to relocate discussion to that talk, but I think the format idea you have is pretty solid; define the position first, then list the history. The history section would probably be the longest, be we could have a different section on 'quarterback trends', like the trend of the mobile quarterback and two-quarterback systems. We'll also need to include information on the role of the position in Canadian football and its evolution there, because the article covers the position in both the American and Canadian games. I myself don't really have much knowledge of the Canadian quarterback evolution, but I'm sure the people at the Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Canadian football could help there. Toa Nidhiki05 18:51, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Good deal. That sandbox doesn't seem to exist, but let's take the discussion there when it does. I'd create it myself, but I'm reluctant to do so in your userspace.--Batard0 (talk) 10:50, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox is fixed now. Toa Nidhiki05 20:25, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Invitation to join a discussion

Through this way, I inform there is a discussion at WT:Disambiguation about partially disambiguated titles, known as "PDABs". This subguide of WP:D affects articles in this WikiProject, some examples can be found at WP:NCSP. There you can give ideas or thoughts about what to do with this guideline. Note this discussion is not to modify any aspect of NCSP. Thanks. Tbhotch. Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 01:06, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Denard Robinson's position

There is a bit of an edit war going on at Denard Robinson. IP's keep trying to change his position in the infobox to Offensive Weapon. This is the term that the team website uses to identify him, but it is obviously not suited for a Misplaced Pages infobox. It's too vague, many readers will not understand what it means, plus it is not used by NFL.com, ESPN, or Pro Football Reference. It should be changed back to running back/wide receiver/return specialist. ~ Richmond96 T • C 22:59, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Another point came to mind. Teams make up their own positions all the time. "BUCK" and "LEO" come to mind. Yet we do not use them on Misplaced Pages. ~ Richmond96 T • C 23:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

oldestlivingprofootball.com

I've had an ongoing disagreement with another editor, Tnspro, and would like to get some feedback from others. Tnspro has taken to adding external links to a website called "Oldest Living Pro Football Players" (http://oldestlivingprofootball.com/) on biographical articles for a number of football players. Sometimes these links have been added to external links sections, sometimes (and certainly inaptly) to see also sections, and sometimes as bulleted items in reference sections. It remains unclear to me who is behind this website and if it should be considered a reliable source. My feeling is that it might be reliable enough to support an in-text citations, but it is certainly not significant enough to warrant stand-alone external links. That status ought to be reserved for official sites and definitive sports resources likes ESPN and the network of Sports Reference websites; cf. Misplaced Pages:External links and Misplaced Pages:External links/Perennial websites. Tnspro doesn't seem to understand that not just any website warrants that status. He and I have discussed this issue outside of Misplaced Pages and he does make the point that in some cases biographical information for football players may be incorrect on NFL.com or pro-football-reference.com, while oldestlivingprofootball.com has better information with support from cited periodicals. In such cases, a cited reference to oldestlivingprofootball.com may be warranted, although a citation directly to the sourced periodical would probably be better. But Tnspro has also added links to oldestlivingprofootball.com on articles in which there appears to be no question about the accuracy of vital stats, e.g. Don Meredith. Do others have thoughts about this? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 03:49, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I can't tell anything about the website from the site itself, other than it seems to be very neat and clean, and free of annoying advertising. I'll take your word for it that it's reliable, even though it's not clear why! But in any event, dropping it as an external link, with no context or apparent relevance to the article at hand, seems to be a bit linkspammy to me. Does this editor add links to any other sites, or just this one? JohnInDC (talk) 11:12, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of this website, but I can't find a reason to disqualify it (though that doesn't mean that is should be qualified). It at least doesn't appear to be commercial (which was my first reaction). The Guestbook shows that the website has well-established since 2007. It might be worth asking the opinion of the guys at http://www.pfraforum.org/ (The Pro Football Research Association) about their opinion on its quality. I found one example of them talking about it: http://www.pfraforum.org/index.php?showtopic=1173 but it's not clear how much credit they give it.--GrapedApe (talk) 11:43, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

JohnInDC, Tnspro seems to be largely a single-issue editor. His issue is disseminating links to oldestlivingprofootball.com. GrapedApe, I'm not arguing that the information on that site is unreliable. What I'm questioning is the need for stand-alone external linking to it. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I am the person in question in this posting, what I can only view as a personal attack from Jweiss11. He constantly deletes my edits and I have warned him to stop many times. I will try to answer the points he and others have made. 1. I AM a single-issue editor. Is that a problem? It is what I know and what I am passionate about. Why should I edit something that I don't care about? 2. So Jweiss11, if the site information is "reliable", why not use it? Heck, at least do the copy/paste thing that a lot of others do to get the correct information! Have you ever done research on these football players? It really does not seem like it. DO SOME RESEARCH! Spend some time on the site and increase your knowledge on these players instead of following other sources that have just copied one bad piece of data after another and placed in on Misplaced Pages. Perhaps you will see that instead of worrying about a link being added, your time will be better spent by adding pages of players that do not have one. Add to the conversation, don't tear it down. As for the comment, "I can't tell anything about the website from the site itself, other than it seems to be very neat and clean, and free of annoying advertising. I'll take your word for it that it's reliable, even though it's not clear why!" That doesn't even make sense. Again, spend some time on that site and perhaps you will see why it is reliable and the best and most accurate source anywhere, period. pro-football-reference.com has literally hundreds and hundreds of mistakes. Why? Where do you think they get THEIR information? That's right, from out dated publications, a classic copy and paste job. I guess that qualifies them as a reliable source, I don't know. Granted, they have a lot of other information that IS useful and accurate, but sadly, player birth/death and in some cases the actual names of the players are wrong. Look, I could only assume Jweiss11 and others are looking for the most accurate information possible (although I question that sometimes). That is MY one and only goal. I will ask Jweiss11 again, spend some time researching. Go out and find information on a player that nobody knows or has found data on. There are still plenty of players that have missing birth/death records. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tnspro (talk • contribs) 12:31, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Gentlemen, as we all know, there are a wide variety of college and professional football websites out there of wildly varying quality and accuracy, some of which are valuable resources. Some are sponsored and/or maintained by well-known public organizations (e.g., the College Football Hall of Game, NCAA, NFL, Pro Football Hall of Fame, university athletic departments) and some maintained by private individuals or small private associations (e.g., College Football Data Warehouse). Some privately maintained websites, such as CFBDW, are excellent resources with information that is often more accurate and more complete than such official websites as the NCAA's.

Sadly, oldestlivingprofootball.com is not among those truly excellent private resources. It is very limited in its content (mostly trivia, really), and usually relies on other websites for its content without any independent editorial check on the content's accuracy. The perfect example is shown on the website's home page, where it lists Ray Graves as a former Florida Gators football player. Graves was a Hall of Fame head coach for the Gators, but never played a down for the Gators as a player. Graves was a standout lineman and team captain for Robert Neyland's Tennessee Volunteers as a junior and senior, after initially attending a small Methodist college in east Tennessee. That's no small error. Bottom line: whether we routinely include any given website as an "external link" should be largely determined by the value of that reference to our readers. Here we have a website that purports to list the oldest living former pro football players (trivia), with very little other pertinent biographical information, and is often riddled with factual errors. While there may be occasions where this site is linked in footnotes, I see absolutely no reason why it should be routinely included in the external links section of player biographies. In fact, I would be inclined to delete it from those articles on which I usually work as a low-value link that offers very little information to our readers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:27, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"usually relies on other websites for its content without any independent editorial check" are you serious?? Show me one example where this occurs. Everything possible is referenced, that IS the difference. The site NEVER listed Ray Graves as a player. You should slow down and read more closely. It lists Ray Graves as one of the 3 oldest living college football hall of famers. Click on his name and you will see it in more detail. All the so called "missing information" you are talking about is already there my friend. Sadly, another person spreading false accusations with out taking the time to read. Here, take a look for yourself - http://www.oldestlivingprofootball.com/raygraves.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tnspro (talk • contribs) 12:40, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

In regard to the www.oldestlivingprofootball.com, I have been the primary research person on this site for the last 4 years. It has grown to the point where it contains accurate birth and death information, plus other pertinent data, on more than 6,000 deceased pro players. I had begun gathering data from retired players and relatives of deceased FB players in the early 1970's, after having done similar work as a contributor to the original Baseball Encyclopedia (1968). When the new Football Encyclopedia came out in the late 1990's, I was very happy, until I realized how much incorrect background data it contained (bad birth and death dates, wrong names, etc.). When I questioned the errors, I was told that those in charge felt that incorrect data was preferable to a blank space, and that when someone noticed the errors and provided the right data, they would be corrected. Fifteen years later, many of those same errors are on every website, except for the one whose credibility is in question - the site which is not big enough, not popular enough, not sanctioned by the elite, etc. Our goal is to provide a site that has accurate, confirmed birth date, death date, and other pertinent data for every person who actually played in the NFL (not someone who has a similar name, and whose data required no more effort than going to SSDI and copying dates). We have correct dates on our website for more than 100 players whose dates on Pro-Football-reference.com are incorrect, in that they refer to a person who was not a pro player. We also have correct dates for more than 200 players whose death date or sometimes both birth and death dates are missing on PFR. All of our data is documented by sources other than SSDI to ensure that we have the right person. The most serious errors on the 'approved' websites involve players who are still alive but are listed as 'deceased'. Ted Alflen, 1969 Denver running back, is listed as having died in Florida in 1978. Ted is a successful businessman who has been living in Florida for almost 40 years, since shortly after his retirement in 1971. Unfortunately, the Theodore Thomas Alflen who died in Florida in 1978 was Ted's infant son who died at birth. Joe Matesic (1954 Pitt), listed as deceased in 1989, is also still alive. I find it hard to understand why anyone interested in football history would not welcome the opportunity to correct erroneous data. Anyone unfamiliar with our site can easily access it, pick a random sample of players where our data differs from the other sites , and check our documentation. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SRJubyna (talk • contribs) 17:38, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Let's take a step back here. What we've been asked to determine is first whether this website is a reliable source under Misplaced Pages's reliable source policy. While I don't doubt that much effort has gone into making this website a good source of information, arguments based on this policy will be much more effective in convincing people that it's a reliable source. I don't think anybody would dispute that this is a third-party, published source under the policy. I think the area of the policy that's relevant is whether this is reliable as a self-published source. Because anybody can create a website and do with it anything he or she likes, "self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated, including the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), CBDB.com, collaboratively created websites such as wikis, and so forth, with the exception of material on such sites that is labeled as originating from credentialed members of the sites' editorial staff, rather than users." It seems to me that a crucial question is whether this website has an editorial board and proper editorial oversight. I don't currently see any evidence of that on the site, but there's also no explanation of how it works or is managed. At first glance, I'd say I consider this to be somewhat marginal as a reliable source, but still one that could be used in inline citations as a source for basic facts. I concur on this point with Jweiss11. We also have to consider, though, if it's appropriate to include this as an external link, as has apparently been done across a number of articles. The policy on that is here. Generally, external links pointing to things like statistics on players – stuff that can't adequately be covered in the text of the article – is good to point to in an external link under the policy. See WP:ELYES. On the other hand, "any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" is not appropriate. See WP:ELNO. Also prohibited are links "mainly intended to promote a website," which is not necessarily the case here – but may be. I don't know. To me, it seems that most if not all of the information contained about players on this website derives from sources that would be covered anyway if the articles were to become featured articles. Any featured article on a player would include detail on his dates of birth and death, which colleges and teams he played for, and what honors and awards he received. Looking at the website, this seems to be mostly what the pages contain. Thus under the policy, I believe this should not generally be included as an external link. I'd make an exception, however, if there are cases where the link goes to a page on oldestlivingprofootball.com that clearly includes information that wouldn't be part of a featured article on the person in question. That determination would have to be a judgment call, but looking through the site it seems to me it's mostly not appropriate for external linking under policy. --Batard0 (talk) 02:15, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

SRJubyn, thanks for the background on oldestlivingprofootball.com. Batard, thanks for giving a rundown of those policies. Many of us still seem to be missing the point of this discussion. I am not contending that oldestlivingprofootball.com can't be used an source in an in-line citation, although directly citing oldestlivingprofootball.com's own sources would be better. The problem is oldestlivingprofootball.com being used as an external link. As I explained above, generally only two types of sites are appropriate for inclusion as external links: 1) official sites related to the subject 2) structured listings from definitive, widely recognized resources that themselves are notable enough to be the subject of an article on Misplaced Pages. oldestlivingprofootball.com is neither. If there is incorrect information on Misplaced Pages pulled from NFL.com, pro-football-reference.com, or some other resource, by all means, let's fix it and cite the correct info properly, perhaps with a note about the persistence of the erroneous data. Carpet bombing Misplaced Pages with links to oldestlivingprofootball.com, often where there is no dispute about the player's vital data, is not the way to do this. Tnspro, I must say that your comments here are absurd and inappropriate. It is not a personal attack to describe your editing habits and how you may be violating core principals and policies of Misplaced Pages. If you want to see what a personal attack looks like, take a look above at your comments about me. Assertions such as "Have you ever done research on these football players? It really does not seem like it. DO SOME RESEARCH!" are hostile and wildly incongruous with reality. If you take the time to look at my contributions here on Misplaced Pages, you will finds thousands of edits about American football players and coaches. In many cases these edits have added biographical data that I researched from reliable and notable periodicals. Furthermore, over the past three years, I've sent hundreds of emails to David DeLassus at College Football Data Warehouse to share my findings and those of other Misplaced Pages editors with him so that he can improve the accuracy of that site. Tnspro, your behavior on Misplaced Pages is ridiculous and disruptive. It needs to stop. Jweiss11 (talk) 08:14, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Tnspro has continued his link-spamming. What is the next course of action here? Jweiss11 (talk) 01:52, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

User:Jweiss11 - So, you consider fixing the Don Murry death information (Misplaced Pages had he died in 1952 when he died in 1951!) and taking out a "source" that mentions that he died but no date spamming? Get off your high horse pal. You didn't know the information and I added it. There IS a link to his obit. If you are so great at finding information, find it! Or should I just give the link to you like the actual death date for him? You are doing nothing but causing trouble where there shouldn't be. You should continue to do 'clean-up' work on Misplaced Pages and leave the searching and addition of factual information to the experts. You need to stop, the only one being ridiculous and disruptive is you Jonathan. I will say it again, I came to Misplaced Pages to ADD information that YOU and apparently everyone else does not have or did not bother to look for and in doing so, I have added the web site where you CAN get the information. You are lying when you say I am spamming and it will be dealt with accordingly.

Lee Bodden on Pats 2011-2012

Lee Bodden is not listed as one of the defensive backs for the Patriots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.42.219 (talk) 08:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Carolina Panthers FAC needs reviews

Hello again! The Carolina Panthers FAC has been up for well over a month now, and has received several reviews. Unfortunately, it has not received enough reviews - although consensus is leaning towards promotion, there is not enough reviews to do so. If you have time and are willing to do an impartial review of the article, please feel free to do so - for reference, no American football team article is a FA and this would be the first article to have achieved such status. Toa Nidhiki05 00:27, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Template:Infobox NFL coach

There has been a pending merger on Template:Infobox NFL coach for the best part of a year because User:Dirtlawyer1 requested that it be held over until a discussion regarding the future of the NFL biography infoboxes had occurred here. I'm not aware of any discussion having happened, so it occurs to me that we should either have that discussion now or press on with the merger. American football is one of few sports yet to merge its biography infoboxes, and I see no reason why that should be the case. Surely it can't be that much of an issue? – PeeJay 23:50, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Why don't we have a discussion of it now, then? What needs to be resolved? It seems fairly clear to me that the infoboxes should be rolled into one. This should include Template:Infobox gridiron football person too, no? How are Canadian football bio infoboxes generally treated? They should quite likely be included in the overarching football infobox, because they're similar enough. I've also noticed that the gridiron football person template includes military service details, while the main NFL player one appears not to (at least I think this is the case; please correct if wrong). --Batard0 (talk) 14:16, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm hoping that User:Dirtlawyer1 will be able to answer the question of what needs resolving, since he raised the initial objection. As for your suggestions, I really don't think that military service info should be included in a sports infobox; a person's military service is not relevant to their sporting career and should be included separately. I do agree, however, that all gridiron football biography infoboxes should be merged. There are quite a lot of people who have switched codes from Canadian football to American football and vice versa, so that makes a lot of sense. If only it were possible to merge those infoboxes with those of other codes for people who have played rugby union or Australian rules football! – PeeJay 14:31, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree about the military thing in that it's clearly not relevant to a person's sporting career; I simply noticed that military info was added to a couple articles I've edited and helped promote to GA (e.g. Dante Lavelli). At the same time, I can't see any real problem with it. In fact, having a separate box for military service arguably creates unneeded clutter. I'm agnostic but thought I'd bring it up, as it seems like the kind of thing that ought to be resolved before a wholesale merger takes place. I also concur on having a unified infobox for Canadian and American football given the large number of players who have played both, Warren Moon being perhaps the most prominent example. I've never seen a player who played pro rugby or Aussie rules and American/Canadian, but I suppose there have to be at least a handful. --Batard0 (talk) 16:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

You're right, it does make the article look more professional to merge the military service infobox with the sporting one, but I'm not sure it's even needed as part of the infobox. And don't worry about the rugby/Aussie rules merger, I was just being facetious. – PeeJay 21:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Hey, guys. I just saw this discussion (and that my name had been invoked). Give me a couple of days, and I will respond at length over the holiday weekend. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:00, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Just as a point of information, the relevant templates under discussion are as follows (please add others if any are missing):

• Template:Infobox NFL player
• Template:Infobox NFL coach
• Template:Infobox pro football player
• Template:Infobox gridiron football person

We would probably need to come up with a generic template name into which to merge these, if that's the ultimate consensus. I'm not sure what that would be. --Batard0 (talk) 08:17, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Article for Rams QB Tim Jenkins

The article for Tim Jenkins needs to be cleaned up. I would do it, but this is not my specialty. I focus on taking players of pictures. And speaking of this, I bought a new camera because of all the new restrictions about bringing things into the stadiums. It has 30x zoom but I am not happy with it because we had our first home game last night and the pictures came out crummy. I used to bring in a Canon DSLR with a big lens. I think I will try to figure out a way to bring it back in. Any suggestions? Can anyone recommend a good camera that they will let me bring in that also has a good zoom for shooting moving players? Thanks, Jeffrey Beall (talk) 00:33, 26 August 2013 (UTC).

• I've nominated the article for deletion; see Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Tim Jenkins (2nd nomination). It was deleted once already last year. Mackensen (talk) 02:03, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess that's one solution. Jeffrey Beall (talk) 02:54, 26 August 2013 (UTC).

Well, I cleaned it up too, but he's not any more notable than he was a year ago. Mackensen (talk) 03:05, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

2013 season pages will need updating soon

Hello NFL WikiProject, I know we don't do much organized collaboration here, unfortunately, but I did want to throw this out there as a way to get some articles to be useful for readers. Every 2013 season page has navboxes for all the games that, after they occur, need updating. While a bot would be the best way to do this admittedly tedious task, that would probably be too complex, though if someone wanted to try to figure out how, more power to them. Anyway, I thought maybe each week, some volunteers could do the boxes for a few teams, which would actually be double season pages, as you can simply copy over the information from one team's box to its opponent, with a few minor changes. These articles can really be useful for readers, but often they do not get updated in a timely fashion, if at all. If there is interest in this, let me know, and I can setup a "signup page" of sorts. Thanks! Go Phightins! 01:23, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean the table, like at 2013_New_England_Patriots_season#Schedule? Hot Stop talk-contribs 01:31, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Well those need updating too, but they usually get done. I mean like the tables at here. Go Phightins! 01:34, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Gotcha. Hot Stop talk-contribs 01:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I take it my suggestion last year to create 256 separate templates for each regular season game, similar to {{2012 Summer Olympics men's basketball game E2}}, was probably too much work, and it's probably easier to just manage 32 pages instead.

And yes, I also noticed last season that these articles did not get updated in a timely fashion, and were only done primarily by one or two users (sorry, I have to decline because I'm going to busy in real life for most of the season, especially during most hours of Mondays (UTC)) Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:39, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

That would be a lot of work, but might be easier in the long run. For now, I think we need to devise a consensus project-wide as if they are useful to readers, and if so, a method to do them in a timely fashion. Go Phightins! 21:49, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Page move: John Cyprien

The page of Jaguars rookie safety Johnathan Cyprien was moved to John Cyprien a few weeks ago. Ever since he was drafted, I don't recall ever hearing him referred to as John. Isn't an article title supposed to reflect the person's most common name? ~ Richmond96 T • C 22:22, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Roster question

If a player is released prior to the 2013 regular season beginning, their infobox should read "20XX–2012", correct? Been seeing a lot lately that list "20XX–2013" for players who were cut over the weekend. ~ Richmond96 T • C 23:04, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Funny you bring that up. Me and user:Edday1051 have been discussing that. I'm in the opinion that it should be the same that has always been and be 20XX–2012 to avoid confusion that they played in a regular season game during the 2013 season.--Yankees10 23:09, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

my position is that we should include the new league year. I've explained why on my talk page in a discussion I've had with Yankees10. I think it may be moot because I think I just found the solution. Muletastic made this edit on David Carr's player page. https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=David_Carr&diff=next&oldid=571003506 what do you guys think? I wish I had thought of this. I'm no expert in punctuation, so if anyone knows what punctuation is best used here, (semicolon, comma, etc?).Edday1051 (talk) 01:41, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Would anybody support the idea of only including the teams the players played in games for like the MLB ones do?--Yankees10 01:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

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