Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2024/April

"f" is for female players?

A discussion has just started in Talk:2024 World Snooker Championship. More opinions are needed.  Alan  (talk) 14:36, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Music

Did anyone know Music at sporting events#snooker existed? Seems like a weird list. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 14:52, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

History of World Mixed Doubles

A 1993 entry was added to the World Mixed Doubles page, and I recently discovered that apparently there were more mixed doubles events. However, they seem to be non-professional: Metro article by Phil Haigh mentions four of them in the past, including one in 2008 with Neil Robertson and Reanne Evans playing. The 2022 and 2024 events are "professional" events organized by WST, but would the 1991 and 1993 events count as "professional"? If not, maybe we should split the table into two sections. Does anyone have more info on these? AmethystZhou (talk) 05:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

• AmethystZhou the 1991 event was promoted by Barry Hearn as part of his deal with the WLBSA - Snooker Scene for July 1990 says he "hopes to promote [it] with the joint sanction of the WLBSA and WPBSA". It looks from the Tunbridge Wells Courier clipping like the 1993 one was a successor to the 1991 event. (Hendry and Hillyard v John Parrott and Karen Corr, and Davis and Fisher v Jimmy White and Tessa Davidson were shown on Eurosport in September 1993, so looks like it was a tournament rather than a single match.) The four mixed doubles title referred to in the Metro article are probably the ones run by the WLBSA - they are listed in the Team finals section of the Reanne Evans article. There are some press references to Allison Fisher winning three mixed doubles titles - I guess these are the 1991 and 1993 events, plus the one at 1991 World Masters. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 11:58, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for finding the information! I don't have access to the Snooker Scene magazine so perhaps someone else can add those to the Mixed Doubles page. AmethystZhou (talk) 07:11, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Edit summaries

This is a general request to all editors: Please, when making an edit, put something in the edit summary line to indicate what the edit is for. This is particularly helpful with regard to adding century breaks, especially when there are a number of matches in progress at the same time. Just the name of the player and the score will do. This then makes the "Revision history" page a useful "blow-by-blow" history without having to look at each individual edit, and helps to keep track of the centuries. Also, just putting "ce" or the like in the edit summary line is not very helpful. A little more detail please.  Alan  (talk) 18:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Gratuitous tinkering and introducing errors

I'm usually fairly careful when writing prose for snooker articles, both in terms of grammar and style, and also factual accuracy. But there are a couple of recent editors (and yes, we all know who they are) who seemingly aren't happy unless they've rewritten and tinkered with every single sentence contributed by others, often introducing errors in the process.

E.g., in the 2024 World Snooker Championship article, I wrote that Bai Yulu "forced a re-spotted black in the 17th frame after requiring two snookers, but Kendrick potted the black to win 10‍–‍7". This was changed to "forced a re-spotted black in the 17th frame after acquiring foul points from two snookers, but Kendrick potted the black to win 10‍–‍7". However, the source article notes that "Kendrick hit the black when escaping a snooker on the last red and let Bai back in to force a re-spot." In short, Bai didn't acquire "foul points from two snookers" but obtained 7 points from one snooker when her opponent hit the black, which were enough to tie.

I added a photograph of Fergal O'Brien with the caption "Irish player Fergal O'Brien (pictured) retired after his 8–10 defeat to Mostafa Dorgham. O'Brien had played on the professional tour since 1991." The photo (of course) had to be changed to a different photo, and the caption (of course) rewritten to "After his 8‍–‍10 defeat to Mostafa Dorgham, Irish player Fergal O'Brien (pictured) retired from the professional tour, which he was a part of since 1991." Why? No rationale given for the changes, no actual improvements made to either the image or the prose — it's just endless, gratuitous tinkering driven by a seeming obliviousness to the efforts of others and a stubborn refusal to leave well enough alone.

I could go on at length about all the changes (none of them constructive) made to just one paragraph, and all the errors introduced therein — "Michael Holt lost 6‍–‍10 to Xing Zihao" was changed to "he wad defeated 6‍–‍10 by Xing Zihao" — and material deleted without explanation. But the wider question is this: what's the point in contributing to articles anymore, only to deal with incessant meddling that only degrades the quality of articles? There's no point in engaging in time-consuming efforts to fix issues, only to deal with even more meddling in return. This is all time that could be invested in improving articles. Constructive editing is always welcome, of course, but nothing about any of this is constructive. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 09:42, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Fwiw, I think "Fergal O'Brien (pictured), a professional since 1991, retired following a 8‍–‍10 loss Mostafa Dorgham." As it gives a reason upfront (his career length and retirement) why we care, and then the details of why.

Whilst it might be hard to see your hard work be changed, it does come a bit with the nature of being on a callaborative encyclopedia.

I think you are doing a grand job. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:35, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I made the account in 2011 but only started editing last year, maybe I still don't quite get how one should contribute to Wikipedia exactly. But I see editors (including yourself) come in to an article and make these type of changes often, sometimes not without introducing some small errors such as typos. Also often with minimal discussion or explanation as to the rationale behind why they think it's an improvement. The bottom line here, however, is they are trying to improve an article. Do you honestly think nothing about my edits is constructive?

I find it quite insulting to declare others' good faith efforts as "incessant meddling". I could say the same when others "tinker" with what I have contributed, but I won't, because that's what comes with a collaborative process. Not to mention just because my edit is the last one doesn't mean I own the content and it cannot be changed. AmethystZhou (talk) 06:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@HurricaneHiggins: You say "and yes, we all know who they are". Well I for one have no idea who you are referring to. If you are accusing someone of something, I think you should tell them directly. If you are referring to me, then say so.  Alan  (talk) 14:03, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

...also, I tend not to edit article prose much, since I'm not very good at it. I concentrate on getting the numbers right in the scores and the century breaks, and correcting errors where I find them. You (HurricaneHiggins) seem to have scared everyone off with your post, since nobody has edited or added to the prose in the World Championship for a couple of days.  Alan  (talk) 07:52, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Eh? I'm not trying to "scare off" anyone from making contributions — I'm expressing frustration at having repeatedly seen my own contributions gratuitously rewritten for no good reason, in a manner that often degrades the prose and introduces errors. This has been going on regularly for months now. I see no point in spending my valuable time contributing to articles, only to have that material entirely rewritten within hours, without any effort to explain why the changes were deemed necessary. That is neither a collaborative nor a collegial way to approach the process. So I'll be taking a backseat from now on — I'll likely spend more time watching snooker and much less writing about it. Enjoy the World Championship. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 12:18, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Season infobox

Did something change recently at a source level with the season infobox? Up until recently, on the mobile skin on en.m.wikipedia.org, the season infobox has been displayed normally as it would on desktop. As of now though, it now looks like this (aka the infobox is now stretched across the full width of the page. This obviously makes it difficult to read due to the ridiculous amount of whitespace, which doesn’t sound like it was intended, but i can’t find any recent edits to the template itself that would cause this. — CitroenLover (talk) 21:52, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

This seems to be extending to various infoboxes, including ones that have nothing to do with the snooker project, my guess is thar someone changed some css at site level. — CitroenLover (talk) 21:55, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Template:Infobox snooker player/rankings

I was recently taking a look at the rankings parameter on another one of our projects, and I was wondering how we actually use this. My worry is that we now have 11 other sites that have their own (mostly out of date) versions of this page.

Is there a suitable way we could move this information to WikiData instead? How is this generated? I could talk to someone who knows WikiData to see if we could script it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)