Talk:English Tiddlywinks Association

Merge?

Have wikified and referenced as far as possible but suspect the whole thing could be merged into the tiddlywinks article without too much effort. Anyone else have thoughts on this? Lame Name (talk) 06:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

But why? That would be like merging PGA with Golf.

Exactly. Another good example of an unreferenced, low importance, minimal content article that could easily be absorbed into the main article. Lame Name (talk) 09:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, if I'd scrolled down the PGA entry, I'd have realised what a supremely bad example I'd picked! How about FIFA and football instead? The point being that they're fundamentally different classes of thing, therefore should be separate. There's nothing wrong with short entries, provided they are accurate and complete. One of the great strengths of the WWW is the use of links to rapidly hop between pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.50.100.20 (talk) 13:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

But this is the organisations section from the Ttiddlywinks article. All of this article could be condensed into a paragraph or two - once all the non-notable content has been removed - and placed in that section making for a fuller and informative single article. Lame Name (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC).

Removal of tournament information

The recent addition of details on tournaments was removed on the basis of not having references (fair, if harsh to remove the entry within minutes of its addition, since the intent was to amend the entry with references after its completion), but also on the basis of it being "promotional" and "non-encyclopedic". I would assume that the latter issue will be resolved by the addition of references, but I dispute that an overview of the tournaments held under the auspices of the English Tiddlywinks Association, for which the Council post of Tournament Organiser explicitly exists, is beyond the remit of the entry.

There is nothing "promotional" about this content. It happens that I am currently on the ETwA Council, but I am significantly out of pocket as a consequence of my involvement with ETwA; I am certainly not paid for my services. Nor does a discussion of tournaments benefit ETwA (which does not make money from tournament attendees) or in any way invite attendees. Nonetheless, members of the public have contacted ETwA, having found the Association's page on Wikipedia, but failed to find information about tournaments. A significant part of ETwA's role is to organise and officiate at these events, for the benefit of any tiddlywinker able to attend. I would not argue that these tournaments merit their own articles, but as these tournaments have a thirty-year history and have been attended at some point by the majority of players of the adult game, I think they're worthy of being part of the encyclopedic entries on the game.

Assuming a reference to at least a descriptive section of Winking World (which, while published under the umbrella of ETwA, is edited by an elected and unbiased official, is publicly available, and is open to verification by the entire tiddlywinks community), to be followed by third-party references where possible, may I seek clarification on why a summary of the tournaments that ETwA runs might be controversial? I would obviously like to ensure that such content meets Wikipedia's guidelines, or at least to discuss it rather than having it autocratically deleted with limited justification. Fluppeteer (talk) 15:26, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I am sorry you find yourself out of pocket but Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and as such requires its content to be verifiable by reference to reliable sources. It also requires that articles maintain a neutral point of view and avoid conflicts of interest. The article provides a link back to the ETwA website where details of tournaments can be found. The text I removed substantially increased the length of the article but did not provide any supporting references. Lines such as "Paid-up members of ETwA get Winking World for free; it is available to non-members for a nominal fee." could only be seen as promotional (although satisfyingly poetic) particularly as such details are not included in the Winking World section of the ETwA site. Perhaps a sentence or two (proportional to the rest of the article) describing the tournaments could be included (ideally supported by a reference from a reliable third party source) but in the past the article has been used as a form of bulletin board announcing upcoming tournaments and a result service which is not what Wikipedia is about. Lame Name (talk) 07:12, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for the feedback - and sympathy! (Although my argument about expenses was just supposed to argue that the description is unbiased/non-promotional - there is no financial reward to the contributor for adding this content.)

Regarding references - which, obviously, I'll include when any more content is added - I'd like to establish whether Winking World is considered a reliable source. Obviously it would be nice to include truly independent references, but newspaper articles about Tiddlywinks tend to focus on the players rather than discussing the events; I'll add what additional references I can find as soon as possible. While Winking World is published by ETwA, I believe it's unbiased and objective (both edited and contributed-to by academics and with peer review). Indeed, the elected nature of the editor arguably makes it more neutral than most publications. Old issues are available on-line, for reference.

I appreciate that the comments about table fees and the cost of Winking World could be seen as promotional, even though it's not an issue of ETwA making money. We tend to get asked this a lot by interested parties, but I accept that it's borderline and we could affort for that content to be omitted in the interests of not being contentious.

Re. the "bulletin board" issue, mea culpa (being partly responsible). Having revisited the Wikipedia guidelines I'm keen not to step over the line again. Since you seem to be the one most keen to enforce the rules on this article, I want to make sure you're happy with proposed updates rather than engaging in a revision war. I'll try to be more concise with the remaining tournament descriptions, and add them if a corroborating Winking World reference will suffice until we can track down third-party coverage. Apologies for being cantankerous in my initial query. Fluppeteer (talk) 12:39, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: I see from the archives on the "Reliable Sources" discussion page that there is precedent for using the publication of a society as a "self-published" source to verify content on a page about that society. Hence it may be that Winking World doesn't need to satisfy the requirements of an independent source in order to be an adequate reference. I'll restore the tournament descriptions in a more concise form with references to WW, shortly. Fluppeteer (talk) 16:55, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: I've restored the tournament information. This remains inconveniently verbose, but both the timing and the format of each tournament has historically been deemed useful information by third parties, so I hesitate to cut more content. Further corroboration for these details can be found throughout the Winking World publications available via the ETwA web site external link. I'll endeavour to provide more precise references as soon as I can, but the summary article in WW81 covers most of it. Fluppeteer (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

But it remains painfully promotional and unencyclopaedic....

"The Open is an individual pairs tournament, with no handicaps. Players need not attend every round, but cannot miss more than two in order to win. This tournament is deemed novice-friendly."

Attendance details are of interest to those participating but are irrelevant to the average reader. "Deemed novice-friendly" by whom? Etc. etc. Lame Name (talk) 21:22, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The novice-friendliness of these tournaments is directly discussed in the Winking World article referenced at the start of the tournament section; I could refer to it repeatedly throughout the section, but I trusted that doing so at the start would suffice. The "deeming" refers to the general consensus of established players, although the term is not directly attributed in the quoted article. I could elaborate, but only by extrapolating from the original content. Better that the consensus be presented (since it has not been queried by the readership of the article) than it be mis-attributed. I could attribute it to the author of the reference, if that would help?

Attendance details are of interest to those participating (should I turn up?), those describing the event to an audience that includes possible attendees (will havoc be caused if I suggest that the public can turn up?), those interested in following/supporting attendees (is there a knock-out stage, will I miss someone playing? can I interview the World Champion without messing up the tournament?), those interested in interpreting reported results (how come player A with a lower total score than player B and a lower points-per-game than player C nevertheless won the tournament?) etc. I realise that it sounds promotional, but we've had people (including reporters and authors) researching the game who wish to include a reference to the existence of championships, and the question of whether and how they or their readership could attend is a common factor. Yes, this information should be more obvious on the ETwA web site (and efforts will be made to do this), but not everyone can be relied upon to go further than Wikipedia when researching a subject. If I said "turn up at 10:15 to be included in the draw" then I'd agree that a line had been crossed, but I have tried to include enough to field common questions (which will matter to few casual browsers, but does tend to matter to those who are explicitly researching ETwA) and to explain how the tournament formats differ (which may be what the casual reader wants to know) without going overboard on details.

I appreciate it's not a clearly clinical description (I would prefer not to be contentious), but if Wikipedia is to be a useful research tool, it needs to answer the questions that researchers into each subject tend to ask. It happens that the questions we're commonly asked are slightly esoteric. That said, I don't think I've provided more detail than, say, the discussion of the schedule and qualification details for the Wimbledon tennis championships. The exception is perhaps in the discussion of novice-friendliness, but tiddlywinks is no longer in the LTA's enviable position of having a multitude of local events that provide an alternative to national tournaments (nor of having globally televised events which have the opportunity to pubicise their pedigree; if a few million people heard Sue Barker commentate on the National Singles, I'd not have to discuss whether the public should join in).

I'm happy to try to try to tailor the content to better fit the guidelines - I just wanted to explain the rationale for including what's there. If you, as an experienced moderator, find my argument unconvincing then I could be persuaded to trim further. Fluppeteer (talk) 02:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it is essential for an encyclopedia to describe the major events hosted or sanctioned by sports and games organizations. For ETwA, these are the regular tournaments held every year under the auspices and authority of ETwA, a not-for-profit organization. I've noted that the International Tennis Federation, the Professional Golfers Association, and others list their tournaments. Their tournaments often warrant their own Wikipedia pages. For ETwA it should suffice to summarize them on Wikipedia and provide links to the historical results of the tournaments, which I've added. It is important to note that there are pairs, singles, teams, individual pairs, and handicapped events.

On a separate note: I'd like to see an additional section on the ETwA page about its history (founders, formative events and activities, competitions among the countries within the UK, the Prince Philip Silver Wink, etc.) Rick (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to expand the article in anyway possible but any additions need to meet Wikipedia's requirement for verifiability. It should be noted that the International Tennis Federation and the Professional Golfers' Association can be readily found by reference to multiple, non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. Tiddlywinks.org is not a reliable source and has no value as a reference. Lame Name (talk) 14:32, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I feel I should defend the status of tiddlywinks.org as a source. This web site, within the tiddlywinks community, *does* have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The content has been reviewed and checked by a large number of active tiddlywinks players, and the specific pages quoted have been in place (and referred to by independent publications) for some years. While the content has not been through an official academic peer-review process, a number of senior academics in a variety of fields are active within the tiddlywinks community; I would like to think that at least these portions of tiddlywinks.org are as rigorous as most academic sources and certainly most media outlets. At the least, tiddlywinks.org is a self-published source by an accepted expert in the field (the contact point for a large number of media inquiries on tiddlywinks) with no lack of neutrality or interest in promoting ETwA (the maintainer of tiddlywinks.org is based in the US), and there is nothing contentious about the content.

While I agree that it would be nice to quote a completely independent media source with a professional fact-checking and legal department, those who have attempted to reproduce a glossary of tiddlywinks terms have almost invariably done so without permission or fact-checking and have contrived to make numerous errors. I concede that tiddlywinks.org is not as authoritative as, say, The Times, but nor is it a "Questionable Source"; claiming that it has no value as a reference is selling it short.Fluppeteer (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

While I am sure tiddlywinks.org is well regarded within the tiddly winking community I am unable to find any independent publications referring to it, indeed if one watches the Alexa ratings for the site it seems very few people are referring to it. A Wikipedia article should inform the general reader about a subject and not become too bogged down in the minutiae related to the subject. Without any coverage in wider sources the details provided can only be seen as being of interest to a small readership Lame Name (talk) 15:57, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

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I regularly watch Alexa (owned by a big company, Amazon.com) and other sites that report on linking and popularity all the time. Actually, what it reports as to tiddlywinks.org is rather good in this day and age in contrast to the top-ranking sites such as www.Facebook.com and other attraction sites. However, Alexa is not definitive. It is an opt-in tracking site. It tracks sites that users opt-into for tracking. Just like www.Quantcast.com and others. I can post the many other sites that track websites other than Alexa. But this is not a popularity contest. If you search Google for "tiddlywinks" you get about 158,000 hits. If you search Bing for "tiddlywinks" you get about 122,000 hits. You can also spell it "tiddledy-winks", "tidleywinks", "tiddleywinks", etc. If wikipedia is relying on numerical supremacy according to the mass media, well go for it, and I guess y'all will emphasize Britney Spears and Susan Boyle (well, I do like her!) and the rest of the popular media and you'll drown out the rest of everyone: the important but perhaps in the minds of some Wikipedians, the "small people". You know, I've been an avid researcher and historian of the game of tiddlywinks from at least 1978. I post all of my research information on tiddlywinks.org. I have posted many hundreds and perhaps thousands of references to tiddlywinks at http://www.tiddlywinks.org/pubs/bibliography/ in over 30 years, including pre-web and now all-web. I have collected thousands of tiddlywinks games from 1888 onward. I recently spent 3 days performing research at the UK's National Archives at Kew in the UK's Copyright applications from 1888 through 1890. I have performed considerable research in prior years at the US Copyright Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office, the Library of Congress, and many other venues. This is a serious endeavour and research pursuit. There is no need to quash tiddlywinks nor ETwA on Wikipedia. Please be constructive, not destructive.Rick (talk) 01:24, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

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It appears that the Seattle Times refers to tiddlywinks.org, if that counts. I suspect there are others farther down the google list, or only in print. I appreciate that it doesn't have an enormous readership. Tiddlywinks is a minority sport; there will be bursts of interest when the media covers an event, or when people are interested in an event which happens in their vicinity, but we certainly can't expect sustained hits on a site based in the US for so long as the UK winking community is more active. The ETwA web site has the same information, but is obviously not an independent source about ETwA.

It's true that details of the tournament formats don't usually get printed in "wider sources", mostly because the news stories to which we can refer are by their nature abbreviated summaries; press coverage at an ETwA event is common, but neither ETwA nor details of the event usually get mentioned when the players, playing style and jargon make better copy. Some detail on formats has occasionally been presented when a reported has tried to present a personal interest story following an individual player, but finding these sources (which are often in the format of television news pieces) is difficult. I can vouch for the fact that researchers tend to ask about tournament formats, although I'll admit that this information is rarely passed on to the audience.

I concur that it would be wrong for Wikipedia to try to provide all the information necessary for someone to become an expert in a subject. We needn't discuss mat rotation or the handling of dominant corners at tournaments, or teach someone how to file a squidger. However, the level of detail that might be of interest to a casual reader is a matter of judgement. I'm happy that the current tournament descriptions answer questions that a non-player might ask (or, in the case of journalists, have asked) if they're trying to find out about ETwA, an ETwA champion or an ETwA event - they're indirect answers to FAQs, if you like.

Today, someone posted a joke comment on a discussion board - might not someone check Wikipedia to see whether they're serious? If someone claims to be a national champion, did they only win a handicapped tournament? If thirty tiddlywinks players turn up in a pub for lunch, how seriously are they taking the event? Can just anyone claim to be a World Champion? Someone mildly curious might ask these questions; this is the level at which encyclopedias are referenced. Will the information be vitally important to thousands of players and fans? No - tiddlywinks is notably absent from the sports pages of most tabloids, most of the time. Nonetheless, especially with the connection to the children's game and with the popularity of play in educational establishments in the 1960s, a perhaps surprising number of people will ask questions if someone "comes out" as a player; from this we might deduce that there is some basic interest, even if we can't expect people to navigate around ETwA.org and subscribe to Winking World.

Nevertheless, I appreciate the efforts to determine what content is suitable, and I'm keen that we comply with Wikipedia's guidelines.Fluppeteer (talk) 15:10, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

References

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia

The problems here are nothing personal and no one wishes to denigrate any particular body but articles are required to conform to the requirements of Wikipedia....

• Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia.
• It requires that subjects are generally notable and that organisations meet particular requirements of notability.
• The content should be verifiable by reference to independent third party reliable sources and should avoid unencyclopaedic promotional material.

But there is always room for common sense or to simply ignore all rules ;-)

The article should be a summary of what other people are saying about the subject. No one doubts that the tournaments take place and could be summarised in a paragraph or two but to include the level of detail found here they would need to be described in detail by others independent of the subject, and referenced thus, to avoid appearing as promotional spam. Lame Name (talk) 18:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like us to try to conform to Wikipedia's guidelines. That means either that we need to change the entry, or that we need to persuade you (as an independent auditor) that - in spite of appearances - we are acceptably compliant, ideally without resorting to IAR. Hopefully any additional editors will also be persuaded if they refer to this discussion. I'll take your point in turn, because we seem to have multiple bones of contention.

• I do not believe that the ETwA article is unencylopaedic. I don't see that the tournament information is indiscriminate information: it is pertinent to the workings of ETwA, is information for which we are frequently asked by third parties and surely isn't enough information to make the article unreadable. Nor can I see how this information is advertising: it does not encourage people to join ETwA or, I suspect, to attend ETwA tournaments to any greater degree than would merely listing that such events exist (discussing novice-friendliness is as much about discouraging random attendees, and we are frequently asked to clarify exactly this detail); it does not suggest that ETwA is superior to any other gaming organisation, nor even that the tournaments are enjoyable.
• I was under the impression that ETwA met the requirements of notability. Is this in dispute?
• There is precedent that journals published by an organisation are acceptable as a source for pages about that organisation. I could make a reasonable argument that Winking World meets the guidelines for a reliable source, but I don't need to do so in order for it to be an acceptable source of verification for the tournament information.
• Tiddlywinks.org, while obviously being associated with tiddlywinks, is not affiliated with ETwA. It is an independent third-party source. Are we claiming that it - or at least, the portion used as reference, which has not been regularly updated and therefore is unlikely to have acquired errors since the tiddlywinks community have had a chance to fact-check them - is not a [WP:RS reliable source]? Officially, it's a self-published source by an expert in the relevant field whose qualifications are substantiated by his use as a source for articles in mainstream news organisations. Unofficially, these pages have been widely-viewed by the active tiddlywinks community, which includes a number of senior academic researchers and their post-doctoral students at multiple respected establishments of higher education - I can think of few academic publications which have undergone more-exhaustive review.
• I trust we're not claiming that third-party references to the English Tiddlywinks Association are inappropriate just because the third party is a specialist in tiddlywinks? If this were the rule, we would have to discount half the references on Roger Federer's page(s) because they come from publications which are tennis-specific.
• I've removed references to fees lest this be interpreted as promotional, even though ETwA doesn't make (or pay) any money. I'm not sure that I understand what could still be seen as promotional about the tournament information (possibly I am too close to this).

I appreciate that I have provided more information (sometimes up to five sentences!) on the tournaments than someone with no interest in the subject might find pertinent. I can vouch that we are commonly asked about the tournaments in this level of detail by independent researchers; indeed, I provided far more information to a film crew at a tournament on Sunday. I cannot, of course, prove this; still, I do get to hear from third parties who have attempted to investigate the English Tiddlywinks Association on Wikipedia, and who have reported with chagrin that they were unable to find tournament information - this being the initial motivation for me to add it. I've attempted in previous discussions to provide justification for the type of detail that I've included and why it may be of relevance to someone outside the winking community (let alone winkers who are not members of ETwA). I would be grateful to hear which part of my argument is unconvincing.

We have a fundamental problem, shared by many minority sports, when it comes to detailed third-party information. The small number of active tiddlywinkers means that there is little financial justification in providing an independent publication that competes with Winking World (especially since there have been no recent publications of either Newswink or The Squopsman); equally there are insufficient casual fans for it to be worth regular pages devoted to tiddlywinks in the general press. This means that the only reference that I can provide for this level of detail is Winking World, which has been outlawed as an independent reference by dint of its association with ETwA.

Any general news publication must accept that only a tiny amount of their readership will want to know more than a casual level of detail about any minority sport. Equally, most readers will come from a perspective of very little knowledge. Therefore any coverage will be both short and basic. A newspaper which describes a tiddlywinks event has to weigh off their level of detail against the space available for other stories and advertising. This does not mean that a minority of non-experts might not be hungry for more information; historically, one might read a brief discussion of a subject in a newspaper article and then pull out one's encyclopaedia in order to do more research.

An encyclopaedia is an easily-accessible source of a basic level of additional information that is available as a reference for those with a slightly above-average but non-expert level of interest in a subject. When you get to a certain level of interest, you have to accept that you must visit a specialist web site or buy a specialist publication, but there is a large gap between seeing a column in a newspaper or a five-minute TV slot and wanting to buy (or getting any value from) Winking World - or even visiting etwa.org. An encyclopaedia should fill that gap, for the minority that want it.

By equivalence, Wikipedia is the place I've gone when I wanted to know more about Jack Dempsey (having seen a TV documentary) but didn't want to navigate dedicated boxing sites or buy a biography; Wikipedia told me about how a Continuously variable transmission works, and the structures of the CDC fictionalised in Outbreak. If I know that I only desire a given level of detail, I'd rather find my way around in Wikipedia's standard interface than learn a new site's navigation - especially since so many modern sites are full of buggy scripting. A minority sport cannot be expected to provide an equivalent level of detail for the interested reader while referring solely to completely independent sources. So long as the information is unbiased and non-contentious, I do not see how relying on specialist sources is objectionable.

It appears that what remains is a judgement call about whether the level of detail in the tournament section is excessive. I've tried to justify why some readers might be interested in this detail, and backed this up by claiming that independent people have specifically requested this information. There's no requirement that every page on Wikipedia interest every potential reader; if this were the case I could justify deleting every entry on football. It seems to me that only those who might be genuinely curious about ETwA can justifiably assert whether the tournament information is excessive. I'd welcome a specific objection to the inclusion of any of this content which counters my arguments for its inclusion.

Obviously it would be nice to include more fully-independent references to all the information in this entry. I, and I'm sure others, will attempt to add corroborating references as they are uncovered. While this should remove any remaining doubt, I don't believe the article currently crosses the line of acceptability. I'm happy to be persuaded otherwise and have the article corrected if necessary.Fluppeteer (talk) 23:56, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Manners?

"Lame Name", I appreciate your efforts at ensuring that the ETwA page (and others) complies with the Wikipedia guidelines. I also appreciate that Wikipedia is not a democracy and that you are quite within your rights to make changes.

Nonetheless, I was under the impression that we were having a discussion, and that it was clear that there are active contributors to this page who were willing to make any justifiable changes necessary to meet the Wikipedia guidelines. I have gone to some effort to justify the inclusion of every line of content in the entry as it stood a few days ago, and to counter every argument that you presented in favour of its editing. You appear to have edited the article regardless, without any indication as to which of my points you consider to be invalid.

In doing so, you claim to have removed unencyclopaedic content without presenting justification for why the existing content was unencyclopaedic. You have removed references to tiddlywinks.org despite not countering the arguments presented justifying its validity as a reference. You have removed content on the grounds that it is "promotional" without justifying what is promotional about it. You have removed details which, I have vouched, parties uninvolved with ETwA have wanted to know. You have claimed that tournament descriptions which are detailed in the Winking World article provided as a reference are unsupported. You have not made any justification about why the level of detail originally provided is inappropriate, or why it might make the article any harder to read. (I will ignore, for now, that the grammar of the updated version of the article is of itself significantly less legible than the previous version.)

I encourage you to state your justifications. If your original viewpoints are unmodified by my claims in support of the original content, it would be good to know this - perhaps you can persuade me of the error of my ways, or I can restate whichever of my arguments you find unconvincing. I would like to believe that I am rational and open to persuasion; I do not wish to leave the content of this page open to a judgement call. If you have new objections, I would be glad to hear them - either to counter them, or to find them persuasive myself. With no feedback, I have to assume that my arguments have been ignored without justification (for example, if they were unread) - in which case I will be obliged to revert the changes. I would much rather have a discussion than an edit war.

I appreciate that this page has been used in the past to report a list of championship winners. This was not for the benefit of the tiddlywinks community (who would get the same information from etwa.org), and was a genuine attempt to mirror the level of detail seen on, for example, the Wimbledon tennis entry. However, I also appreciate that this was a borderline case, potentially violating the excessive listing of statistics rule, and that this has caused the ETwA entry to be submitted to closer scrutiny than might otherwise have been the case. I would hope that it is clear that the more recent changes were not unwittingly violating guidelines in the same way; as such, it would be nice to avoid the need for autocratic replacement of contributions.

Please state your case before making changes like this.Fluppeteer (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Please do not tell me what to do. The case has been repeatedly made above. One last time.... Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It is not a dumping ground for irrelevant non-encyclopaedic bumph. It requires that its content be referenced by independent secondary sources. Wimbledon is covered by multiple independent secondary sources - hence the detail in the article. Lame Name (talk) 19:55, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I apologise if offence was caused. It appeared that you had ignored an attempt at discourse; I was trying to rekindle the discussion, but I had not intended to be tactless in my frustration.

You have claimed that the additional content is irrelevant and non-encyclopaedic. I have claimed that every piece of content in the original has been requested by independent journalists and members of the public with no affiliation to ETwA (or tiddlywinks) and is corroborated by Winking World. I consider that this is positive evidence in support of my viewpoint, to counter any claim that the tournament information may have undue weight. There is, in addition, no requirement in Wikipedia that every piece of content within an article be individually notable; this suggests that mere knowledge that this information is useful and wanted should be sufficient to justify its inclusion. The content meets none of the criteria for being indiscriminate information. I was hoping that you might be able to support your counter-argument that the content is irrelevant. Is it solely an opinion, or have I missed the explanation?

There is clear precedent that supports the use of publications of that society as a source. This suggests that Winking World is a perfectly adequate source for content that is not contentious, even if we consider it to be biased rather than peer-reviewed by academics and democratically edited. I do not believe that anyone is disputing the facts of the tournaments as described. Can you justify the statement that more independent support for the content is needed in order to meet Wikipedia's guidelines?

The facts relating to tennis players and Wimbledon are discussed in specialist tennis-related media (among others). Equivalently, tiddlywinks.org (a specialist site about the sport, run by an expert in the field as considered by a reliable source) meets the requirements that the Wikipedia guidelines place on an independent source in the context of non-contentious information. Do you have reason to believe that more strict requirements should be placed on references in this case?

This leaves the argument that the content was promotional. I do not see how this is the case. Not only do I have no vested interest in whether anyone joins ETwA or attends a tiddlywinks event, neither does ETwA itself (as a non-profit organisation). Ignoring this, the additional content describes the nature of tournaments and - neutrally - tells the public not to turn up at some events. I will gladly add the information that people who have never played tiddlywinks before should consider training with an experienced player or attending a club before turning up even to the "novice-friendly" events if that is appropriate, but I had not done so in the interests of brevity. I received no feedback on my argument that the level of attendance detail provided (for the individual pairs tournaments) is useful to those interpreting published results or following tournament reports, and to those intending to spectate or report on a tournament, as well as those participating.

Those in the tiddlywinks community are fully aware of the details of these tournaments. We genuinely don't want unschooled members of the public to turn up and try to play. I doubt an understanding of an "individual pairs" will make any difference to whether someone decides to take up tiddlywinks. This content was provided solely to improve Wikipedia, in response to feedback from outside the tiddlywinks community; if I fight for the level of detail I provided it is because I believe that its removal is detrimental to the interests of independent third-parties. If you can tell me what exactly is "promotional" about the content in this context, I will gladly attempt to rephrase it.

I have attempted to refute every objection that you have provided to the content. The reason for my frustration is that, although you have restated your issues, you have not told me why you believe your objections are still valid in the face of my counter-arguments. I am happy to be persuaded that I am wrong, but without feedback it appears that I have simply been ignored.

I am genuinely grateful for the time you have put into making this article compliant, and I'm sorry that the process has not been more straightforward. I hope you will continue to advise rather than merely overriding any changes.Fluppeteer (talk) 23:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

It is exactly this kind of detail.... "I will gladly add the information that people who have never played tiddlywinks before should consider training with an experienced player or attending a club before turning up even to the "novice-friendly" events if that is appropriate,"... that is not appropriate for an encyclopaedic article. It is appropriate for the ETwA website or a promotional poster or an application form but not here.

Similarly.... "Players unable to attend the entire event have been accommodated, with some inconvenience. The tournament is considered relatively novice-friendly; the scoring includes a handicap system." and "The Plate has an "individual pairs" format, with players given a handicap that varies with each round's results; the winner is therefore the player who performed most above expectations. The format accommodates a varying number of players in each round, so players need not attend the whole event, but the winner can miss no more than two rounds." ....is more suited to ETwA publications than a Wikipedia article. Lame Name (talk) 08:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the feedback. So telling members of the public not to attend makes the content more "promotional"? I'm glad that I correctly omitted it. The discussion of novice-friendliness is intended to reflect on the typical make-up of participants (and the effect on their position in the results). Attendees from outside ETwA see the results and the participants, and have been curious about what is going on. Would it be preferable if I paraphrased in some way that avoided "friendliness" and "novices", and made it clear that I was discussing higher levels of expertise? (I used this terminology only because the referred article in Winking World did.)

Likewise, there has been media coverage of events which shows enough of the tournament for the relationship between the scores and the resulting positions to be exposed. We have been asked to explain this by people outside the tiddlywinks community. Not least, it's far from clear to Joe Public what an "individual pairs" is.

There is no such thing as an ETwA promotional poster; as stated, if people who have never played tiddlywinks before decide to play, they will both be put off by losing heavily and likely hold up the tournament, to the detriment of other attendees. A coachload of random people turning up at the National Singles would have a catastrophic effect on the event. Equally, ETwA publications cater to established winkers; there is no need to elaborate on the format of tournaments that almsot everyone has already attended. New players are encouraged to attend tournaments by their peers. However, none of these events is strictly "by invitation", so - since we get asked who can attend - I hesitate to elaborate. ETwA "promotes tiddlywinks" by encouraging people to form clubs, and helps to maintain these clubs; the national tournaments are irrelevant from a promotional perspective. I've never met anyone who took up tiddlywinks solely because they wanted to play in the National Singles.

There is no benefit to providing this information in an ETwA publication, or to the likely attendees of a tournament; everyone who needs to know already knows. This information is solely of interest to people outside the tiddlywinks community - something I know because I'm frequently asked by curious members of the public. It falls in the gap between the level of detail provided by a typical news report and the information provided to people who actually take up the game. Is this not exactly the level at which an encyclopaedic article should be pitched? Fluppeteer (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. It is not a public information bureau. It is not a guide book. It is not a set of FAQs. It is not a web space. This is an article about ETwA - what it is and what it does. Anything else does not belong here. You could try adding details to the Tiddlywinks article along with verifiable, reliable, independent, third party supporting sources. Lame Name (talk) 13:58, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, once more, for elaborating on your objections. I remain confused. What is the purpose of an encyclopaedia if not to provide condensed information to members of the public who wish to read it? What better judgement for the merits of content can there be than that someone independent wants to know?

The article discusses the tournaments that are run by ETwA; the running of these tournaments is part of ETwA's remit - indeed, they are the primary contact that most players have with ETwA. They are obviously not notable on their own (nor, for so long as they are incorporated into another page, are they required to be), nor does the tournament format have any effect on the way an individual game of tiddlywinks is played. I'm not convinced that information about the tournaments which ETwA runs belongs anywhere but on the ETwA page.

If you believe that the information is not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia because it is irrelevant or too detailed, I would be grateful if you could explain what harm the information does and by what measure it is irrelevant, and why this outweighs the needs of those members of the public who have expressed interest. I do not believe, for example, that the information made the article less readable.

If you believe that the information is not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia because it is promotional, I have assured you that this is not the intent. I'm quite happy for the information to be paraphrased in a manner less open to misinterpretation, so long as the same information is contained. I will, for example, gladly find some other way to express "novice-friendliness" if this will appease you. I am happy to hear other suggestions.

If you believe that the information is not worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia because there is no independent third-party reference (beyond those references in tiddlywinks.org) supporting the tournament details, I am unclear as to which of Wikipedia's guidelines this contravenes for so long as an ETwA publication (Winking World) supports the content in the ETwA article. I have explained why there may be difficulty finding fully-independent references, in spite of a level of interest from a minority of the public. I appreciate that it would be preferable for fully-independent references to be available, but if there is an exceptional requirement for this level of verification in the specific case of this article, I would like to know the reasoning; it may be that we can lower the bar rather than trying to meet it. Otherwise it appears that we are trying to meet a standard by which other entries are not measured.

I appreciate the time that you have put into this article. I hope that I can learn exactly why I am failing to find a connection between your objections and the Wikipedia content guidelines, so that I do not invoke similar objections with future contributions. Fluppeteer (talk) 16:06, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean Guidelines or Policy? No doubt you will interpret these as the same. I think all the relevant links have been provided above. Nothing has changed since then. If we play strictly by the rules there are not enough supporting sources to justify a standalone article and this should be merged into the Organisations section of the Tiddlywinks article. Your thoughts? Lame Name (talk) 16:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for the silence - I've been sick, not ignoring the discussion. I'd like us to conform to both Guidelines and Policy as much as possible, and I'd not realised that the notability of ETwA (as opposed to other content on the page) was still borderline. Since the Association was being given the benefit of the doubt, it makes much more sense that the notability of additional information should be queried; apologies for the misunderstanding. I'm grateful to the editors for allowing the entry to persist - and I'll try to find additional references so that we are less reliant on charity. (References about ETwA are slightly easier to find that references to specific tournaments!) Thank you for the ongoing discussion.Fluppeteer (talk) 15:15, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Advancing the talk to content ratio

Around 2010, a great deal of effort went into increasing the talk-to-article ratio of this entry. Regrettably this effort has since declined sharply, and barely any progress has been made beyond the mid-teens, measured in terms of byte count (currently 15.4). Surely, after the passage of over a decade, it must be possible to prune the article by another 20% or so, or to have a protracted discussion in the talk page about something or other. 31.125.6.108 (talk) 09:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)