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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Kirby Puckett

I'm doing a lot on his article, but all the help I can get would be appretiated. It still needs a good amount of work to be FA status

Template1

I have just undertaken the first steps at developing a template. Yardcock 20:55, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

I've done some editing to your template. First off, I think it was an excellent start. I've clarified how the basic article would be sectionized. I think that the entire article from the intro section through the "retirement/post-pro career" section should be written in paragraphs. Lists should only appear in the playerbox and the other sections (after the retirement section). —siroχo 08:47, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

I'm looking forward to helping out with this. I don't have any suggestions for the template - it looks fine to me. Varitek 19:44, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Biography portal

I've created Wikipedia:Wikiportal/Biography to see if anyone else thinks it's a good idea and would be willing to participate. It's still just a rough sketch of an idea. Tecmobowl 22:09, 24 October 2006 (UTC)Matt 01:07, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Still active?

Is this project still active? I see some work was done on a template; before I thought to check for a WikiProject on MLB players, I created my own infobox that I've used in a handful of articles on Twins players; Torii Hunter, for example. It still needs a lot of work but I think it's pretty decent. (For one thing, I am thinking of losing some of the color, so most of the text can have a white background so that individual items in the infobox can be visibly wikilinked.) The great thing is that promotional photos are considered fair use on Wikipedia, so we can grab pictures of every active player from mlb.com. I've also suggested colors for the other 29 MLB teams at this page. (The color values were grabbed directly from the official website for each team.) If anyone would like to help me refine the template, and then afterwards start adding it to MLB player articles in an organized way, respond here or at my talk page. Once I finish with the Twins, I'd probably move on to players on the other teams in the AL Central, since I'm most familiar with them. AиDя01DTALKEMAIL 21:45, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm still interested. Template looks cool. If you want to divvy up the work, I'll start with the AL East players. Varitek 02:23, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Hey, I'm glad somebody responded! In addition to divvying up the work for the players, I'd like to get input on what the final version of the infobox ought to look like, and various other things that might be good to standardize across all current players. It might also be a cool thing to try different infoboxes for retired and Hall of Fame players. I've got a bunch of ideas; hopefully I'll have some time to lay them all out tomorrow. Hopefully we can get some more input and help. 30 teams is a lot. In the meantime, go ahead and start on the BoSox, as I'm guessing they're your team. Let me know if you need a hand with the template, though I don't imagine you will, as it's pretty straightforward. android79 04:10, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
If I may say so, nice work on the template. I think I'll use this for some work on netball players that I've been planning - I've been looking for a nice athlete template for a while. Now if only I had a decent team one. Ambi 14:49, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliments. If you ask me, though, the template still needs work. :-) (Incidentally, this is the first I've heard of netball.) android79 00:33, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
OK, I made a start. I've done Curt Schilling, Bronson Arroyo, and Mark Bellhorn. I think this is going to take a while . . . :-). I think we could probably do with a separate template for retired players, too, with the "current" stuff removed. Oh, and a Hall of Famer template, too - same as the retired one, but with an Induction field. Varitek 20:58, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Looks good. I've made some significant changes to the project page, so if you disagree with anything, just change it. Start brainstormin' below for further ideas on templates! android79 00:33, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

A note about the headshot images from mlb.com: based on my own understanding and that of another editor that I trust (who also happens to be an IP lawyer), these images are indeed fair use, but another editor disputes that. To that end, I would suggest we halt uploading new images for the time being. I'm going to continue to do research on this issue. android79 03:51, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

Baseball Reference

I see Baseball Reference have started their own wiki (using MediaWiki, too) but using a CC ShareALike license :( BR link Varitek 22:10, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

  • That's a shame. Those two licenses are pretty much incompatible, aren't they? android79 00:30, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
I believe so, yes. I did bring it up in rec.sport.baseball with the guy who runs b-r, and he seemed sympathetic to the argument, but he said he didn't want to "free-load" on Wikipedia content anyway (I did explain that Wikipedia welcomes that, but he didn't get back to me) Varitek 18:59, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
He knows that. The rationale, which I don't know and can't guess, must be something else.
I have read a few notices of a new sports wiki! or a new baseball wiki!, some by email, some more public. The technology is attractive. I expect to read a few of them every year now. Some of the aspirations are encyclopedic in nature like BullPen: Baseball's Collaborative Encyclopedia at bb-ref (now 35,157 articles). I haven't yet read why not contribute to wikipedia. (By the way, I am clever enough to identify it as some kind of competition :-) and I don't yet know that I will contribute any mlbplayer articles to wikipedia or to the bullpen.) --P64 03:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
There seems to be confusion at BB-Ref. I have heard that the Bullpen license is GFDL and one of their main editors still thought so in July. ("My understanding is that the Bullpen is supposed to be under GFDL,. . ." --Roger [1])
  1. Their BR Bullpen: Copyrights, unrevised since July 2005, clearly names the Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike License, as original postor stated here.
  2. Their What's the BR Bullpen#Use of Materials on the BR Bullpen is equally clear and contrary: "Who can use this? Anyone. This material is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License."
--P64 04:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Template discussion

Current Player:

  • Name
  • Mugshot
  • Team and Number
  • Position
  • Bats/Throws
  • MLB debut
  • Selected stats
  • Former teams

Above is a description of what the current player template looks like. Any suggestions for changes? Is three statistics too few or too many? Should we do stats from only the last full year of play? Should we add a "career highlights" section? These are questions I asked myself when I started the template, and I'm still not sure what I like best.

For retired players, multiple teams and numbers will be needed, and perhaps a "Years Active" field. HoF players will need that along with an induction date. Any other ideas? android79 00:33, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

Googie Man has suggested that I look at Albert Pujols, Rafael Palmeiro, and Johnny Damon for ideas on what else to include in the infobox. The items that are in that infobox that aren't in mine are: years of experience, age, height/weight, college, current salary, place of birth, and information on draft selection. This is all worthwhile information, and if we can squeeze it into a template without making it huge, I'd like to make that happen. I think only years of experience and age are superfluous – readers should be able to deduce both of these figures from the player's date of birth and MLB debut, and it allows us to avoid making updates every year.

A few other ideas for streamlining the template or offloading some of the info elsewhere:

  1. Replace "selected statistics" and "former teams" with fairly-detailed stat boxes later in the article
  2. Keep salary information out of the main infobox, and instead maintain a listing year-by-year of the player's salary info
  3. Keep strictly biographical information (place of birth) out of the infobox, and make sure it gets mentioned in the article's introduction

When I have time I'll come up with a draft of a new infobox with all or some of this stuff in it.

Also, given the uncertain nature of the copyright status for the headshots, I've been pondering ideas for dealing with that; more later. android79 01:57, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

There is a very good template (Template:Infobox baseball player) that is on a select few of the Hall of Fame player's pages. I would like to suggest this as the standard template to be used on only HoFer pages. Also, I have been sticking a little notation on each HoFer page advertizing their induction (Template:MLB HoF). It is not much, but it gets the job done. I just started adding that to the HoFer pages in reverse alphabetical order. Please feel free to enhance either template or to begin adding them to pages. Keep on keepin' on.--CrazyTalk 18:30, 22 October 2005 (UTC)
I love the idea of a template and have been using it but it does seem somewhat short to some of the avalable statics on players pages, maybe for more experaced players there could be a larger template (with more then 3 stat fields) there could be a Template:Mlbplayer-n where n is the number of feilds an editor want to use. Also like the idea of a "information current as" of tag at the buttom of the infobox, which could apply to info such as weight as well as stats. and for retired players it could be set to "retirement".Jackalsclaw 04:42, 25 December 2005 (UTC)


How about a section for nicknames in the template? Also, if possible, it would be nice to adopt the "baseball player" name for the template, rather than Mlbplayer, since the template is almost entirely non-MLB specific. -- Isaac Lin 18:12, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

So what is going on with this, I still see a variety of templates being used on player pages? The template is very difficult to use if you have never done it before, and there is no standardization from player to player. Check out Template:Infobox Bridge for a good example of a template page that is easy to use. It shows how to setup the template as well as what the values are. I would suggest a template for pitchers and a template for fielders, and then have stats or other information consistent from article to article.

I brought this up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball. I think we should keep current season statistics off player pages. The only case where I have seen this as an issue is at Melky Cabrera, and I have not seen this type of editing conflict with veteran players' pages. The reasoning is similar with regard to keeping current records off team pages. Wikipedia is not a news service, and these types of information would require almost daily updating until the regular season is finished. Current stats at Wikipedia would become inaccurate quickly (perhaps a reason why current player stats are not on many player pages?), and current stats can be easily found online and given links in "External links" sections. Leave current stats up to Wikinews and other news reporting services. -- Win777 21:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I added some comments about this at the bottom of the project page (sept 7, 2006). Let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

Help?

Hi, I'm new to Wikipedia and I'd like to get my feet wet by dealing with something I know well. I looked at the Bobby Thomson page and would like to flesh out the Shot Heard Round the World material into its own article. I don't know how to deal with the disambiguation with the Revolutionary War Shot heard 'round the world and I'd appreciate general pointers in how to handle baseball articles on the Wiki. Ferret-aaron 13:48, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I would be interested in taking on the NL Central division if no one else has claimed it yet and if this project is still active. Scs411scs


Statistics template for player pages?/Shiny Logos

I was thinking that having a template for season/career statistics would be a nice addition to the bottom of player pages. Thoughts? --gavindow 07:03, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I think this would be a valuable addition.-Colin Kimbrell 15:30, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

HoF Template

Please see Template talk:MLB HoF#Move icon into infobox for suggestion about Template:MLB HoF. BTW, Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball players#Templates mentions a Template:Mlbhof which may or may not be the same as Template:MLB HoF. 66.167.253.49 20:07, 23 November 2005 (UTC).

Template:Mlbretired

Okay, I've started this (finally). It's extremely similar to the existing template for active players. —BorgHunter (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

See Fred McGriff for an example of use. —BorgHunter (talk) 01:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I like the idea of this template and have added it to the Rico Petrocelli page. Can somebody check ot out and let me know if I'm on the right track. ? No Guru 22:57, 28 December 2005 (UTC).

Possibly joining the WikiProject

I was wondering if I could join the project. I love baseball, and I would be eager to help. I could take any division of baseball (I could even do more than one if needed), and I can find a lot of information from MLB.com.

Oh, and sorry about the Mlbplayer template thing. I might have an idea on how we can fix that.

--Bookworm1 December 17, 2005

Re:Joining the WikiProject

I still haven't seen a reply posted...I'm not sure what to do, would it be on my talk page?

I've started adding Mlbplayer templates to players in the NL East: Alfonso Soriano, Edgar Rentería, and I even started an article for Lance Cormier and I added an infobox. The first one I did before I found about the project was Brad Wilkerson, even though he now plays for the Texas Rangers. I also updated the Atlanta Braves roster template.

So I'm not sure if I should keep adding the infoboxes, or wait for a response...

--Bookworm1 December 18, 2005

Just one more thing. Should I add my name and that I'm doing the NL East division and I'm writing new player articles on the talk page under Participants, or will you or someone else do that?

--Bookworm1 December 19, 2005

Free Agent Players

I noticed that the Bret Boone page had an infobox with Mariners colors and it had his Seattle Mariners mugshot. I was thinking that for free agent players, instead of having the colors on the infobox of the team they last played with, we should have the red and blue MLB colors and note on the "team" part of the infobox that they are a free agent. I also think we should also have the mugshot of the team he last played for (I've got Boone's Minnesota Twins player photo). Any ideas on that?

--Bookworm1 December 19, 2005 19:52 (CT)

  • I've been changing free agents to having just a white background; sorry, didn't see that you'd tried to start a discussion about that here. I think that using red and blue would cause too much confusion for those teams that already use red and blue, such as the twins. android79 04:45, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Players of Intermediate Status

In addition to the ones we already have, I think we need another template: One for players who no longer play in the majors, but continue to be active in lesser leagues, either internationally or domestically. For example, the odds of Bronswell Patrick ever making it back to the majors are probably pretty slim, but he's still pitching professionally, so a template listing him as "retired" would be misleading. Any thoughts on format? -Colin Kimbrell 14:10, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

How does the 'pedia handle presumed dead and presumed alive where death dates are listed? presumed retired is similar. In baseball talk, "retirement" routinely refers to playing one's last major league game regardless of playing professionally elsewhere, (b) trying to return to the majors, and (c) receiving payment on a major contract.
Given that a template will be used, there might be a general solution by linking the label "retired" or "retirement date" or "Retired(last game):" to a full explanation. --P64 04:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC) and 13:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Will you guys let me join???

I specialize in the Houston Astros--Trick man01 10:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Go for it! android79 15:22, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Managers

I'm wondering how/if managers are being handled by this project. I've been working on, for New York Mets managers, at least, to add succession boxes to their pages for each team, starting with the Mets. If this is taken as a good idea, I'll work on getting it done for more teams.

Also, I'll work on adding the player infobox as I find ones without them, but I'll work on New York Mets players first. One question I have, though, is where should I get pictures from? Xalfor 08:33, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I've done succession boxes for all the managers with pages on wikipedia. The majority of the ones I haven't done are all 19th-century/early 20th Century managers. Floydspinky71 19:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean every manager has a page (at least a stub) but the ones from more than a century ago don't all have succession boxes? Some stubs are one incomplete sentence, some one full screen, so the answer to this question only goes so far. --P64 20:22, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I haven't been working on anything lately.

I was wondering about copyrights on Wikipedia. What's the license for a picture from MLB.com? All the pictures I've uploaded from MLB.com are on the list for deletion.

--Bookworm1 February 4, 2006 10:16 (CT)

Most, if not all, pictures from MLB.com will be deleted as copyright infringement. Most of the headshots I've uploaded using {{promophoto}} now violate the wording on that license template; I'm probably going to have them deleted at some point. android79 01:50, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Is there a way for the current template to work without a photo? Xalfor 09:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Use {{Mlbplayer-nophoto}}. Eventually I'll rework the main template so this one is unneeded, but for now that should work. android79 14:01, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


Team Template Infoboxes

I just updated the infobox on the page for Joe Mays; the infobox was white and said he was a free agent. However, he signed with the Kansas City Royals on December 23, 2005. I changed the colors to royal blue and black. Would those be the correct colors for the Royals?

Anyway, I thought to avoid confusion, it might be a good idea to have a list of colors for each team infobox on the page where the infobox template is. Another idea might be to have a separate template for each team. Just a thought.

--Bookworm1 February 5, 2006 10:25 (CT)


On Thursday, I updated the Larry Walker page. Because he retired after the season, I thought he should have an Template:Mlbretired table, instead of the table that was on the page. Instead of using an MLB headshot, I used an image that was already on the page. Would that be a better idea for retired players? --Bookworm1 February 12, 2006 14:06 (CT)

Categories versus Succession Boxes?

Does the Baseball Project have a consensus on using categories versus series/succession boxes? After adding added a few succession boxes (Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year) to Ozzie Guillen's entry, I now think they would be more appropriate as categories; they also do not yet exist. I think managers are better candidates for succession boxes than award recipients. If anyone has any links, internal or external, dealing with this same issue, please post them. dfg 19:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

sucession boxes

Howdy, I was just roaming around and found that most player's succession boxes have a simple link to the year, like 2001. I have changed a couple of them to link to [[2001 year in baseball|2001]]. I think this works better. I'll probably start changing a bunch of them later. Cacophony 01:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Category proposal for current MLB players

Please see my proposal here and comment if you like. Thanks! android79 02:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

New version of infobox

I've started playing around with an updated version of the player infobox. It will allow you to exclude fields that aren't used; for example, if a player has no image, you won't have to use a "-nophoto" template instead; just don't specify an image. The template is at Template:Infobox MLB player, and you can see example usage at Template talk:Infobox MLB player and at Torii Hunter. Let me know what you think. android79 14:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I like how that looks. I think it fits perfectly as a replacement for the two templates now. One thing, though slightly unrelated, that I think would be good is some standardization of what statistics are included in the infoboxes. Xalfor 03:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

World Baseball Classic Template

I just created a template, similar to the Template:MLB HoF, that could be placed on every Major League Baseball player who is participating in the Classic. Take a look at it here (Template:WBC 2006) and let me know what you think.
--Bookworm1 March 13, 2006 21:18 (CT)

Wouldn't this be better served simply by using a category? That, and I don't think using the WBC logo on individual player articles qualifies as fair use of the image. (Same goes for the HOF template. I'm not a huge fan of that, either.) android79 03:28, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree. I've long had strong doubts about the HOF logo's fair use on player pages. ×Meegs 03:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
By my understanding, the image would be fair use only on the WBC page. However, if you replaced the WBC logo with the flag of the country the player is playing for, I don't think it would look so bad. ςפקιДИτς ☺ ☻ 04:11, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Sounds interesting...

I think I'll try my hand at this here project... --Alex 22:10, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I will as well. I specialize in the Chicago White Sox, but I could write an article for pretty much any aspect of the game.--Pal5017 04:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Extra infobox template

I just spent some time fixing up Template:MLB player, adding it to Jeff Weaver (it was already used on a few prominent pages such as Warren Spahn and Kirby Puckett). Then I came here and saw that there are already better-developed infoboxes that you guys have been working on (Template:Infobox MLB player and Template:Mlbretired). D'oh! Template:MLB player is only used on a few players, so it should be easy to sub it out, but are there any ideas in that template that we should apply to the existing templates? -Big Smooth 21:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Team colors for Infobox MLB Player

I was wondering if I could make a suggestion about the team colors used in this template. I made the changes I'm speaking of to the one on Barry Bonds. I'm suggesting using the colors here: [2] and [3].

For instance this was the old color scheme for Bonds/Giants: █ and █

After my change: █ and █

Let me know and I'll make the changes to the main list in the template talk. I just thought we could make the colors more correct. Thanks! -- FPAtl (talk) 07:27, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Question About Wins/Losses/Pitching Record

Currently there is Win (baseball), yet there is no corresponding Loss (baseball). There is also an article Wins which is a baseball wins stub. I'm going to put it up for deletion once I figure out which deletion method is appropriate and add a disambiguation page for Wireless Intelligent Network and Win (baseball). The only two articles I've found doing quick searches for the wins/losses/record stats in baseball are the two wins articles.

The question is, should there be corresponding articles Loss (baseball) and Pitching Record/Record (baseball)? Note that baseball record can mean the pitcher hybrid stat of Wins-Losses, or the analagous statistic for teams. BigNate37 23:50, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I am joining

I add player templates for current players. Thanks, User:Clay4president

Hello, I'd like to join although my time is limited. At present I am working on Lee Smith (baseball). Em-jay-es 07:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Invitation

I just wanted to let you know that the Biography WikiProject has been reorganized and we wanted to see if you guys were interested in merging with us? We've reorganized it so that it's more like the Military history project with task forces for the specialized areas. One of the task forces we could create could be Athletes-- by merging with us and becoming a task force, you wouldn't lose anything! You'd keep your same page here, it would just be redirected to Athletes task force (which we'd create) and you would continue as before, except that instead you'd also gain the benefits of being part of a larger project. We would give you a parameter to our Project banner (athletes-task-force=yes) and a note would appear that says the article is a part of that task force (see example on military history article), plus having peer reviews and collaborations, and being able to grade articles by class and importance so that the articles can be part of the WP:1.0 project and much more... Let me know what you think! If you are interested, you need to add your project to the task force vote we're currently having plange 16:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

MLB box issue

In the article Chase Utley, the absense a former team field with <*nowiki> tags on it appears to push the whole article down. i was hoping someone could take a look at it. Thanks. American Patriot 1776 02:23, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Player nationality

Someone just changed Yurendell de Caster's flag from Curaçao to Netherlands Antilles. I note that Andruw Jones's flag was not changed on the Braves' page, even though he's from the same place. Is the de Caster move official policy, or in error? If there is no official policy, I would advise that it be in favor of Curaçao and against NA, since the Dutch government has already passed laws to dissolve NA and clarify Curaçao's status. --M@rēino 13:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The article you refer to clearly says that the legislation has been passed, but it will take effect in 2007. Furthermore, the islands will become personal owning of the King of the Netherlands, so probaly a Dutch flag should be put. Up until Curacao is not an independent country, its flag should not be used.--BlaiseMuhaddib 13:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that full-blown United Nations-recognized independence is necessary. We use the Puerto Rico flag, for instance, and PR is definitely not an independent nation. --M@rēino 21:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, but if Curacao is currently part of Netherlands Antilles and will be part of the Kingdom of Netherlands, why do you want to use a local flag? You are not using Arizona flag for player from Arizona, and yet Arizona is a state (within a federation). --BlaiseMuhaddib 10:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Because Arizona has no right to leave the USA, but Curacao, like Puerto Rico, does have the right to leave and form its own nation. --M@rēino 14:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
Who said Curacao can leave? It is a part of an autonomous administration of Netherlands, not a sovreign state within a confederation as CIS. --BlaiseMuhaddib 15:30, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The Dutch government said that Curacao can leave if they vote for independence (although, like Puerto Rico, they voted to stay). No one else's opinion, mine or yours included, is important. --M@rēino 19:12, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
(back to the left) What is the purpose of flag symbols? Beside spicing up the page and the 'pedia in general (marketing), the symbols convey a little information concisely. "Baseball information on baseball pages" makes sense, but the need to use only one symbol is overriding and baseball information about nationality is equivocal. Some players are nationals of more than one kind for the 2006 Classic alone, not to mention other inter-national baseball competition during their careers.
If the purpose is nativity, or nationality at birth, there should be consistency throughout Wikipedia by policy, mainly in the introductions to biographical articles when birthplaces are identified in text. For the ballplayer Jack Glasscock, I added the parenthetical note in "Glasscock was born in Wheeling, West Virginia (then Virginia)" alluding to the creation of a new U.S. state. --P64 14:08, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Lee Smith (baseball)

Lee Smith (baseball) is currently in Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week if anyone wants to vote. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 21:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

stats are not (c) protected

An inspiration from CoTW

As many of you may know, Lee Smith (baseball) was CoTW (still is for some reason; i don't know why), and we made great advancements in the progress of the article.

I was thinking our WikiProject could have it's little CoTW in which we contribute to a baseball player's article and clean it up (preferably someone who is a HoF or famous, but whose page is in bad quality).

Tell me what you guys think!

--Nishkid64 15:11, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea, I'd be glad to help. Catfish Hunter looks like it could use some work. - PoliticalJunkie 14:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Great! I'll get started on that, and anyone else in the WikiProject can join the bandwagon at any time and contribute. --Nishkid64 16:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Awards and more stats

I too would like to join!

I've also updated the template (a bit premature, I know) to support more stats (to accomodate the sabermetrics folks) and recognize MLB awards. If you want to see how it works, check out the player pages for the Los Angeles Angels. It's similar to the current system for stats.

Cardinalwraith 07:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)Cardinalwraith

I appreciate your effort, but I personally don't like how the color scheme is working out. If you tweak the previous template (the one that we all use nowadays) instead of using this one, that would make all the baseball player pages more universal because they would have similar templates, instead of different ones for different teams.

P.S. You're welcome to join the WikiProject. The more, the merrier. --Nishkid64 23:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Statistics for active players

Many active players' articles include some of their statistics. They may be displayed at the top in the MLB infobox, or sometimes in addition appended at the bottom (i.e. Albert Pujols). Part of the problem with including active players' statistics is that they are almost always out of date, as few people are motivated to come here and update a player's statistics after every night. And it's not just one or two games that these stats end up being out of date. As of this writing, Pujols' stats are as of July 18, and this is for a player who is one of the most talented and popular in the league.

Of course, this is an issue because outdated statistics are not very useful, but this can potentially be bad for us and our readers in other ways. When the statistics in an article are in a constant state of flux, it's difficult to be sure that they are correct. Ideally a good-faith editor will copy them from an external site and paste them here, and once in a while somebody will give them a little bit of scrutiny to be sure that they're correct (such is the point of wikis). Now, if I were to go to Hank Aaron and start adjusting some of his statistics, that would be very suspicious, and other editors would immediately revert my changes unless it was clear that I was fixing something. On the other hand if I were a vandal and I randomly subtracted 20 points from Jorge Cantu's batting average, chances are unless a particularly devoted Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan happens upon the page, the vandalism will stand because people will see my edit and just assume I'm updating the stats (and most likely not verify my edit). And of course the point holds if I'm not a vandal but a good-faith editor who mistakenly copies the wrong number over.

Short of creating a bot that scrapes ESPN.com player pages on a regular interval, there's no real way to ensure that player pages won't have inaccurate stats (and in my opinion such a bot would be a big waste of server resources). With that in mind, nobody should ever trust Wikipedia to be a source of current statistics. Therefore I move that statistics be removed from all active players' articles and replaced with a link to an off-site, up to date player profile with complete statistics. Besides inactive players, exceptions could be made when individual statistics are extra significant, such as Barry Bonds' home run total which will in all likelihood be updated in real-time and properly scrutinized. — GT 08:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I just programmed a bot that extracts players' statistics from ESPN and puts them up on Wikipedia. I don't think it would be a huge drain of server resources if it ran on a 15-30 second interval. The bot also changes the date the statistics were last updated. So if it hadn't run in a couple of days, the page would reflect that. If a vandal or mistaken editor fudged a certain player's statistics, the next time the bot ran, it would catch the error. If the bot ran at a daily interval, player statistics would be fairly accurate. - PoliticalJunkie 15:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

PoliticalJunkie, you really created a bot this quickly? If so please create a username for it and get approval for it over at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approvals. Then I suppose if you wanted the bot to automatically update stats at an interval such as 7 days (so the stats are current enough to be meaningful, but so that we're not updating needlessly often), that would take care of my concerns. However I will need to see your bot in action before I drop my complaint. — GT 21:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I created User:StatsBot to maintain player statistics and left a request at the bot approval page. A sample edit can be seen here. However, I proposed that the bot edit every three days. It's not too often where it's a drag on server resources, yet it still maintains reasonably current statistics. Also, if a vandal strikes, the time between correct edits is decreased. If you wish to change the look of the output table, please make suggestions. At the moment, I'm not sure if I like the stark white color. Thanks. - PoliticalJunkie 01:49, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

What about updating the stats in the baseball infobox at the top (example: Barry Zito)? — GT 20:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
GT, I really don't think it's that necessary to remove stats. I have yet to see someone vandalize the stats of a baseball player. If you really are concerned about the possibility of this happening, I could go team-by-team and manually update stats on player infoboxes. I know that I updated many player stats when I was adding infoboxes a month ago (that's why a lot of the current baseball players were last updated in mid-July), and if you want, I can update player's infoboxes again (if PoliticalJunkie's bot doesn't work for infoboxes). --Nishkid64 16:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Right now, I'm trying to code for infoboxes, but encountering some problems. I'll try and do it, but if not, I agree with Nish's suggestion. - PoliticalJunkie 17:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Without a bot we would need volunteers to manually update ~750 (30*25) pages every week. Consider me skeptical if you two are claiming that you both want that responsibility and won't neglect it shortly afterwards. And besides being outdated the stats can become inaccurate when editted either through human error, which we are certainly highly vulnerable to, or through deliberate vandalism, which though might not be an issue currently could conceivably be in the future (...as I try not to violate WP:BEANS). What I'm getting at is that without a good and reliable bot, nobody should consider Wikipedia a primary source for statistics, or in general a central authority for up to the minute accurate information when we can't provide it. — GT 20:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't have to be a central authority for up to the minute accurate information, because baseball stats aren't updated every minute. When teams have days off, the stats don't even have to be updated daily. Currently, the bot works fine with everything except updating the infoboxes. However, that's not a primary concern. The infobox displays which date those statistics were last updated. The table of contents on a player's page will clearly show the "Career Statistics" section. There, the statistical areas displayed in the infobox will be in the table showing the player's up to date career statistics. - PoliticalJunkie 20:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming you mean weekly updates by saying it'll take 750 edits to update all baseball player stats. I'd surely do it if this is the case. I already average 500-700 edits a week by doing stub sorting, vandal-fighting, article cleanup, etc. Heck, I'm going to start right now. --Nishkid64 21:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Like I said, I appreciate your enthusiasm but I am skeptical that you or any other person would take it upon themselves to do so much tedious work without giving up after a week or two. A bot is the only solution, otherwise the stats have to go. — GT 11:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Pretend I didn't say "up to the minute" and focus on the bigger issue of people using encyclopedias as a primary source. — GT 11:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Even if we can't have people update every week, what is the big deal? Updating stats every month isn't as bad, either. Look, even Baseball-Reference doesn't update until the end of the season. Even if we update every month, it'll put us on top over B-R, because we have stats and a biography on a player. --Nishkid64 14:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
This is precisely my point. We are not here to compete with baseball-reference or any other site as a repository for information. In fact, we CAN'T do that. The difference is in authority. Although b-r.com expresses that its pages may contain errors, it is generally upheld as a strong authority online when it comes to baseball statistics, a testament to the hard work that Sean Forman has put into it. If you see a player's stat line on b-r.com, you can be damn well sure it's accurate. On the other hand Wikipedia has NO inherent authority, as not only is it an encyclopedia that does not conduct its own original research, but the fact that anybody and everybody can edit it means that it has no more authority than the average Internet user does. If you place any sort of blind trust in something you find on Wikipedia without verifying it elsewhere, you're misusing the encyclopedia. The fact that Wikipedia tends to often be correct has no bearing on this.
How does this tie into our discussion? Because if baseball statistics are only updated at the whim of the various users who visit them, there is very little assurance that they will be accurate. Furthermore since we are not an authority on this sort of information, it's rather misleading for us to thrust those statistics at the top of the page as though we are certain that they don't contain errors. We can do that with other types of information (i.e. date of birth, parents' names) as they are static and are easily corrected if somebody messes them up. Obviously the statistics are not static and just as soon as you verify that they're accurate one day, somebody might come and mess them up the next and you most likely won't come back to verify them, especially if it happens to dozens of articles and you only care about those players on your favorite team. And this is to say nothing of the fact that in September, a player's stats as of July have no use whatsoever and they just take up space at best, and at worst mislead the reader if the numbers have changed dramatically since then.
Once again the only solution is to have a reliable bot that does all this for us on regular intervals. Knowing our stats are accurate will be as easy as seeing if our bot was the one that updated them, and if it ever messes up somebody will surely notice among the ~750 player pages and we will know that the bot needs fixed. — GT 18:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
Retrosheet updates at the end of the season as well. Concerning the bot, I did program something, although it's not the optimal solution. It would have a predetermined set of statistical categories for all batters, and another set for all pitchers. "If statements" can be programmed for notable achievements like Barry Bonds's walk total. - PoliticalJunkie 15:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
That sounds very good. I'm sure somebody would be more than happy to help you if there's anything still giving you trouble. I haven't worked in Python but I've worked in other languages and might be able to help out. — GT 18:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
There is something you could do that would be extremely, extremely helpful. I'm trying to download Anura. I know it doesn't check for edit conflicts, but I will try to modify the module to fix that. If you know how I could download and use it in a program, that would be fantastic. Thanks. - PoliticalJunkie 23:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Images

On Manny Ramírez's page, I was just putting up the infobox template. However, when trying to put in the image, MR1.JPG, it was much too large for the article. How can I resize it while not breaking the template? Thanks. - PoliticalJunkie 16:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Under where you put Image = MR1.JPG|, you add "width=200px|". You can see the addition here. --Nishkid64 12:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Retrosheet player pages

Baseball-Reference.com is friendlier for the typical visitor and it includes roughly the same information --except for careers covered by the core Retrosheet project, digitizing play-by-play records, whose published scope is now major league regular season 1957 to a recent date.

Retrosheet.org includes cemetery data, career end dates as well as begin dates, and some umpire service data, so it is the better resource for whoever writes a basic stub. (The basic stubs that I have expanded to ample ones did not include cemetery data or Retrosheet links. I put cemetery data in the last line of text and Retrosheet in the References where I relied upon it.)

A template or two for linking and citing Retrosheet may be useful. See below, linking and citing Baseball-Reference. --P64 03:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Baseball-Reference, linking and citing

John Hatfield now links to Baseball-Reference redundantly in illustration of several points bulleted here. --P64 04:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The template is not great for use in a list of references, despite fortunate placement at or near the top of any alphabetical list.

  • See Harry Wright#References for example with template links to both player and manager records and not quite at the top of the list. See Doug Allison#References for example with the template link and somewhat standard citation for the same source one after the other.
  • Should it be used in every biography of a major league player or manager? On the other hand, is its purpose mainly to help people who expand stubs, normally to disappear from an article as it is completed?
  • One of these I found as the sole item in "External Links", just below the end of the text (above References, a bad place for External Links). Is the template intended easily and permanently to provide ready access to a major league record from any biography article whose subject is a major player or manager? --that is, not "normally to disappear ... as it is completed"
    • Personally, I applaud this approach in general, having zero interest in a print edition. But Wikipedia may deplore that, even ban it.
    • For the 'pedia, maybe it should expand to an italic blockquote as follows, where the model is "This section is a stub."
"See his Career playing record ^ at baseball-reference"

(Back to the adorable/deplorable approach in general.) Then (as for "External Links" in John Hatfield a I write) it should be above See also, Notes, References, series boxes, categories, and stub tags. But (contrary to this example) "External Links" sectioning is inappropriate and the template should expand to something along these lines. 

Career playing record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
Player record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
Major league record[^] at Baseball-Reference (player)
Vital and Playing statistics[^] at baseball-reference

Those are four alternatives for external links to player pages, easy to multiply and easy to modify for manager(ial) records. 

Career managing record[^] at Baseball-Reference 
 . . .

Of course the highlighted linkname should be the first part (marked [^]) of any version selected, not not "Baseball-Reference.com"

  • If a link to a manager or player page is included in the text of a major leaguer biography, Baseball-Reference should be one of the listed References too (presuming that the author used it). Perhaps there should be two templates, one catch-all for listing in References and one with variations --at least player and manager-- for inclusion in articles.
- See his Career playing record at baseball-reference.
- Baseball-Reference. "FirstName LastName". Retrieved 2006-??-??.

--P64 04:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

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