An anonomous user has recently edited the names of several events on the list of PRIDE events page, most notably the GPs. Whilst technically I suppose he is right, (is each round known by another name in Japan?), do we want to keep their edits or revert? Unfortunately the edits have broken all the related the links so if we keep the new names the content will have to be moved and maybe some forwards set up at the old pages. Thoughts? --- Trench20:03, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
He really should have made sure not to break the existing links, so you can feel free to revert. Alternatively, you can:
Use both names (e.g. PRIDE 31, also known as PRIDE 31 - As Good As It Gets)
Use piped links (e.g. [[PRIDE 31|PRIDE 31 - As Good As It Gets]])
Create pages for the links he created, and have them be redirects to the existing pages.
Well I've gone and reverted the careless edits. Whatever is eventually decided on, if anything, we can't just leave the links broken in the interim. I don't think there are even any alternate names for those events anyway.. SubSeven21:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Event format
Hi all, I've recently added myself to the list of participants. Looks like we've made a start on a standard layout for fighters bios, we also need some sort of standerdized layout for individual events. Currently there are lots of different styles in use including listing each fight under a seperate heading, listing results in a table, (just noticed the tournie brackets added by Hateless, nice work), or just describing the fights within the body of the article.
Also I have recently started adding event summary boxes to some PRIDE events using the Wrestling event infobox format (e.g. PRIDE 28: High Octane), (I noticed this has already been done on a few UFC event pages), should I continue doing this, or should we create our own MMA event infobox? The wrestling event box is already quite suitable and doesn't need any big changes IMO. --- Trench20:20, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Way to go - I was also thinking that we need to standardize event article layout. Could you come up with a proposed format? Thanks! --CasualFighter20:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I would go with two formats, a long-hand format with a description for each match ie UFC 60 and a "stub" table format ie PRIDE 1. I think the ideal is to use the match description format for every MMA event, but realistically we'll mostly be working with data from Sherdog, so people will tend to resort to tables. I'm not a fan of PRIDE Grand Prix 2000 Finals however, I'd like to see a subhead for each match for better readability and skimming. That format used for UFC 60 was based off of what the folks at Wikiproject pro-wrestling were doing for their PPVs as well. (They're using a slightly different format with newer PPVs now, using a bulleted list instead of separate subheadings--which I'm not that wild about actually.) I'll volunteer to come up with a format style guide if no one minds. hateless05:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Agreed on all counts — we can start older events with the PRIDE 1 format and possibly move them to the more detailed UFC 60 format if we get a chance to review the source material (i.e. the DVD for the fights themselves, and old press material for any other commentary). I don't like the GP 2000 format either, it's not very helpful. Please do go ahead with the style guide, we're all being bold around here at the moment; I'm just working on the assumption that if someone doesn't agree with something I've put on the project page, they'll tell me. Welcome to the project. :-) — Estarrioltalk10:07, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I also agree, a brief table of results followed by more detailed fight descriptions should be the eventual goal for MMA event pages. If hateless would be kind enough to draw up a format that'd be great. I have some PRIDE ppv event posters I'd like to add but I'll hold off until we have created a proper MMA event infobox. --- Trench17:44, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I cleaned up UFC 60, basically made subheaders properly capitalized.
Hi there, I'm new to the project and new to WP in general. I noticed that none of the PRIDE Bushido events have entries in here, maybe we should rectify that --Ausmus08:15, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Definitely. We are putting together a list of fighters who need articles, we also should be making a list of promotions and other staff that need them.
We actually have something of a luxury in this Wikiproject in that huge swathes of our subject are simply not covered in the encyclopedia, but are clearly notable and need articles. So those of us here now, in the early days of the project, get to do lots of fun, readily-rewarding work like creating new articles and making templates, rather than the also fun, but harder and less immediately-rewarding work that more established wikiprojects have. There's simply loads to do here, lots we haven't even touched on in discussion yet.
Welcome to Wikipedia and to the project; I've put a standard welcome template on your talk page which contains some helpful links — please read these, they're all very relevant, there's tons of supporting material on how to edit and it's all useful eventually. — Estarrioltalk08:55, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
Record Format
It looks like most pages do not follow the format we have outlined here. This may be because this format is not very convenient, and is too different from the record formats on places like Sherdog. Should we rewrite it?
CasualFighter20:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure - honestly if I were designing it now, I'd make it more like the Sherdog entry... I think the opponent is one of the key pieces of data on each row and should appear early. I don't think it matters so much as long as we're actually editing though - MMA articles are (mostly) woefully underrepresented at time of writing. I couldn't believe Matt Lindland didn't have an article, for example! — Estarrioltalk17:22, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Take a look at what I've done for Matt Hughes (fighter). I have been doing people's records using this format and I feel it is better than all other formats I have seen around Wikipedia. Personally, I'd also like to have a Weight Class column in there as well with so many fighters switching weight classes all the time. It would be helpful for people looking at Randy Couture who want to see which of his fights were in the heavyweight division vs. light heavyweight, or for Matt Hughes to show that his last 2 fights were not in his regular weight class. The only reason I haven't added theese is because the information would be very hard to compile, especially for smaller promotion fights. VegaDark20:32, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
We definately need a new template. Just my two cents, but I've been through many of the UFC fighters records trying to bring some resemblance of conformity to them since I found very few using the current template. I think this is because most fight records come straight from sherdog and the standard that is developing is easier to import and gives more relavent information. Following either format weight class shifts can be noted in the notes column, the addition of another column would not be advisible except for specific cases where people shift weight classes with almost every fight.Johnkinze17:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I intend to create a project box such as are listed on Wikipedia:Template messages/Talk namespace. For this it would be nice to have a small and unique graphic (amongst projects - we can't use the yin-yang used by Wikipedia:WikiProject Martial Arts for example), preferably in SVG format. We could also use this for a userbox — I don't use many of these myself but I have no objection to project userboxes.
Can anyone help? I'm not much of an artist. I may create the project box anyway, we could add the graphic later. — Estarrioltalk18:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
LOL... it may well end up being of a fighter I guess. I just wanted to avoid the arguments that would spawn. :-) — Estarrioltalk21:57, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I've created the banner and the two stub banners using a smaller, edited version of the wrestling sculpture in the MMA article. I had also considered using the fighter picture, I chose this one for now as it's more "classical" looking and less "reactionary". We can change it in future, of course. — Estarrioltalk12:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
I like the greeks, but I have no objection to the baby glove, if we can find a very good and clear picture of one that would convey in a thumbnail exactly what it is to an MMA newbie. — Estarrioltalk10:01, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
I like the glove idea - it makes more sense for modern day MMA, but I don't really see a problem with the sculpture one we have now.. if this was an official vote I'd say I'm a weak yes for the glove. Skeletor211207:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Should it now be procedure to slap the {{WikiProject Mixed Martial Arts}} box on the talk page of every MMA article possible? And if so could someone give it a shorter template name?--TheCooperman13:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Fight records - top down or bottom up?
I'd like to see if we can form a consensus as to whether fight records should be listed with the earliest fights at the top, or the most recent fights at the top. I personally find the Sherdog-style most recent at top to be more intuitive, but would like to see what others think. Anyone? — Estarrioltalk19:12, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
My vote is to put most recent fights first... In asddition to the obvious reasons, it will be a killer to create new tables otherwise, since most sources list the most recent fights first as well.--CasualFighter20:29, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Lesser known promotions
Hi all, just added myself to the list. Have been doing work on the Pancrase article lately, and plan to start/work on articles from other smaller Japanese promotions soon. --Aika15:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Great, good to have you here. My knowledge of japanese promotions is woeful so I'm glad to see we have someone here who knows their stuff. Welcome! — Estarrioltalk16:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
I see the U-Japan event appearing as part of the UFC promotion. I can not find any information stating that this was a UFC event, or related to the event other than similarity in ring and rules. chadq
Ultimate Japan was a short lived co-promotion between SEG and a Japanese promotor, name is slipping my mind right now. It was officially a series of UFC events though. --Aika13:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
"UFC-J" and "U-Japan" are two different organizations, according to sherdog.com's fightfinder. [1] and [2].
I am re watching all those old UFC's, and at UFC 22(I think) Jeff Blatnick (the old color announcer) brought two Japanese guys into the ring to announce "UFC-J", a seperate UFC promotion, run by Japanese promoters, who in broken enlglish, thanked the UFC fans of Louisiana or wherever they were. The UFC had already done UFC Japan: Ultimate Japan two years earlier, and the only two events held by UFC-J were UFC 23: Ultimate Japan 2, and UFC 25: Ultimate Japan 3. There was another UFC in Japan, UFC 29, but it was a regular UFC event, not UFC-J (you can tell by the canvas, which says UFC-J for 23 & 25). They never mention the UFC-J after 25, so I assume PRIDE just overtook them...
"U-Japan", [3] the event in 1996 that had Kimo vs Bam Bam Bigelow, Don Frye vs Mark hall, Dave Beneteau, Patrick Smith, and Paul Varelans (all old school UFC guys) is not considered part of the UFC lexicon, as far as I know. I've never seen the event, so I cant say for sure. Skeletor211205:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
While I'm collecting info for UFC referees, I shall be engaging in a section-by-section rewrite of the Cage Rage entry, somewhat based on the structure used by the PRIDE/UFC. I had a brilliant outline written but I've lost it on my work computer and can't recover it. If you see a lot of activity on the page and there are problems, bear with me, I'll fix it. Crazyknight09:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Just to let you know that the nascent Ryan Bennett article is on AfD (it's been proposed for deletion on the grounds of lack of notability). I consider Bennett (and several other MMA broadcasters) to be fully notable, but I understand the challenge to his notability from those not familiar with MMA or sports broadcasting.
Should you have an opinion on this (either way, if you think he's not notable enough please say that too), please consider registering it on the AfD page, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ryan Bennett. — Estarrioltalk08:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
Introduction, and some odds and ends
Hi everybody, I just added myself to the workgroup, big MMA fan but pretty new to wikipedia so my apologies in advance if i screw anything up. i'm pretty good with the history and fighter bios so should be able to add a lot. thanks. dan Danmeade19:49, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Hey guys. It's great to see that there's now a MMA WikiProject up and running. I hope to be able to make some good contributions. For a while now, I've been cranking out articles for past PRIDE events whenever I get the chance.
[[4]] [[5]] [[6]] [[7]] [[8]] [[9]]. Any comments on these are welcome. Surprisingly, there's very little out there on the web in terms of MMA event rundowns, so once we have every major MMA event covered with a solid recap, it will really be an outstanding resource in my opinion.
I saw a mention above of the article rating/assessment system. I've also seen it turn up in the Computer and Video Games WikiProject so I guess it is making the rounds. I'll look into it and see if I can help with implementing it. It would be perfect for our situation, particularly with fighter articles. The quality of them is all over the place. Some are stubs and those are easily identified, but many others are not stubs but are still very poor and need major work. It would be nice to have them all in a category. I would also postulate that very few of the current MMA articles in general would qualify for Good Article status as they are now, so we've got no shortage of work to do :) Let's get to it! SubSeven09:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi SubSeven, great to see you here. I agree about the quality of the articles, we have absolutely loads of work to do. If you like, please register your current and completed work on the project page so that we can keep a vague idea of what we're doing, please also see the work tracking lists we're making. Thanks for all the work on the PRIDE events; hateless has put together a template for event articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/Event pages format which you may want to comment on. We're all just mucking in where we can at the moment, we're still creating basic templates and lists so please feel free to contribute in that way too. — Estarrioltalk09:59, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Hi all, also just added myself to the group. I've created various articles on female MMA fighters (some more notable than others; got a bit carried away...), and I'm now working off the 'to do' list on here. So far, put something up on Yves Edwards, and currently preparing another on Mark Weir. Slideyfoot15:57, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
I filled in my article about myself as a fighter. I have a record of 5-2 professionally, and have competed in Rage in the Cage (Arizona), a promotion that has been going since 1996. They want to delete it because they feel that it's a resume or something. All it does is explain where I fought, and what I do now.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jammer871 (talk • contribs)
Hi, I just moved the above post down to the bottom and gave it a heading. There is an AfD ongoing for Jon Levenson, an ex-MMA fighter. I was coming here to post a message about it to this group, but I see the author User:Jammer871 has already done so (above), though it wasn't at the bottom of the page, so you may have missed it. It's already been established that it's a self-bio.
Thanks Dave. I'm currently marshalling my thoughts on this one, but I'm erring on recommending delete on this one and expanding our notability standards section. When comparing RITC to my "regional" promotion, Cage Rage, I can't think of a fighter with 4 (or even 6) fights who I would write an article on who is not also, or has been, a champion at his weight class. I can think of several Cage Rage fighters who have more fights but no championship that I would consider notable. I also consider Cage Rage to have a higher (i.e. national/international level) profile than RITC. Thoughts? — Estarrioltalk07:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I'd like to add that while primarily RITC is a regional promotion, I've competed internationally as well. But it doesn't matter really I suppose.
Good Evening
Hey, I'd like to introduce myself as the newest member of the Project, and I hope to be of some help editing/creating fighter profiles and UFC events. First off though I have 3 questions:
1. Do you think it is a prerequisite to creating an article on an event that you must have seen it? Or could this article be put together from other internet sources (eg Sherdog) without having witnessed it?
2. Do you think that being a participant in one of the series' of TUF is enough to earn fighters the illustrious accolade of having their own page on the 'pedia?
3. Should the MMA fight record on a fighter's page include amateur or just professional fights?
Of course I realise these questions may stimulate differing answers from members of the project, but any comment is, as always, welcome!
Thanks for your time, --TheCooperman21:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
In regards to your first point, I would say the most important issue is whether you have sufficient research to draw upon. If you haven't seen the event, but have a whole bunch of newspaper articles and interviews stuffed with pertinent information, then I would have thought thats fine. If you're just using one or two internet sources (unless they're extremely comprehensive), then probably not.Slideyfoot22:42, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Cheers for the input, also would you or someone else mind checking out my Mike Nickels article?
MMAWeekly Links
Many of the articles contain links to MMAWeekly.com, citing them as a source. Ivan Trembow of MMAWeekly has made it known that MMAWeekly's news article URLs eventually expire, so in time all these links will be dead. He is attempting to replace the links with links to his blog, which he uses to archive the articles from MMAWeekly. However, I don't think a blog is going to cut it as a valid source on Wikipedia. Any opinions on what should be done about this? Personally, I figure that if MMAWeekly can't run their web site in a way that articles have permanent URLs, then we just need to find ourselves a different source. SubSeven00:03, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using online and self-published sources, I think Ivan's links are ok, since he fits the "well-known, professional researcher writing within his field of expertise" exception. However, the materials he publishes in the blog are acceptable "so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications, and they are writing under their own names, and not a pseudonym." If done so, we can be sure his article has been vetted by an editor. He should make sure he continues to mark reprints from MMAWeekly as he does now. hateless00:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
response:
Hi, this is Ivan Trembow posting here. Regarding the reliable source issue, MMAWeekly itself is definitely a reliable source. MMAWeekly is the #2 English-language MMA news web site in existence in terms of readership; only Sherdog.com has more traffic as an independent MMA news web site.
The only issue as it relates to Wikipedia is that MMAWeekly's URLs can produce error message instead of loading the way they're supposed to after a certain period of time when the "zoneid" part of the URL expires. On my own site, I publish my own articles along with a note next to each article that it was originally published on MMAWeekly. Everything that I write is published on both MMAWeekly and my own site, and the pages never expire on my own site.
As for whether I qualify as a "well-known, professional researcher writing within his field of expertise," that is not up for me to decide. I certainly hope that my body of work in MMA journalism over the years would fit into the aforementioned category, but that will be up to the members of this WikiProject to decide. If anyone has any questions or comments, or if I have formatted anything incorrectly on any of the pages in terms of what I have sourced or not sourced, please let me know.
--Ivantrembow03:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
follow-up post on Saturday, July 22 from Ivan Trembow
I am posting this message here as well because I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be leaving this message (whether it's on this page or on individual users' "Talk" pages). I just wanted to ask what the general timeframe is for questions posed on the WikiProjects pages. So far, there hasn't been any objections to changing the specified links to my own site, but then again, there have only been three people who have responded (not counting myself). I'm not sure how this works... at what point is it decided that a consensus has been reached and the links are okay to be changed back (or kept the same if a consensus is reached in the other direction)? How exactly does the process work now that a couple of days have gone by?
--Ivantrembow08:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
In the spirit of Wikipedia:Be bold, I would say any link changing you would like to do is fine, unless SubSeven still has reservations. The way this Wiki works, if someone assumes the conversation is leaning toward one direction and is fine with that, then they may opt not to join in, since we don't operate on strict up/down voting. hateless03:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm cool with it. After reading your take on it, I agree that the links are permissible.
Ivan, I still think you should do whatever you can to remedy the expiring URLs on MMAWeekly. That is quite a liability for your site to have, and I don't mean just for purposes of linking on Wikipedia. It has lots of implications. As a web developer, that kind of thing pains me :) SubSeven04:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Okay, thanks for the info and for your help. I will change those links shortly and add the fighter payroll information in a way that is seamlessly integrated into the pages (just like with the ratings information on the Ultimate Fighter and Ultimate Fight Night pages).
Since someone who just sees the links to a blog without knowing the background or reading this WikiProjects page might initially think it's spam, there's a chance that someone could delete the links at some point in the future. So, if that happens, I will be sure to add the links back, and if I don't get to it quickly, it would be much appreciated if you could revert the pages back if that does indeed happen in the future. I'll be checking every couple of days at minimum, so I'll more than likely see it if this happens, and your support if that ever does happen would also be much appreciated. Also, I know what you're feeling regarding the page expirations, and it's something that I thought had been alleviated in the past, but it hasn't because the "zoneid" part of the URL continues to cause issues and make old pages expire.
Also, if there's anything that I add to any of the UFC pages that is wrong purely from a format standpoint, or if I don't add a reference link where I should or anything like that, please let me know of the format error or you can also feel free to change it. I'm still trying to get the hang of editing on Wikipedia, and I still don't have the formatting mastered quite yet. Thank you. --Ivantrembow06:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
A minor point about the archived MMAWeekly news articles, I believe that the archived articles are dated when they where archived rather than when the news was originally posted. Other than Ivan either changing the date using his blogging software or adding the original date manually somewhere within them, I can't see a way around this. For now I have listed the archived date and made a note that the link is to the archived version of the article. See PRIDE 32 references for an example. --- Trench20:45, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Town of birth
Should the "Town of Birth" segment in the MMA stats box really be mandatory? There are a lot of fighters, particularly in the smaller promotions, whose birth information is not readily available. For example, Yushin Okami. His birth information wasn't even included on the Pride: Bushido 2 DVD. Is there any way to change the MMA stats box, or is the "Town of Birth" really so important that a stats box should not be complete without it? -- Wyldephang, July 21, 2006
A Greeting From Darrick Patrick
Hey, I signed up and I hope I can be a help to the community. I'm with myNetSpot.org and I talk to quite a few professional MMA fighters on a semi-regular basis. Not as many as I need to, but I'm just getting my start really. My time is consumed on alot of levels, but I WILL get in here and do what I can. It's awesome that you all want to help MMA grow as a sport. Very much respect to each and every one of you in here.
UFC attendance info, live gate info, fighter salary info
Hi. I just wanted to let everyone know that in addition changing the link URLs that we previously discussed, I also added links in the articles (I believe they would be called inline links, but I'm not 100% sure on that because I'm still fairly new to this) to the UFC attendance, live gate, and fighter salary information. I added the salary breakdowns for all the events that I have, and in doing so I noticed that many events (especially those in the UFC 45 to UFC 49 range) did not have any attendance information whatsoever, so I added the attendance information and created inline links to the Nevada State Athletic Commission web site on those pages.
Also, from the period of UFC 51 and on, there were a few pages that had incorrect attendance numbers, which appeared to be the numbers that Zuffa announced. Those numbers are often exaggerated, and the legit numbers are released by the athletic commissions. In any case where I changed anything attendance-related, I made sure to include an inline link to the NSAC web site. Actually, even on most of the pages, where the attendance was correct, I still added inline links to the NSAC web site on the pages that didn't have them before. Also, a few of the pages had the info in the infobox on the right-side column, but not in the body text as well, so in those cases I added a brief sentence to the body text with the attendance and live gate figures.
The total combination of this is that I think the pages have a lot more business information in the body text, between the attendance numbers, live gate figures, fighter payrolls, and TV ratings for the Spike TV shows, and all of the aforementioned things have inline links to the appropriate places for more information.
The only thing now is that I could have added the attendance and fighter payroll info for UFC 43 and UFC 44, but there have been no event pages created for those events. I don't know anywhere near enough about Wikipedia to be able to create new pages and list the results and all of that, but if someone else does that stuff, then I could add in the fighter payroll and attendance info for those events. As for UFC 40, UFC 41, and UFC 42, it might be good to create little pages for those events, but the only info I have for those events is the attendance and live gate for UFC 40. --Ivantrembow10:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Early UFC pages
Slowly making my way through all the UFC events using the template. Really just bare and bones, so any additional info on the pages is welecomed. Smoltz07:34, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks a lot with the additional information. All I ask is that you format the pages into the match-by-match lising as seen in the later UFC pages. Just allows us to add even morei nformation. But yeah, thanks for all the new great info. Smoltz03:57, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem - I was following the Wikipedia:WikiProject Mixed martial arts/Event pages format which says "If detailed match descriptions are not possible, a formatted table can be used." And since most of the old UFC's have no weight classes, and less is known about the detals of the fights - other than outcome, i.e. "Submission(armbar)" - I opted to use the table on some early ones. If someone knows more detailed fight recaps, feel free to add them. Skeletor211205:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I just say it for consistency's and convenience’s sake. If someone wanted to add more info it would be easier if the page we're already formatted for such situations. Also most of the other UFC events take on this format. Doesn't matter at this point, as creating the pages is the most important thing, but it's just creating more work later on. Smoltz23:10, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I hear you, I have been updating the pages slowly but surely, and also re-watching all of those old events to add info, might take a while, but we will get every one up there! Skeletor211208:04, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
We're starting to see quite a few links to fight videos being added, (by anonomous editors). I know the UFC has a strict policy of requesting all videos, even just featuring clips, are taken down.
Is it our policy to remove all video links unless we know for definite what the copywright status is? --- Trench19:47, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
We have a policy that all video links that are copyright infringements should not be linked from WP, per WP:Copyrights#Linking to copyrighted works. Whether we should be so strict as to remove all links to videos, I'm not so sure we should pursue that, WP:Copyrights does say rank-and-file WPians should not be copyright status patrollers. I've personally have removed links to videos with highly questionable status, such as videos on YouTube of UFC/PRIDE broadcasts. Something like, say, Sean Gannon vs. Kimbo, I've let that slide. hateless21:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
If a given fight is or will be commercially available in any form (PPV, DVD, TV, or anything else), then I think it's wrong to have a video link to it. If it's a fight that is not and will not be commercially available in any form, then I think it's okay. That's just my opinion. --Ivantrembow09:28, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Was a decision ever reached about the subject of video links for MMA fights? I maintain that Wikipedia should not be publishing links to videos of any fight that is, has been, or will be commercially available in any form (pay-per-view, DVD sales, paid Internet download, etc). I think video links should only be posted for fights that have never been commercially released and/or fights where the event promoter/copyright holder specifically grants permission. Otherwise, it's copyright infringement, regardless of how common it has become.
--Ivantrembow07:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Thirded. We're not obligated to remove links the way we are obligated to remove inaccuracies, but I think its still the right thing to do in WP's interests. hateless16:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm starting to think so. In general, it does not seem like there is a need for records to be posted on WP bios and the inclusion of the bios are causing a few problems.
Sherdog and FCFighter do a much better job at updating records than we do
If records are already presented quite well on Sherdog, why bother presenting it here?
Records are presented very inconsistently throughout WP and it's almost hopeless to convert all of them into one consistent layout.
Record tables are so wide that it may interfere with infoboxe and causing overlapping tables or an ungodly amount of whitespace needs to be added to accommodate both tables.
Boxing, the one sport most like MMA, do not have record tables for boxers on their bios.
I'd like to propose we do the following:
Get rid of the MMA records section on all bios
Consider adding a link to infoboxes that will link to the appropriate Sherdog or FCFighter records page
Keep any accomplishments/awards/championships section, make sure succession tables are at the bottom of the article per WP convention
Make sure the Sherdog link is included on each and every bio page.
I see where you are coming from, not every fighter has one, and the overall inconsistancy of record boxes is a problem. But I do find myself referencing them often - and having an easy, linkable database of who fought who where and when, and what happened is a very usefull tool, IMO. I know Sherdog owns at fighter records, but aside from who won or lost, they give no real bio information about the fighter, or any kind of detail regarding the fights. With the Fighter Bio record tables, it is easy to see who the fighter fought, what event they fought at (both hopefully with links to find more info on the opponent, or the match itself). It may become a problem with fighters like Jeremy Horn or Dan Severn, who have a crapload of fights, but in that case, it's easy to create a See ___'s record link (like discographies on band pages, such as Iron Maiden). Maybe we need some kind of template, or infobox-style formatted record box, somthing official. Skeletor211208:37, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Sherdog's tables don't include notes such as title fights, title defenses, or other relevant notes (like on Matt Hughes) which I find helpful and a step above Sherdog's fight history. Also, Wikipedia may far outlast Sherdog, and if we relied on simply linking to the info off site we would be SOL if the site ever went down. I think we definitely need to keep fight records and just make the tables for each fighter uniform in format and try and update as often as possible. VegaDark09:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't think we should avoid putting record tables in articles on the basis that the info is duplicated on Sherdog & elsewhere. As mentioned above we can't rely on Sherdog always being available. I agree there is a lot of work involved, this was also the case for the event pages, but I think it's worth the effort. After the event pages have been completed we could focus our efforts on the MMA record tables, maybe deciding on a final format for the tables. --- Trench20:56, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
I think having tables on the page is more useful than just linking to Sherdog's records, since all the opponents' names, event names, etc. can be linked to their respective Wikipedia articles. I end up making use of this quite a bit. SubSeven08:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
I suppose my question has been answered. However, some of the reasons I'm not so sure with since they seem to conflict with WP:NOT. Specifically, I'm talking about the idea that WP could be a mirror of Sherdog's content in case it goes down, as it's pretty clear in WP:NOT that WP is not a mirror. Also, going back to the Jeremy Horn example, listing all 100 or so fights he had may conflict with WP:NOT's ban on indiscriminate information. WP's usual method of dealing with that rule is to include only notable information, and possibly 3/4th of Horn's record is rather non-notable. To comply with WP:NOT's spirit, it seems to be that if MMA records are kept, then only notable matches (ie, matches against notable fighters or notable MMA promotions) should be included. It does open up a can of worms, where we need to figure out what fighters and promotions are notable, but these can of worms are opened by WP regularly and is something we should tackle for other reasons. The example of filmographies and discographies was given and I agree it's a good analog to fighter records, but in general, full discographies seem to be frowned upon on WP. Keeping records trim will also aid in verification, it will be easier to find inaccuracies or flat-out falsehoods in records if they were compact enough so that they won't get easily glossed-over.
There's the second issue with formatting, and I don't think anything shown works at all. I've seen several methods of listing records, including one used on the MMA project page which no one apparently uses. I think we can format a better table, and I probably just volunteered myself to do it, but I think we should conceed that the current system is broken. In the end, we may need a script that will convert a record page on Sherdog into a wikiable format. hateless02:23, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
Just note that you should make sure those two passes WP:BIO before you start their articles else they will likely go to AfD. Both John McCarthy and Herb Dean have a decent amount of material out there written about them, but I'm not so sure such literature is available for these other refs. hateless18:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Gah, notability sucks. While relatively obscure websites with a popular message boards or some schlub who writes on a website is fair game for deletion, surely two MMAreferees who are preeminent in their field qualify as notable? I think I should be OK with information on Mario Yamasaki. There is enough information on the internet about him and his BJJ academies to create a decent-sized stub, certainly comparable to Herb Dean. Herb's article has yet to be deleted and that article is light on basic information. Steve Mazzagatti may be trickier but I'll do some digging and see what I come up with. If I have to admit defeat on him, I will. Then, I'm starting on Cage Rage. -- Crazyknight 12:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC-Z)
I've left a message about this on the person who deleted the article's talk page asking for an explanation. You can look at the deletion log of a page if you need to find this in the future. VegaDark04:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for checking, it appears to be back up although without explanation. I'm guessing the deletion had to do with some angry comment on the talk page about Abbadi not deserving an article because he hasn't won a UFC match. I'll familiarize myself with the deletion log. hateless16:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Weight class errors
We have some wonderful stubs about the weight classes in MMA and it would seem that they're not being correctly referenced. I have noticed that on the main project page and in the fighter bio template, it simply says the weight class in double brackets, such as welterweight, when it should be welterweight (MMA) or, better still, welterweight. I don't want to tread on toes and just change it so I thought I'd post here. Crazyknight10:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
Just to note, per the style guide, MMA should be written out, so articles should be named something like Welterweight (mixed martial arts), and eventually they should be moved. Other than that, I wonder the value of having 7 or so weight class articles (which repeat alot of content, ie, weight class names varies between orgs and sanctioning bodies) when one all-encompassing article would work fine. hateless18:31, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
As part of my growing hunger to do more (MORE, I TELL YE!) I have looked at Travis Fulton's page. Now, this is a problem with other fighters such as Chris Lytle, who have both boxing and MMA records, but is there a combination info box? I have tried to build one but I'm just cobbling together a templates in a somewhat haphazard way, not actually knowing what I'm doing and I don't even understand how to create a template because all the FAQs cover easy stuff like links. Any help would be greatly appreciated. If you feel I shouldn't do it and should go with two seperate boxes, fine. Just please let me know. Crazyknight00:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
While the quickbio template is an excellent tool for creating quick, concise and informative pages, I've noticed that in the assessment stage they're getting rated as Start-class. Is this due to a limitation in the template or the way that they're being used? If it is the former, is there a set of improvement criteria so we can raise the quality of the articles? Sorry for caning the talk page but I always seem to have questions. Crazyknight12:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Start-class are for articles too large to be stub articles and not quite the close-to-Good quality articles that B-class articles are. Mostly, they are Start-class because of lack of substance, lack of sources, or are just badly-written. I don't think those faults are inherent to the template, although the template should go through a few reviews to see if it follow WP:MOS. I know certain items (ie, all-caps section headers, links in headers) I've corrected already, although I haven't really given it a through look-through.hateless00:29, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
My first wikipedia article! and hello!
Hi guy's, I recently made my first wikipedia article.
Can any copyrighted promotional images of fighters be used under fair use on Wikipedia? Some images such as File:Tsuyoshi Kohsaka.jpg and File:Tatsuya Kawajiri.jpg have been speedy deleted due to "Invalid fair-use claim". Image talk:Tatsuya Kawajiri.jpg suggests that these images fail #1 of WP:FUC which is "No free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information." Does this mean that because the fighter exists and a free picture could in theory be taken, no copyrighted image qualifies under fair use even though no free picture is readily available? There were essentially no free equivalents for the above images. If fair use is not applicable, I think we'll also need to take down many other pictures such as Image:Fedor.jpg, Image:Mirko Filipovic.jpg, Image:MarkColeman.jpg, etc. Shawnc10:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
There's a small group of people taking a very strict interpretation of FUC1, claiming it means that if there's even the slightest tiny little chance that a free photo could be created, then you can't use a fair use image. I personally find this extremely detrimental to the quality of the encyclopedia (as do many others), but Jimbo apparently wants free over quality, so we're kinda stuck at the moment. There are some people working on preparing a proposal to adjust FUC1 to to allow fair use images until a free image can be found. We'll see what happens. ···日本穣? · TalktoNihonjoe08:23, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Apparently the interpretation that basically "no un-free image of a living person can be used" is shared by some administrators who have been deleting these images. While this seems to me like copyright paranoia (which, to quote another user, "causes us to voluntarily abandon our fair use rights before they are even legislated or adjudicated away from us"), if this interpretation is the accepted norm then we'll have to either accept this or reach concensus to allow all such images. For the sake of uniformity, I am willing to go along with tagging similar images for deletion unless some people other than me will contest the deletion of the aforementioned images; no un-free image should be singled out while some others are left alone. Shawnc18:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
From what I understand, you have to provide "fair use rationale" on the image page, explaining why you think it's ok to use the picture. You need to provide a link to the source of the pic, a licensing tag, and the rationale for fair use. Check out this pic: Image:Megadeth1988.jpg as an example, or check Featured Article page pictures, such as The KLF, Rush, ect. I'm sure a lot of those pics you mentioned don't have all of the info that they should, but if there is no info at all, they seem to get deleted more often.
I don't think the "free equivalent" thing really applies to promotional type pics, I think it means more along the lines of pictures you can create or take yourself. But there are also free pics, such as public domain pics, or pics in the Wikimedia:Commons, so you should check there for any free versions, first. I've uploaded a crapload of pics, and as long as you include all the info, you should be ok. Every fighter deserves at least one profile pic, and if they are a top fighter with a decent article, some action photos, like I've done with Mark Coleman, Cro Cop, Don Frye, ect. Good luck! Skeletor211211:20, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
I just made a Renato Verissimo article. I've been editing wikipedia for a little while, but I've never made an article before, so I kinda faked a lot of it. Also, I'm not sure how the project management notes what needs to be done and what is done, so basically, I'm asking if the article looks OK to you guys, and if not, what should I do differently if I make more? Gnfnrf20:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
It's good except for the fact that fair use images can't be used in the userspace per Wikipedia policy, so the image would have to be removed if you wanted to add the box to your userpage. VegaDark20:40, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I was reading Hateless' talk page and saw a discussion between him and Skeletor212 about collaborations. We all go off and do our own thing, updating fighters we like or promotions in which we have an interest. I do it myself, with Cage Rage or British fighters like Ian Freeman. I absolutely don't want to pressgang or bully people into it but, personally, I'd think it'd be a great help if one of the more senior editors would lay down a plan for taking some of our better articles, such as the UFC article or the flagship MMA article, to good/featured article status. It seems that throughout this project's existance, it has been considered a priority to do this but it hasn't been done. I'd be willing to do extensive editing to help, as I think I've shown with my task of cleaning up the references on the PRIDE article. Let's face it, we'd all be happy when one day you go to the Wikipedia front page and see an MMA article that was gotten to FA status by us. -- Crazyknight11:56, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea. We would have to leave messages at all the members' talk pages about the collaboration. I'd personally like to get Randy Couture to GA status, I don't know if anyone else wants to add in their recommendations on what we should collaborate on first though. VegaDark18:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I like the idea, seems if we could marshal some force behind one article we can bring more depth rather than the wide breadth we have right now. I can see we may need a benevolent dictator coordinator to work on this subproject, someone who would accept nominations for the "featured" page and decide which one would be it for the month. That person will also probably be the one to leave messages on individual member pages, although I can see a small team could help in that work. And by no means am I nominating myself for this position, I don't know if I have the time to do that kind of work right now unfortunately (although I'll continue to edit as I do presently). hateless20:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
It occurs to me that a responsible editor would be required for a page to get it into the same voice. Reading some pages, they're a mess. "...an almost similar style of fighting to UFC"? What was the "writer" saying about PRIDE in that sentence? Absolutely nothing and this is why it was edited away. Herein lies the problem with Wikipedia; a simple sentence is bastardised by anonymous meddlers, so, in a way, it almost feels like we shouldn't even bother. However, undeterred, I would say we could make a simple start. Would it just be possible to throw a section up on the main project page? "MMA Collaboration of the Month", get people to go to the talk page of the relevant article, set up a to-do list and just get on with it section-by-section? If everybody is responsible, properly sources things and writes clearly and concisely then there would be less work for the editor. However, still, I feel on said to-do list, somebody with some amount of experience would need to lay down a template we should follow to get the sections up to scratch. As has been said, it's quality of writing and sources. So, we could put the section on the project page, put a group of nominees for expansion and then get on with it. -- Crazyknight15:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia:WikiProject Football, I have put an Article Improvement Drive together. It's now on the project to-do list. Put any nominees for improvement on the article and lets get it started. Once a nominee is chosen, I'll put together a collaboration page and we can get started. -- Crazyknight15:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like a great idea guys, lets get some of these articles elevated! I just went through the trenches getting Megadeth up to FA status, so I have a good idea what is needed. One of the most important aspects (aside from well written, compelling prose) is inline citations. Everything needs to be easily verifable, and with the rise of MMA (and MMA news stories) in the past few years, it shouldn't be too hard. Skeletor211205:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Shonie Carter page
I am not the best article writer not even a ok one but I do know how to edit. Haven't done much yet with username did so before under my works IP. Anyway Shonie's page is due for updating. The show is finished and it doesn't even show what happened on his own page. Would one you who is more eloquent please update his page from the show. --Xiahou02:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Should we begin to archive some of the old stuff on the main project page? I trimmed down the "To-do" list, as a lot of that stuff was from June 2006, and had been completed. I made the list into more of a general list of tasks, as opposed to a mini talk page, which it was. Also, what should we do with old stuff from the "ongoing work" and "completed work" sections? Maybe we could use a "Articles improved by this project" subpage, or somehwere that we can begin to archive some of this old stuff. Skeletor211212:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
amateur vs professional records
Not messing with sherdog before I came to wiki I didn't realize that part of the win loss records on UFC were amateur fights. The thing is many fighters (maybe all I haven't checked) have the sherdog professional only record. Discounting the amateur fights. I understand the reasoning now, yet it seems to disregard what UFC says is their official MMA records and them being the offical site would that not make it more offical then sherdog? As a compromise we could/should put the word "professional" by the sherdog downsized records. So instead of MMA record it would say Professional MMA record. And a serperate amateur record could be added for he remaining fights especially if any have a cited record. They shouldn't be completely disregarded.--Xiahou02:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
To whom are you referring when you say "part of the win loss records on UFC were amateur fights"? As far as I know, UFC only include professional vale tudo and MMA bouts in their records. Sherdog and FCFighter often disagree and Sherdog is far from complete. Take Travis Fulton for instance. Sherdog and FCFighter are something like 30 fights apart on his total number of professional fights. These things are further complicated when you look at MMAUniverse's fightfinder that includes amateur, semi-professional and professional fights, with semi-professional being fights for novice professionals with limited rules, like b-class Shooto. While we're at it, let's point out that Pancrase is too limited to really be considered MMA and deserves its own record. In reality, the people whose records vary wildly from UFC to sherdog or from fightfinder to fightfinder are fighters who fought on tiny shows nobody knew about, like Fulton, and fighters who fought on low-publicised weekly shows at seedy venues, like Shonie Carter. About forty of Shonie's fights took place in a salsa club in Chicago that used to run regular fighting shows with MMA and boxing matches every week. It's not like fantastic records were kept so those fights, while they happened, often don't find their way onto Sherdog. There's something similar with fighters from Louisiana too. -- Crazyknight16:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the question we ask, this being Wikipedia, is "which records are verifiable from reliable third party sources?" I think this excludes the UFCs record reporting, as they are not third party. As for sherdog vs FCFighter vs MMAUniverse, I'm really only familiar with sherdog, which is a reliable third party source for mma. We shouldn't make the decisions on which fights do and don't go in an MMA record, thats original research. We should reflect the choices that others who write about MMA have made. I suppose I'm saying that, absent a strong reason to use another reliable third party source, the sherdog records are what I think should be used.Gnfnrf00:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Gnfnrf on this, Sherdog should be used over UFC records. Remember when they announced Royce Gracie as undefeated when he went up against Matt Hughes? UFC can't be considered a reliable source for fighter records. VegaDark00:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
everyones comments here are exactly what I mean. Whose stats do we trust. We can say its not our place to decide do or don't go in it. But when the offical UFC site says one thing say for example 20 wins and sherdog says 15. And he is listed as a UFC fighter with a link are we not offering contradicting info on here? What I am getting at on a whole is we want our accounts on here to be complete and factual do we not. If it means having seperate win loss records for different types of fighting etc than so be it. Wiki's not paper so having lots of info per fighter is great, and if sherdog says one number and UFC or another fight company says another find out whats missing and post the difference as why. Thats not original research thats looking for posted facts. Your not making assumtions or drawing conclusions just looking for the reason for the difference. Heck I can't recall the guys name he had a fight on UFC fight night the other day and he used to be a professional boxer. Well those stats should be posted to. THe wiki entry is for the guy. HIS career. Yes our project specializes in MMA but other types shouldn't be discounted if a MMA fighter had pro fights in them. To wrap this up how can we have a complete record for each MMA fighter without throwing away fight numbers? --Xiahou23:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
If we're collating data, why limit yourself to just a single fightfinder? Also, why don't you look around the MMA pages before saying "this should be done" and "that should be done". The combined fighting record template is able to be used and while Marcus Davis, the fighter in question who was a professional boxer, doesn't have one, he has a link to his Boxrec profile and information about his pro career. Likewise, Chris Lytle and Travis Fulton have info plus a CFR. See, you have a grandiose idea of what our pages should and shouldn't be. However, what is more important is that we improve articles to the standards laid down by Wikipedia. Boxing pages DO NOT have fighter records. They have an info box (incorporated into the CFR template) but no fighter record. There are policies/consensuses in place and before you go off willy nilly, you should read the boxing project, the MMA project and familiarise yourself. -- Crazyknight00:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. Sherdog is far from complete.
so we sit on our thumbs worrying about wiki policies procedures standards yawnnnn. We have a mishmash of articles with information varying from different websites so no consensus is met.(As far as records are concerned) So we sit with unreliable info disussing making policies reading polices etc. all I am asking is can we have complete records of MMA fighters on what they have done. Past and present different types of fighting whatever. Ideas are where things start. When I look up MMA fighters I want to see the complete picture. Sure some have updated or seemingly correct numbers some don't. Can I trust the info. Thats what should be wanted. When I see UFC on TV saying so and so has this record then I come on here and it says otherwise. Thats what I am after. Why and what fights are causing this difference. knowlege of templates and polices isn't going to help this. We can improve the articles laid down by wiki by making them accurate. The first thing I look at with a fighter is his record. Inaccuracies make me ask questions, hense here we are. Shonie Carter is an example UFC says over 80 wins Sherdog says 70s something what was different about those 10 or so fights? What makes them 'invalid' what makes them 'valid' for UFC which is the 'truth' I am not one for limiting the more info the better. Accurate dependable info, not contradictory. --Xiahou02:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
and yes I realized Shonie was discussed earlier. 'seedy' was word used. Small venues. To me a pro/amateur fight is a fight regardless of the audience. Size of the venue and audience any fan knows isn't at all a guarentee of a quality fight. Ive seen plenty 'small venue' small crowd fights worthy of Prime Time UFC.--Xiahou02:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
here hateless handled this eariler as well putting it into words better. (why I don't write articles others are much more eloquent) ---- "going back to the Jeremy Horn example, listing all 100 or so fights he had may conflict with WP:NOT's ban on indiscriminate information. WP's usual method of dealing with that rule is to include only notable information, and possibly 3/4th of Horn's record is rather non-notable. To comply with WP:NOT's spirit, it seems to be that if MMA records are kept, then only notable matches (ie, matches against notable fighters or notable MMA promotions) should be included. It does open up a can of worms, where we need to figure out what fighters and promotions are notable, but these can of worms are opened by WP regularly and is something we should tackle for other reasons" This is what I've been trying to say.--Xiahou03:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
(reset) One option would be to modify the MMAstatsbox template to add stat links to various MMA stat pages. For instance, look at what Chad Johnson has for statistics in his infobox. It links to his ESPN, pro football reference, database football, etc stats that are all optional fields. There are also several more like CBS and SI.com stats that aren't even filled in for him. We could have a UFC, Sherdog, and whatever else link in the MMA statsbox to add these. However, this still doesn't solve the problem of what we actually show as the record. I'm thinking we add a note like I did on Matt Hughes (fighter) to say the differences. VegaDark03:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
See, I'm confused, Xiahou. You say you want to be get as much information as possible and then quote Hateless, supporting a view of notable information only. You're having a go at policies and then you're looking to them to support your views. I have no idea what you are trying to say now, compared to the start of this thread. A review of the way fighter pages are constructed is probably needed. Still, it doesn't change the original point that UFC doesn't include amateur fights in their records and that different fightfinders cannot agree on the record of a lot of fighters. -- Crazyknight11:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
As far as the number differential I assumed it was sites like Sherdog taking off the amateur fights that UFC put back in the stats. I think all fights should be in their records but many users on here and stat keepers on sites don't like or include amateur fights. So as a compromise they should be included but seperate. I may have jumped around in my points what we should have in a nutshell is any and all fights a fighter has had. The largest 'verifiable' number available. Varifiable has seen to be a problem and it becomes personal opinion which sites to trust. Which is why I fell back on UFC since talking about UFC fighters it who they work for and I would trust that info more than another site. I just don't want any fighter to be cut short for the effort they have done for the sport. The size of the crowd or smallness of the promotion shouldn't matter if they are or were pros. Heck the internet makes it such a small world you could practically email the fighters in question. Also any that have their own site. If anyone knows their true record its the fighters themselves.
Emailling the fighters would fall foul of WP:NOR. Really, amateur fights are an irrelevance and until there is a decent level of amateur MMA it will remain that way. I know people are trying to change that and create a high-level of MMA for amateurs, just look at the effort made to get Pankration into the 2004 Olympics. However, until that point, I can't see a place for amateur MMA on Wikipedia. -- Crazyknight10:14, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
well NOR would apply but to say you can't trust a figher as the source of his record is lame really. Policies were made to be changed. So what do we use for our 'benchmark' how do we decide which numbers to accept. As many have stated UFC and sherdog have thier faults. Is there a site that doesn't. And should we as a project universalize and use just one if they contradict to stay consistent? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xiahou (talk • contribs) 23:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC).
(Starting over) I think we should note that my comments about fighter records are not relevant here, that note was about listing an entire fight record while this one is about reliable sources and which source is more reliabler. Given that, the debate here is that we have all these different sources of information on what a particular fighter's win-loss record is, and which one should be given the Wikipedia stamp of approval. Now, usually WP does not usually endorse a particular view or one account of the truth, because of WP:NPOV. However, we do give precedence for certain views. For instance, because of undue weight provisions in WP:NPOV, we are discouraged from exploring fringe opinions in detail--popular opinions gets precedence therefore. How it translate in this case is that we cannot just ignore the UFC or a fighter's own website, but we can have a win-loss that takes precedence and is the number that should be used in the infobox. Other records can (and should) be mentioned, like VegaDark's footnotes, but they should remain footnotes.
In my opinion, to determine which record gets precedence, we have several factors to consider. First is if there are any conflicts of interest, or if there is an incentive for a source to smudge numbers. Promoters and fighters generally have an incentive to exaggerate a fighter's record to be better than it is, so records from independent sources like Sherdog and FCFighter are preferred over sources like the UFC. Another factor is how verifiable the info is. If a newspaper (an independant source) wants to say Matt Hughes has 44 wins but doesn't list the fights, but Sherdog says he has 38 wins but does list the fights, the events they took place in, the opponent, the location, date, time, etc., then Sherdog wins because their information is better sourced and can be more easily verified. Completeness is the last factor to look at. For databases like Sherdog and FCFighter, it's much more likely for them to miss a fight than to list a non-existant one. If FCFighter and Sherdog (or any database for that matter) cannot agree, go with the one that lists more fights.
Finally, I believe that the preferred win-loss for each fighter should be decided case by case. There shouldn't be a default source to determine which win-loss should automatically be in the infobox (although it seems as if Sherdog currently has that status). We have to weigh the records available for each fighter. It is possible that a win-loss from the UFC could end up being the most reliable record and the one that deserves precedence.
I think only pro fights should be counted for win-loss records, since when someone looks at a win-loss, they will most likely assume its for pro fights. (If amateur records are noted, they should be separate and not aggregated together with the pro record) And yes, I know reliabler is not a word. hateless02:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
wonderfully put. I have trouble with such eloquence myself. You nailed it. I really like your ideas and points behind them. Thanks for putting it better. --Xiahou23:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Just from looking at the other featured lists, a couple of things I think need to be included (which I might do myself, time permitting), to be a featured list:
First and Upcoming dates of the events
Mention the move from Tourney style (UFCs 1-10?) to set fight cards
What is available is tape and what isn't from the UFC website
The first collaboration has been selected, the flagship article Mixed martial arts. Please head over to the article's talk page and contribute to the to-do list so we can raise standards. Also, nominate for the next article. Adopting a general rule from other collaborative efforts, articles with fewer than 3 nominations are barred from being renominated immediately. Sorry Randy Couture and Joachim Hansen fans, they didn't pull enough votes in but you can try again next time. -- Crazyknight22:35, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
UFC Fight Night 7 Photos
There are a number of photos from UFC Fight Night 7 at this page. [10]They're all in the public domain because they are the work of a US Government employee. If anyone is looking for free photos to add to an article this might be a good place to look. I've already added on to the Karo Parisyan article. Lewis23:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
For standup, try [11]. For clinching, try [12], unless you want a striking clinch, not a takedown clinch, in which case I didn't see a good image. Gnfnrf03:56, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
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Wikipedia Day Awards
Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker19:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
PRIDE Grand Prix events
Should the two/three grand prix events that PRIDE holds per year be collapsed into one page (per year)? For all intents and purposes, they are more like three parts of one larger event than three separate events. Right now it seems as if there isn't a good reason for the tournament brackets to be on the Finals events instead of all of the pages, other than because it's redundant, even though each event has as much claim to the bracket as any. IE, if we were to discuss the 2000 GP DVD box set, it would make more sense to discuss it on a 2000 PRIDE Grand Prix page than on one of the other ones. I don't think there's any policy involved here, it just makes more intuitive sense for me.
In the same vein, if we do have IFL event pages, they should probably be all aggregated into a season overview page rather than individual pages. hateless20:34, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
For Pride Grand Prix events I agree that a single page makes more sense. For the IFL, I'm not sure. I'd template it off of how other team sports are done. Gnfnrf04:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Statbox: Reach?
In MMA, arm reach has become increasingly relevant as the value of striking has been established. Why isn't it recorded in the Statbox? It's more of a constant than many other stats. The only question is how to select a standard for measurement, but I think wingspan from fingertip to fingertip is reasonable, since many MMA events publish that information. Hexrei09:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, while many events do list reach in their tales of the tape, I've never seen it defined in the event. We would be guessing if we assume that different events are measuring it in the same way. Also, I don't know of any easily verifiable source that offers comprehensive reach data. Gnfnrf16:40, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Appropriateness of ivansblog.com links
I'm having a discussion with User:68.159.17.189 about the appropriateness of using ivansblog.com links as source attributions, despite the discussion on this page above. If anyone could, please check out the debate here and comment. I can personally live with any resolution as long as a real consensus is reached. hateless00:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
--Ivantrembow 07:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)I just saw this on the WikiProjects page and have added my two cents on that user's talk page, and anyone else is encouraged to do the same regardless of which side of the fence you're on. As long as you read the facts, I'll be cool with whatever decision is made. --Ivantrembow07:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
Dose anyone know where on the site this info about notable judoka was added from? If so can it be referenced because it's like an advert at the moment. --Nate148114:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The rankings are from MMAWeekly (here), but I don't believe MMAWeekly has any fighter background info on their site outside of the occasional feature article. I'm sure the list can be referenced (ie, Parisyan and Yoshida are very well known in MMA circles for being judo practitioners and use those techniques regularly in MMA competition), but not via MMAWeekly. hateless17:41, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The fight record of Matt Hughes keeps being changed around by different editors. Sherdog says 40 wins, UFC.com says 41 wins, and his personal webpage says his record is 42-5 but only accounts for 40 of his 42 wins. I've explained my reasoning of why I think we should use Sherdog's record at Talk:Matt Hughes (fighter), and if we can come to a consensus on this it would be nice so people don't keep changing his record. VegaDark22:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Koscheck weight class error
They have Koschecks weight class as middle weight and it states that TUF #1 was LHW and MW when it was LHW and WW (welterweight)170 lbs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.53.128.199 (talk) 18:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC).
I nominated UFC for a peer review here, just for kicks and to see what holes are left in the article. It seems to me that this article among those in our scope is furthest along in the journey to FA status, so it might be time to patch up the holes in the article and see if we can send it to the main page. hateless01:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Neutrality
Almost every article I read about MMA fighters or professional wrestlers have problems with neutrality. Phrases like "devastating kick", "humiliating loss", "dominated the first round", "thoroughly dominated the fight", "vicious high kick", etc. are numerous, and rarely come with an attribution to a reliable source. This should be something we look out for and correct on sight so that we can improve the quality of these articles. Sancho (talk) 23:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
International Fight League
I have spent a lot of time getting most of the IFL fighters a wiki page. I don't have a lot of wiki experience so some might have some flaws. If there are any other IFL fans out there i'd appreciate the help, thanks. Themmachamp20:59, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to keep the fighters MMA records up-to-date, but some page need A LOT of help!!! Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. (MgTurtle17:26, 20 May 2007 (UTC)).
Requests for assessments
I recently added Frank Mir's WP page for an assessment and I noticed that someone added Evan Tanner to that list as well, the only problem is that the request for Tanner's page was added back in December and still hasn't been assessed. So my question is, do the pages on the list ever get assessed?
Thanks
Takedashingen62006:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi Takedashingen620, do you want to start a push with me to assess and improve a bunch of these articles? I'm a bit busy with school for the next week, but I'd be up for getting this project going. There's lots of room for obvious improvements in this project. I can review the Frank Mir article next weekend. Sancho07:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
I have assessed a decent amount of fighter bios and usually do when I notice they are unassessed, but I haven't for a while. I can help out doing some more. VegaDark10:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
Why the Combat Sambo fights are not into MMA personal fight records, see Fedor Emelianenko for example. Combat sambo championships are very popular in many countries around the world and there are many famous participant from the MMA-world. The rules are purely MMA, there are strikes stand up, ground-and-pound, submissions and all what we need to add the combat sambo in the MMAs. I think that is hybrid style or MMA (particularly the combat sambo) judging of the sambo's history. See what is the Sambo too. ProfMA16:28, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Consensus has been to base fighter's professional MMA records on reliable websites such as Full Contact Fighter fight database and Sherdog's Fightfinder. I don't know of a consistant and reliable database which contains Combat Sambo fights (and even if there was one, I imagine most Combat Sambo is amateur, not professional, in nature.) If you do know of one, please post about it here so we can discuss it. Gnfnrf20:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
A nice wake-up call.
See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#User:Burntsauce for a discussion concerning an editor removing un-sourced information from pro-wresting articles. The consensus seems to be that this is an improvement. It is also a reminder that WP:BLP requires us to remove unsourced material from a biography of a living person. A quote from that policy: "Unsourced or poorly sourced contentious material — whether negative, positive, or just highly questionable — about living persons should be removed immediately and without discussion from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, user pages, and project space." Let's really focus on this (improving sourcing) when reviewing and browsing MMA articles. Sancho03:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
See also Section
Are these really necessary? I mean, under the category section, there are the same links. I don't even use the See also section, I use the categories at the bottom of the page. So I ask, are these See also sections really necessary? (MgTurtle17:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)).
I've seen your recent changes to a bunch of the articles. I like the change... less redundancy, more standard. Sancho18:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
IFL
Does anyone have an opinion on the IFL fighters' records? Should the results have links to them? Such as * Bart Palaszewski (6-1) (LW) def John Gunderson by decision (split) (04/07/07)like this format or like Bart Palaszewski (6-1) (LW) def John Gunderson by decision (split) (04/07/07)this format? Understand the difference? I don't know how to put into words.Sorry. (MgTurtle17:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)).
I like the version with links. Unless it's a red link to an article about fighter that you can reasonably expect to not have an article any time soon. Sancho18:50, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
MMA Records
Many fighters don't have their MMA records on their pages or they don't have the full record. Vernon White needs his record on his page and Jeremy Horn's record doesn't include some of his earlier fights. Can we do something about this? (MgTurtle16:51, 22 May 2007 (UTC)).
I have my concerns about fighter records being necessary (see above), I still don't think having a complete table of records is necessary nor allowable per WP:NOT#IINFO. I would ignore Jeremy Horn's record, maybe place a disclaimer about notable fights. hateless16:59, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the fighter's complete record is important. It's easier to see the fights on Wikipedia than going to Sherdog sometimes.I think all fight should be included no matter how non-notable they are. And we put their fights in the MMA career section so why not put them all on their page? I understand where you're coming from though. (MgTurtle01:09, 23 May 2007 (UTC)).
I think having the fighters' full fight records is extremely important information to include, as long as it is sourced. VegaDark (talk) 06:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I fixed Jeremy Horn's record and I'm working on Vernon White's record. Does anyone else like the colored MMA records where it colors losses, draws, and wins? I do because it's easier to tell the outcome of the fights. Does anyone like it's a good idea to add color to everyone's record? I've just added color to the pages I've created (so far).Anyone have an opinion? (MgTurtle21:00, 23 May 2007 (UTC)).
Just add your name to the list of participants at the project page, and add this page to your watch list. Then start helping out :-) Sancho18:17, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Article improvement drive
Hey all, make sure to put this page on your watchlists Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mixed_martial_arts/Article_improvement_drive to help coordinate project collaboration in specific article improvement. That page was quite out of date as of this morning, so I wrapped up some old discussions and made a new nomination for an article improvement drive. Let's try to select one every week. I think this page might have gone out of use since the page might not be on all of our watchlists, but it's a good thing to have. Sancho18:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
UFC 74...help
Can someone view the discussion section of UFC 74? I left a question there. It will only take 60 seconds.
![[11]](http://192.156.19.109/marinelink/image1.nsf/968d350988bc002a85256b1f0072fbda/f24be88da61daf0c85257244007eb599/$FILE/UFC(2).15.jpg){kind=link}
![[12]](http://192.156.19.109/marinelink/image1.nsf/968d350988bc002a85256b1f0072fbda/aa494dc76ebe804e85257244007f9351/$FILE/UFC(2).22.jpg){kind=link}