Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2022/January

Snooker nicknames

In my searching on the snooker pages, I found this page. My question is: why does it exist? Sure, there's a reference next to every nickname, but there are several referencing players who have not played for more than 2 decades, and some which seem dubious or irrelevant. For example, Ronnie is only ever referred to as "The Rocket", not the "Essex Exocet". Player nicknames are best placed on the infobox for ones we know are used for them, or were used in the past for several seasons if the MC decided to use something else. I am of the opinion we should delete this "list" page because it doesn't serve much use to the wider wiki. @Nigej: @Lee Vilenski: @Betty Logan: @BenjidogFourEyes: - paging here since idk how often the talkpage is checked, and I believe you four are the most active in the wikipedia pages from a talkpage perspective :) [also have a Merry Christmas and hopefully 2022 will be another good year for snooker!] --CitroenLover (talk) 21:33, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Can't say I care either way, but it's more of a question if it meets WP:LISTN. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:39, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

What harm is it leaving them in ? Does anybody have a problem with them being included ?. I would think not 31.200.131.253 (talk) 00:11, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The answer to your first question is easy: somebody created it and it has never been tested against WP:LISTN at AfD. I did some work on this article a few years ago by adding the sources (it was mostly unsourced). Aside from that I think whether a player is still playing or not is besides the point; if we are going to have a list of snooker nicknames then it seems reasonable to include those of retired players too. Alex Higgins dropped off the tour in 1997 but he will always be The Hurricane. In Ronnie's case the "Essex Exocet" was his official nickname for many years while Alan Hughes was the MC. Sometimes nicknames change when the MC changes. Betty Logan (talk) 00:57, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

I listened to a few youtube videos of alan hughes doing the mc’ing, but even then, he was still calling him the rocket, but perhaps he changed it randomly for a few tournaments that aren’t on youtube. As for listing nicknames, it feels like something thats better on the persons infobox, where someone is most likely to find the info. A list page seems a bit redundant since its just content duplication and spreads data thin needlessly across the wiki, its better to keep things easy to find through less pages. CitroenLover (talk) 01:10, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2020/December#Nicknames where this topic was discussed. I produced a list of nicknames in infoboxes at that time. This shows that most of these are actually unreferenced. As such the article is better than the infobox. Worth noting too that we are an encyclopedia and so nicknames used in the past and no longer used are just as important as the current ones used. The article is linked from the infobox, click on "nickname", so not really hidden away and gets quite a lot of hits, 57000 this year so far: https://pageviews.toolforge.org/?project=wiki.riteme.site&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=1&start=2021-01-01&end=2021-12-24&pages=List_of_snooker_player_nicknames. The main problem is that the article is not really maintained. One possibility is to try to integrate the article and infoboxes in some way, with both using the same content. Nigej (talk) 07:24, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Realistically, there are three options - either this is taken to AfD, as not being something that is talked about as a group in media, we decide that nicknames in general aren't really all that relevant so we delete the page and the items from the infobox - this would mean notable ones can be mentioned in the prose instead. Or, we simply leave it as is. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:00, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

As AndyGray said at the start of the earlier discussion "but is this section of the infobox really necessary? The same aim could be achieved by simply referencing the nickname in the article lead" "To me that infobox section just looks like a potential magnet for abuse" I agree and would be keen to remove it from the infobox. As ever, it just gives editors an easy way of adding unsourced material. If it's important add it to the article. Lets get rid of it. Nigej (talk) 10:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. Seems like a cruft magnet, and does just show up names that aren't relevant. Shaun Murphy being "the Magician" is perfectly suitable to be mentioned in the prose (and the lede), similarly "Angles" Alan McManus, but not "Mr. 100 Haircut" Judd Trump. I'd say at the very least the infobox entry should be culled. The list article, I don't really have any thoughts on, would suggest AfD. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I have no problems with keeping this page, but I do think that some parts of it need to be updated, for example Liang Wenbo has three nicknames on the page, none of which are his actual nickname as used by MCs (The Firecracker). Also, some of the older nicknames are ones that have never really been used, or aren't famous, like "Danny the Boy" or "Judd Triumph" for Judd Trump, and "Wenbo Selecta" for Liang Wenbo. These are the types of nicknames that I think don't really need to be listed, but the older nicknames that are still famous, like "The Essex Exocet" or "The Hurricane" are definitely worth keeping, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, as Nigej previously mentioned. BenjidogFourEyes (talk) 17:51, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Given the variety of opinions, I do think this might be a page worth putting through the AfD process to see what happens. I do recognise we are an encyclopedia, but just saying [as an example] "Ronnie was nicknamed 'The Essex Exocet', here's a source for that claim" seems a bit..... low-effort. It would be worth backing up such a citation by looking for potential archive footage (if even possible) to prove it was used by an MC, and not just a made-up nickname of the given citation.

Overall, I would say we should reliably keep nicknames in infoboxes. However, I do think we should limit it to no more than 2 nicknames known to be used for a player: ideally, the maximum should be one, but there are likely broadcasters who've used alternative ones. Some of the Hendry nicknames seem like random turns of phrase by pundits or commentators and not necessarily nicknames used by an MC, for example. That being said, if the nicknames were moved to being part of the article text, I wouldn't have an issue with that either. --CitroenLover (talk) 19:14, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Thing is, a nickname isn't defined by it being used by used by an MC. I don't see what we gain from having a parameter in the infobox, rather than it being mentioned in the prose if notable.Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 12:40, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Lee. Does the MC really say Rod the Plod? I rather liked "Lightning Rod". Nigej (talk) 14:20, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with CitroenLover. Keep nickname(s) in infobox, max. two, but need to be reliably sourced, pref. WST profile source. The list page just looks like Fancruft to me and I'd vote to remove it. It might be a good idea to go for an AfD to get a wider view? Rodney Baggins (talk) 15:02, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Hard to say where the consensus is on this specific topic. I looked at the page on how something is put through the AfD process, but its highly confusing so if another editor with an understanding of the process wants to list the aforementioned article through it, to see the opinion, that would help.

I have no opinion on how nicknames are shown on article pages. Infobox or prose, it doesn't matter too much I guess. --CitroenLover (talk) 18:53, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

WST/WPBSA

Excuse my ignorance but I'm wondering whether we should be having "Organisation(s) WPBSA" in the infobox in 2021 English Open (snooker) for instance. Isn't it WST? According to this https://wpbsa.com/participation/wst/ "Administered by World Snooker Limited, WST has grown from hosting just six events to over 28 tournaments over the past decade" "The WPBSA is a 26% stakeholder in WST" "Matchroom Sport Ltd, a company owned by Barry Hearn owns 51% of World Snooker Ltd." so they're not at all the same thing. Nigej (talk) 20:14, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The WPBSA hasn't been the organiser since around the turn of the century if I recall. The WPBSA incorporated the WSA (in the late 90s or early 00s to administer the commercial rights to the game and organise events) leaving the WPBSA solely as the governing body. That has always been largely ignored on Wikipedia though; you are correct in what you say but the clean-up job is technically 20 years of articles, not just the WST events, although that might be a good place to start. Betty Logan (talk) 21:56, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

Indeed its all a bit of a mess. Apparently the two recent ranking-event Championship Leagues have been organised by "Matchroom Sport" but the non-ranking event in between was organised by "WPBSA, World Snooker Tour", which all seems a bit unlikely to me. Nigej (talk) 09:45, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

What is the specification for the "organisation" field? I couldn't see it at the template page. Promoter and/or governing body? These were, I think, usually distinct before WPBSA Promotions was formed in 1983, and there were tournaments promoted after this by other orgs too (e.g. Premier League Snooker). For recent events, WST seems like the best option. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 11:11, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

As you say, {{Infobox individual snooker tournament}} is silent on its meaning. Perhaps we just ought to get rid of it. Better nothing than incorrect/uncited/confusing. Nigej (talk) 11:25, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Organiser should always be written as World Snooker Tour for almost every tournament, unless there are known exceptions. For example, the exception is the Champion of Champions, and the Championship League, which are all Matchroom Sport tournaments and have never been organised or managed by WST. That being said, since its a static value, it may be better to just hardcode the value into the template and only put the parameter on pages where the text should be something different. CitroenLover (talk) 16:51, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Seems from https://wst.tv/wst-brand-relaunch-for-snooker-as-part-of-global-vision/ that the specific name "World Snooker Tour" only started at the beginning of 2020. To get the ball rolling I've changed the following 44 articles from 2020 onwards to say World Snooker Tour: 2020 English Open (snooker), 2020 European Masters (2019-20 season), 2020 European Masters (2020-21 season), 2020 German Masters, 2020 Gibraltar Open, 2020 Masters (snooker), 2020 Northern Ireland Open, 2020 Players Championship (snooker), 2020 Scottish Open (snooker), 2020 Snooker Shoot Out, 2020 Tour Championship, 2020 UK Championship, 2020 Welsh Open (snooker), 2020 World Grand Prix (2019-20 season), 2020 World Grand Prix (2020-21 season), 2020 World Snooker Championship, 2021 British Open, 2021 English Open (snooker), 2021 German Masters, 2021 Gibraltar Open, 2021 Masters (snooker), 2021 Northern Ireland Open, 2021 Players Championship (snooker), 2021 Scottish Open (snooker), 2021 Snooker Shoot Out, 2021 Tour Championship, 2021 UK Championship, 2021 WST Pro Series, 2021 Welsh Open (snooker), 2021 World Grand Prix, 2021 World Snooker Championship, 2022 European Masters, 2022 German Masters, 2022 Masters (snooker), 2022 Players Championship (snooker), 2022 Tour Championship, 2022 Turkish Masters, 2022 World Snooker Championship, Q School 2020 - Event 1, Q School 2020 - Event 2, Q School 2020 - Event 3, Q School 2021 - Event 1, Q School 2021 - Event 2, Q School 2021 - Event 3.

I've not changed 2019-20 Championship League, 2020 Championship League (2019-20 season), 2020 Championship League (ranking), 2021 Championship League (invitational), 2021 Championship League (2021-22 season), 2020 Champion of Champions, 2021 Champion of Champions, 2020 World Seniors Championship, 2021 World Seniors Championship, 2022 World Women's Snooker Championship. A couple of these are ranking events. Comments? Nigej (talk) 18:01, 19 November 2021 (UTC)

Championship League is organised by Matchroom Sport, as per its main "article": it has never been a WST event, so for me, those should refer to Matchroom Sport as the organiser in all instances rather than WST. That being said, given that Matchroom Sport is the parent company that owns the World Snooker Tour commercial rights, it would not be "entirely" wrong if the ranking version of CLSnooker was marked as being organised by the WST. As for the Seniors and World Women's Championship, these should be set to the World Seniors Tour and the World Women's Tour respectively as organisers as they are not organised by WST. WST in this context refers to the "main tour", so any tournament that doesn't appear on the WST's tournament schedule/calendar should generally not be referred to as a WST event.

Side-note: it would be nice if we had an article specifically about WST the company, alongside World Snooker Tour referring to the main professional tour itself. --CitroenLover (talk) 21:30, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm happy with all that. I was originally just concerned that using WPBSA was wrong. Clearly there's a close relationship between all these companies which makes things a little complicated. Also worth noting that WST is just a brand name, the company is still called World Snooker Ltd, formed in 2000, and there's a World Snooker Holding Ltd formed in 2010 which is the holding company created when Barry Hearn "took over" the tour, although WPBSA continues to be a minority shareholder of that holding company. Nigej (talk) 08:12, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

See this https://wpbsa.com/events-list/ which has a column Matchroom/WPBSA/WST/etc which, it seems to me, we should follow. Nigej (talk) 17:14, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Referring to sponsor in lead

Hi all. A few days ago, I proceeded to update some articles to use a format for the article lead which I found was against the Manual of Style (thanks to @Lee Vilenski: for notifying me about that!). It brought up a curious point about how the sponsor should be referred to in the article lead for all snooker articles.

Currently, a lot of articles have done something along the lines of this:

The XXXX tournamentname (referred to as the XXXX sponsor tournamentname for sponsorship purposes) was a....

This is all fine and well, but very wordy and unnecessarily draws attention to it being for sponsorship reasons: most readers can fully understand that its for sponsorship purposes and don't need that spelled out in a page imo. We have some GA's which use a much more abbreviated format, like this:

The XXXX tournamentname (officially the XXXX sponsor tournamentname) was a ....

I highly support using this latter format thats been used in some GA's (eg 2005 Masters (snooker)) and propose that we update all leads to this format. In a way, this would also make things similar in how Formula 1 grand prix articles are leaded in, as they use virtually the same style as the abbreviated format above (except they say "officially known as") and it works quite well on all their articles without issues. This would also bring a resolution to a previous debate on this topic (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Snooker/Archives/2020/August for more information) that supported keeping a reference to the sponsor in the lead, but in a way which is not overly promoting the sponsor.

Whats everyones thoughts? Will add pings here so wide range of input is found from our active editors: @Nigej: @Betty Logan: @BenjidogFourEyes: @Rodney Baggins: --CitroenLover (talk) 18:58, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

I've gone back on this. I prefer "option B" (Officially...), so long as we don't link the event or sponsor (per WP:BOLDAVOID. I don't think we should start the article with the official name, as that's not the name of the article, but we should totally mention it! I think the first option was my solution to the BOLDAVOID (such as 2005 Betfred Masters) issues we had, but can now be shortened. Both (I believe) have been through FAC, so it's more preference at this stage. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 11:14, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd support the abbreviated format (officially the XXXX sponsor tournamentname) – if we have to mention the sponsor up front, best make it as brief a mention as possible so as not to draw too much attention to it. Rodney Baggins (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Been a week, and since no one has directly opposed, I will now start correcting any leads on past or present articles to use the suggested abbreviated format of referring to sponsors. Easy enough to do on all our articles about the Masters, since that has the biggest BOLDAVOID problem lol, then I'll work through the World Champs and then the UK champs. After that, each tournament to the best of my ability. --CitroenLover (talk) 20:55, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Triple Crown discussion

There's a discussion started at Talk:Triple Crown (snooker)#Most Triple Crown finals you may be interested in. Nigej (talk) 09:40, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hossein Vafaei photo ?.

Hi I would like to know can somebody add a face pic to Vafaei's homepage as he does not have one. I do not know how to add one myself to be honest. Thanks guys 31.200.168.27 (talk) 23:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

There doesn't appear to be a free-use image of Hossein Vafaei on Wikimedia Commons. That's why his article has no picture. If you are a photographer and have taken a photo of him yourself, you might be able to add it to Commons and then into the article, but you would need to verify that it's your own work. Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:06, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Shoot Out edits

Just a note - the regular LTA is out in force to make sure the 2011 Snooker Shoot-Out (and probably more, I don't watchlist every article) describes on every result that the score was 1-0. Seems quite redundant to me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:20, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

• The "Best of 1 frame" is clearly completely ridiculous. I was wondering whether we need the "final" section in say 2022 Snooker Shoot Out which simply replicates the content above. Harmless enough I suppose. Nigej (talk) 21:27, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• I've reverted his edits at 2022 Snooker Shoot Out. I've also change the final box to simply say "1 frame". "Best of 1 anything" makes no sense. The English language says we use Better for 2 and Best for 3 or more, and neither for 1. Nigej (talk) 07:11, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
• I see he's made some "1 frame" additions to 2022 Snooker Shoot Out. Personally I don't find these too bad (we don't have the stupid "Best of"). Also it highlights the fact that the article doesn't actually mention the fact. The question then is whether it would be better to say somewhere that all matches were over 1 frame and leave it at that. Do we need to say it 4*8+3+1=36 times in the tournament draw? I notice in events like this European Tour 2015/2016 – Event 1 we do have "Best of 7 frames" 36 times. Of course, that's not necessarily a good reason for carrying on the style. Nigej (talk) 06:13, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  I would stick a sentence either in the lead or in the tournament format section (or perhaps both) and leave it at that. It's overkill to annotise each section of the draw with "1 frame". Betty Logan (talk) 07:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

  I don't have too much of an issue with it being in the draw, but in this case, we show the score, rather than the frames, so stating it's one frame in the draw is very confusing. I only have the 2020 Snooker Shoot Out to work with, as our gold standard, as it's the only one I have progressed through a GAN review. I can't say I'd do another one! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:50, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I suppose this is a good time to raise why we’re using the knockout draw template on the Shoot Out pages at all. Given its a single 10 minute frame where only the final score matters, it would make more logical sense that we didn’t use this draw template,especially when its liable to confuse users into believing the draw was set at the start and the tournament played as a regular “single elimination knockout” tournament, when the actuality is the draw was random on every round. Currently, the way i read this page is that there was only one draw and the pathway was known to the player, when this is not the case for the shoot out. CitroenLover (talk) 13:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. Why do we care when the draw was made after the fact? It is a single elimination tournament regardless of if the draw is made between rounds, or made before the event. This is exactly the same, and easier to follow a path of a player. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:53, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Bit mixed feelings here. One issue is that the order of matches is completely arbitrary. Why we've got the order we have, I've no idea. Maybe's there a system but it's not very obvious to me. Having said that, a bracket is generally clearer. One question is whether we need either. Why not just a last-16 bracket, ie the final evening session where it gets interesting, and then a section saying: a,b,c lost in the first round, d,e,f lost in the second etc. Nigej (talk) 18:46, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I'll admit that I appreciate the nicer "look" of brackets on the pages, because then its consistent with the other wiki pages. However, it currently creates an inaccurate picture of how the Shoot-Out works: a new viewer to snooker would think the draw is predetermined as in a traditional tournament, which isn't the case.

A bracket for just the Last 16 would be nice, but we would need to specify the times when the sections start. Obviously in traditional tournaments, the Semis and Final are played separately on Saturday and Sunday respectively, but in the Shoot-Out, all rounds from Last 32 to Final are played in one day, and the Last 16 to Final is played over one session. Without start times on the page for at least the final session of the Shoot Out, its not making it clear to a reader about how the tournament properly works.

Going back to the original point: I don't know why its necessary to put 1-0 as a score for Shoot Out matches. Its already explained its just a single 10 minute match, so the match score is always reported as 1-0 in someones favour, the only thing that matters is the final points score per match. --CitroenLover (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Ulster banner

In Template:Infobox snooker player/doc#Usage we have some very forceful stuff: "Emphatically do not use the Ulster banner," ..."in snooker player infoboxes" and then has a section where it says that you can use in certain places, like in 2022 German Masters. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Snooker#Flags also suggests that its generally ok but the "Matters for further consideration on the talk page" section says "Currently the Ulster flag is not used on player profiles" etc which is clearly not true. Any thoughts? Nigej (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we should be using flags at all in infoboxes, really but that's another matter. I don't see what's wrong with the Ulster flag if WST use it! Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:37, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

That forceful point about the NI flag is literally nonsense. I don't know who put it there, but its a flag consistently used by broadcasters and WST itself. There is nothing wrong with it and that "emphatic" point should probably be removed from the documentation. --CitroenLover (talk) 21:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC)