Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Cue sports

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Shortcuts WP:CUEMOS WP:MOSCUE MOS:CUE

This is a style guide for articles about cue sports. It describes spelling, terminological and other conventions for the article (and category) names and content of Wikipedia topics related to cue sports (billiards-family games). Snooker has further specialized style needs, as explained in WP:Manual of Style/Snooker.

The purposes of this guideline are to:

• Describe conventions for referring to cue sports games and equipment, differentiating them from each other and from other usages, especially numerical, to avoid ambiguity and confusion.
• Elucidate details of Wikipedia-wide policies and guidelines, such as WP:Manual of Style and WP:Article titles, as they apply to the naming and terminology of cue sports topics, including the handling of US vs. UK English, treatment of numbers, and neutral point of view.
• Explain how other Wikipedia-wide policies and guidelines (e.g.
  MOS:ICONS
  ) may apply to cue sports articles in particular, as needed.

The overall intent is to ensure that cue sports article prose is comprehensible, by avoiding awkward and ambiguous constructions. Consider the sentence "While 9-ball is a 9-ball game, the 9-ball is the real target; it can be pocketed in a 9-ball run, but earlier is better." It is better to rephrase to avoid endless repetition and potential confusion between the names of games and descriptions. "While nine-ball is a game played with nine balls, the 9 ball is the real target; it can be pocketed at the end of a run, but earlier is better."

• Overarching terms
  • The concept, and the extant sports as a class, are the "cue sports", inclusive of non-sport games, and of ball-less variants (e.g. novuss, played with disks). The singular is "a cue sport" or "a cue game". Avoid the contracted "cuesport(s)" which has much less currency, and is ambiguous ("What's a port for cues?").
  • The entire family of games may be referred to by terms such as "the billiards family of games" or "billiards-type games" (the
    History of billiards
    .
  • Like "water sports" and "martial arts", these are overarching terms, classifiers not frequently used in everyday speech and writing, versus specifics like "water skiing" and "kickboxing". Therefore, do not use "cue sport(s)" when something that is both non-ambiguous and more specific can be used.
  • Due to its ambiguity (see below), the umbrella term "billiard sports" is not very helpful on Wikipedia, as it can be taken to mean cue sports generally, or only those played on a pocketless billiards table.
• Major cue sports disciplines
  • For the purposes of this guideline, the major cue sports disciplines are:
    artistic pool. Few players of carom billiards or pool limit themselves to one particular game (three-cushion billiards, nine-ball, etc.) within those disciplines (though they may only be notable
    in the context of one).
  • Players and other subjects relating to a major cue sports discipline usually need not be identified by any narrower sub-discipline; these will more likely be mentioned and linked in coverage of achievements, events etc., e.g.: He has won the
    artistic pool, and speed pool
    .
  • Don't use "pocket billiards" (another industry-created overall term for a broad class of games) for "pool" (a narrower one) when the latter will do. "Pocket billiards" may refer to historical, pre-pool games, and to pocket-table games as a class (including, e.g., English billiards, Russian pyramid and snooker). Except as noted otherwise here, do not use "pool", "carom billiards", or "billiards" alone, when something more specific such as eight-ball or balkline is intended.
• The term "billiards"
  • "Billiard(s)" is generally too ambiguous unless qualified (she is a professional player of English billiards or the game is played on carom billiards table), because its meaning changes not only regionally but contextually. Avoid a usage like He is a professional billiards player, unless the subject is a professional player of multiple major cue sports that all conventionally use the term "billiards". One who is a snooker, pool, and carom billiards player is best described as exactly that.
  • In a historical context, do use "billiards" (billiards, croquet, golf, field hockey, and lawn bowling all seem to have developed from the same class of ancient Eurasian outdoor game.) The term "cue sports" dates to the 20th or perhaps late 19th century, and is anachronistic when used to refer to the early history of the games.
  • Do not refer to English billiards or other specific games as "billiards" except in a context in which it is clear that the specific game is meant (usually because it has already been mentioned and linked to by name): He was a world-champion player of snooker and English billiards. ... His billiard career began in 1934, and he began competing at snooker in 1937.
• The term "game"
  • "Cue game(s)" can be used, but should be reserved for activities that are not the subject of national or international competition bar billiards is a cue game that can be placed against a wall without affecting play). Link the first occurrence to Cue sports.
  • Conversely, a game that isn't the subject of non-trivial competition is not a sport, but simply a game or pastime.
  • A particular cue sport, or family thereof, may be referred to less formally (e.g., anywhere in the article other than the intro sentence of the
    Olympic games
    are sports referred to as "games").
  • The term "game" however, may have a more specific meaning in a context like tournaments or league play, so avoid any potential ambiguities.

The game

• The canonical name format for the game [in English] for Wikipedia purposes is "nine-ball". Using
  World Eight-ball Pool Federation, who similarly avoid use of the numeral 8, despite the reference ultimately being to the numbered 8 ball). It is not "Nine-ball" – non-trademarked games are not proper nouns (cf. association football, badminton, chess, etc., vs. National Basketball Association, Mortal Kombat) It is certainly not "Nine-Ball" – second and subsequent word parts are not capitalized in hyphenated compounds, even if the compounds are proper nouns, unless also themselves proper names (e.g. "Jane Foster-Smythe").^[1]
  The game also is not named "nine ball", nor "Nine Ball" for capitalization reasons already given above. Do not use the style "9-ball" for the game; small numbers should be spelled out and numerals should never start a sentence. The only times the 9-ball construction should be used in Wikipedia cue sports articles are in the official names of organizations, and in the first sentence of the intro of the article about that game, and then only as an alternative colloquial name, e.g.:

• Where numerical usage is utterly ingrained and almost invariable, use the numeric rather than spelled-out version. Examples: "18.2 balkline", "14.1 continuous". This does not apply to game names frequently spelled either way (as noted, we do not use "1-pocket", "3-cushion" even if some sources do). If something like "18.2 balkline" would begin a sentence, rewrite to avoid rather than spelling out.

• The convention on naming of the game applies to all games, whether named for the winning ball or the number of balls or objects used. This applies to all games, regardless of whether the
  three-cushion, one-pocket
  ").

• The ball and its label/name are not run-together. Incorrect examples: "nineball", "9ball". (The same goes for non-ball objects, e.g. do not use "fivepea".)

• References to the count of or succession of balls should always be in the form "nine balls", "ninth ball", etc. To avoid confusion, they should be spelled out (no numerals like "9 balls left", "or sank his 9th ball in a row in the straight pool match"); it is generally accepted standard English usage to spell it out — and not hyphenate it, either — anyway.^[1]

• The convention on referring to the count or sequence of balls also applies to non-ball objects, whether numbered or not, but numbered ones should be spelled out. For example,
  pins/skittles or shake pills/peas. E.g., "I knocked over all five pins" not "...all 5 pins"; "I drew the number-five pill from the shake bottle
  ", not "...the 5 pill". While because it is numbered "the 5 pill" would be correct under the same theory as "the 9 ball", which we prefer, in the Wikipedia context the similarity of the former to the latter will be visually confusing to readers and editors, so it is spelled out as "the five pill" or "the number-five pill". Object-referent numerals in cue sports articles always refer to numbered balls.

Names of organizations and titles of publications, because they are usually officially-registered and often trademarked designations, should be left as-is, but redirected-to from the name that would adhere to this guideline. An organization legally called the Aruba 9Ball Association should have its article appear at Aruba 9Ball Association, and have a redirect page to it at Aruba Nine-ball Association.

Statistics and winnings

• References to wins, scores, ratios, placings, etc., by long-standing sports statistics conventions, should be given as numerals, not written-out words, as per
  WP:MOSNUM); their format and context is generally clear enough as to avoid any ambiguity with ball or game names. Example: "He won 10–4 in the race to 10, taking 3rd place and winning ¥
  2,000,000."

• Similarly to "nine-ball", hyphenate non-numeric game names when appropriate, for consistency. The style specified here for nine-ball, etc., is also used for non-numerically named games, except when this will produce a grammatically incorrect result. Game names that are not compound nouns must not be hyphenated. "bank-pool", "English-billiards", "skittle-pool", "carom-billiards", "straight-rail" all of those are simply adjectives modifying nouns – games described and differenced from other games in the same general class.

• Game names that are fully compounded on an industry-wide basis remain that way in Wikipedia articles. As of this writing, there are only two known examples. The first is
  blackball, an internationally standardized (mostly British Commonwealth) variant of eight-ball. Please note that the term "the black ball" in reference to a ball rather than the game should not be hyphenated or compounded (just like "9 ball", "cue ball", etc.); see "The ball and other numbered equipment"
  .

• If the country/region name is not part of the official name of the organization is should not be added as if it is. If some differentiation must be made for disambiguation reasons, it should be done with a parenthetical at the end of the article name. For example, if an organization existed called the Pool Federation (and that were its full legal name) in the Kingdom of Tonga, and a different organization had the same legal name in Jamaica, and both were notable enough for articles, they would be named Pool Federation (Tonga) and Pool Federation (Jamaica), with a Pool Federation disambiguation page at the unadorned name, wikilinking to both of them. They should not be named Pool Federation of Tonga, Jamaican Pool Federation, etc., but redirects should exist to them from obvious alternatives like these.

For the handling of numbers in names of organizations, see "Numbers: Organizations and publications", above.

Naming of rulesets

• Do not capitalize a ruleset, unless referred to by its actual published title, or an unambiguous, reasonable shortening of it.
• Do not change the published spelling when using the proper name of the ruleset, as with organization names (e.g., do not change "8-Ball" to "Eight-ball" if the original reads "8-Ball"). If there is an article on the topic, create a redirect from the spelling that agrees with the general recommendations of this guideline, to the real article at the official spelling.

• Do not italicize the name of a ruleset unless it is being referred to as a publication per se, not the rules themselves as applied, and only then if it is a discrete publication, not a section of a larger one (in which case use quotations marks, as with any other chapter or article in a larger publication).

Naming of sporting titles

• Capitalize a sporting title only when it is the official title, or a shortening or sensible rearranging thereof that is clear in the context.

• Right: "Smith was the 2007 WPA Women's Division World Eight-ball Champion, the runner-up in 2008, and World Champion again in 2009."
• Right: "Smith was the 2007 WPA World Eight-ball Champion (Women's Division), the runner-up in 2008, and World Champion again in 2009."
• Right: "Smith is a world champion pool player."
• Right: "Smith was a 2007 WPA World Championship winner."

• Avoid constructions that truncate "Champion" or other official person-descriptor in the title, which will render a partial title that doesn't make sense:

• Wrong: "Smith was the 2007 WPA Women's Division World Eight-ball victor." (There is no such thing as "World Eight-ball".)

• Other terms: Terms such as "runner-up", "1st place", and "semi-finalist" do not qualify for capitalization. When using such terms, use an untruncated version of the event name (e.g. "World Eight-ball Championship runner-up"), or do not capitalize (e.g. "3rd place in the WPA world eight-ball event that year"). There is no such thing as a "World Champion runner-up", without "-ship". Also, in reference to a single event, there is no such thing as "a" runner-up, but rather "the" runner-up. Hyphenate "runner-up", "semi-finalist" and "quarter-finalist", as they are compound nouns (but usually not fully-compounded – avoid "quarterfinalist"). "Quarter finalist" suggests 1/4 of a finalist or a finalist in a particular quarter. Do not hyphenate or fuse "1st place", etc., as they are not compounds. Hyphenating adjectival use is optional ("a 1st-place victory", "a 1st place victory").

• Informal wording: Avoid slang-ish abbreviations like "champ" and
  peacock terms like "dominator", "juggernaut", etc.; Wikipedia is not a sports journalism magazine
  .

• Commercial sponsors: Identifying events by their commercial sponsors can be very problematic for a number of reasons. First, it runs afoul of
  WP:COMMONNAME, and thus the article on the event may be at that name. It is not necessary in such cases to always refer to the event by that name if it doesn't seme the best choice in the context of the material being written. E.g. one might refer to a victory on the WPA Asian Nine-ball Tour, even if that article about that is moved (for now) to Guinness Asian 9-Ball Tour
  .

• Illustrative example: Using the Botswana hypothetical event used above, assuming sanctioning by the Botswana Nine-ball Association (BNA), and using these criteria (including the number formatting guidelines), the event article should be BNA National Nine-ball Classic, and a redirect page should exist pointing to this article from each of the other names, and their number spelling-corrected variants: Botswana National 9Ball Classic, Botswana National Nine-ball Classic, National Botswana 9-Ball Tournament, National Botswana Nine-ball Tournament, Botswana National Nineball Smack-down Challenge, Botswana National Nine-ball Smack-down Challenge, and Ndele Billiards Club Nine-ball Invitational. Imaginable but unattested variants (like "National Botswana Nine-ball Smackdown Challenge Invitational Classic") should not be created as redirects, since no one is ever likely to be looking for them.

• Recorded tournaments and italicization: If a tournament is broadcast (or recorded and published) in some manner (television, DVD, VHS, etc.), italicize the name/title only when referring to it specifically in the context of such a presentation. For example, for a hypothetical tournament called "Ten-ball Showdown", one might write "Jane Q. Doe won the 2009 Ten-ball Showdown" (the event), but "ESPN first broadcast Ten-ball Showdown in August 2009" (the show). If an event has no existence outside of its broadcast format (e.g. Pot Black), always italicize it. Also, when referring to the title as a recorded production, use the title as given for the show by the broadcaster/publisher, even if it does not agree with the article name or the name of the event as more generally known: "ESPN first broadcast EnjoyPool.com 10-Ball Showdown Las Vegas '09 in August 2009". Article titles should avoid such constructions when possible, especially with regard to including sponsor names.

For the handling of numbers in names of events, see "Numbers: Tournaments and other events", above.

For the handling of non-English names of events, see "Organization names", above.

For the handling of "Championship" and "Masters" in event names, see "Other terms", below.

Games, frames, rounds and matches

In reference to game types that are played purely recreationally, the terms

For game types that are subject to organized competition (i.e., are sports), "game" refers to the game rules and subculture (e.g. "the game of Russian pyramid"), while "frame" is used in articles to refer to an instance of game play, regardless of English dialect. This terminological clarity is especially important for competitions that may involve multiple races to frames or rounds of frames. The term "round" is used to mean a segment of game play consisting (or potentially consisting) of more than one frame, but not constituting an entire match. A "match" is the entire competition between vying parties, (individual or team). Where the match consists of a single frame, or a single round, it should be referred to as a match, again regardless of colloquial use, for inter-article consistency. If a match conclusion is also the conclusion of a larger stage of tournament play, a term for that may reasonably be substituted for match (e.g., "She won the last frame 8–3, and took the semi-final [instead of 'match'] and will face Jackson in the final match" or "The World Championship [instead of 'match'] went to Shen after an eleven ball run.").

"Round" can be used more generically in reference to levels of play in a large competition, e.g., "the quarter-final rounds of the National Cup". When specific players or teams in opposition are being discussed, use "match" to describe their contest, and use "round" as recommended in the previous paragraph.

Other competition terms

• "Final" (in the tournament bracket context) is singular – there is only one final match per event. The plural "finals" can be used in unusual constructions, e.g. "Doe was defeated in two UK Championship finals in a row, in 2008 and 2009", or "Jane Q. Public and John Doe won the 2009 female and male divisional finals, respectively". Do not capitalize "final[s]" except at the beginning of a sentence, in a heading, in the title of a cited source, or in another normally capitalized context.

• "Semi-finals" and "quarter-finals" are plural when used as nouns, unless in the context of a particular group: "John Doe lost in the semi-finals" and "the quarter-finals were held on 14 July", but "Doe's quarter-final victory" (adjective usage), and "Doe advanced from the Group C quarter-final" (a specific, singular quarter-final group being referenced).

• "Semi-final[s]" and "quarter-final[s]" are hyphenated, not single-word and not two separate words. When appearing at the start of a sentence or in another normally capitalized context, only the first part is capitalized, as with any other hyphenated compound, but as with "final" is never capitalized otherwise.

• "Championship" is always singular when speaking of a specific event, and always plural when writing of a series or multiplicity of events. As a matter of convention, events such as the World Snooker Championship and WPA World Nine-ball Championship are given in the singular, even if they have multiple divisions since no division produces two tying champions. Some sources (including event organizers) use the plural form even for a single event, but Wikipedia does not emulate this potentially confusing misusage. Examples:
• "John Doe won the 2009 Isle of Man Championship." (single event)
• "John Doe has three Isle of Man Championships under his belt." (multiple events)
• "John Doe is a frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Championships." (series of events; if one wrote "frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Championship" this would rather crazily imply that this year he competed in the championship several times!)

"Championship" is only capitalized when used as part of the official name (or common short or extended version) of an event, e.g. "UK Snooker Championship", "UK Championship", but not "his third championship" even when in reference to the same event.

A real-world case: The Six-red World Championship article is named in accordance with this guideline, even though multiple spellings are attested, with the event's own official homepage (as of December 18, 2009) using both "Championship" and "Championships" interchangeably on the same page.

• "Champion" is only capitalized when used as a complete official title or common alternative form of it: "Doe is a three-time World Champion", "...three-time Snooker World Champion", "...three-time World Snooker Champion", but "Doe is a three-time World Champion and seven-time national champion" (unless we have already said what nation it is and the event is actually called the [Country name here] National Championship, not the UK Championship or Azerbaijan Championship or whatever), and "Jane Q. Public beat reigning champion John Doe, 17–10" ("champion" by itself is not a capitalized title like Reverend, Pope, Duke or Admiral, even if it precedes a name).

• "Masters" in this context is always "Masters", singular and plural (after all, there is no such event as the World Pool Master Tournament. Do not use "Masters'", which is possessive, nor "Masterses" which is simply not real English. Examples:
• "John Doe won the 2009 Isle of Man Masters." (single event)
• "John Doe has three Isle of Man Masters under his belt." (multiple events; "Masters titles" would be better here, though, for clarity)
• "John Doe is a frequent competitor at the Isle of Man Masters." (series of events)

"Masters" is basically always capitalized because it is never really used outside of an actual event name (e.g. if Doe won the Isle of Man Masters and the Botswana Masters, we would not write "Doe is a two-time Masters winner", since "Masters" would have no clear referent.

• "Division", "group", "conference" and the like are capitalized when, but only when, used with the official name of the divisional grouping. "Women's Division" would be capitalized if the league or event organizers used that term in particular, but if you use "ladies' division" instead in some construction, this would not be capitalized. Likewise capitalize "Group C" but not "C group" or "third group" if the official term is "Group C". The basic principle is that Wikipedia is not here to make up titles. By way of analogy, the first-released and plot-chronologically fourth Star Wars movie is
  Star Wars Episode IV
  for short, but not Star Wars: No. 1, Star Wars 4, Star Wars – New Hope, or any other shorthand an editor here might like to make up, and any even more circuitous locutions would not be capitalized and italicized either (e.g., we would not write "She starred in The Original Star Wars Film").

Cue

• The cue ball is the "cue ball"; the cue stick is the "cue stick" (or a more specific term, e.g. "pool cue"). A bare reference to "the cue" is usually too ambiguous.

• The terms must not be compounded, e.g. as "cuestick" or (as already addressed above) "cueball".

• When speaking generically, the hand-held implement is "the cue stick"; when speaking of specific games, the term can be more specific (and mandatorily truncated): "snooker cue", "pool cue", "carom cue". While "cue" is a perfectly valid term for "cue stick" (some would even argue that the latter is redundant), the shorter term is usually too ambiguous for use in Wikipedia articles, which will be read by many people utterly unfamiliar with the topic. "Cue" by itself is acceptable when:

• the cue stick and cue ball are mentioned in the same sentence (e.g. "strike the cue ball with the cue" is not ambiguous; "using a lot of follow-though with the cue" is not;
• the context is not about games at all, so no confusion could arise: "George Balabushka did not actually make the 'Balabushka' cue used in the movie The Color of Money".

• The cue ball must never be referred to as "the cue", even if it would not be ambiguous in context, and despite common spoken shorthand of this fashion, because it is simply factually incorrect and constitutes
  non-encyclopedic, slangy tone
  .

Mechanical bridge

• The reach-assisting implement should be referred to as the mechanical bridge in North American English or as a rest (or a more specific term, like spider or goose-neck rest) in Commonwealth English. It should never be referred to as simply the "bridge", as this is factually incorrect (the forward, stabilizing hand is the bridge, and the mechanical bridge is an artificial substitute for it when reaching with the hand is impossible or ineffective). It must not be referred to by colloquial disparaging names like "granny stick", "wussy stick", etc., per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. It may be referred to by neutral colloquial terms if these are defined in situ or Glossary-linked. For largely American games like eight-ball and nine-ball, the term "rake" can be used, but should be wikilinked with {{Cuegloss|Rake|rake}}. For snooker, English billiards and blackball, the proper term is "rest", and likewise should be given as {{Cuegloss|Rest|rest}}. When used alone, it generally implies the cross-type rest by default, but also implies that other types might be used, depending upon the situation; there are up to four different rests used in those games. If one means the cross-type rest specifically, say so, e.g. "{{Cuegloss|Cross|cross}}-type {{Cuegloss|Rest|rest}}", or "{{Cuegloss|Rest|rest}} ({{Cuegloss|Cross|cross}} type)" (or even simply "{{Cuegloss|Cross|cross}}", after first occurrence). Because "cross", "spider", "swan" and "hook" all have original, non-sporting meanings, using these rest names by themselves is too ambiguous and should be accompanied one way or another by the word "rest" at first occurrence in an article or large section. Likewise, the first occurrence of "rake" should be something like "{{Cuegloss|Rake|rake}} ({{Cuegloss|Mechanical bridge|mechnical bridge}})".

Chalk

• "Chalk" should only refer to cue-tip chalk, never hand "chalk". For the latter, use "hand talc", or "talcum", or "talc" (hand "chalk" cones are in fact made of talcum, not chalk.)

• Summary: Dialect logic and game traditions should be respected, and terms disambiguated; otherwise
  WP:ENGVAR
  should be applied as usual.

• As elsewhere in Wikipedia, it is proper to use British or Commonwealth English terminology when discussing largely British or Commonwealth topics (or those highly influenced by their terminology, such as snooker even outside the Commonwealth of Nations), and North American terms when discussing largely North American topics.

• US/Canadian example, in an article about an eight-ball player: "Using the rake, she shot with high left english from the foot rail, to pocket the 8 ball with a carom off one of the stripes."
• British/Australian/etc. version, about a blackball player: "Using the rest, she shot with top left side from the top cushion, to pot the black with a cannon in-off one of the yellows."

(And jargon terms not previously defined in the article should be wikilinked to their Glossary of cue sports terms entry with {{Cuegloss}}.)

• For games closely associated with one dialect or another, the more appropriate dialect should be used consistently (thus American English for most pool games such as
  blackball pool, and English billiards. An article for the Western Hemisphere variant American snooker
  should use American spelling, just as the British eight-ball variant blackball uses British English.

• Because cue sports terminology can differ widely between the dialects, and even directly conflict, jargon terms should be given with their other-dialect equivalent at first occurrence whenever they differ, especially in a context where the dialect is not immediately intutitively guessable (i.e. one might do this in
  Billiards techniques but not in English billiards, though no harm could come with doing it there as well). For example: "head rail (bottom cushion)", "rest (rake)", "black spot (foot spot
  )".

• When the topic is more general and confusion/ambiguity is not an issue, the
  Pool hall, Four-ball billiards
  , etc.