Wikipedia talk:In the news/Recurring items/Archive 7

You haven't refuted anything. I asked you to show me the current consensus and you have completely ignored that. ITNR is a list of items with consensus for posting every time. No consensus doesn't mean the status quo holds, it means it goes because it can no longer be claimed to have the consensus required for it to stay. When you added it back yesterday you were asserting a current consensus for its inclusion: I don't see it here nor at ITN/C. Where is it? Crispmuncher (talk) 16:39, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Refuting the removal arguments was easy. The arguments are it is not important or of interest to Europeans. I pretty much refuted those. The question is if is important or of interest enough to be on ITNR. You invoked consensus eight hours after the discussion started. EIGHT HOURS. EIGHT HOURS. Who else does that? You could've at least waited for like 80 hours. –HTD 17:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Where's the current consensus for removal? –HTD 17:37, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Re-read what I wrote: ITNR is a list of items with consensus to post every time. I didn't assert a consensus, I asserted a lack of one - there needs to be consensus for it to retain its listing. No, you have not refuted anything. All you have done is post some stats from Google. That's an observation but the idea that it somehow nukes every argument raised in opposition is wide of the mark, particularly when it is the kind of argument that would not be accepted at all anywhere else per

WP:RS

. Repeating the same assertions and claiming that they sweep all other arguments aside does not make the argument any stronger.

It wasn't eight hours either, the previous discussion on ITN/C had already been active for 48 hours and revealed a lack of consensus and if you read my comments above I explicitly referenced that discussion. Even with its current ITNR listing it failed to get posted, not because of updates but because of the level of opposition to it. Its now gone from ITN/C without getting posted and as such it has already lost its ITNR status in a de facto way even if it is still listed on there. As far as I'm aware that is the first time an item has been rejected on notability while being listed on ITNR, which is itself evidence of the opposition to it: if it couldn't get posted with ITNR status what chance would it have without it? ITNR is for stuff that will get posted every time even without that status: it is clear this does not fit the bill by the simple measure that it didn't get posted. Crispmuncher (talk) 01:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Those are not just some Google search shit I posted, they're legit Google News results: every link there would pass

WP:RS

.

I dunno if the article was updated if it would be posted. We're not so sure on that. The updates were too short and should've gone to

2011–12 Euroleague Final Four anyway -- the "update" was just a sneaky shortcut to make it get posted and I would've opposed its inclusion in the live template at that state. Hence it getting "de facto" lost its ITNR status just doesn't make sense. GAA events had been opposed heavily for years until I and the people gave up it and it always goes up. I dunno about the quality of the updates there, though. –HTD

02:10, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Quoting a bulk count wouldn't pass

WP:RS: a lot of those hits are incidental references or refer to previous years. A selected a few stories at random from Google's results: [3] [4] [5] [6]. None of those stories cover the Euroleague either primarily or even as a secondary topic. How do they support the assertion of notability? These are not results rank in the 90 thousands - they were all selected in a matter of seconds from the top 100 stories, more-or-less at random. How many of those 90-odd thousand matches are actually anything to do with this league? That's what Google doesn't tell you. Crispmuncher (talk

) 03:25, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

I dunno, maybe the news cycle replaced this. I still get quality hits on the first page, such as this, this where the Panathinaikos bus was thrown with rocks (so much for low interest in this league), and this where it states London will the next 2 Euroleague final fours -- Londoners should be ready with crazy Greek fans! –HTD 04:27, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support removal. We should really be examining leagues and championships in their own right, and this championship is orders of magnitudes behind something like the NBA championships in terms of notability. Regardless, I am sympathetic to the H-cup argument above; but that means we need to also get rid of the H-Cup from ITNR, and
  does not justify the inclusion of Euroleague just because. Colipon+(Talk
  ) 16:53, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The H-Cup won't ever be removed here. I'm betting the house and the lives of all my grandchildren. That's why I'm using it as the standard of inclusion here. –HTD 22:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• Support Only the top leagues should be included for sports, and for Basketball that's clearly the NBA (where incidentally also the top European players tend to gravitate to). Khuft (talk) 18:00, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• Strong oppose I totally agree with HTD. If the sport is not popular in the UK and you don't know the countries where it is popular, you simply don't have a legitimacy of arguments to draw any conclusion. Basketball is one of the main sports in Europe and the fact it is not popular in UK is completely irrelevant, when it is regularly followed by dozens of millions in Russia, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Turkey, etc. Even if you consider that the English Wikipedia has most of its readers in the UK and should therefore be leaning towards stories popular within its borders, the number of people reading it only in the mentioned countries is larger. Moreover, basketball is worldwide one of the most popular sports and naturally should be represented with more stories per year, and the Euroleague as top continental competition is surely the closest one behind NBA. Important note for those who don't know about the Euroleague is that its equivalent in football would be the UEFA Champions League.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 18:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

  What's telling is that despite not being popular in an English-speaking European country, it still out-views (if there's such a word) a sporting event that is supposedly massively popular in the UK+Ireland in the English Wikipedia. I really hope no one gives me the argument that Americans (and Canadians) were checking out Sonny Weems' career in Europe. –HTD 22:24, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

  • Can you also comment on Hurling above? Colipon+(Talk) 18:43, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose- Basketball is one of the most popular sports in certain parts of Europe,[7][8] and this is the most notable event of a notable sport within a wide range of countries. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 22:30, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Basketball is one of the most popular sports in certain parts of Europe ^{[citation needed]}. Formerip (talk) 23:27, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

It's widely described as the most popular sport in Lithuania [9], and it's pretty high up the list in much of former Yugoslavia [10] (not the best source, but the most conveniently available). Zagalejo^^^ 23:40, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

The former Yugoslavia eh? I'm impressed. This would make the event highly suitable for ITNR on Serbo-croat WP. Surely, we either list all sporting events that are important somewhere in the world as ITNR or we don't. I've a feeling that "we don't" is better. Formerip (talk) 23:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

My citations showed that it broke records in Spain and Greece and also received significant coverage in Turkey, Russia, and Germany. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 00:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

So, as well as Serbo-croat it may be a good candidate for ITNR on the Spanish, Greek, Turkish, Russian and German Wikipedias. Why don't we include the SEATTA table tennis championships? (Come to think of it, why don't we even have an article on them?) Or the Kuwait Camel Races Championship? Formerip (talk) 00:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Despite being played in non-English speaking countries, this has higher page view stats than a sporting event that is supposedly massive in Europe's English speaking countries. That's the difference. –HTD 01:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

What I would take from those page view stats is that there are many English language sources of information on, say, the Heineken Cup but relatively few English language sources of information on European basketball. Hence the rugby audience is spread over many more places (e.g. every national paper will have the H-Cup result and most will have reports) but the English language audience for European basketball is more concentrated here. FerdinandFrog (talk) 13:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That's perfectly possible, but if there are many sources of English language information on a sporting event, should it follow that it should have higher page view stats since it implies higher interest amongst English speakers in the English Wikipedia? There was even a claim that the

NBA.com; that means there's interest to this even among English speakers. –HTD

14:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm really not sure what point you are making. To be clear, I was saying that if there are many English language sources on an event (e.g. H-Cup) then many people will have found all of the information that they want outside of Wikipedia but if there are few English language sources on an event (e.g. European basketball) then many people will come to Wikipedia to find out about it (assuming that we cover it).

I think that the idea of

NBA.com supports this contention. If your local TV news / paper / whatever has covered the NBA results then you don't need to look at NBA.com, if it hasn't covered Eurobasket then you do look at Eurobasket.com. FerdinandFrog (talk

) 14:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles will still have traffic whether or not users already knew what happened. Take for example the F1 season article, it consistently has the largest page views on race day vs. other sporting events, but people have the whole internet to look for results.

I don't live in Europe so I dunno what's the situation there. I guess it can be measure by the number of games that aired on pan-European sports channels? Eurosport had coverage (not only this but other basketball tournaments, especially on the European & World under-X groups championships), but then again I see a fair amount of handball and rugby there. –HTD 14:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You were (or at least seemed to be) making the point that the popularity of a sport could be determined simply by the number of page views on Wikipedia and I pointed out that those numbers could be interpreted differently, even to show the opposite point. Now I am not sure what point you are making.

Without knowing a lot of other information the relative popularity of sports, in terms of page views, does not tell us a great deal. F1 races take place on a Sunday which is not the most common day for professional sport and so its relative good performance may be affected by that.

Measuring the popularity of a sport (or any topic) is far from easy. The number of games that aired on pan-European sports channels is probably one of the worst possible measures. A sport popular in multiple countries will have many multiple broadcasters wanting it, hence coverage may be split between several of them and they may all be national broadcasters.

If you actually want to make a case that is at all convincing you probably need to look at a number of measures. Off of the top of my head I can think of:

* coverage (TV, radio, press, internet)

* audience (TV, radio, internet)

* attendance at elite (e.g. professional) matches

* attendance at other (e.g. amateur) matches

and there will almost certainly be others.

The end result is likely to rank sports very differently on different measures. FerdinandFrog (talk) 16:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Then it is not that easy to disprove that Europeans are not into basketball, no? If we can't prove it is the 2nd most popular sport in the continent, certainly we can't prove that it is the 2nd least popular. The point is without anything to base on aside from our respective biases, we'd have to make do with what we have. I really find your theory on page views a stretch; many sporting events are held on a Sunday: the

2012 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final are on Sundays. The page views almost always measures interest amongst the English Wikipedia's readers. –HTD

17:31, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

(P.S.: You may find my Google News hits to be quite relevant in this discussion. –HTD 17:41, 17 May 2012 (UTC))

The onus is on the person making a point to prove it. If you say that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe then you have to show that is the case, it is not up to anyone else to disprove it.

If you want to make that case you don't have to make do with what is easy to get (page view counts) but you need to build a body of evidence. I did not, as you are implying, say that nothing could be gained from looking at various types of data. What I said was that different measure would likely yield different results. If you can provide, say, a dozen genuinely different measurements and, say, eight of them ranked basketball as second then you might convince people.

As for sport on Sundays; firstly you are, again, arguing against something I did not say. I said that "Sunday ... is not the most common day for professional sport" not that there is no sport on Sundays. Secondly, the examples you give rather make my case for me. What you have listed is four events in the year when there are something like 18 F1 races. If F1 races were on a Saturday you would have been able to list thousands of competing events.

"The page views almost always measures interest amongst the English Wikipedia's readers" - Do you have any evidence at all to support that assertion? If their interest has been fully satisfied elsewhere why would someone look at the relevant Wikipedia at the time? FerdinandFrog (talk) 18:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Again, I can build bodies and bodies of evidence but it wouldn't mean a thing. It ultimately depends on what I give and what you choose to receive and what you give back in return. We wouldn't reach conclusions in this discussion. All we can get at is some rough guide on where things stand and a lot of wasted time arguing that could've been better used at improving articles.

Actually, I was amused at your Sunday comment: I didn't say no one plays high-level sport on a Sunday, I just provided examples that there are some high-level sports played on that day. It was actually hard to find examples, which probably means you were somewhere between "dogmatic right" and "somewhat right since I can't prove anything anyway no matter how many stuff I dig up." –HTD 22:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that if it isn't related to an English-speaking country, it shouldn't be posted. I have shown that it is notable for a number of large non-English countries, not just one small one like the Kuwait Camel Races. We often post sporting events that have no significance or major coverage whatsoever in any English-speaking countries, and this even has quite a lot of coverage in America, as shown by my second source. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 01:04, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a page that listed the Top 20(?) countries that frequently use the English Wikipedia. There's a good start to find out which countries do matter. –HTD 01:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose removal. There's a perfectly reasonable case that it's the second most popular team sport in Europe, with a large following in most European countries (but not the UK). The 'supports' above are clearly very parochial and are not taking into account the sports' or the league's popularity on the continent.--Johnsemlak (talk) 04:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence to support the suggestion that basketball is the second most popular team sport in Europe? Without evidence I find it hard to believe that this proposition is feasible let alone reasonable. FerdinandFrog (talk) 13:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Where else in Europe is rugby popular? Among the "six nations" it's only very popular in the UK+Ireland, popular in France but not as much in the British Isles, marginally popular in Italy and... dunno for the rest of Europe. Basketball has a pretty solid following in southern Europe (Spain, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey), Lithuania, Russia and somewhat less so in Eastern Europe. It's quite possible that basketball can give rugby a run for its money. Heck, maybe handball has more fans than rugby since rugby fans are concentrated on 3 countries. It's perfectly plausible that European nations outside the 6 Nations, basketball is more popular than rugby. HTD 14:02, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Who said anything about rugby?

Johnsemlak used weasel words to say that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe and I was asking him to substantiate that claim.

If I was asked to name the second most popular sport in Europe I would say that it depends upon how you measure it but the possibilities that most readily occur to me include:

* Cycling (France, Spain, Italy, Benelux, Germany, and some others)

* Handball (most of continental Europe I believe)

* Formula 1 (huge in Italy, popular in the rest of western Europe)

* Athletics (again most of continental Europe)

I have talked to friends and colleagues in many European countries (having visited quite a few of them) and these have come up in conversations about sport much more than basketball.

Finally, FWIW cycling is nowhere nearly as popular in the UK as it is in continental Europe but it is streets ahead of basketball in the UK.

FerdinandFrog (talk) 16:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I was thinking more on the lines of sports leagues. So I crossed out cycling, formula 1 and athletics. I dunno if they sell tickets on cycling; people just wait at the route, right? Formula 1 is ran on massive racetracks that are larger than most stadia, while athletics is an outdoor sport and is mostly done per tournament and not on a "season", so if people missed a tournament, they'd have to wait for the several tourneys before it goes back to their city (if it does ever come back), unlike with sports leagues where you can miss a game and still won't miss everything. In terms of sports leagues, the European pecking order would be football, then a close fight between rugby union, basketball and handball, then probably volleyball and ice hockey. –HTD 17:23, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but you are sounding rather like a troll rather than someone trying to be constructive. You have repeatedly responded to me by disagreeing with something other than what I said. Here I have made some valid points and you are trying to change the basis of discussion, seemingly, simply to support your position.

Noone before has said that this discussion is limited to sports that have a league structure. Also F1, cycling & athletics do have a league structure. In F1 the winning driver is the one who has accrued the most points over the season. In cycling the winning rider has the best time accrued over the duration of the event (consider each second to be a point). In athletics you will see that at both the national and international level it has a league structure.

Also you are introducing irrelevant items:

* whether tickets are sold has not been mentioned before

* the size of F1 circuits is not significant (except that it may show how popular it is)

* the fact that athletics takes place outdoors does not matter, so does football

Finally, your statement that you "crossed out cycling, formula 1 and athletics" implies that you believe them to be more popular in Europe than basketball is but you chose to ignore them when saying that basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe. FerdinandFrog (talk) 18:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Dude, I crossed out the three because I haven't then considered on how they are structured; I wasn't trolling. I even LOL at myself for missing out F1. It's just that when I think of sports, I think of leagues and teams; heck even I knew F1 was similar in structure to a normal sports league, and even said it's one of the most popular sport there is. I haven't considered (then) where they are on the pecking order. I was not changing the basis of the discussion, at least not consciously, I honestly missed those. –HTD 22:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Just to illustrate the fact, these are the menus for the sports pages of some popular European news websites:

• El Mundo: "Fútbol Liga BBVA Champions Eurocopa 2012 Juegos Olímpicos 2012 Motor Baloncesto Tenis Ciclismo Más deporte" (second sport mentioned after football and the Olympics).
• Eurosport Germany: "Fußball F1 Tennis Basketball Motorsport Handball Snooker Radsport EURO 2012 Olympia Mehr"
• Eurosport Italy: "Calcio F1 Motogp Basket Tennis Rugby Ciclismo Wrestling Golf Londra 2012 Euro 2012 Altro"

What does this mean? In Spain, Germany and Italy, this implies that basketball is the second most popular sport that is played on a league system. You're right on auto sports, though. I could go on forever but you'd probably say this doesn't prove anything. –HTD 17:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I would only say that because it doesn't prove anything.

What it actually shows is the editorial choices of the website providers. That may be affected by a multitude of factors. For example if Eurosport shows basketball then they may well list that nearer the start than they otherwise would.

The Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/) lists:

Olympics | Football | Rugby Union | Cricket | Tennis | F1 | Boxing | Rugby League | Cycling | Golf | Racing | UFC | Fantasy

whereas the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/) lists:

Football | Formula 1 | Cricket | Rugby U | Rugby L | Tennis | Golf | Olympics

and all that proves is that they have made different choices.

Also you have changed "basketball is the second most popular sport in Europe" to "basketball is the second most popular sport that is played on a league system the way that I define a league system, that is if you ignore motor sports".

I have no axe to grind in this matter. I don't care in the slightest what is the second most popular sport in Europe. However if we are going to make decisions on what is included and what is not based on popularity then the measure of popularity has to have broad-based measurable meaning and not rely on one of two (possibly cherry-picked) pieces of data that are in any case open to a different interpretation.

FerdinandFrog (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I specifically excluded UK websites since we all apparently know what's the pecking order there. Eurosport does air basketball (well, the Eurosport feed I get here should not be the one the UK viewers watch), as well as a multitude of sports such as rugby, handball, cycling, tennis, etc. They're even airing

Asian 5 Nations rugby, which was nice, at least on my feed of Eurosport. Like I said, I can go on forever and it wouldn't prove anything, but it shows you the rough guide on how things really are. I was actually surprised to see my cherry-picked results. I can't wait to look at some more examples; I went at Le Monde's website and basketball wasn't there, so that's a start. –HTD

22:34, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment I don't like to pour irony into this, but the discussion highlighting the 'British pride' leads completely to asymmetric view over the popularity of some sports in Europe. Maybe next is to argue that fake sports like darts, bowls, and artistic billiard are more popular in 'Europe' (i.e. "United Kingdom"; didn't know that everything valid for the UK is automatically valid for 'Europe' as a global term) than basketball. However, principles and guidelines on Wikipedia are built by a community of users and I will accept any decision made after a consensus will be reached.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

However I think that you are pouring your own prejudice into this. Whilst I would agree that there are some events (even in the Olympics) that are called sports that do not meet any reasonable definition of sport having a pop at certain events does not help matters.

As an aside, why do you think that bowls is not a sport? It is skillful, involves some (albeit limited) physical activity and is objectively scored. FerdinandFrog (talk) 16:45, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I classify an activity as a sport if I can incur a massive injury while playing it... –HTD 17:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Of well in that case we can discount basketball as a sport as it is no more dangerous than walking down the street. FerdinandFrog (talk) 18:35, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

That's an unfortunate definition -

Crown Green Bowls has more mid match fatalities than pretty much anything (due to the age of the competitors). Possibly a useful criteria might be to look at previous occassions when a particular article has been featured. And the count the page hits, but then we need to try and factor in the relevant population bias, and so lets consider the population of the host country and the nationalities of the 2 finalists, perhaps add up those (3 wiki population) numbers and divide the page hits by those numbers. If that comes out to more than lets say 25% then its either very popular in those countries, or it has a big international appeal. Obviously thats just a suggestion for a sliding scale. EdwardLane (talk

) 21:26, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Several editors have challenged claims that Basketball is popular on the continent. While it is reasonable to ask for citations, it's incumbent on those wishing to challenge the de facto consensus that European basketball is not sufficiently notable. In any case, several editors have made claims, many based on first hand observation, that is it significantly popular in several major countries. I can personally attest that it is the third most popular team sport in Russia behind Football and Ice Hockey; and Russian teams have won the competition.--Johnsemlak (talk) 16:05, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Several editors clearly have a point. It is also said that the discussion intends participation and opinions of people actively contributing to the WikiProject Basketball, and instead we have people who sharply struggle to illustrate the non-importance of the sport, but in fact don't know what the Euroleague is and where the sport is popular.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 01:06, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: The Euroleague is a very important and popular sport league in places like Greece, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Lithuania. The Euroleague final is a very significant international sporting event. As you can see here, Euroleague final conclusion in numerous languages - you have this from nation-wide live television broadcasts in countries like Italy, Russia, Spain, Greece, Turkey, and even the nation-wide American broadcast through ESPN's American internet TV service. The Euroleague final four was broadcast to 174 countries through 66 TV networks, including many of the largest sports networks in the world, like Canal+, Viasat, Al Jazeera, CCTV, Setanta, Supersport and Guangdong TV -> [11] So, it is being held in worldwide broadcast live on TV and internet TV in English by ESPN, not to mention broadcast through Europe, China, the Mideast. I really don't see how this cannot be considered "news worthy". Euroleague is a huge deal in many European countries. So, I think that things like who won the Euroleague title, who won Euroleague MVP, who won Euroleague Final Four MVP, are indeed news worthy. Just my opinion, but you can check YouTube if you want. This is just from a few days -> YouTube Euroleague Final uploads - as you can see, there are hundreds of thousands of views in just a little short time, considering how long most of the videos have been online. Not to mention dozens of uploads in several different languages, from several different countries. I don't think this is normal for an event that no one cares about or that is as some have argued for a sport league that is not considered as professional. Just my opinion.Bluesangrel (talk) 02:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)