Talk:2014 AFL season

Club membership section

I'm just raising a suggestion for the continually changing membership figures in the 'Club membership' section. Is it possible to date these figures so as to give them context? e.g. if you look at any figure you don't know if it is as at e.g. 1 January 2014 or 20 February 2014 etc.. Maybe have a small-font footnote "As at 20 February 2014" or whatever it is. Just a thought. Cheers. Melbourne3163 (talk) 17:03, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I'd remove the whole table until the end of the year. I'm not a fan of using Wikipedia for progress reporting of something like membership numbers which will, within the foreseeable future, have a finalised number. But, if we insist on having the there, then there is no question that a progress date must definitely be included. Aspirex (talk) 05:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with your comments but given this is being updated by others, I have just brought all available membership numbers up to date and added a common 'update date'. Hopefully when numbers are updated in the future the date will be changed too. Worth trying, I thought. Melbourne3163 (talk) 11:36, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

NAB Challenge

Have Hawthorn won? Can anyone find the rules for determining who wins? Is there a winner? Is it merely the team who finishes on top of the ladder after two matches? StAnselm (talk) 20:04, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

My understanding is that there isn't a winner, hence it is called a series and not a cup or league. --SuperJew (talk) 20:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes, I see - "no official winner will be declared". StAnselm (talk) 20:34, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Attendances

Do we really need three separate tables carving up attendances by round, team and venue (a fourth could probably be made for timeslot if somebody felt the urge to do so)? Do we even need any of those tables at all? In my view, game-by-game attendances (as listed next to the match results) and year-long total and average (as listed in the main article infobox) are more than sufficient; all other tables provide no additional encyclopedic value and can be removed. Aspirex (talk) 06:57, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to raise this again, now that we have four separate tables presenting attendances in different ways: round, team, home team and venue. This is a case of "statistics for the sake of statistics", and there is no prose to explain them in any context – I contend that this is at odds with Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (§3). I suggest the following:

• Home team and team overall: keep one, but not both A team's attendance is a valid reflection of its popularity in a given year, and allows for valid comparisons to be made. But having two tables is excessive, and we should make a decision whether it is home attendance or total attendance which is the more valid reflection. I suggest keeping home team rather than team overall, but am not fussed either way.
• Round by round: delete There is no valuable conclusion to be drawn from round-by-round aggregated attendances (i.e. a round has a higher attendance than another simply because it has blockbusters fixtured it, not because people inherently like Round 2 more than Round 8, for example).
• Venue: delete Attendance by venue is more a reflection of the size of the venue than anything else, and serves in part to replicate the data for home team (e.g. Brisbane Lions home crowds = Gabba crowds).

We need to keep our articles punchy and encyclopedic, and let AFL Tables continue to be the primary-source and better-maintained repository for statistics like this. Aspirex (talk) 10:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I think I've given fair warning here. In the absence of any opposition, I'm going to go ahead and delete all tables except for home team crowds. Aspirex (talk) 11:52, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I completely disagree, (sorry I didn't see the April 10 or May 31 comments, I'm still getting used to editor conversations), I think it's useful having the attendances, as I for one am very interested in what they are and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I don't think a lot of people know afltables exists, especially non-Australians and use wikipedia as the go to point. I'm happy to take the load with editing them because I enyoy seeing what the actual attendances, averages etc. are as crowd figures really interests me (once again I think others will agree, I'm trying to not make it sound all about me). I don't think it looks cluttered, and if worse comes to worse there can always be collapsible tables. I think they are all relevant, as for the team attendances, I do agree with only having one table, however, I think total attendance is more relevant than home attendance, because both teams effect the crowd, not just the home team. I'm going to un-delete them because I thoroughly believe they are relevant on a sports page. Flickerd (talk) 13:36, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Average home attendance provides far more insight into the following of teams and their success than total attendance and total average. Having home games only removes detrimental or positive impacts of fixtures with strong or weak crowd drawing clubs. Total attendance average simply shows who has the better fixture. Round by round attendance is arguably less important if it is clutter you are worried about. Thejoebloggsblog (talk) 6:48, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Why so many score edits for each round?

I'm curious as to why there are so many edits to the scores for each round. Wouldn't it be simpler to just make one update to all scores once the round is completed? After all this is an encyclopedia not a race to get a score up, and a dozen or so edits each round seems like overkill, I think. I wonder if there are any other thoughts on this subject? Cheers. Melbourne3163 (talk) 10:04, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I've long thought exactly the same – but I suppose it's all down to what satisfaction the individual editor seeks from his or her Wikipedia activities. I personally aim to treat Wikipedia as an encyclopedia – i.e. a repository for long-term information storage with the primary information presented in prose – and not as a pseudo-news/statistical service; so for me, so I don't see any great urgency in posting up-to-the-minute information, and things like aggregated attendances or win-loss boxes or membership numbers aren't worth maintaining on a progressive basis. I know that we also have editors who go through week-by-week to keep each player's games played/goals kicked up to date on their individual pages; but from my perspective, that's a tremendous amount of effort when an annual update to the statistics and prose is probably adequate for any average reader's practical purposes. But I don't fault those editors for their enthusiasm and vigour; and ultimately I think it's good for the project that we have editors who are this keen, and who get personal satisfaction from making that sort of updates.

That said, your comment reminds me of an editor a few years ago who had the exact opposite view to me. He or she was adamant that the page needed to be kept absolutely up to date (see Talk:2011_AFL_season#Failing_to_keep_everything_up-to-date); but when nobody else shared this vision as passionately, he or she began to accuse everybody else of laziness, of burdening him or her with an unreasonable workload in keeping all of the statistics up to date, and ultimately became very aggressive in demanding other editors to follow this lead (lots of exclamation marks in edit summaries). This difference-in-opinion on a fundamental level ultimately led to behaviour by that editor which, while it mostly seemed to be done in good faith, was destructively uncollaborative, and that editor was eventually blocked as a result. Aspirex (talk) 11:39, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

I enjoyed your comments and on reflection I do think you have the right approach (and I read the 2011 history; pretty full on). Thanks. Melbourne3163 (talk) 09:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Win/Loss Table Sortable?

Why on Earth is the Win/Loss Table a Sortable Table? And, even conceding that this remains a Sortable table, wouldn't it make more sense to sort the rounds by margin rather than by the alphabetical name of the opponent? Sorry if this seems stupid but I am baffled... Bevstarrunner (talk) 12:28, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree it should be sorted by margin, I've fixed the table so it is now sorted by margin as opposed to team name. I just sorted them by 01-18 as that was the only way to get them to sort properly (there was a lot of trial and error). I will fix previous seasons as well, but it does take a long time to fix the formatting (this took about 2.5 hours). Flickerd (talk) 18:04, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Coloured ladder?

I don't understand why we need to have a "live ladder" type setup with the different colours representing if a team can make finals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scaryness666 (talk • contribs) 12:32, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree; it's more consistent with a news service than an encyclopedia. Aspirex (talk) 13:52, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Accessibility

@Flickerd: No, the issues have not been resolved by table sorting as you state in this edit, and there are also accessibility issues with the other tables such as the color coding on the ladders. Explain how the sorting immediately makes the same information available to visually impaired individuals as to sighted readers? (No such claims can objectively be made for the ladders) There should be an alternate method to present the same information per WP:COLOUR. -- dsprc ^[talk] 11:26, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dsprc: The purpose of the table is to show who's won and who's lost and by how much, so by that argument I can see how there is an issue. However, by allowing it to be sorted by margin, then the top 9 are obviously winners because they have the best margin, whereas the lowest 9 have lost as they have the worst margins. Someone would need to have a small understanding of AFL to understand the table regardless of disability. I don't feel like only colour is represented in the table any more, it facilitates the information, the sorting provides that information now (it does need to be fixed in previous seasons though). However, if you feel so strongly that this table is only represented by colour and that an alternative needs to be found, then it is reasonable to suggest that you should be able to come up with an alternative. I'm not trying to sound attacking, I'm trying to be diplomatic, but I feel the colour issue has been addressed. A suggestion is that a note before the table explaining the sorting is an appropriate solution perhaps. E.g. The following table is sortable by margin, the first 9 are winners and the last 9 are losers (just a rough example but I think the idea comes across). Flickerd (talk) 11:42, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Flickerd: I accept the rationale for the sorting, although I do not know what alternative would be possible because of its overall complexity. Mayhaps we could incorporate usage of *, {{Dagger}} and {{Double-dagger}} for win/loss/draw (with appropriate footnotes in a legend)? I notice X is already used as a similar textual descriptor for Bye games. It is not just colour, as bolding of text to represent home games may also be problematic. But no, just because I am aware of the problem does not mean I've all the solutions -- if that was the case, I'd fix our Governments first, Wikipedia tables later :-) -- which is why I tagged the section until one could be hammered out. I do feel strongly (as you posit) as I've close friends whom are visually impaired and am particularly aware of and sensitive to these issues. -- dsprc ^[talk] 12:52, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dsprc: I'm concerned that the use of daggers will over complicate the table as there is already a lot of information in it, I've thought further about my suggestion in the previous post and I think an explanation before the table will provide clarification and provide a guideline to those with a disability, obviously articulated better than what I previously did :). I've gathered that you probably have a close relation to someone with visual impairment, which makes the issue difficult because there is going to be different levels of sensitivity to the issue, and it may come down to an acceptance of different opinions. My suggestion is adding to the legend which is already provided below the table which already indicates green=win, red=loss, purple=draw, bold=home game, x=bye, and the explanation of opponent for round listed above margin, therefore, the missing part is the explanation of the sorting, thus adding, 'this table can be sorted by margin, winners are represented in the first half of each column, and losers are represented in the second half of each column', also I would suggest moving the legend to the top so there is obvious clarification, as I agree it is a complex table. Addressing the use of bold text issue, I've had a read of the text section on the accessibility page you've linked to, and I couldn't see any issues with the use of bold text (unless I'm missing something), I agree that colour in isolation is an issue, but I think it's fair enough to use bold text as it is a good and clear way of differing between home and away games.Flickerd (talk) 13:19, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Flickerd: I noticed that {{AFL Ladder}} contains a "Key" legend at the bottom (which is being unused... tisk tisk ;-P) - why not just use that throughout the others? We could use the small and sup tags so they're minimally intrusive.

As an aside note (which would probably need consultation elsewhere) the coloured legend implemented as {{AFL win loss table legend}} would probably be better written out horizontally like this:   Win   Loss   Draw - or maybe something similar; as it more compact and less garish. -- dsprc ^[talk] 14:38, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Dsprc: Is the key bit you're referring to "Key: P = Played, W = Won, L = Lost, D = Drawn, PF = Points For, PA = Points Against"? Also I'm happy to do that with the other ones, although I'm not 100% sure how to format it, I will admit I'm still a bit of a novice when it comes to certain areas of editing Wikipedia :P. But I think that's a good path to go down.Flickerd (talk) 14:59, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

@Flickerd: Yeah, that was the legend/key in question. I could probably do it later on. It's on the TODO list. -- dsprc ^[talk] 22:46, 17 September 2014 (UTC)