Wikipedia:WikiProject Tennis/Tennis article format

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This is a space for working on the article format for highly notable (Category 1) singles tennis players.
I envisage that a set of guidelines would be laid down for (what for the purpose of this discussion I will call) Category 1 players. Then a set of guidelines can be laid down for lesser players meeting other criteria (for now I'll call them Category 2 players), and then a set of guidelines for minimally notable players. Editors can then interpolate between these categories. These criteria, too, are obviously a matter for discussion.

For openers I am suggesting:
Category 1: ranked No 1 or won at least one Major
Category 2: ranked in top 30, or won at least one WTA/ATP event
Category 3: ranked in top 200, or won at least one ITF event
So, Mauresmo would be a low end Category 1 player, Tanasugarn would be a medium Category 2 player.

My suggestion is that we establish suggested format articles for Category 1, Category 2, Category 3 singles players, and maybe a couple of similar standard articles for doubles-specialists. The idea is that an editor can check these out to see whether or not the article is in the right ballpark of length and detail. A particular player might merit treatment outside the guidelines, but if the article is way outside the guidelines for a player of that ilk, some explanation should be given in discussion.

An alternative would be to use the same guidelines for doubles-specialists, but downgrade them to reflect the fact that (for instance) someone whose biggest achievement is a Wimbledon doubles win is not as noteworthy as someone with whose biggest achievement is a Wimbledon singles win. No-one without significant achievement in singles would be Cat 1. The combined dealie would then be: Category 1: ranked No 1 or won at least one singles Major
Category 2: ranked in top 30 in singles, or won at least one singles WTA/ATP event, or ranked No 1 in doubles or won at least one doubles Major
Category 3: ranked in top 200 in singles, or won at least one ITF singles event, or ranked in top 30 in doubles or won at least one WTA doubles event
This would mean Stubbs would be a Tanasugarn, which feels right to me. Ordinary Person (talk) 02:13, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is all an interesting idea, OrdinaryPerson, but I can see some serious potential problems with it, among which:

1) There is much less historical information available on the ITF and WTA sites on many players ranked in the Top 30 prior to 1999 than there is on all players who have been ranked in the Top 200 since 1999
2) I do not think it is educationally desirable for Wikipedia to overtly nanny readers into thinking a certain player is categorically of lesser importance than another because of a different peak ranking. Readers will look up articles about the players that they personally want to know about, for whatever reason (not necessarily because they are fans). To arbitrarily slash the lengths of all articles on players who have not (in some cases, not yet) reached the Top 30 simply in order to declare implicitly that these players are of lesser importance than those who have would serve no good purpose whatsoever in my opinion. In fact it would present a false, elitist view of the sport. There are career journeymen and journeywomen who never reach the Top 30 but beat a lot of Top 30 players in their careers, offer tough challenges to others they lose against, and are every bit as important a part of the fabric and dynamics of the game as those who come out on top. Their careers and the challenges and ups and downs they faced can make just as interesting reading as those of the elite; in some cases, very much more so.
3) It would undo a great deal of existing good writing by contributors to articles on non-Top 30 players, and leave the information on all such players unnecessarily limited. In some cases, this writing would then have to be replaced later when the players in question did reach the Top 30 in the future, simply in order to meet the higher standards expected for Top 30 players

In summary, I would put forward an alternative suggestion that there should be a minimum content standard for all Top 30 players, and that articles on Top 30 players should receive priority treatment by project editors for improvement to bring them up to this standard, but that existing articles on non-Top 30 players which already meet or exceed these content standards should not be cut arbitrarily, since the information in them is nonetheless factual and relevant to all who take an interest in the particular players concerned.Philip Graves (talk) 09:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good points, Philip Graves, and I agree there is no great need to chomp existing well-written articles on players who did not reach the Top 30. BTW I wasn't intending it to be a sharp cut-off, just a benchmark: a player who reached #35 would be considered to have similar requirements as a benchmark Cat 2 player. Peak rank is obviously a simplistic guide to notability, and I welcome any alternative systems and benchmarks. Some players who peaked at #50 can be considered to deserve more thorough treatment than others who peaked at #20, and arguments can (and would) be made in discussion in favour of extended articles on this or that player. I hope that the Tennis contributors can come to some kind of agreement on length and detail guide.Ordinary Person (talk) 10:12, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NAME (PRONUNCIATION, NATIONAL NAME VERSIONS; born BIRTHDATE, in BIRTHPLACE died DEATHDATE) is a FORMER/CURRENT PEAKRANK MALE/FEMALE tennis player.

250 word introduction.

Includes:

name, pronunciation, DOB, (DOD), nationality, profession (obviously)

Peak singles ranking, number of weeks at number 1 (if ever), current ranking (preferably with a particular date attached)

Number of Majors won, number of Tour Finals won, number of ATP/WTA tour events won

Significant records and awards (no more than about 100 words on that: comprehensive record lists could be placed in more detail elsewhere, if notable)

Monumental features or events (eg Seles being stabbed and winning a major thereafter, the defection of Navratilova: big, big events)

I'd add to "Monumental features" such things as Nadal being widely considered the greatest clay-courter ever (with important numbers to justify the claim, as his intro currently reads) and Federer among the greatest players ever. Any really big distinction or event, like you wrote. --Armchair info guy (talk) 01:33, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis career

300 words per year of professional career, up to 3000 words

(By this, I don't mean 300 words for every year: obviously some years will be more quiet than others.) The level of detail will depend on the richness of the player's career: Navratilova for instance won so many tournaments that an article would be tiresome if each was mentioned specifically, whereas someone with a briefer or lesser career could merit specific mention of each WTA/ATP win. The tables below include more thorough information on results, so they don't all need to be mentioned in the Tennis career section.

It should include:

specific mention of up to 20 important tournament results

major injuries

major reversals of form

personal firsts (both at junior and professional level)

significant changes of coach

returns from hiatus

personal events that significantly changed the career

decline and retirement

For some very important players, a separate, more-detailed article on their career may be appropriate.

I like the final suggestion. The all-time greats (particularly Rafa, Fed, Serena, and the current greats) deserve detailed career profiles. I don't like the overly-abbreviated summaries of some years in Fed's bio, for example. You could justify several paragraphs for each of his 2004-07 seasons, IMO, because they were that significant. --Armchair info guy (talk) 01:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also encourage the creation of specific articles to deal with more important player's careers. The main bios, however, should be written in a summary style which will be accessible to those who love tennis and those who have just a passing interest. Dozens of paragraphs with hundreds of scorelines should be avoided, but could find a home in a more specific career fork... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:45, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer to see the career sections broken into phases, not years. e.g. "Junior career", "Early success", "The slump", "Return to glory" etc, rather than 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. I suppose it would depend on the structure of the individual player's career, though.Ordinary Person (talk) 22:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In response to The Rambling Man's suggestion, I personally think that to create separate articles on the detailed career history of a player whose history is existingly summarised in a shorter article would be an unnecessary overcomplication. It makes much more sense in my opinion to retain all information within a single page, but divide that page by topic and subtopic in such a way that it is easy for the individual reader to choose how much detail he or she wants to read. One section entitled 'Career Summary' (or similar) can contain all the salient points needed to satisfy the casual sports fan who does not take a more in-depth interest. Then the detailed career analysis year-by-year can follow. Anyone not interested in this level of detail can easily skip over this, but it is there and readily accessible for anyone who does take an interest. This is the method I have consistently adopted in the individual player pages I have worked heavily on, several of which TheRamblingMan has recently mistakenly tagged as 'fan pages' when in fact they are just more thorough and yet still entirely objective and neutral articles. I see no point in splitting player articles into two when the existing topic and subtopic structure already serves the purpose of giving readers full freedom of choice in how much or how little they want to know. Regarding Ordinary Person's suggestion concerning the titles of the career phases, the problem I see with this is that it is open to subjectivity. When I originally heavily developed the article on the player Li Na several years ago, I began by giving each year a topical theme alongside the year identifier, which made it a more journalistically appealing article. But as soon as she reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, along came an experienced Wikipedia administrator and removed all the topical names, leaving just the years, on the grounds that it was not objective or impartial for an editor to identify the themes of the player's year in that way. I accepted this ruling and have abided by it since. Philip Graves (talk) 08:44, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I made no "mistake" in tagging these pages as containing excessive intricate detail. An average reader does not need to know the scores of each set (including tiebreaks) of every match that each player was knocked out or won. My analogy is the featured topic of Ipswich Town F.C. whose main article has a history overview of around eight or so paragraphs written in a summary style, with a fork to History of Ipswich Town F.C. which goes into much greater detail, but still maintains a summary style for the topic, with 27 paragraphs. And by the way, it doesn't appear to me that an admin "made a ruling", he simply disagreed with your edits. You could discuss the topic on the relevant article's talk page. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:53, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You made no mistake by your own personal criteria in judging what constitutes excessive detail. Whether these criteria are broadly agreed upon may yet be open to debate. I personally disagree fundamentally with any premise that Wikipedia articles should be cut down to the minimum length suited to the 'average reader'. I think they should cater both for the 'average reader' and for those having a deeper interest in the topic concerned. I do not think that the average reader needs to be so offended by the inclusion of additional information superfluous to his or her personal requirements as to baulk at the entire article, when the additional, in-depth information has been presented in its own section clearly demarcated within the overall topical and subtopical structure of the page. Your proposed solution of moving the more in-depth information to an entirely separate page is certainly a workable possibility, but it raises a definite ideological bias for the purpose of Wikipedia articles, and I would like to see solid evidence that this bias is preferred by the consensus of editors collectively. The bias in question would be towards cutting out any information that goes beyond the needs of the perceived 'average reader' but which may nonetheless be relevant and important to a significant minority of readers wanting more detailed information. If you can convincingly demonstrate that this is the consensus position, then fine. At the moment I only know it to be your opinion. Mine at the present time is that it is unnecessary and potentially to the detriment of the integration of information about each player to split the information between two pages, rather than simply making effective use of topical and subtopical structures within a single page. With regard to set scores, they can be a good basic indicator of how close the competition was between the two players at that point in time, and a player's progress can be seen much more clearly with their inclusion, especially in matches against highly-ranked, well-known players, than by a simple statement of the round reached in the tournament concerned. A simple summary of the round a player reached in each tournament, without the names of opponents beaten and lost to, and in some cases the scoreline, does not say nearly so much about how well the player was actually playing at that time.Philip Graves (talk) 10:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, based on the edits being conducted to Serena Williams and comments made at the peer review of Daniela Hantuchova, there are several editors who have reached the same conclusion with regard to excessive intricate detail as me. And have you seen Billie Jean King lately? If modern players such as Williams, Ivanovic etc have reasonably lengthy careers, then the current "style" would lead to hundreds and hundreds of intricately detailed paragraphs for each biography. The recommendation to fork out in some cases to a detailed career article is intended to counter that from happening. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:59, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely with Philip Graves. As for TRM's argument, any article that gets excessively long per Wikipedia guidelines can be dealt with at that time, not preemptively. Tennis expert (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Playing style

500 words.

Every statement should be attributed to a respected source and specifically referenced.

Major sections on specific aspects of career

This is for things like the Federer/Nadal rivalry, the Williams sisters' boycott of Indian Wells etc.

1000 words each, maximum. If more is needed, and the topic is genuinely notable, make a separate article.

Equipment, apparel, and endorsements

300 words

NOTHING without a respectable reference

Achievements

500 words'

specific list of records and awards. If more is needed, and the topic is genuinely notable, make a separate article. (Discuss: should we codify what can be considered a noteworthy achievement or record? If you tried you could probably come up with 100 records for Sampras or Graf: not all of them are important.)

Particularly agree with forking this kind of thing. As you say, with Graf/Sampras you could go on and on and on. The last thing we need is another section which could be considered a list of trivia, albeit important trivia. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:43, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Record against other major players

(Discuss: is this needed?)

I like these h2h lists. Some of the women's bios have nice lists of h2h against all players that were top-3 or top-5 during the player's career. Good stuff. --Armchair info guy (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not so keen. The WTA/ATP websites have this information, linking to that would be enough, in my opinion. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(Discuss: what is a major player? Maybe someone who has won a Major or been ranked No 1.)

against all opponents ranked top-3 or top-5 during the subject's career, ordered by number of matches. really it's a matter of how much research the editor(s) are willing to do. Even top-2 is better than nothing. --Armchair info guy (talk) 01:21, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Therein lies the problem of selecting a subjective cut-off point. I would stick to linking to the WTA/ATP head-to-head page where all statistics for all match-ups against anyone can be found. Thus no subjectivity applies. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:38, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personal life

(Discuss: should Personal life come before or after Tennis career? Some editors seem to prefer an "Early life" section before Tennis career. I would prefer to see Personal life material after Tennis career and Playing style etc.)

I don't think it should be a strict either-or. I appreciate this guideline but to me it's a guideline, not a hard template that must be followed. If there's a good amount of useful info on 'Early Life', then why not put that before 'Career'. But if it's all in a 'Personal Life' section that's fine too.

An example: Rafa's page has an 'Early Life' section makes sense because of his uncle being his coach and forcing him to play left-handed. This is obviously really important info and logically should preceed his 'Career' section.

--Armchair info guy (talk) 01:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point, and yes, these should just be guidelines, and individual players will need treatment outside any set of guidelines we agree on.Ordinary Person (talk) 01:31, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

500 words, up to 1000 words if someone has had an unusually "notable" personal life.

Should include:

Births, deaths and marriages

Truly important out-of-tennis events doings

Poltical activism/Writing career/Controversies/Modelling career etc

500 words each, or up to 1000 if this aspect of the person's life has been very noteworthy. If more than that, and the topic is genuinely notable, make a separate article.

Playing statistics

This and subsequent "stats" sections should be forked if required, i.e. if they became ungainly. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:41, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Complete lists of wins

Career timeline tables

Career earnings table

Miscellaneous facts

Discuss: do we need this section?

500 words maximum.

Probably best to not have it. The whole trivia thing ruffles some people's feathers around here. And if it's not important enough to warrant mention by this point in the article, it's probably not worth mentioning. --Armchair info guy (talk) 01:37, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, avoid what is essentially always going to be a trivia section. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:40, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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