Talk:Cue sports/Archive move-merge-split-redir-dab

message: There is already a note saying the article should be cleaned up, but I'd say the major cleanup would be to make 'billiards' a disambiguation page. I'm not going to do any of this because I know too little about the subject, but I wanted to look up something about billiards and was confused by the description and the photographs of something that in the Netherlands is considered a child's game, to be found in some corner of a 'pool' or bowling hall (in the latter case because both come from the US). Apparently, what we call billiards (biljart) is in English called Carambole. The article states that the game in the pictures has been eclipsed by more popular games. So that makes it strange to have this version presented as the 'basic game', so to say. Furthermore, carambole (or rather 'Three cushion billiard', but there are many more varieties) isn't just a game, it's considered a sport or even an artform (in 'kunstbiljarten', where the objective is to play extremely difficult 'preset' shots in as elegant a way as possible). And I can imagine that carambole is the original game (or am I being eurocentric now?). So it certainly deserves a better place than in that list at the end (sort of like 'oh yes, and then there's that too').
I suggest making that list at the end of the article into a (descriptive) disambiguation page (maybe in the style of the football article, though that would require more info on the history), preferably with photographs because the descriptions are rather confusing. The most logical title would be 'billiards' because I don't think anyone looking for 'biljart' would come up with the name 'carambole' (I only know that term as 'making a shot' and I would have never thought of typing that). And a redirect from alternative spellings would also be nice, firstly from the singular 'billiard' and misspellings like billard(s), but also from the dutch (and other?) spelling 'biljart'. I had a hard time getting this right :).
This is beginning to sound like a 'what is football' rant, but is there no separate name for the game in the photographs, the one with the numbered balls and holes in the table? Or does our version of the game (I mean sport...) get stuck with an odd name like carambole (pars pro toto) just like our version of football is given ugly names like 'association football' or it's cildrens' abbreviation 'soccer' (yuck!)?
The article says 'the name (...) still finds employment where more "sophisticated" terms are needed.' What does that mean?
DirkvdM July 3, 2005 12:07 (UTC)
:I second that proposal. I'm an Irish snooker fan, and I came here to learn about billiards as played by Joe Davis, Horace Lindrum et al., which is the only understood meaning of the term in snooker-playing countries such as Ireland, the UK, etc. Currently, wikipedia has no adequate entry for this long established sport, and this is the place to go into it in depth. IMO, the best thing to do is to make this article an in-depth description of "carambole" billiards, with links at the top to 8-ball, 9-ball, straight pool, and any of the other games which fall under the billiards class.The reasons I think this priority should be applied are, firstly, in many (most?) countries "billiards" means a specific game, namely "carambole", whereas in America, it refers to a class of games, and secondly, people in those countries wanting to find out about that game would never think to look in the article "Carambole", since that word is not in general use there (I'm a fairly dedicated snooker fan, and it's a new one on me).
:But I do hesitate to make these changes myself, because I would be substituting an article with a lot of information (albeit badly presented) with one with very little info., because I know next to nothing about the highly complex game that is "carambole" billiards.
:In any case, I'm registering my support for DirkvdM's argument.
:RMoloney 20:03, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I vehemently oppose making Billiards a disambig page.  The meaning of the word "billiards" as a blanket term for cue sports is not particularly ambiguous. I DO support forking much of the detailed content into more specific articles on specific games, equipment, techniques, terms, famous players, etc., etc., to keep the article reasonable-length.  — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've quite changed my opinion on this matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to disambiguation page? 

message: I added most of the content to this page, but obviously numerous edits have been made.  I am not a professional writer, or even a good one.  When I reread the page, some of the wording is awkward.  It would be nice to have some of the writing redone in a better "voice".  Overall, I am happy with the content now.  When I first saw this page there was practically nothing here.
The reason I had a section on 8-ball and 9-ball was because these are the most popular games in the US.  I felt the article benefited from the discussion of a particular game from a general viewpoint.  I am no longer sure this makes sense.  Perhaps that needs to be converted to a more general discussion.  After all, there are separate articles for those games.  Having them described in any detail in the main article does not make sense.
I am not sure this really needs a disambiguation page.  By definition, billiards is the blanket term for all cue and ball games played on a table, at least according to all respected billiard authors such as Mike Shamos.  I think this goes back to the article being made more general, and sub topics being broken into separate articles.
Anyway, that's my two cents for improving this.
MichaelJHuman 15:55, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  General comments again 

message: I just stumbled on this site (actually just realized it was editable by the public) and have been working to add to many of pool and billiards related articles. I am a professional pool player and have an advice column at allexperts.com under the title Pool_Teacher. I Just finished a cleanup, most significantly to clarify the use of the word "english" as referring predominantly to sidespin, and not to follow or draw. (See e.g., http://www.easypooltutor.com/article62.html)
--Fuhghettaboutit 04:23, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have rewritten much of this article and expanded it significantly (more to come). In rewriting I came across the following page: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/gr.aspx?word=Billiards&source=http%3a%2f% It appears that the kernel for that page or for this page, I cannot tell which came first, was word-for-word plagiarized from the other.  As it states on that page, "This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality." Regardless of which came first, I agree. --Fuhghettaboutit 02:56, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'm pretty much done with the major revision. I believe the glossary I have added is the largest and most accurate on the internet in its definitions, and the only one I have seen which has common pool hall vernacular included. There's a whole language spoken only by pool players. I believe I have covered most of the words and expressions that are extremely common. What still needs significant work IMO is the section on three cushion billiards, and artistic billiards should be added in various places. It is a really spectacular game, and I have not seen it mentioned here or on wikipedia at all. Maybe I'll write the article. --Fuhghettaboutit 06:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes 

message: This section seems misplaced.  Shouldn't it go under the shooting techniques section?  When I first expanded this article, that was my intention.
Michael Bauers
24.196.79.14 19:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Position play 

message: I've created a new page, Glossary of pool and billiards terms, and moved the glossary over to there. That accomplishes a few things:
#The length of the main billiards article goes from 69kb to 36kb, much closer to the preferred length.
#Related articles can now link to the definition of a specific term. For example, to define the term "draw" in an article on snooker, you would type draw, and instead of linking to the top of the billiards page, it will link straight to the glossary definition of "draw".
#Synonyms and related terms are now linked to each other for quicker reference. 
Hope everyone enjoys it. I think it will be a big improvement for a lot of articles. Kafziel 00:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The above instructions are obsolete.  Now just use this easy template: ; see Template:Cuegloss for full documentation and examples. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glossary 

message: I want to add a section on stroke and stance with cues, but I don't know where to put it. Should it put it in the cue stick section or in here? 70.111.251.203 14:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good topic for a new article. It's an exhaustive subject, requiring lots of photos or illustrations, so I don't think it could be adequately explained as a section of this article without taking up way too much space. I'd recommend getting a user name and starting a new article on it. Plenty of folks here would be glad to help. Kafziel 15:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stroke and Stance 

message: I think there should be seperate articles for the different kinds of shots in billiards, as well as a different page for position play, stance, stroke, Shooting techniques/mechanics. The article is too long by around 4 KB. 128.6.176.51 20:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see any need for that much splitting.  The :Cue sports techniques article could handle all of these subtopics. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting the article 

message: I think there needs to be a disambiguation because a billiard is also an act of felacio (sp?) where a woman takes and squeezes a man's testicle on the corner of her mouth... This is discussed in the extra commentary in the 40 y/o virgin as a source/pop-reference.
: That's a neologism, like "donkey punch" and "dirty Sanchez", from Internet humor junkmail.  Not widespread enough to warrant converting Billiard into a disambig page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:31, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Marking this "Resolved" since the larger disambig. issue has been addressed in more depth below, and the "sexual billiard" thing has no article, so the specific disambig. point raised here is completely moot. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexual "billiard" 

message: (outdent)
I'll take some time to consider further, but from my perspective, you have provided is evidence of some usage, not of dominant usage, and it is dominant usage, not a decree from an "authority", that should decide Wikipedia usage.  The Britannica Online uses "Billiard games" for the overall topic.  The term "cue sport" occurs exactly once in all the articles related to the subject (a bio of Allison Fisher).  Encarta uses the title "Billiards" to describe the family of games.  A large proportion of the Google hits for "cue sport" are within pages, at about the place where an author begins reaching for his thesaurus.
All of this suggests an occasional or possibly new term.  The Billiard Congress of America doesn't even mention the term.  WPA may claim to be the governing body, but other organizations describe it as "up and coming,"  which suggests to me that the term "cue sport" may be part of WPA's marketing strategy.  If so, our usage could present NPOV concerns.  I could go on, but in short I don't see the amount of usage that I would expect when an older term has been replaced by a newer one.  In eight or ten years, the story may be very different.   For the next few days, I should not (if I know what is good for me) spend more time on this or any other Wikipedia matter.  I promise I will look into the matter more thoroughly this weekend and it is always possible that a fresh look when I am not rushed will change my opinion.  Robert A.West (Talk) 11:17, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, BCA uses it plenty of times: Google search of bca-pool.com on "cue sport" and Google search of bca-pool.com on "cue sports".  As BCA is a national branch of WPA (World Pool-billiard Association, not the Women's Professional Billiards Association, just to be clear; their names and acronyms are a bit confusing...), and WPA uses it, I'm not sure the point's really relevant, but there it is anyway.  I'd be interested in who is calling the WPA "up and coming", especially compared to such newbies on the scene as the very recent (and entirely commercially controlled) IPT.  I don't see any evidence that "cue sport(s)" is simply WPA marketing strategy; I've already cited many other national-level organizations (which are not WPA affiliates in most cases, from what I can determine so far), and the Intl. Olympic Committee is also using it.  I think this shows that the usage isn't particularly "occasional or possibly new".  The effort to get cue sports into the olympics has been ongoing for as long as I've been playing.  I don't see the term as any different from "water sports"; it's simply a classifying descriptive term, and like "cue sports", isn't generally used by people in everday speech.  I've never said "hey, let's go to the lake for some water sports" (sexual connotation jokes aside); I say "let's go water skiing".  But I would still unamibiguously and unhesitatingly classify water skiing as a water sport.  Like "water sports" it is used widely in the professional and amateur organizational literature, and has clearly been adopted by the equipment supplier industry as well.  I would agree that it is not "the" dominant terms at this point in time, but the problem is that there appears to be no clearly dominant term; as the closest thing to an industry-standard usage, "cue sport(s)" seems to be the best option (or the least of all the evils, if one wishes to view it that way).  "Billiard" and "billiards" have radically different and conflicting meanings to different groups of people, even inside the US.  It's unclear to me how "cue sport" being a term in a more formal register than colloquial, everyday speech makes it unsuitable as an article title; if anything, the opposite seems to be the case, especially given the inescapable ambiguity of "billiard(s)" — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

text: You bring up some very valid points. You're right to say that cue sport isn't the dominant term, but it is the only universally unambiguous one. I view it as a kind of technical jargon whose importance and meaning may only be clear to enthusiasts. Ideally, we wouldn't need it or use it, but the fact is we need something which refers unambiguously to the category of games. That's why I think we should adopt it in a limited fashion for the "behind the scenes" organizational structure when a unambiguous term is needed. In most of the individual articles, a case can be made to use one dialect or another, and "cue sports" should be avoided. The only place where it really matters is the broadest topic article, which can go to some length to cover the semantics issue from all angles. –  Anþony  talk  11:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not the only universally-ambigious one.  "Billiard games" (as used by Britannica) or "Billiard-type games" or "Billiard family of games" all surely communicate the idea of a group of games related to Billiards, regardless of what game the reader associates with that name.   "Cue sports" on the other hand has defects.  First, one doesn't normally refer to billiards in any form as a sport unless it is regulated competition -- rather like the distinction between Ballroom dancing and Dance sport.  Second, the term "cue" has alternative meanings: a "cue game" could as easily mean a game based on verbal or visual cues (like Charades or Password) as meaning a game played with a cuestick.  Robert A.West (Talk) 13:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be OK with anything along Robert's suggestions.  Alai 13:21, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if there's agreement that "billiard games" or something along that line is unambiguous, then my position remains the same but with "cue sport" replaced with "billiard games". Billiards itself should still be a dab page. The summary style is poor solution for the reasons outlined by Alai below. –  Anþony  talk  23:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll then express disagreement with the idea that "billiard games" or something along those lines is in any way less ambiguous than "billiards".  If I were accustomed to "billiard(s)" referring to English billiards or carom billiards in particular, these longer phrases do nothing to disambiguate that the topic under discussion is cue sports in general rather than English billiards or carom billiards "games" or "family of games", or whatever.  As for "cue game" allegedly meaning Charades and its ilk, that example appears to me to be totally constructed.  Unless it is used broadly by tournament organizers and the like, to such an extent that it is genuinely being confused with the term "cue sports", I don't think it's of any relevance.  I don't see that citing Britannica using "billiard games" is particularly useful here.  I was taken to task for argument to authority, and that's the same thing.  And not much of an authority; I gather that the entire point of Wikipedia is to surpass Britannica in the first place. :-)  The regulated competition argument doesn't seem very strong to me, mainly because there are in fact regulated competitions in virtually all areas of cue sports, even finger pool, trick shots, you name it, aside from the big ones like three-cushion, nine-ball, eight-ball and snooker, but secondly because the idea doesn't appear to hold any weight if you argue it more generally (e.g. water skiing for fun rather than professional competitive purposes is not an example of water sports; American football equipment is just gaming equipment not sporting goods unless purchased by athletes in regulated competition; etc.)— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I would agree that we are in fact talking about applying "cue sports" to the broadest article on the topic (and the extant "Billiards" article needs to be edited to move some of its more game-specific content to more specific articles about those games or subclasses of games.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage 

message: It's been over a week now since anyone but me has posted on this thread.  Any further input? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My position remains the same. Billiards itself should be a dab page. This page should move to cue sports or billiard games or something else, I'm not really particular on that point. The long hatnote here is ridiculous, though. –  Anþony  talk  10:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep! — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 12:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Marking all these topics "Resolved", as they are now moot.  If any issues/questions/disagreement arises again with regard to any of it, please take it up at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cue sports. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Any more input? 

message: I maintain that a disambiguation page at billiards is the way to go. The current paragraph-long hatnote is terrible as far as style and appearance goes. Functionally, it serves the exact same purpose as a dismbiguation page, when creating a real one would probably take fewer words and be easier to understand. See my sandbox for my proposed wording. My version is 79 words and the current hatnote is 98. Feel free to modify it. –  Anþony  talk  09:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Strikes me as a very good start.  I'm going to marginally side with those that think some kind of hatnote is needed and that Billiards should go to whatever page is the "head" of this articlespace, and suggest that this is a good first draft of Billiard (disambiguation) to which that hatnote could refer and to which some things (Billiard for example) could redirect directly. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:08, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If billiards redirects directly to cue sports, that says in effect that cue sports is the primary topic for "billiards", which is a tacit endorsement of the American usage. On the other hand, if billiards is a dab page, cue sports wouldn't get people coming to that page expecting something else, so a hatnote would be unnecessary. I think this is the cleanest and most logical solution. –  Anþony  talk  10:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  No objection by me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: (violating my wikibreak) Why a dab page as opposed to an article in summary style?  It could have one dab header pointing to Billiard (number), and the TOC would serve the same purpose.  Yes, it would take one more click to get to the article for any particular game, but many readers would be satisfied with the information in the summary article, which would permit a discusson of common history and features.  Robert A.West (Talk) 17:23, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because that has the same problem as at present:  "billiards" doesn't unambiguously mean "the whole family of billiards and related games", especially not to non-US readers.  And it leaves the same (other) problem as to what to do with the current article.  Alai 17:30, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Title the article whatever we would title the dab page -- that is a separate question.  Are you unfamiliar with summary style?  The current article could be turned into one easily.  It would continue to describe the common features of all the games, and would have a short paragraph on each separate game, together with a  link to the separate article on each game, assuming we have enough material for one.  If not, the short paragraph serves the same function as a stub would.  For some readers who are interested in an overview of the diversity of cuestick-and-balls-on-felt games, the summary-style article presents it.  For those who want to find information on a particular game, the summary style article gets one there in two clicks: one on the TOC and one on the article link.  I don't see what a separate dab page will add to Wikipedia.  Robert A.West (Talk) 17:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm familiar with summary style.  A suitable title for a "different meanings of the word 'billiards'" article (which would obviously be billiards as a disambig) is not (necessarily and in this case, actually) also suitable for a summary article on "the history of the games collectively called 'billiards' by some, and something else by others", which has exactly the same naming issues as a non-summary article (see the above arguments as to why this should not be billiards).  Alai 17:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: It's been over a week now since anyone has posted on this thread.  Any further input? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Marking this topic "Resolved".  There may actually be some out-standing issues, but this is not the venue for them any longer, and if they arise they should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cue sports. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed disambiguation page 

message: This proposal appears to me to be carried by consensus, and that the (refactored) #Disambiguation & move results summary accurately reflects the discussion.  There is one objector, whose issues have been addressed to the extent that they seem that they will/can be (and possibly not to his satisfaction), but this is not enough to avoid a finding of general consensus. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 19:02, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've completed the move, as requested at WP:RM.  I haven't fixed any double-redirects, because I'm not sure they all need to point to Cue sport.  Someone will probably want to go through and make sure those are taken care of.  Cheers. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:44, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Marking this topic and subtopics "Resolved".  If there are any out-standing issues, this is not the venue for them any longer, and if they arise they should be discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cue sports. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conclusion 

message: Has any thought been given of merging this with Pocket billiards as the two articles are basically about the same idea?  Keeper | 76 23:42, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Huh? I do not think you are reading them very closely, then.  Cue sports is about all cue sports, pocket and non-pocket (and including obstacle games, puck-based ball-less variants, and so on), as a family, going back to the dawn of history or whatever, while Pocket billiards is about the "pool" variants, as a subclass, and largely excluding snooker which while technically a pocket billiards game is its own "animal" as a cultural and sporting phenomenon. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:03, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible merge?