Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 3

message: howcheng and I are discussing how to utilize this category (see: my talk page).  He claims it is overbroad and thus not useful.  In addition, he suggests recategorizing, and (if I'm correct in assuming this), essentially deleting the category.  Finally, when I created the team categories, I made them sub-cats of American football players, rather than National Football League, which in light of the fact that there is not one non-NFL team category probably means that it should be a subcat of the NFL rather than American football as a whole.  In summation... what the hell should we do here? Anthony 20:32, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, not deleting it per se, but more like :Category:NBA players which is empty except for the categories by team (in fact, I'm thinking of having it retitled to :Category:NBA players by team). As it stands now, :Category:National Football League players is just overcrowded, and I don't see people browsing it to say, "Hmm, who else plays in the NFL?" IMHO people are more likely to wonder who else plays on or has played on a certain team. howcheng  [ t • c • w • e ] 22:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm the one who emptied :Category:NBA players (and a whole lot of other such categories) and made sure they were sorted by team and/or country, and so I'm biased when I say that I think doing the same with the NFL players is a good idea. I agree that few people are interested in these broad listings, but a lot of people would be interested in the players by team. I've also started to make this process friendlier to college football, by creating :Category:College football players and a bunch of subcategories like :Category:Michigan Wolverines football players, so that notable players can be referred to by their college team as well. If we go through and remove the :Category:National Football League players tag from all the 1,000+ articles in the category, we can use that opportunity to add their college backgrounds and create a lot of really useful subcategories. I'd help with that, anyway.--Mike Selinker 15:56, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree completely.  And after all the players recategorized in the 42+ team categories, the category that holds them should be renamed from :Category:American football players by team.   I'll help with the process, and taking the opportunity to add college info is a good idea.  -Meegs 08:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Count me in however you want to do that.--Mike Selinker 21:33, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Please note that I've created, with Meegs's aid, a list called Football players from small colleges. Basically, if you adapt an article to the above format but the player's college is not noteworthy enough for a category (yet), don't create a non-linked category; just put the player on this list. Eventually some of them will move off this list into their own categories. We're trying to avoid categories which only contain one player for the time being, just to avoid clutter. This seems a good solution for now.--Mike Selinker 03:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:National Football League players]] 

message: *:Category:American football players by team has been nominated to be renamed :Category:National Football League players by team.  This will likely go through around December 23.
*Once that is done, all players should be removed from :Category:National Football League players, and added to the subcategories of :Category:National Football League players by team, one for each team that they played for (or at least the ones they saw significant playing time for). Some of us have already started to process. Once empty, :Category:National Football League players will be designated to hold only other categories.
*When re-categorizing players, consider checking that they are also listed in
*#:Category:American football players by position
*#:Category:College football players – currently holds 63 subcategories for the biggest D1 schools + a united category for the Ivy League.
 ×Meegs 19:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please note that I've created, with Meegs's aid, a list called Football players from small colleges. Basically, if you adapt an article to the above format but the player's college is not noteworthy enough for a category (yet), don't create a non-linked category; just put the player on this list. Eventually some of them will move off this list into their own categories. We're trying to avoid categories which only contain one player for the time being, just to avoid clutter. This seems a good solution for now.--Mike Selinker 03:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary

message: Not really NFL per se, but if anyone's interested, there's a page at Wikipedia:Sports Fans where you can use (and create, as I have been doing) templates for your user page to indicate your fandom for a particular sports team.  For the NFL, so far we've got the Colts, and the Panthers template I created (natch).  If you want to make your own, just follow the format: use the HTML from one of the existing templates, punch in the image for your team, change the cat names, and if you so choose (as I do), use one of the team's colors, instead of the bland "user:blank" one for the Pacers and Colts.  Posted this here mostly to get the interest of all the fellow football fans here.  Anthony 03:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fan templates 

message: Meegs edited the infobox I had created for Carson Palmer.  It was a beaut, too.  I don't like the new official NFL player infobox one bit.  I know it's not your fault, Meegs.  You're only following the rules.  But the truth is that the official one sucks.
I'd like to see a slightly wider box to accommodate longer entries, the players' name at the top of the box, the ability to customize colors to denote present team (or, in the case of a retired player, the color of the team he is most associated with — e.g., orange for Boomer Esiason of the Cincinnati Bengals or green for Joe Namath of the New York Jets.)  And how about an option for overall draft position?  To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, check out the one I did for Ray Guy.
And speaking of Hall of Famers, how about a logo denoting them like there is for baseball Hall of Famers? GeorgeC 09:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: From Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Football infobox, it looks like it's not used on any articles. ×Meegs 04:01, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Meegs.  I'm no expert on user boxes, but couldn't someone have used "subst:" to put the infobox on an article, in which case it would not show up int he Whatlinkshere? Johntex\talk 17:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, it would not show-up if they used "subst:", and the resulting table would be indistinguishable from any of a handful of other ad hoc tables that are scattered around the player pages.   Also, if it is used that way, they've lost the ability to update all of the boxes at once, which is one of the biggest advantages of using a template. ×Meegs 21:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Oops, forgot to sign. Kybard 18:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We've considered that.  The fair use claim for the logos is much weaker in articles are not about the organization whose logo is it is.  There're also potential problems with points 8 and 9 in Wikipedia:Fair use#Fair use policy. ×Meegs 19:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense. I can live without it. Kybard 19:27, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions 

message: From my user talk page
	Did you know? has been updated. A fact from the article Greg Landry, which you recently created, has been featured in that section on the Main Page. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the "Did you know?" talk page.
 --Gurubrahma 15:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  DYK 

message: I finished going through all the college football player categories and making sure each player had their college (obviously), their position, and their pro team categories listed, and no NFL player category. I couldn't find positions for Jackie Robinson, Ralph Jordan and Cliff Hare.
:Category:Entertainers who played football is a bit less settled. I couldn't find positions for these guys: Hugh Beaumont, Ward Bond, Ric Flair, Richard Grieco, Harold Hoag, Christopher Judge, Nikita Koloff, Ryan McPartlin, Ed O'Neill, Randy Thornton, Erik Watts, John Wayne, and Steve Williams (wrestler). Anybody who feels like checking those guys out is welcome to do so.
Best line that I had to edit out of existence: "John Henry Johnson (born November 24, 1929 in Waterproof, Louisiana) was an American football."--Mike Selinker 23:11, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  college football players categories are clean 

message: Right now I'm currently trying to work the Terry Bradshaw article into featured status. But I really need images including a couple of him in his playing days and one of him in the Fox studios. Could anyone help me with those images. Thanks --Jaranda wat's sup 02:09, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need Images. 

message: ...now we have people computing the tie-breaking scenarios!
*
*
*
:Ugh! Zzyzx11 (Talk) 08:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  If you thought the running game-by-game commentary trend was bad... 

message: The :category:National Football League players is scrubbed of individuals. Everybody who was there now has a position category, some number of pro team categories, and either a college team category or an appearance in Football players from small colleges. So what's left to do in this regard? I would say these things:
#Go through the List of current NFL team rosters and check the categorization of everyone there.Done.
#Go through :Category:National Football League Draft articles and check those.Done.
#Go through :Category:American football players by position's subcategories and check those for teams.Not worth doing. There can't be many articles in there without pro or college team categories.
#Go through (ulp) all the subcategories of :Category:National Football League players by team and check those folks.Done.
I call "not it" on #4.Guess I lied.--Mike Selinker 01:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd also like to suggest giving similar treatment to :Category:American Football League players (76 members) - that it be drained and deleted.  I neither added nor deleted the category from players as I went though categorizing by NFL team, but I observed that most AFL players do not currently belong to this category, especially ones whose career lasted though the merger. :Category:National Football League players by team already has categories for all of the AFL team names, including the ones that never made it to the NFL.  I also suggest that :Category:All-America Football Conference players (1 member) be given the fate, or, alternately, kept and populated with everyone that ever played in the AAFC. ×Meegs 03:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're saying that the AFL category gets removed from each player and replaced (if necessary) by team name? I'd be fine with that. In fact, this will probably lead us to do the same with Canadian teams, though I claim no particular expertise with that.--Mike Selinker 03:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly.  There are a lot of US college players and some forgotten NFL transients in :Category:Canadian Football League players too. ×Meegs 04:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Nice job, guys.  I'm surprised we were able to get it done that quickly.  I've been helping out when I can, although with law school I don't exactly have all the time in the world to sit on Wikipedia and update thousands of pages (if only...).  I think the American Football League categories are somewhat important, since it defines a particular era for the team.  I note that the NHL teams that were members of the WHA have separate categories to define players who played for the four teams that merged; there are separate categories for the Edmonton Oilers and Edmonton Oilers (WHA).  Perhaps we could do the same, i.e. San Diego Chargers and San Diego Chargers (AFL)?  All of the requisite AFL team categories would therefore be included in the American Football League players category, which would be devoid of individuals like the NFL players cat.  With respect to the CFL, I've been going through players who played in the NFL and CFL and deleting the extra CFL players cat if they have the team cats, much like the NFL.  Finally, I'm sure we can find/create a few more player articles for the AAFC; it was an important era in pro football history, and should not be neglected.  Well, those are my thoughts, tired though my brain may be.  I'm off to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream... of a Wikipedia where everything is categorized neatly, and there are no stubs... Anthony 05:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't think I want to distinguish, say, the Chargers of the AFL from the Chargers of the NFL, because the two sets of teams flowed seamlessly (if acrimoniously) into each other. That seems like overcategorization. If someone was a Charger when the merger happened, I don't think he needs two categories. Just my opinion, though. (As for the time thing, I find my Wikipediing goes up as my workload goes up; the faster I'm trying to get a game written, the more my brain needs the downtime of mindlessly categorizing things. So I get both done at a faster rate, oddly enough. Which is a logic that doesn't apply to, say, my closet.)--Mike Selinker 06:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The plan would clear-up some problems with our current system (especially if we did the same for the AAFC teams that really don't belong where they are now), but would make the system more complex and less accessible for some.  One could also argue that experience of pre-merger NFL teams changed just as much as it did for the AFL teams, but splitting the Packers in two obviously isn't on the table.   I'm pretty-much neutral, but I'll definitely help if others like it. ×Meegs 06:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm merely proposing it to give credit to those players who played in the AFL.  Otherwise, there's really nothing that recognizes the players who played for those 7 (?) years in the AFL.  If we eliminate :Category:American Football League players, that's going overboard with the concept of merging the AFL & NFL.  They merged, but the NFL still recognizes the AFL existed.  I think we should do the same on Wikipedia.  My main thing is recognizing a point in history; that's why we have separate cats for the Chicago, St. Louis, Phoenix, and Arizona Cardinals.  If we simply create a New York Jets (AFL) cat, all it does is merely create one more cat for Joe Namath.  But we can link him to players who played in the AFL and never played in the NFL, guys whose careers didn't last all those seven years.  My main point, simply put, is that we shouldn't ignore the AFL simply for ease of categorization.  Just my thoughts.  I'll go along with whatever the majority is, but I'm strongly voicing an opinion that we create separate AFL cats for the AFL teams. Anthony 13:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Question - Anthony, I started this whole thing by suggesting we get rid of the AFL category, but do you prefer the current system, where Namath is a Jet and a AFLer, or your proposed system where he's just a Jet (NFL) and a Jet (AFL)?  I'm not sure how big the existing AFL category would become if we applied it consistently.  Probably not too big. ×Meegs 14:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't think it's a matter of work, as it's not that hard either way. I certainly don't have an objection to recognizing this stage of football, and it's an identical number of entries per player whether it's "Jets (AFL)" or "AFL players". So we do one or the other. I think the wacky Dallas situation made our decision for us: If we're going to have the Dallas category (which would move people out of AFL), we should have all of them. So yeah, I'm on board with Anthony if he wants to have separate team categories. Here's the problem I see: Some anti-abbreviation commando is probably going to tag all of them with a cfr tag, and the damn thing is that he'll be right to do so, based on the Dallas/Arena thing. We can't just ignore the chance that an Arena fan might show up and surround Art Donovan with half-fielders. I'm not sure what's the best thing to do here. (One thing I'm certain of: I don't want to give a player a tag for a team he didn't play for, so dumping Boston Patriots into New England is no good.)--Mike Selinker 16:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Abstain! I'm keeping my neutral position on Anthony's plan vs. the keeping the AFL category, but I'd like to wait on enacting it for a few days to see what others have to say.  It's not much work at all, but doing and then undoing it would be.  I'm slightly concerned about having Broncos & Brocos (AFL) rather than Broncos (NFL) & Broncos (AFL).   I'm just not sure that 35 years post-merger vs. 10 years pre-merger is enough imbalance to allow it to go undisambiguated.  On the other hand, adding (NFL) to the ten post-AFL teams is pretty obnoxious.  I'm bothered by both names schemes about the same, I guess. ×Meegs 17:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

text: OK, so what's the consensus?  Is it New York Jets (AFL) or New York Jets (American Football League)?  I'm against adding (NFL) to the existing cats, just because it's unnecessary, like Meegs said.  I'm in favor of making it a simple (AFL) addition, and worrying about whether some "anti-abbreviation commando" will try to cfr it later.  For purposes of simplicity and length I suggest making it (AFL).  I'm just trying to figure out what everyone's opinion on this is before I start working, because once I start, I want a clear standard for all cats.  Anthony 17:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, no, I think everyone is in favor of the abbreviated (AFL) if we do the splits.  The question is whether each AFL team should have its own player category, or whether we should keep the status quo of a single category for all AFL players. Vote early, vote often ×Meegs 17:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Gotcha.  BTW, does someone (preferably someone with a tad more experience and authority than I) want to archive some of these discussions... I'm getting a page size warning when I'm adding to the talk page. Anthony 18:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: actually, Zzyzx11 just did that about 36 hour ago. Everything left is < three weeks old ×Meegs 04:11, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yeah, let me think about it for a day or two. I'm leaning toward just doing the (AFL) for every team that needs it and saying the hell with it, but I sure don't want it done twice. Meantime, I think I'll go check the draft categories.--Mike Selinker 18:39, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't change my opinion after thinking about it a bit. We should break that category out by teams just like Anthony said, using the AFL tag (only) as necessary. We might want to make the Arena categories now just to stake out the namespace of using the (Arena) tag on the Dallas Texans. There's already a :Category:Austin Wranglers players to use.--Mike Selinker 14:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, let's do it.  And yeah, we might as well make the Texans (Arena) cat.  A good defense is a good offense ;) ×Meegs 14:31, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree, not necessary. ×Meegs 03:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, one category is fine. The team and league designation is identical.--Mike Selinker 04:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  now that that's out of the way... more category work

message: The draft categories are all fixed up, with correct links to teams and players with appropriate categories. Along the way I had to make a decision that players who got drafted by a team got to go under their team categories; otherwise, some of the more recent classes had no link to any team. This is a fan's link to info about their teams, so since that's part of their history, I left it in. Also, I think it's kind of fair in a they-also-serve sort of way. Note that I didn't put people who later tried out a for a team and didn't make it, because that's not the use of a precious resource by the team. Agree or disagree?--Mike Selinker 14:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree.  In other words, players who were drafted but cut (e.g. Bill Goldberg from the Carolina Panthers) get the team cat, but players who signed in training camp but were cut (e.g. Taylor Stubblefield) don't get the team cat.  That how it works? Anthony 15:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, that's how I meant it.--Mike Selinker 15:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I've been excluding both classes (anyone who didn't see playing time and sometimes even a few who saw a little), and leaving some players categorized by position (and sometimes college & CFL team) only.   I don't agree, but I'm willing to change to Mike's standard without debate.  As I understand it, include anyone who plays a down in a real game or is drafted by the team. Actually, is being on the roster for a real game good enough?  That info isn't always available, but we should have an ideal. ×Meegs 15:36, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly being on the roster should be good enough. Imagine if Carson Palmer had decided to retire after the 2004 season. We'd still want him in the Bengals category, I think.--Mike Selinker 15:51, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: who qualifies as a player for a team

message: Maybe you folks have already discussed this. I noted this project's ultimate goal above is to compete with the cricket Wikiproject for number of articles and such. I'd just like to point out that I very much want to avoid doing this, regardless of what they do.--Mike Selinker 15:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  this project's "ultimate goal" 

message: I know one of the sources of debate and discussion on this project has been the history aspect of the franchises.  Well, being a hockey fan as well as a football fan, I've been perusing our sister project of Ice Hockey and noticed that NHL franchises have individual pages for the separate incarnations of a franchise.  For example, there are separate pages for the Kansas City Scouts, Colorado Rockies (NHL), and New Jersey Devils.  So I thought, instead of making redirects out of the Chicago Cardinals, Racine Cardinals, St. Louis Cardinals (NFL), and Phoenix Cardinals, why not give them all their own separate pages detailing the histories of the franchise during those years?  Granted, certain franchies wouldn't get such a luxury, say, the Green Bay Packers.  But what do you guys think?
I'm adding this non-related issue as a semi-warning: a lot, and I mean a LOT of the AFL players are copyvio off the AFL Hall of Fame website.  As in, direct copying from the text on the site.  So if you guys are going through and changing cats and stuff, rewrite it so it's not copyvio.  It's hard, but I'm trying my best.  Just FYI. Anthony 17:00, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible option 

message: This is a common problem amongst Wikipedians, but I'm curious as to the copyright status of football cards.  In other words, if I scan in a football card, and use that image on a player's page, is that fair use, copyright, or what?  (I know it's not public domain.)  I'm just curious because I was considering scanning in football cards to provide images of players, but I don't want to do it if they're just going to end up deleted in 2 days anyway.  Can an admin or someone with superior knowledge of this answer my query?  Anthony 18:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Short answer: If the image is only used to illustrate the subject of the article, it can be used under fair use. You tag it with  and write something like: This image qualifies for fair use in ARTICLE NAME because it is used for information purposes only since it shows the subject of this article. See Wikipedia:Image description page#Fair use rationale for more. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:23, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question on images 

message: If anyone wants to use it, I've created a user template at .  I was tempted to use the NFL logo, but I figured some fair use nutjob would go crazy and either delete the template or replace it with "NFL", so I put a standard picture of a football. Anthony 15:21, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  User template 

message: I went through :Category:NFL Europe players, and cleared all the players from the broad category to some individual team cats (much as we've been doing with the NFL and AFL player cats).  Zellin has now created :Category:NFL Europe alumni, and I wasn't sure if we should CfD it or what the consensus was, because I created the team cats for uniformity.  I've asked him to join the project, since we want to encourage activity and improvement in all the NFL player pages, and not discourage people who are trying to help (even though I took offense to someone objecting to my edits when I was a mere n00b myself).  Thoughts? Anthony 20:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From Anthony's  talk page, it looks like Zellin just didn't know about the team categories.  There's another issue, though, that some people seem to interpret the team categories as being exclusively for the team's current players.  I can't think of anything we can do about it though — it's not worth renaming the categories to something wordy and awkward. ×Meegs 02:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NFL Europe... 

message: I've added the last few categories to
*:Category:All-America Football Conference players
*:Category:American Football League players by team
*:Category:National Football League players by team
so that we now have one for every franchise×city×name that's existed since 1940.  Actually, there are two exceptions:
#There's no category for the "Brooklyn-New York Yankees" that played in AAFC in 1949 because I'm trying to figure out if they're really distinct from the New York Yankees (AAFC)
#:Category:Baltimore Colts (1940s) players is currently serving both the NFL and the AAFC.  I ruthlessly split the Boston Patriots category for the one season they played in the NFL, but I haven't had the heart to do the same for the Baltimore Colts (1947-50), who were in the NFL during their final year.
I've speedied a few obsolete categories, but I'm so confused by all of the Texans and Dodgers and Bills and Colts and Yanks (Oh My!), that I want to make-sure I'm not forgetting anything. As far as I know, these are the remaining issues:
*:Category:Brooklyn Dodgers (football) players needs to be renamed (NFL) now that we have :Category:Brooklyn Dodgers (AAFC) players.
*:Category:Dallas Texans (1960s) players – should be deleted now that we have :Category:Dallas Texans (AFL) players, right?
*:Category:Dallas Texans (1952) players – should it stay, or be renamed (NFL)?
*:Category:Baltimore Colts (1940s) players – should it stay, or should it be split into (AAFC) and (NFL) (for that pesky 1950 season) ?
Have I forgotten anything? ×Meegs 01:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NFL, AFL, AAFC categories 

message: Does anybody in this project have a membership at KFFL.com? I've found it extremely valuable in finding information about players. -Tim Rhymeless  (Er...let's shimmy) 20:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  KFFL 

message: I have made a rough possible format for all games that we have on the site, such as in the NFL playoffs articles, posted at User:KramarDanIkabu/Sandbox#Football game for all to see. Please make suggestions here. I think it is imperative that we have an official game format for consistency between articles. KramarDanIkabu 21:56, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There was a brief review on this page a few weeks ago, this project's ultimate goal, about whether we should have articles for non-Super Bowl games and the few games that have entered NFL Lore.  Playoff games would be the next step if we were to expand coverage, but I personally don't think we need to split-up articles like NFL playoffs, 2003-04 into individual games.  At least, not unless we were going to be adding a substantial about of prose about each game, and in that case, the articles should probably closely resemble  our Super Bowl model.  In any case, I don't think covering games in-progress is appropriate.  WP:NOT says, "Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories". ×Meegs 22:48, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree. This is an encyclopedia after all. And any covering games in-progress is somewhat futile because it is going to be radically changed once the game ends. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for game format 

message: Now that the NFL season is winding down, I think it is time to field ideas for a new layout for the team articles. As stated in other discussions, there seems to a consensus to split up the history sections and reduce the game-by-game summaries. The discussion on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/New England Patriots also brought to light other ideas and problems. My suggestion (I have said this already) is to try to model them after Arsenal F.C., the only sports team so far that has been named as a featured article. In fact, it looks like someone has already begun the process with the Chicago Bears article. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You forgot IFK Göteborg ... the other sports-team featured article. Daniel Case 06:52, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever. Actually, New England Patriots was recently named as an FA a few days ago, and thus, of course, I suggest that all of the NFL team articles be modeled after that one... Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New format for team articles 

message: There seems to be three different styles of NFL Draft articles going:
1989, 2003-2005 style (wiki syntax table)
Pick #	NFL Team           	Player    	Position   	College
1     	San Francisco 49ers	Alex Smith	Quarterback	Utah
1983, 1990 - 2001 style (HTML syntax table)
<TABLE class="wikitable">
<TR><TD>1</TD><TD>Atlanta Falcons</TD><TD>Michael Vick</TD><TD>QB</TD><TD>Virginia Tech</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
1986, 2002 style (HTML syntax table)
Pick
Player
NFL Team
College
1David Carr (QB)Houston Texans Fresno State University
I think it would be best to settle on one format ASAP before any more articles are started.  As far as I can tell, the choices to make are 
#Wiki or HTML table syntax
#the order of columns (team or player first)
#the treatment of positions (parenthetical or in a separate column), (full name or 2-letter abbreviation)
#Short or Long Schools names, e.g. Fresno State or Fresno State University.  
×Meegs 07:59, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer the succession box, since it's more in line with many of the football articles... the only templates with a full listing are the NFL itself and the Super Bowl.  The Heisman and a few others use the succession box, and it takes up less space.  That's my personal preference, don't know what anyone else thinks.  As far as the individual draft articles, I say we link everything, even if it's repeated, because if you're looking in the 5th round for a person, and you want to look up the school, it's a hassle to have to find the original wikilink in the article to find it.  I've got nothing against overlinking in a situation like this.  Again, that's IMHO. Anthony 14:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to chime in again, with respect to the older drafts, it's going to be hard to find out who had the original draft pick... when I worked on some of the older ones, all I could find was who made the pick, now how they obtained it.  Obviously with the more recent drafts that won't be a problem, but I don't think we'll be able to find out who Chicago obtained their second-round pick from in 1963... just saying.  As far as the overlinking goes, it seems to be the majority opinion that once a position/school is linked, that's it.  Fine with me, although I disagree with Kramar about USC... I don't think people are going to confuse the Gamecocks with the Trojans.  We could use USC for Southern Cal and South Carolina for the Gamecocks.  Also, when we say Maryland, it almost always refers to College Park, not any other campus, so I think putting "Maryland-College Park" is unnecessary.  I've got more questions, but they're unrelated to this topic, so I'll save them for after the season when we go through our overhaul of the team articles. Anthony 19:10, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever lived in the South?  When I was in Georgia, USC=South Carolina.  Agreed on Maryland, though. J1729 19:18, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NFL Draft results 

message: There is now a discussion going on over there about what counts as a draft bust and what doesn't. Check it out and chip in your two cents. Youngamerican 04:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Talk:List of NFL Draft busts]] 

message: Earlier today I happened to come upon our Glossary of American football page. I was surprised at how many definitions and clarifications I could add, just off the top of my head. With the help of 3 or 4 other knowledgable editors (much less everyone on this project!), we could make this page very comprehensive. I thought I'd post on here to bring this page to everyone's attention, since I think the lack of publication is the only reason this page isn't already great. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 21:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I wasn't suggesting that the Glossary become part of the WikiProject, I just figured I'd use this talk page as a good way of contacting editors interested in American football and bring the Glossary to their attention. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 05:20, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Glossary of American football]]

message: Should :Category:National Football League coaches and all of the team subcategories (and :Category:College football coaches, I guess) be renamed to reflect that they're only for head coaches?  The categories look like they're basically free of coordinators and position coaches already, so maybe it's not worth fixing what isn't broken. I have no real opinion, but this kind of change is better made sooner than later. ×Meegs 01:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good luck categorizing Monte Kiffin then. Never was a head coach, likely never wants to be. What's wrong with position coaches in those categories, anyway? It's not like we have :Category:American football starting quarterbacks.--Mike Selinker 01:40, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing, I guess, only no one has so far put any assistants in the team-specific categories. I'd be fine with leaving them inclusive too. ×Meegs 02:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coach categories 

message: For a few days, I've been working on improving the Patriots article to featured status.  Here is the peer review: Wikipedia:Peer review/New England Patriots/archive1. Deckiller 19:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Pats are up for FA nomination. Deckiller 21:08, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a good article, and good luck with getting it as a feature. One minor point that I don't like: In the roster, some links head back to the article. They should be red links if there's no articles on those players, not redirects. Seems like cheating.--Mike Selinker 21:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

text: -=nods=- thanks for pointing that out; I believe I took care of all of them by creating stubs with the appropriate tags and style. Deckiller 21:38, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Neat. The players should have college and position categories too. If you can get to those, great. If not, I'll do them later.--Mike Selinker 00:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I'll try to look up some more info on a few of the players after dinner. Deckiller 00:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer review 

message: I recommend this header be changed to "Notable Alumni" per the New England Patriots page. Deckiller 01:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not to be forgotten is a little hokey, but I've always <S>kind of</S> liked it.  If there's to be a change across all of the articles, I suggest Other notable alumni, since the section should omit players from the lists that preceed it (retired numbers, HOFers, etc.). ×Meegs 01:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: -=nods=- Good point. Deckiller 01:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I've always liked "Not to be forgotten" as well. One problem with using "Notable alumni" or "Other notable alumni" might be that it would likely direct someone who is unfamiliar with the term to our alumnus/a page, which talks almost entirely about schools and says nothing about professional sports teams (and rightfully so- I'm not sure I've ever heard a professional athlete called an "alumnus" of their team). Not to say I'm completely against it, just that it might be a little confusing to some. EWS23 | (Leave me a message!) 01:56, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, it might be better to keep creative language out of headlines.  I recommend the Patriots return to "Not to be forgotten" until a third option comes around. ×Meegs 02:34, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: or perhaps something like 'notable former players'?--Alhutch 02:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Not to be forgotten" 

message: Can we get some consistency in how we disambiguate player names? Here are some examples:
*Ken Anderson (football player)
*Tony Banks (quarterback)
*Michael Bishop (football)
*Brad Johnson (American football player)
*Brad Smith (college footballer)
*Steve Walsh (NFL)
*Steve Young (athlete)
And that's just quarterbacks.
I'm willing to do the grunt work to rename articles if we can decide on what the standard should be.
I prefer (American football) I think.
* (NFL) ignores notable college players or those in leagues beside the NFL
* (football) and (football player) would lend many to think Association Football
* (athlete) is too broad, and Mr. Young really only played football
* (American football player) is out of place on someone who becomes a coach, broadcaster, etc.
* (college footballer) is awkward, and ignores a pro career
—Wrathchild (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (American football) seems the right answer to me. Even if we do nothing else, though, we should change any with (athlete), since the predominant wikipedia usage of that term is "track and field athlete."--Mike Selinker 18:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about those rare instances with two players with the same name (e.g., Ricky Williams). Disambiguate by position? Might not help. By team? They move around a lot. (Too bad the NFL doesn't have a policy like the Screen Actors Guild. —Wrathchild (talk) 19:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How about this issue I saw earlier in the day: A user moved Jason Taylor to Jason Taylor (American footballer) so a dab page could be created to also list Jason Taylor (rugby league footballer) and Jason Taylor (Australian rules footballer). Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, I moved Jason Taylor (American footballer) to Jason Taylor (American football player) because we normally do not use the term "footballer" in the States. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I prefer (football player) or (American football player) to (American football) as they state the person's profession and not simply their field.  I can't find any guidelines to backup my feeling, but it is consistent with the examples at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifier between brackets or parentheses and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation_pages)#People (e.g. (Chemist), not (Chemistry)).  For multiple football players, I'd recommend positions (like Tyrone Williams x3) or dates of some kind.  ×Meegs 20:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that breaks with someone like John Madden. You'd want to disambig him from the hockey player of the same name, but he's currently a broadcaster and was a coach. John Madden (American football broadaster) pigeonholes him. We're also left with a hodgepodge of (American football player), (American football coach), (American football executive) and so on. For brevity I think (American football) is better. (And goodness forfend we start seeing (American football player/coach) and other such abominations.) Anyway, I think sports is different enough to buck the trend. —Wrathchild (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Madden aside, there are relatively few people with more than one football career ∈ {player, coach, analyst} where one doesn't completely overshadowed the others, and fewer yet of those with name-collisions that need disambiguation.  I say that only because I don't want want to make a policy based on a couple of individuals.  The "profession convention" seems quite dominant browsing through :Category:Human name disambiguation, and it would be nice to use a manner of speech parallel to the non-football articles we're disambiguating from.  That is, to not have Tom (football) next to Tom (chemist) and Tom (politician).   The weak de facto convention aside, I also have a very slight personal preference for Ken Anderson (football player) since it doesn't require any extra words or thought to be read as prose: "Ken Anderson, football player". It's not a big deal to me really, so long as we can agree not to use footballer ;) ×Meegs 09:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ick. No footballer is right out. I'm not really married to any one term, but rather more to the idea of having consistency. I was hoping to have a single term that we could use on all (American) football people and topics that need disambiguation, but I'll take football player as a start. I am concerned about confusion with the sport us Merkins call "soccer". —Wrathchild (talk) 13:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just had to create a disambiguation for B.J. Sams (there were two people in one article -- weird) and I have him listed as B.J. Sams (football player).  Has this been agreed upon as the proper way to denote football players as of yet?  Thanks! Panchitavilletalk 05:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Player disambiguation 

message: Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? I noticed New England Patriots is a FA, are there any others? Please post your suggestions here. Thanks a lot! Gflores Talk 17:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project 

message: Many thanks to all who helped out! More info in the talkpage. Deckiller 03:56, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Congratulations. I've been watching the work and am very impressed. Keep up the good work.--Alhutch 04:16, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks! There are still a few minor ideas and things I want to fix up in the article. Perhaps we can get it on the front page someday. Deckiller 20:41, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Patriots FA 

message: Each player has an official page through nfl.com (Tedi Bruschi's, just as an example)...they do a pretty good job of rounding up the stats in a table form, include a picture, have game logs, have situational stats...all in all a fairly useful source.  Would people be in favor of regularly linking to these sites in player pages?  And secondly, would the pictures on these sites qualify as fair use, as they are publicity photos? --jfg284 you were saying? 15:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Player Bios 

message: Seems that User 24.48.96.44 was pretty busy inserting spam links for the AFL "Hall of Fame" website in a lot of player bios today.  A lot of them were removed by myself and someone else, but a few might still remain.  Keep on the lookout.  Whoever 24.48.96.44 is, they are simply inserting a link to the AFL Hall of Fame, which is nothing more than a fan-created site.  They are also inserting a sentence linking to what used to be a Wiki article about the site.  --Cholmes75 04:50, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  More AFL spam 

message: You should probably take a look at The talk page on WikiProject AFL (see the bottom discussion re Rudy Gay), as well as Rudy Gay's deletion entry. Rogerthat Talk 10:21, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AFL|The talk page on WikiProject AFL]]