Wikipedia:WikiProject Olympics/Olympic conventions

Olympic conventions is a discussion page, part of the Olympic WikiProject, that allows users to contribute their opinions to divisive Olympic-related issues. Read below to see the purpose of this discussion page and to see how you can contribute. Don't forget to look at the conventions that have already received discussion.

The purpose of this page is to determine the conventions to be used on Wikipedia for displaying Olympics medal count pages and tables. To do this, we are looking for you as the Wikipedia community to express your thoughts on various debatable issues, which will show us a consensus on the views of Wikipedians. When enough opinions have been expressed, a consensus will be drawn from each topic and this will become the acting Wikipedia policy, the standards to which all other pages in the mentioned category will have to follow.

Please make comments and suggestions under the proper resolved on the talk page.

The discussions are making a good turn out and I believe that one week from the time that each resolved was posted will be when the comments of the community will be tallied and a consensus for each resolved will be made.

Note: Please do not add new topics to the talk page. Request that they be added here and if enough people believe it would benefit the discussion, it will be added.

This discussion is in need of better structure, organization, and leadership. Please post your ideas and comments on this matter on the talk page! Thanks!

Any user who has made frequent edits to these pages may place their name here. If you wish, you may place the following userbox on your page to promote this forum.
{{User olympic conventions}}

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• Blnguyen (talk · contribs)

Metric numbers like "fifteen hundred meters" should be written "1500m".[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 17/2/1.

What this means: This debate was only concerning itself with the fact that some people were writing the number when it is written in numerals in a few different ways: 1,500, or 1500, or 1.500, or even 1 500. The way that was decided by this debate was 1500 with no space, dot, or comma; this is now the new acting policy. No decision was made about units, choice of prefixes, or spacing between number and unit.

Again see WP:MOS. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)} 15:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MoS has nothing to do with a debate made specifiacally for Olympics pages.

I beg to differ, the MoS applies to all articles. That is its sole point. This vote was moot. Christoph Päper 18:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the MoS implies that 1500m is a valid method. Of course, it is good that all olympic articles use the same convention.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 02:33, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The way I read it WP:MOS was that the number should be 1,500 m, or 1.5 km (i.e. with std international decimal points and comma separations for thousands - and with a space between number and unit marker). And Yes it does refer to all articles. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)} 13:43, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of Style does indeed refer to all articles. The way I read WP:MOSNUM saying "Very large numbers may be divided up by commas every three places, starting from the decimal separator in both directions" (emphasis mine) is that the comma is optional and both 1500 and 1,500 are acceptable. Under that interpretation of the MoS, "1,500" vs. "1500" would be a legitimate discussion for this page. That should probably be clarified at the MoS page, though (anyone know if it's somewhere in the 39 pages of archives there?). -- Jonel | Speak 00:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that this is back to being a proposal only, I now officially propose throwing this one out entirely, because what was voted on was so ambiguous and poorly phrased and at odds with the conclusions drawn by Jared after earlier discussion. Gene Nygaard 02:37, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Countries should be ranked according to the type of medal they have, not the quantity.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 21/5/2.

What this means: This means that in all medal tables regarding the Olympics, countries are ranked by order of gold, silver, and bronze medals, rather than by total medals. For instance, refer to the table below. China and the United States are placed higher than Canada because they have more gold medals. The tie between China and the United States is broken by the number of silver medals; China has 2 more than the United States. Thus, though China has the fewest total medals, it is placed at the top of the ranking.

Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
China	11	12	6	29
United States	11	10	14	35
Canada	10	20	5	35

The host nation should be highlighted in a different color.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 18/3/1.

What this means: This debate is a very vague issue which now states that on medal count tables, the table-cells of the host nation should be highlighted. Currently they are in a bluish color, but a debate on color or form is yet to be brought up.

Medals of nations that have since split up (USSR) or united (West/East Germany) should be redistributed.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Oppose.
based on the consensus of 0/21/0.

What this means: It was said that, for instance, all of the medals won by the USSR should be redistributed to the countries that arose from the USSR. This debate resolved this issue by saying that all medals won by a unique nation/ IOC code should be kept on a separate line. East Germany, West Germany, Germany, and the United Team of Germany should therefore all have separate medal counts.

The 1906 Intercalated Games should be excluded from all-time medal counts.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 15/2/0.

What this means: The 1906 Intercalated games occured between two Olympiads irregularly for the purpose of attracting more people to the Olympics. After the games, the IOC decided that all medal counts from these games were not to be recognized. Therefore, this debate says that we, too, will not recognize the 1906 games in our counts.

Gender separated events should be refered to by using "Men's" and "Women's"[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 16/1/0.

What this means: This means that in any event that separates competitors into male and female categories, the terms "Men" and "Women" should be used for each one, respectively. The issue is currently up for debate again, as the IOC does recognize some skiing and skating events as "Ladies".

Medal counts should include ONLY medals and not Top-8 placements.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 14/5/0.

What this means: Thais means that on all medal counts, there should not be an extra 5 columns (or six for a total) which tally each country's 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th place wins. The medal count will therefore be only for counting medals (1st, 2nd, and 3rd places).

Agreed but this does NOT include tables that porport to be results listings. Otherwise that is NOT what peeople voted for. Changing the definition to suit. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)} 14:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What he means is that the resolved doesn't specifically state it, but the archived debate mentions that no top-8 table shouldbe created at all. Jared 18:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do not add Wikipedia links for every athlete listed in competition results unless there is an existing page for the athlete[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Oppose.
based on the consensus of 1/16/1.

What this means: The idea was that there were too many "red links" or uncreated articles for each Olympic winner or participant. It was decided that these should stay because the Wikipedia community has to grow, and eventually, they will all become "blue links".

The abbreviation for a metric length should be written in the following way:[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
No decision
based on the data of 9(#1)/6(#2)/0(#3)/1(#4).

What this means: No real conclusions can be drawn because of lack of consensus. Some people believe that Olympic metric lengths should be written as the IOC sometimes writes them, being with no space between the number and the unit. This, however, is directly contrasting the Wikipedia Manual of Style, which claims that all pages, regardless of their topic, should be written with a space, and the rules of standards organizations such as NIST and National Physical Laboratory, UK. This topic is still in dispute as some believe that the MoS should be the sole guideline for all pages, while others think that pages should be formated according to the topic about which they are written.

• Oppose Now that this is officially back to being a proposal only, I officially register my strong opposition to it, for the following reasons:

• The IOC never states this to be a rule to be followed.
• IOC usage is inconsistent, with many pages on the olympic.org site using emasurements such as "100 m" with a space.[1]
• NIST specifies that measurements shall be written with a space between the number and the symbol.[2]
• National Physical Laboratory, UK specifies that measurements shall be written with a space between the number and the symbol.[3]
• Our house rules at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) specify that measurements shall be written with a space between the number and the symbol.

Of course, this was also a badly drafted proposal, overly precise in specifying metric units only and length units only. Gene Nygaard 02:49, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, amke up your mind: first you say these pages are not specific enough and now you're saying this is too specific. I agree that both of these topics should be reconsidered, but this is not the place to do it. I suggest doing it on the talk page. --J@red ^[T]/_[+] 02:54, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All instances of the words "rank", "ranked", and "ranking" should be replaced with "sort", "sorted", and "sorting" on all medal count pages.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Oppose.
based on the consensus of 2/5/2.

What this means: This debate tried to say that we should not try to rank countries, rather we should sort them. The outcome was oppose, however, so all tables will still show rank and use the word rank.

Use Turin instead of Torino to refer to the city on English Wikipedia pages.[edit]

The outcome of this debate is:
Support.
based on the consensus of 7/1/1.

What this means: This means that we should now use the English spelling -- Turin -- when refering to the city in Italy. The games of 2006 will still be called the 2006 Torino games, however because that is the official name of the games for all countries.

To see when each resolved will be tallied, click here.

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

Created by: Jared ^[T]/_[+] 22:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Edited by: Josilot 02:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Edited by: Jared ^[T]/_[+] 00:22, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]