Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cycling/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

←

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

→

Archive 10

Currently, 529 of the articles assigned to this project, or 9.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:01, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I've created an article called List of doping cases in cycling. I had been thinking about an article like this for some time but I wasn't sure about how to display the information. The doping cases are organized chronologically rather than alphabetically and each year contains a list of 'positive tests', another section called Doping cases and others if needed (Operación Puerto or 2007 Tour de France). I'm also not sure if all the information should be displayed in wikitables or if we should display all the information without wikitables to avoid confusions. Sadly there are so many doping cases each year that I have just included a few so far (2008 has a long list and we still need information about Iban Mayo, Leukemans, Boonen, Bob Hayles...). Feel free to propose changes and to expand the list with more cases.Drunt (talk) 12:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 22:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

This website is used as a reference for a lot of mountain climbs in Europe. It now seems out of action - does anyone know if this is a temporary glitch or is the site permanently down? --Bikeroo (talk) 15:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It was clearly a temporary glitch as it's working fine now. --Bikeroo (talk) 21:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Naturally, when I noticed it still said "Team Slipstream," I attempted to change it, but somehow the template page is a redlink, despite the template itself still showing up on each rider's page? How is this possible? Irrespective of that, something should be done, because the team is obviously not called "Team Slipstream" anymore. Nosleep (talk) 18:41, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I've changed it now. The template is at {{Slipstream}}. There was a typo in the template which was making it to ink to Template:Slipsteam, which was why the link didn't work (I've also fixed that). --Vclaw (talk) 21:26, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

My badness from a little while ago! Severo^TC 22:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a very strange article for an encyclopedia. For an article about one of the greatest cyclists ever, (POV I know, but this a discussion page) there seems very little about his actual cycling career. His Tour de France successes are mentioned in the lead, but never referred to again. The article spends far too long discussing the reasons for his successes and claims of drug use, but where are the details of his various victories (and defeats), apart from in the tables at the end of the article? As I say, very strange. --Bikeroo (talk) 21:39, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you checked the history to see if anything has been lost somewhere? Even if it has, it's a strange article anyway. Unfortunately, I don't have the patience for the article :( Severo^TC 21:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Done, someone deleted it one year ago and nobody noticed.Drunt (talk) 23:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

When I updated {{maillot blanc}} on Sunday, I put "A. Schleck" as the link to this year's winner, thinking it wise to disambiguate between the two brothers. User:Cs-wolves changed it to just "Schleck," and I changed it back, suggesting in the edit summary that we ought to disambiguate. He probably hasn't looked at the template again.

Now, when I did that, I was unaware of the existence of {{Prix de combativité}}, also won this year by a rider who has a brother that's also a professional cyclist. They share the same first inital, though, so be thorough in disambiguation, that would have to something like "Sy. Chavanel," which obviously is quite awkward.

Anyhow, just looking for some opinions here. Given that the names are quite obviously wikilinks, perhaps no disambiguation is necessary. It's just what I was thinking at the time. Nosleep (talk) 23:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Help! I don't want to start arguments, it's not worth it, but I spent a long time tidying up this article, removing duplicate references and links, formatting them to make them fit in with all other wiki articles and removing a few uneccessary heading on the track section. Generally trying to make it more legible. I was trying not to interfere with what anyone else was doing but now this has all been undone. Does any one else have any opinions on how this article should be formatted? I'm a bit annoyed I wasn't contacted before having all my work undone. But a proper discussion should solve any further cross-editing.Thaf (talk) 10:07, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Prose - not lists - should dominate. This is an encyclopaedia after all, not a fact book. Discussions should take place at the relevant talk page though. Severo^TC 10:46, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I did try and start a disscusion before editing but as I recieved no response I went ahead and started editing. Thaf (talk) 11:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I give up... See User talk:Hunter2005.Thaf (talk) 19:16, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Tooling around a little, I notice the Catalan Wikipedia has individual articles for each stage of the Tour de France . Now, obviously it's a bit late to do that for this year, and I wouldn't want to go back anyway, but it's something to think about for next year (unless there's a pre-existing consensus of which I'm not aware). I would be up for doing this here, as you might guess from my sometimes-verbose stage summaries. Any thoughts on this? Nosleep (talk) 15:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I was just wondering the same thing last night, each stage of the Tour is effectivley a road race, judging by the size of the growing Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Men's road race article, I imagine it would be perfectly feasible to have a "well rounded" article with race and route descriptions and not merely a list of placings.Thaf (talk) 16:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of this idea, essentially because it is, in my opinion, crossing the line of encyclopaedic. There is certainly scope for putting in more information about route and race descriptions, but this can be done within the confines of the current article structure. Severo^TC 16:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

It would be a tall order, no doubt, with 21 races in 23 days (but it'd give us/me something to work on in the weeks after the Tour :P ). I can really see both sides to this. I think it would be a lot of fun, but it would obviously be a lot of work as well and therefore susceptible to not being up to article standards. Nosleep (talk) 16:37, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmms, come to think of it, sometimes singular stages are notable in their own right. Les-2-Alpes in 1998 for example. We could structure the articles of one main page for the race - then add the extra stage pages as appropriate... There's definitely scope for development here. Severo^TC 18:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Well we've got plenty of time to decide. Definitely don't need to definitively say one way or the other for several months. I'm amenable to doing this, and to the status quo. Nosleep (talk) 07:38, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

During the Tour, someone referred to a commons user who made profiles (images) for each stage. Can we find this person and get one for the Olympic road race? I think that would help the road race article(s). Nosleep (talk) 11:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick question, would it be possible to replace "==Palmarès==" with "==[[Bicycling terminology#P|Palmarès]]==" automatically? Several people have asked what it means recently, thought it might be good to link to the Bicycling terminology automatically as they can't seem to be able to type palmarès in the search box... Thaf (talk) 08:00, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure section headers aren't supposed to be wikilinks. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 21:47, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Section headers shouldn't link. We could either change the section header ( to, say, Major achievements) or put a note under each incidence of Palmarès when used as a section header (saying, for example, Here is listed the palmarès, the major achievements, of rider). We could actually build this into the {{palmares start}} template if desired. Severo^TC 22:08, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea of including this in the {{palmares start}} template, I think putting major achievements would be "dumbing down" the articles in a way, much better to use the bicycling terminology but with an explanation, or at least a link to an explanation.Thaf (talk) 11:34, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll look at this later today. I'm thinking a note that is automatically in {{palmares start}}, but can be deactivated using a "note=no" parameter if it's not wanted, and an additional standalone template ({{palmares note}}). If you take a look at, say, Chris Newton, you would want it above the separated track and road results. Upon implementation it will need every article checked individually for such usage, so at the same time I'll cleanup all instances of Palmares and Palmarés to Palmarès. Severo^TC 18:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If the proper spelling is with the grave accent, does {{Infobox Cycling race report}} need to be changed? Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 20:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Good call, I don't know why I didn't spell it like that in the first place :S Severo^TC 20:26, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Eddy Merckx is now a dab? Is this necessary? Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 03:22, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I've taken this up at Talk:Eddy Merckx. The billiards player has around 1% of the coverage of the great man, so I think the original qualifies as the "primary topic"!!! Severo^TC 18:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

And I think you are misreading WP:DAB and ignoring WP:NCP. :-) The discussion is now centralized at Talk:Eddy Merckx#Disambiguation. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:27, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Wow...I seem to have set off a powder keg here. [1] [2] Everything I'd have cared to say about Merckx has been said, and it sure looks like that move is going to happen. I really don't care about any of these further policy matters (though I wonder, are we one of the four sports WikiProjects SMcCandlish referred to?), and perhaps I'm indulging in hubris, but those massive discussions appear to have started after I left the note about Eddy Merckx (billiards player) on SMcCandlish's talk page. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 04:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that's mstly to do with some people disambiguating to (sport) rather than (sport player). We usually do the latter ( "cyclist", "BMX rider" etc) so I don't think it applies to us. Severo^TC 10:13, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Just as a heads-up for people, the consensus at WP:DATE seems to be changing towards not linking dates to take advantage of autoformatting (since it is believe the disadvantages of this outweigh the advantages). I don't know how this is going to work with things like {{birth date and age}} which we use in infoboxes and the like. Severo^TC 12:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

That is actually happening? Disappointing. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 04:37, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

An update: the templates such as {{birth date and age}} have been updated so they no longer link. However, we will need to be vigilant that they are in the same format as the rest of the article in which they are in. To switch them to date first, add the parameter |df=y. Cheers, Severo^TC 17:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The article about Erick Rowsell (British Junior Champion) has been proposed for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erick RowsellRacklever (talk) 09:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Can we do stage articles for the Vuelta like we always do for the Tour? I notice this was done two years ago, but not last year. I whipped up something here that I'll put in the mainspace as 2008 Vuelta a España, Stage 1 to Stage 11 if no one objects (and of course, I'll also do a 2008 Vuelta a España, Stage 12 to Stage 21). It's a little bit bare right now (because what can you say about a 7 kilometer team time trial?) but I really think it could be as good as the Tour articles. Sure wish I could actually watch the Vuelta, though. Anyhow, take a look, and if it looks okay, I'll mainspace it. It's not a departure at all from the template laid out by the Tour stage recap pages, and I like it better than the results section in 2008 Vuelta a España, which for today's TTT simply says "Liquigas." I can probably beef up what I've got there with descriptions of the stages like in the Tour articles, but one potential sticky point is that it seems the stage results from the Vuelta website are all going to appear at the same URL, this one, which makes citing and such matters a bit of a bother.

Anyway, have a look. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 02:40, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think I'm gonna go ahead and do it. WP:BOLD and such. I'll also put standings tables on 2008 Vuelta a España. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 22:22, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I have to think an article such as Cycling at the 2008 Summer Paralympics is within our purview, but is anyone actually going to work on it? It's in pretty sad shape right now (the Paralympics begin in about a week). I would be up for it, but I'm not going to be on wikipedia as much in the next few weeks as I was in the last few, and I'm more interested in working on the Vuelta as I mentioned above. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 06:34, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking a style guide for cycling race reports is probably a good idea, so I've thrashed one out at User:Severo/sandbox/cycling race report MoS. I've kept it in my userspace for now as it's pretty much just my view on things, so please feel free to take a look, change it, comment on it (here) or whatever. Cheers, Severo^TC 23:10, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it looks good =) The only thing I would like to point my finger on at this time are the External links... In my opinion, for the annual competition articles, only a few links should be necessary! Because sometimes a lot of links, like the one removed here, are being added uncritically. I actually added it in some articles, since I had seen it in other articles. But as of 2008 Tour de France, I think there are too many links, so I don't know which to visit for the most accurate information. Cyclingnews is in my opinion the best/most reliable source apart from the official website. So I suggest that we make a standard, like the one on 2008 Dauphiné Libéré, including:

1. The official website in English (if available)
2. The official website in the official languages of the race
3. The race reports at cyclingnews.com

The reason for adding #2 even though we have an English one, is that sometimes the info on the English website are limited like on 2008 Giro d'Italia. The Italian one is more accurate and includes more classifications!
The reason for adding both French and German links on races in 2008 Tour de Suisse, is to avoid discrimination and let the reader choose the language (s)he best manages. Thoughts? lil2mas (talk) 05:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's a good point about the native language websites often having more information. The cyclingnews link is a good example of WP:ELYES #3. Severo^TC 23:04, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

in Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race!!

Obviously I'm stoked about this, as I was a huge contributor to the initial writing of the article and pitched in a little to revisions (still wish I could have done more - oh well). I must say I'm a little surprised to see that it's the project's first FA. We should work to get more. When I have time (meaning, after the Vuelta), I'm gonna whip something together for the Olympic time trial, and I dare say it should get to at least GA no problems.

I gotta give a thanks to Severo and Theilert, as well as User:Yohan euan o4 who is not a regular contributor to this project, and Tone for putting the article up for FA (especially so soon). They did lots more work than me in FA revisions, and I'm grateful for it. But in any case, this is an occasion for every member of the project to be proud! Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 05:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've had a go at expanding Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Women's road race‎ in the same vein, how about some equality before we go on to the time trial!! Just kidding ... but seriously, I am trying to expand the womens cycling articles. Thaf (talk) 10:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll confess to a touch of sexism and say I'm simply not as interested in women's cycling, pretty much at all (I did write out results for the women's cycling Olympic events, though). If you're looking to improve the women's road race article in the near future, I'd be happy to lend a hand (I think the highest of quality is a difficult thing for a single editor to attain). I don't know if coverage is quite as broad, though (sources). It's definitely worth trying, and, well, I'll always work on a cycling article before I devote myself to anything else :P Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 10:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Good job everyone, I know there are several people who have worked hard for making that article what it is. But thanks to Nosleep for mentioning me, he should be credited the most for making this a FA! When it comes to the women's article, I've gone ahead and corrected all the athletes' name, and done some other visual adjustments. When it comes to writing prose, I'm not your man, sorry. I only watched the men's road race during the Olympics, and I'm neither a good writer nor a native English-speaker. But just ask if there is something you'd like me to do, and I will I will try to help out as good as I can! lil2mas (talk) 13:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Well done. I am not a regular participant at WP:CYC and this article was one among many that I have started as a setup for forthcoming events at the Olympics. But since it developed considerably in the days after the race, I felt it was a good idea to give it a push while it was still "hot". Thanks to the team work, we put it through the process. Looking forward for future cooperation. --Tone 14:12, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be interested in doing something for the women's race, perhaps not for FA or whatever, but at the very least to make it a decent companion piece. Although I have some other things I'm working on, where I live has just seen about a month's rainfall in two days, so I may have some more time on my hands. Good job everyone. Also, thanks to Tone for the FA nomination in particular - don't think anyone was very up for it immediately after the GA review, but I don't think most of the users involved have been involved in an FA before, and it was a good idea in hindsight. Yohan euan o4 (talk) 18:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Great job and congratulations! I only made a couple of changes but I'm proud the project finally has a featured article. We could try to improve the most important articles in road bicycle racing. More specifically, I would like to see the Paris-Roubaix and Ronde van Vlaanderen articles being featured someday. Imagine having the Roubaix article being Today's featured article the day its raced! Even the articles about Eddy Merckx or the three Grand Tours could be greatly improved.--Drunt (talk) 17:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Bearing in mind the growing number of cyclist bio articles, would it make sense to split the larger categories (American & English cats are split over 2 pages now) into 2 seperate categories by gender? For example "English cyclists (female)" or "English female cyclists" - This would also link tidily to categories in other languages for exmple French, where Anglais changes to Anglaise in the feminine form and so there are two seperate categories in that language already. The Category:Women's cycle racing is very untidy and the inclusion of riders and races in the category seems a bit random. Anyone else got any ideas how this could be tidied up?Thaf (talk) 18:30, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I've been doing a look around and there is a Category:Sportswomen by sport. I think the best interim solution would be to create a category Female cyclists as a sub cat of Category:Women's cycle racing and Category:Cyclists. Severo^TC 18:58, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

It's probably be worth creating a Category:Women's cycle races as well while we're at it. Severo^TC 19:00, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

We've got way too damn many of them, people. As of this writing, 82.5% of the assessed articles and 71.5% of the total articles under our purview are stubs. That's not good. Stubs have no value unless they eventually become more substantive articles. I don't know what more to say than find references, improve the writing, and de-stub those articles (and maybe we should assess the 11% of the articles under our purview that are currently unassessed..?). I'd like to see fewer than 60% stubs by the end of this year. Hopefully we can attain that. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 08:37, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll make a go on the unassessed articles. Many of the "stubs" are probably not stubs any more so could do with reviewing as well :) Severo^TC 22:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It is down to around 70%, with no effort from me (a series of unfortunate events kept me offline pretty much from October till now). Let's keep it up. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 08:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

...what's the better position for a note explaining that the results are "as of stage __" and not final - the one in this revision or the one in this one? Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 00:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

While translating articles from the French wikipedia, I translated across Ferdinand Payan, a rider in the 1903 Tour and seven other Tours de France. It's up for proposed deletion, surely this is wrong? He was a pioneer of cycling. LGF1992UK (talk) 19:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

File:Fluorescent-bike-099.JPG

The Bicycle culture article potentially covers a big gap in the cycling articles - the area of bicycle-related cultural activity. There are some interesting issues that could be included: an overview of the many cycling organisations and social aspects (Critical Mass, Ghostcycle etc), the influence of messenger culture, clothing styles, printed artefacts and video, individualisation and customisation of bicycles. Many of these trends are international and there is no point discussing them on a national level.

At the moment the article is a bit of a mess. I've put some thoughts on Talk:Bicycle culture. Input requested - any thoughts on what should properly be included. ProfDEH (talk) 08:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Didn't know where to put this. Seen this online - 4/3/09 - Cannondale Bicycle Corp., will reduce its workforce and shift its existing manufacturing operation in Bedford toward becoming a bicycle testing laboratory.The bicycle frame manufacturing will be going to Taiwan. The Bedford (PA) facility will focus on final bicycle and Headshok assembly; CNC (computer numerical control) machining; testing and quality control; bicycle warranty repair; inside sales, services and distribution; and customer support and administration, including a new call center onsite.

Has anybody else out there spotted the error in the official program? Carlos Sastre's picture on the profile of Gerd Steegmans Rather amusingly dreadful. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 08:43, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

See Katharine (Katie) Ford and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katharine (Katie) Ford. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 16:03, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say I've put the article Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Women's road race up for peer review, the article on the men's race is a Featured Article, as this one follows a similar format it will hopefully get the same assessment. See here. Thaf (talk) 12:42, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll give 'er a look. I've been occupying myself with busywork (ridership changes and team names for UCI ProTour and high-profile Pro Continental teams), so it'd be nice to work with some actual content again! Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 10:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This is a recently added article which seems to have missed everyone's radars. I've cleaned it up a little bit and added an infobox and 2 images but it lacks references. Would appreciate some input on this one as it is a fairly high-profile event by now. Thaf (talk) 11:03, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I've gotten stuck in a discussion about merging the Freight bicycle and Workbike articles. We're in agreement on that they should be merged, but not in agreement about to which one. There's only two of us talking about it (with another minor comment from a third), and I'd love to get more input from others. I could be swayed from my preference to merge to Freight bicycle if there were more people for it, but with just the two of us discusing it I don't want to agree to merge to the ambiguous term workbike.--Keithonearth (talk) 05:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

On what to do with rider infoboxes and the like when a team changes names, especially for when the change is a subtle one. What to do with the 20 or so riders (each) who rode for Bbox Bouygues Telecom, Garmin-Slipstream, Columbia-High Road, or Lampre-N.G.C. prior to this season, who already have a very similar team name in their infobox? We could also do well for a consensus on something like the Fuji-Servetto team, though that's much simpler ("Saunier Duval/Fuji-Servetto" doesn't really take up that much space). Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 10:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I've done a lot of these in the last week or so. I tended to leave the minor changes as they were, but for riders who, for example, joined CSC in 2006, and are still with Riis' outfit, I made it Saxo Bank in the currentteam field, and put CSC (now Saxo Bank) in the team history field, on the grounds that there was no team called CSC/Saxo Bank in 2006. Kevin McE (talk) 22:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Reasonable enough. It's just that most of these teams are likely to change names (albeit slightly) yet again. Saxo Bank's gonna be looking for a co-title sponsor, and the two American teams aren't going to have their parent companies in their team names forever. Do we simply need to change pages repeatedly as teams change names, or is there some possible way around this? Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 07:07, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion would therefore be that the currentteam field should be accurate and up to date, but the team history field should show the team name as it was when he signed: if the name bears no similarity to the present name, and the rider is still with the team, that can be indicated in brackets. Thus, to me, a slight discrepancy between the current field and the most recent team signed could be accepted, but if the lack of continuity of name makes it look as though one of those is erroneous, then a parenthetical clarification is of value). Is there a reason why team names in the infoboxes have generally been left as blacktext, with no wikilinks? Kevin McE (talk) 19:04, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. Any possible confusions should be cleared up by article prose anyway. There is one other situation - when a team changes names during one cyclist's membership with that team, but the cyclist has changed teams. The foremost example is Robbie McEwen. It seems a little excessive the way his team names are presented in the infobox currently. A similar case is George Hincapie, though "US Postal/Discovery Channel" (what's currently there) seems reasonable to me. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 06:12, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

When the cyclist has moved on, I would suggest that we only mention the name of the team when he first contracted to them. If this is wikilinked, then the history of the team name is available. Although it is not in the standard layout, many riders have the team name for each year in the Palmarés section (as seen in George Hincapie, but not Robbie McEwan), which could also cover annual variations in name.

In the case of the McEwan infobox, I would suggest that

| proyears = 1996-1999<br>2000<br>2001<br>2002<br>2003-2008<br /><br /><br /><br />2009-
| proteams = Rabobank <br>Farm Frites<br>Domo-Farm Frites<br>Lotto-Adecco<br>Lotto-Domo ''(2003-2004)''<br>Davitamon-Lotto ''(2005-2006)''<br>Predictor-Lotto ''(2007)''<br>Silence-Lotto ''(2008)''<br />Katusha

could be abridged to

| proyears = 1996-1999<br>2000<br>2001-2002<br>2003-2008<br />2009-
| proteams = [[Rabobank (cycling team)|Rabobank]] <br>[[Farm Frites]]<br>[[Lotto-Adecco]]<br />[[Team Katusha]]

and my preference for Hincapie is that it simply say 1997-2007 US Postal. Maybe there should be a footnote in the infobox saying something like "Team names are as of the beginning of the rider's association with that team" Kevin McE (talk) 12:53, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Seems okay, especially if there's an explanatory note (it seems odd to say that someone like Thomas Voeckler has ridden for "Bonjour" since 2001). Like I said at the outset, what we mainly need is standardization. As far as linking the team names in the infobox, I'm not thrilled about it. It seems to be a little overlinking, since the team names should be wikilinked in the article prose, and probably in the palmarès as well. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 05:06, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Template-proposal

I'm quite busy at the moment, but just wanted to make an input of mine in this discussion:

• First of all; I think links to teams in the infobox is a must. Because not all "readers" actually read the prose, often they are only interested in the statistics, which is found in the infobox. So if they are interested in accessing the team-article, it should be uneccessary to search through the prose to find a link. (This type of linking is used for the majority of team-player-articles, e.g. football)
• So I was thinking of making a template which would ease the usage of redirects and make linking easier. This template is in theory based on the {{flagicon}}-template, which shows different flags according to which year is entered. So my thoughts are to make one template per franchise, where the year-condition applies for the team-name of that year. Take the CSC-franchise as an example: {{ct|CSC|2002}} would produce CSC-Tiscali in text, but link to Team Saxo Bank.
• To avoid having to check what year the franchises changed names, all the years entered from 2003–2008, such as; {{ct|CSC|2005}} would produce Team CSC. Only challenges will be name-changes during a season, which could be solved with using 2008a for Team CSC and 2008b for Team CSC-Saxo Bank.

Hope to receive comments about this template-proposal, I will try to make time for a discussion. BTW: This template can also be used in race-results. =) lil2mas (talk) 15:07, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I LOVE the template idea. I don't love linking the team names in the infoboxes, but if I'm the only one who feels that way, then it's fine. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 04:15, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

This needs to happen, simply because it is really confusing if they are different names on two cyclist's pages for the same team. DeMoN2009 17:10, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I have used three types of templates, each with a different function.

1. User-transcluded templates
2. Cycling data templates (internal)
3. Formatting templates (internal)

Here are the templates needed for CSC

1. Template:ct, to accept input parameters, such as the team UCI-code (mandatory) and the optional year-condition.
2. Template:Cycling data CSC, to supply the team name and article name
3. Template:Cycling team link, to actually render the wikilink

This system architecture means that

• all cycling-specific data is contained within individual cycling data templates, improving maintainability
• the formatting wikicode is centralized in a very small number of templates, ensuring consistency

So this is how it will work for CSC

• {{ct|CSC}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|1997}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|1998}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|1999}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2000}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2001}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2002}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2003}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2004}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2005}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2006}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2007}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2008}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2008a}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2008b}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2009}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct
• {{ct|CSC|2010}} gives User:Theilert/Template:ct

I have two problems to be solved before launching the template

1. As you see above there will be three scenarios where this code will not give any team name; if you've inserted a year before the franchise started, after it has ended or in a year where two names has been used. The first two shouldn't result in any major problems as they shall not be used. But the last scenario do need to be resolved... The options I could come up with is; insert the team name which were used for the majority of the season, or insert a text which asks the editor to use a/b/c/etc... Any thoughts?
2. Template:ct is already used as a redirect to Template:Cfd top. How should we proceed to claim the template-space? Change the articles where it is used or consider another name? I would prefer the first since c(ycling)t(eam) is the easiest and most logical name! Remember this will be used ALOT... lil2mas (talk) 14:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks great, and I would want to encourage it, and once it reaches the stage of implementing, I would hope to be available to help roll it out. That said, there is a bit of a problem of enshrining obsolete names in templates. By the time the successors to Saxo Bank relinquish the contract to someone else, the relevance of the letters CSC to that team will be ancient history: already it is anachronistic. I would doubt that you'll get permission to move a template name employed in a way as intrinsic to the machinations of Wikipedia as Deletion of Categories: maybe {{equ}} reflecting the French roots of the sport, or {{btm}} for bike team: the other options that occur to me are already taken. As to the CSC in 2008 scenario, I would suggest the name in place for the majority of the season: there is always the hope that a more informed user will correct it if necessary. After all, it is likely to be mainly those more active in this sphere that will be doing most of the early edits using such a template anyway. Maybe someone will have enough interest to even have a regular look at the "what links here" for the ambiguous variants. But good luck with it. Kevin McE (talk) 23:46, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I have cleared Template:ct for transclusions and used it as the main template. I have also chosen to leave the 2008 option for CSC, and similar scenarios, empty. Which makes it easier for us editors to spot when there is a change in name. Thanks for the input!
BTW: The template is now ready for implementation... lil2mas (talk) 14:30, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I started a documentation page for the ct template, based on what I have read here and what I saw in the template. I hope I did not make any stupid mistakes in it. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 14:01, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Great initiative =) I was planning to do that sometime, but haven't found the time yet... lil2mas (talk) 14:30, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

One more thing comes to mind - what happens when a team changes names after we've been using a year without a letter for their template in pages? Particularly Saxo Bank and the two American teams, it seems awfully likely to me that they'll acquire a second title sponsor sometime this year. Can we perhaps have ct|GRM|2009 AND ct|GRM|2009a show "Garmin-Slipstream" while ct|GRM|2009b would show the name with their second sponsor, in the event they get one? Right now for when a team changes names in the middle of a season, the year without a letter gives no team name at all. That is not favorable when we've already used 2009 without an a for teams that seem likely to change names on several pages. Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 02:44, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

I think 2009a and 2009 should have the same name. Or we might even use 2009 for the first name, and if there is a second name use 2009a. That would be a better choice to have start with I think, but now that we already use 2009a-2009b we might as well stick to that and not change everything to 2009-2009a. (I hope I'm clear...)--EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I started the Category:Cycling team data, to collect all the cycling team data. If I missed some, please add them to the category. If you make new cycling team data, also add them to the category. I hope this helps to find the right code for each team. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 09:18, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just come in to a potential problem with this - very minor at the moment but in a few years could be worse. What happens when a team code is given to one team, but then given to a different team a few years later? I'm just looking at the Landbouwkrediet-Colnago article, and it turns out they were founded in 1992 as Saxon with the code... you guessed it, SAX. What will happen here? Obviously this is a small problem with this code, Saxon didn't set the world alight so it's unlikely it will have many links from those years but we could have a problem if some big teams share codes in the future. Severo^TC 20:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Standardization of cyclist biography

There already is a /Standard cyclist biography. This has never been reviewed, as far as I know. Maybe this is needed. Shall we select a cyclist with an already good biography on wikipedia, and try to make it a Good Article? In this way, we might get more information about how the standard should look like. Now, only Ian Browne (cyclist) is a Good Article. This is not representative for a typical cyclist article... We might look at Eddy Merckx, a lot of work has been done on his article recently.--EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Standardization of cycling race

Similarly for the cycling race: standardization is needed. The Cycling at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's road race is a featured article, and this gives information about how a one-day race should look like. For a stage race, we have no real standard. Shall we try to make 2008 Tour de France a good article? It is recent, so information should be easily available. --EdgeNavidad (talk) 11:12, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

After his sudden and unexpected death in the 2009 Tour of Qatar, is Frederiek Nolf notable enough to write an article about? DeMoN2009 20:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I haven't seen any notability criteria specific to cycling, so reference is valid to WP:ATHLETE: "People who have competed at the fully professional level of a sport, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport". If he, or anyone else, has taken part in a race that is exclusively for those who make their living from the sport, he reached the notability criteria. He reaches that thresh-hold by virtue of his career, not through the nature of his death, sad as it was. Kevin McE (talk) 21:43, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Azizul Hasni Awang? Malaysian track cyclist who participated at the last Olympics. The article isn't a crime against humanity or anything, but it seems like there are some things wrong with it (for one, I'm almost positive "Mohd" is an abbreviation for "Mohammed," though I don't know what that would make his full name (and by extension, the article title)). Don't fall asleep ^zzzzzz 06:07, 8 February 2009 (UTC)