Talk:Reception (gridiron football)

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Comments[edit]

I suspect vandalism with "I like cheese. A lot." I'm deleting that part Roastytoast 15:06, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 9 July 2015[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move to "gridiron football", "Canadian football" or "American football" on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether a play is about equally common to both variants; substantially more common in Canadian football; or substantially more common in American football. Though there is ostensibly credible opposition to "gridiron football", its use, which is presently sanctioned by WP:NCSP, is best addressed elsewhere. (non-admin closure) Alakzi (talk) 20:12, 10 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

– American and Canadian football articles on Wikipedia have been disambiguated using various terms, including "gridiron football", "American and Canadian football", "American football", and "football". As per WP:NC, these article titles should be consistent if possible.

My preferred disambig would be "American and Canadian football". "Gridiron football" is the name for North American football used in some areas of the world outside of North America (especially Australia), but is not at all common in North America, where the sport is actually played. For the same reason that we wouldn't use "soccer" for a disambiguation of a football article, we shouldn't use "gridiron football" for a disambiguation of an American or Canadian football article. It isn't the name used by areas where the sport is actually played (and where people are most likely to search for these articles), so WP:COMMONNAME would seem to apply.

I've created a page on my userspace with the list of articles that contain "American and Canadian football" for reference, which can be found here. If there is a consensus for use of "gridiron football", then those should be moved. In the interests of full disclosure, I moved some pages from a "gridiron football" disambig to an "American and Canadian football" disambig prior to learning that RM existed, but those are all on the userspace page and can always be moved back if needed. ~ Rob^Talk 07:52, 9 July 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 17:32, 17 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These changes would not make a whole lot of sense. Aside from being much, much longer, technically speaking American and Canadian football are only two types of gridiron football (others are indoor football, nine/eight/six/man football, touch football). Toa Nidhiki05 11:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We could always go with "gridiron football" instead, although I do not prefer it because I consider it a very unlikely search term, and even fairly unlikely for searchers to know. I'm most interested in reaching some consensus with regards to consistency of these article titles, not what they all become. ~ Rob^Talk 11:41, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, there should be consistency. This would probably be a good thing to bring up at football wikiprojects to get more input in. Toa Nidhiki05 16:46, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer gridiron football, myself. It's the most encompassing term. -- Earl Andrew - talk 17:29, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As an outsider to Canada and the US my comment would be that gridiron seems to be a suitable route to an NPOV presentation. Otherwise the proposed change sounds good. Curiously Amerigo Vespucci travelled to "South America" an American continent where the main type of football played is soccer. Greg Kaye 19:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose most of these. Barring some drastic misunderstanding, I believe that the nickel back is only found in gridiron football, thereby making the appropriate disambiguator (football), nothing more. Most of these are like this, I think. Red Slash 02:13, 10 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Red Slash if "nickel back is only found in gridiron football" then I don't think that we could use the short form "disambiguator (football)". The article Gridiron football reads: "Gridiron football, or North American football, is a form of football primarily played in the United States and Canada. The predominant forms of gridiron football are American football and Canadian football."

On this basis I think that appropriate forms of disambiguation may include:

"... (gridiron football)",
"... (North American football) or, as proposed,
"... (American and Canadian football)".

Within the most commonly played form of football (association football) it is illegal for the ball to even touch the hands while, in "gridiron football", games are primarily played with ball in hand adding, I think, to the ambiguity.

"Football" is an olympic sport and, as far as I can see, most Wikipedia pages that start with "Football ..." or that contain the word "football" relate to association football.

From the perspective of a UK resident who has only spent three months in the states I think that "... (American and Canadian football)" best meets my admittedly limited understanding of commonname. Greg Kaye 05:38, 20 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment if these are converted into gridiron articles from American, to also cover Canadian, remember to update the descriptions, and to add {{WikiProject Canadian football}} to the talk pages -- 67.70.32.190 (talk) 05:37, 18 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that we need consistency, but the proper encompassing term is "gridiron football." I would support a name change to "gridiron football" but I agree with the above comments that illustrate why using "American and Canadian football" is bad. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:29, 22 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Use (gridiron football) generally. As I've argued elsewhere, "gridiron football" is an appropriate umbrella term. But "American and Canadian football" is very clunky and should be avoided, as should just plain "football", since this is not commonly used on Wikipedia (and indeed "footballer" almost always refers to a soccer player).

But I don't want to resort to (gridiron football) when there's an elegant alternative. With Single (football), for example, the concept is primarily used with Canadian football, and only very rarely in other codes. So Single (Canadian football) is probably the best title there. At a glance, the others don't appear to fit that criterion.

There's a huge conflict between common names and usage when it comes to football sports on Wikipedia, but ultimately we need to avoid these common names in many cases in order to function as a global encyclopedia. --BDD (talk) 17:16, 27 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this nuance. If the concept only exists in one form, we can have a more specific name. Toa Nidhiki05 16:21, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Given that I'm involved with this, I won't close it, but I think a consensus is clear. The consensus seems to be that "gridiron football" should be used when two or more variants of the sport use the concept, while the actual name of the variant should be used (American football, Canadian football, etc) when only one variant uses the concept. Does anyone disagree with this interpretation of consensus? ~ Rob^Talk 17:49, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for raising this, BU Rob13. I Support a move for consistency in general, but as BDD says, just use "(football)" in cases where there's not an ambiguous concept in another variety of football. I've always been bothered by the use of "gridiron football" on Wikipedia. That term is very rarely used in North America, and I've seen very little evidence that it's used as an umbrella term for these types of football outside of Wikipedia. A large number of the Google Books hits are Wikipedia ripoffs;[1] other sources using it are mainly foreign works using it as a synonym for American football.[2][3][4] I've seen a number of sources use "North American football" as an umbrella term where either or both American and Canadian games are intended.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Use seems to be increasing in recent years. It's also likely to be more recognizable for Canadian and US readers than "gridiron football"; I'd like to suggest we start using it instead.--Cúchullain ^t/c 00:40, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The main article on the subject is "gridiron football". If you want consistency, gridiron football is the term to use. -- Tavix ^(talk) 01:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add that a major problem with the term 'North American football' is that really only means 'American and Canadian football'. Even if you use the most narrow definition of 'North American' (US, Canada, and Mexico), 'football' means something different in Mexico. Toa Nidhiki05 01:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tavix, as I say, all of Wikipedia's uses of "gridiron football" are problematic, including the article titled gridiron football. "Gridiron football" is just not in wide use outside of Wikipedia as a catch-all term for American and Canadian football. It's more or less original research to use it this way. Toa, by that argument, "American football" is even more of a problem, as it doesn't take the rest of the Americas into consideration.--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

American is the proper demonym for someone from the United States, so that argument is laughable. -- Tavix ^(talk) 02:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's the only term even somewhat prevalent in any part of the world to describe all variants of football that are similar to American football. If another term exists that is in wider use, I'm certainly open to it, but I don't think that exists. Using "football" as a disambig term is highly confusing to most people, given that a large majority of the global population use "football" to refer only to association football. ~ Rob^Talk 02:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Tavix, no, not really. At any rate, "North American football" is used in sources outside Wikipedia for American and Canadian football; "Gridiron football" is not. That's what really matters. If we're going to use "gridiron football" we may as well use "American football" instead; sources using the former virtually always intend the latter.--Cúchullain ^t/c 02:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Even the CFL has used "North American football" as the umbrella term.[12]--Cúchullain ^t/c 03:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstood my position, Cúchullain, or perhaps I wasn't clear. I don't want any of these disambiguated by (football) alone; offhand, I can't think of a single case where that would be the best disambiguator. We need some measure of consistency in the project, and "football" is, properly, never used alone unless the context has already been established. And in a title alone, it can't be.

I agree that "gridiron football" is not commonly used elsewhere, and for that reason favor (American football) or (Canadian football) as disambiguators for people and concepts primarily associated with one of those codes, even if there's minor usage in the other. But we need an umbrella term—most other sources don't, because they focus on one type of football, or have national ties that they follow. For example, Sky Sports can talk about "football" and "NFL", where ESPN would say "soccer" and "football". For better or worse, we can't do that.

I'd take "North American football" over "American and Canadian football" for conciseness, but the latter is more accurate, strictly speaking. It'd hardly be the first time someone said "North America" when they really just mean the US and Canada, but still. I think (gridiron football) needs to be accepted as a descriptive title, as the true common names are essentially inaccessible to us.

P.S. Anyone else think this might be better discussed in project talk space somewhere? --BDD (talk) 13:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, ok. Well I'm cool with dropping "football" as a disambiguator for the sake of moving things along. But I can't get behind "gridiron football" as a disambiguator for American and Canadian football et al. The term just isn't used that way outside Wikipedia. I'm good with "North American football" as something that has been used in some sources, or the proposed option as a stopgap. And yeah, it might be good to have a more comprehensive discussion somewhere.--Cúchullain ^t/c 13:52, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We could move this to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject American football. Toa Nidhiki05 14:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for saying what I wanted to say, BDD. I've been limited to my phone until now so I didn't have the capacity to say everything I wanted to say about that, but my opinion lines up with yours perfectly. No matter how you slice it, (gridiron football) is going to be the best descriptive title to avoid ambiguity and long titles. -- Tavix ^(talk) 16:57, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose As a Usonian but not a football fan, I don't think I've ever heard of "gridiron football" in my life. I would understand a dab like "(American football)" to likely include Canadian football because the rules are similar and Canada is in America. (It would be nice, though, if we had a common adjectival form of the country I live in, so it was clear that "American" meant "in America".) "(North American football)" would be okay if really needed: comprehensible to most readers, and in line with common usage of "North America" to mean USA + Canada, as opposed to "Latin America". — kwami (talk) 00:39, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've just been made aware of an existing disambiguation policy that seems to heavily support the use of gridiron football when both codes have been played, and American/Canadian football when only one has been played. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (sportspeople)#Gridiron football. In order to achieve not only internal consistency but consistency with the policy for sportspeople, I'd suggest we adopt that and any further discussions about whether gridiron football should be used can be discussed in the context of changing that policy, if editors wish to pursue that. I see no reason why non-biography articles should not follow that existing policy. ~ Rob^Talk 02:35, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.