Talk:Rugby football: Difference between revisions

Not much useful information about the very beautiful game of rugby here!

Try adding what you know. (There's more at Rugby Union and the other codes.) Tristanb

Also alickadoos? What??? This must be a regional expression, it should probably state that in the paragraph. I'm gonna leave it though :-) Tristanb 10:08, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why was France removed from the list of countries. They are rather prominent in the sport!Mintguy (T) 10:07, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

On Rugby History

The page football covers the early development of the game in detail. The new page History of rugby union covers the development of Rugby Union where the history of football ends. Similarly the Rugby League#History covers the history of Rugby League. This is the format suggested by in the discussion pages of the Talk:Football#Details on the history and development of specific sports page by Mintguy and agreed to by Grant65.

I agree with this principle to a limited extent, but I think that there should be a summary of main points in the development of history of the game on the football page beyond the schisms. However as I agree that the football page is large I am willing to conceded that this may not be desirable. That though is a thread which should be argued on Talk:Football.

I mentioned the above because it seems to me that we have run into the similar problem in this page. Mintguy(talk) copied (and improved on) the information in the first paragraph of the history on this article in to the History of rugby union#Early history so improving that section in that article. As he did this, it seems like common sense to me that keeping almost identical text in to related article is not the best way to use resources. It is best to summarise on one article an put in a link from that article to the other if the reader needs more details.

Grant65 removed some of my edits which had reduced duplicated paragraphs to summaries, but left some of the summery points in place which had not existed before. The section is now a mismatch of detail and summary paragraphs with no link to History of rugby union or direct link to Rugby League#History so that the reader can view more detail on the summary points. He also posted a message to my talk page Please stop making major changes to the various football/rugby pages, without consulting Wikipedians who have been working on those pages for some time. It's rude and it's not in the spirit of Wikipedia. I disagree with him, the are open pages, and if one is too close to a page often one can not see the wood for the trees. As I have explained above there is a logic to my changes which I hope on reflection Grant65(talk) will agree with. If not then please make your case and I will consider it, just as I have on the size of the Football page limiting content to pre-schism) Philip Baird Shearer 10:33, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The football article is a quite long. Given that the title is football, I think it makes sense in that article to stop talking about the details of specific codes at the point at which those codes branch off because it will lead to the article becomming unbalaced if someone adds whole chunks of information about a specific sport, when this information would serve its purpose better on a page about a given sport. With rugby we have some slight complexity. We have a page called rugby football another called rugby union and another called history of rugby union and another called rugby league, there is inevitably going to be some crossover in these articles. The question is, does it matter, and if so, what is the best way to resolve it? Well wikipedia isn't runng out of disk space, so unless the articles are reaching the kind of length of the 'football' article I don't think it does matter. There is nothing wrong with duplication of information in different Wikipedia articles if the relevant text is in context and it doesn't unbalance the article. Wikipedia isn't running out of disk space. How many articles, for example, say that Germany invaded Poland in 1939? The alternative to having some crossover is to be strict and say that the article on rugby union should begin with the formation of the RFU, and the article on the history of the rugby league should begin with the formation of that organization and that in both cases the article should point to the article on 'Rugby football' for earlier history and 'football' for the ancient history. If this is the approach that is to be taken then Webb Ellis should be mentioned on the rugby football page only. However I suspect that people will be continually adding to the pages about rugby league and rugby union that the sport was invented by Willaim Webb Elllis. My opinion is that any article that starts of by saying "William Webb Ellis invented rugby" is just plain wrong. Either the myth should be explained for what it is, or it shouldn't be mentioned at all. So either this text is duplicated in the various articles or is left within the context of the rugby football page only. Mintguy (T) 11:30, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)