Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Olympics#Minor semantics question

Currently, Swimming, Diving, Water Polo and Artistic Swimming are structured as separate disciplines on the Olympic pages. As such, we have articles for:

• "Swimming at the [year] Summer Olympics" and "Swimming at the [year] Summer Olympics – [event name]"
• The same structure for Diving, Artistic Swimming and Water Polo

However, Marathon Swimming articles are categorised as sub events of the swimming discipline. As such, there is no pages "Marathon Swimming at the [year] Summer Olympics" or "Marathon Swimming at the [year] Summer Olympics – [event name]". Instead, the events are structured as part of the "Swimming" discipline, and we have "Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Men's marathon 10 kilometre" for example.

This doesn't make sense because the sources categorise them as separate disciplines:

• https://www.worldaquatics.com/competitions/2943/olympic-games-paris-2024/medals?disciplines=
• https://www.olympics.com/en/olympic-games/paris-2024/results/swimming

Therefore I propose splitting marathon swimming into it's own discipline. If people have no issue with this, I'll go ahead and do it. IAWW (talk) 13:01, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:I'm not sure it's right to separate the two. While the disciplines within Aquatic sports are indeed divided into different articles, this is not the case in other sports (such as basketball, cycling, canoeing, equestrian gymnastics, volleyball, and wrestling). I believe there's a significant difference between water polo, diving, and swimming. However, the difference between swimming and marathon swimming/open water swimming is not that great.

:Tagging here those who participated in a previous discussion on this topic: {{u|Sportsfan 1234}}, {{u|Ravendrop}}, {{u|Dirtlawyer1}}, and, {{u|JoshMartini007}}. Nimrodbr (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

::That's a fair point. I didn't realise this was common across other disciplines. I just assumed it was a mistake/no one had given it the thought. Regardless, there is definitely enough content on Marathon Swimming at the Olympics to split it into it's own discipline, so I guess it becomes an organisational question? I think the modularity of having Marathon Swimming separate is well worth it, as I have seen content mistakes caused by merging them in articles. IAWW (talk) 19:48, 16 May 2025 (UTC)

:::I get that Marathon swimming is a different discipline, but a separate article for 2 events might be overdoing it. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 22:07, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::::Fair enough, lets drop this proposal then. What I'll do is just split the swimming from the marathon swimming a bit more in the articles which contain information about both. IAWW (talk) 22:14, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

:::::Yea that makes more sense. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 23:48, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

::I agree with Nim and Sportfan. Open water swimming just isn't different enough to have its own page. With that said, we should take care in making it clear it is a different discipline than swimming (like the other combined discipline pages in other sports). Additionally, doing a quick look at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, Open Water Swimming is combined in the "Sports" section listing the number of events of each sport and discipline and should be separated accordingly. JoshMartini007 (talk) 02:45, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Tiberius has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:02, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

:Speaking of, I was curious to see why a Roman Emperor is under this WikiProject, so I checked. He is listed in the template as an Olympic winner, but the article does not mention this anywhere in the text (at least not under when searching for Olymp...). I suggest the article addresses this to justify the inclusion of box, otherwise it just brings confusion. Tone 21:03, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

::He won the Tethrippon (four horse chariot race) in 17 AD. Of course he never set foot in Olympia but, as the owner of the horses, he is credited with the honour of being an Olympic champion http://www.olympedia.org/athletes/2800833 Topcardi (talk) 21:38, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

:::Nice, thanks for clarifying. Still a neat fact to mention in the article somewhere, since there are the boxes at the bottom. Tone 06:19, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

The parameter lastyearmixed is not implemented for Template:Infobox Olympic athletics event. Could someone with technical knowledge of this kind of template perhaps fix this, so that the parameter is properly displayed in 4 × 400 metres relay at the Olympics? – Editør (talk) 14:23, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

:@Editør, done at Special:Diff/1293939570, thanks. --Habst (talk) 15:47, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

::Thank you @Habst! – Editør (talk) 17:51, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Hi, there is a disagreement at Talk:Chelsea Wolfe (BMX cyclist) (about the article and the DYK) about whether she was an Olympian / represented the US at the Olympics or not. All input is welcome at that page. Fram (talk) 06:57, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

There is an RFC about whether we should refer to the Khelif's sex as being uncertain. Editors are invited to contribute. TarnishedPath^talk 10:48, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

:Surely when an RfC is only opened because clearly prejudiced users went on rants about adding unreliable and not-new sources to say something they don't say, it shouldn't be given the time of day. Kingsif (talk) 21:49, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm looking particularly at Mauritania at the Olympics but it looks like every country on this list has this as well. The athletes-per-games information is the only useful information on this table, the rest is just practically mocking the countries concerned.

Having these tables in every article appears to be the result of the cookie-cutter methods used to produce them, probably with the idea that they would be improved later, but it's 2025 already, let's have a table just for the countries that haven't won any medals? I'm thinking a count of the athletes, maybe a "notes" column so you can list any notable performances? I know come 2028 some (a few?) countries will finally have medals, but in that case we don't need to have a table listing all of the zeros stretching back decades - the medals table can start with the first medal. FOARP (talk) 08:54, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

:It is both appropriate and important for several reasons:

:* Completeness and Consistency: Every country that has participated in the Olympics deserves a standardized and complete record. Including medal tables, even if they are all zeroes, maintains a consistent format across all olympic-articles.

:* Recognition of Participation: Participation itself is a major achievement, especially for smaller or less wealthy nations that face significant logistical, financial, and political hurdles. Listing these medal tables honors their involvement and shows that their athletes competed on the world stage, regardless of outcomes.

:* Encyclopedic documentation: An official record should document facts without bias. Omitting a medal table could imply that the country’s participation is somehow only legitimate, if they win medals.

:Miria~01 (talk) 11:13, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

::It is silly to have tables that consist entirely of zeroes when a single sentence saying "no medals were won" demonstrates the same thing. Mocking even. Nor does any amount of consistency require us to list zero-results. It detracts from the clarity of the article, and uselessly takes up space on the page. FOARP (talk) 11:36, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

:::Let's take Mauritius at the Olympics as an example. You would erase all their previous participation with zero medals before 2008 (and perhaps even after) in the table because in your perception it "mocks" the country. And of course, a table is an eye-catcher for the reader, to receive information directly in a compressed form, so subjective perceptions are no reason to erase them.

:::But I can agree with you on one point: notable performances can of course be mentioned in a section below. Miria~01 (talk) 11:59, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

::::If I were to happen upon the page, and I saw the table in that state, I'd have simply assumed they didn't participate. It's not "shaming" to state they had no medals, simply having athletes make the Olympics is still a massive accomplishment, especially for many smaller countries, and it's provides meaningful context. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

:As someone who goes through the various countries at the Olympics articles quite a bit, I think it makes a lot of sense. It does what it's meant to do, it very quickly summarizes those accomplishments and, if it were absent, I think folks may often assume that its absence is a mistake. By including it, you're cutting right to the chase and providing the relevant information immediately to those who know of that being included and would immediately be looking there for the information. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

• Between Josh's view directly above, and an alternative view on the idea it's "mocking" (I would instead suggest that having a column for medal count could be interpreted as a "we believe you'll get one so here's a place to list it when you do"!), and the fact it's status quo at the moment, I think it's the easiest way to present the information. Willing to hear more views otherwise, though. Kingsif (talk) 21:07, 13 June 2025 (UTC)
• :Yes, we should always list all participation, even if it does not result in any medals. To add to the above, imagine a country like France or something somehow not receiving any medals in the future. Would we leave the year off, while showing the rest? No that wouldn't make sense. We would list the participation with zero medals. This is not difficult to understand. The table being a medal table is perhaps is a misnomer, it's more of an overview of Olympic participation, but it absolutely should have a row for each Games the country participated in, with our traditional spans for non-participation and participation as/as part of another NOC. Jmj713 (talk) 20:58, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

:::The article itself will mention participation. Including a medal table for every country implies that medals are a critical measure of a country, and if it's all zeroes, than that country has failed. I strongly opposing including all zero medal tables. HiLo48 (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::No, that's a very incorrect way of seeing things. Participation itself is an honor. Jmj713 (talk) 01:12, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::That's my point. Having an article says they participated. An empty medal table adds pure negativity. HiLo48 (talk) 11:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Jamaica's participation in the Winter Games was never described as a failure, even though no medals were won, but rather it was always an honor to have qualified, as Jmj713 said. In practice, many problems would also arise arbitrarily, Togo is a good example: should the two participations in winter be replaced with a Bullerpoints list (without zeros), but the ones in summer remain, since there is one medal out of 12 participations, or should they also be deleted, since there are more zeros than medals. Such an approach for Spain by removing zero lines would result in a catastrophic informational mess, in which the reader would lose clarity.Miria~01 (talk) 08:14, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

File:Information.svg There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics#Requested move 14 June 2025 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. DCAllStar (talk) 20:10, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

There are currently [https://petscan.wmcloud.org/?namespace_conversion=keep&show_disambiguation_pages=both&labels_no=&max_sitelink_count=&page_image=any&wikidata_item=no&negcats=&manual_list_wiki=&cb_labels_any_l=1&before=&maxlinks=&categories=Nations+at+the+Summer+Olympics+by+nation+and+year&templates_no=&cb_labels_no_l=1&labels_yes=&referrer_name=&outlinks_no=&active_tab=tab_categories&ores_prob_to=&interface_language=en&language=en&output_compatability=catscan&after=&combination=subset&source_combination=&edits%5Bbots%5D=both&cb_labels_yes_l=1&manual_list=&edits%5Banons%5D=both&common_wiki=auto&search_max_results=500&max_age=&wikidata_source_sites=&ns%5B0%5D=1&search_query=&sortby=none&depth=10&show_soft_redirects=both&subpage_filter=either&project=wikipedia&doit= 3,165] "Country at the YYYY Summer Olympics" articles, and I would like some help to update them to conform to the post-WP:NSPORTS2022 era by including relevant biographical details of athletes listed that may not have enough SIGCOV found yet to have their own articles.

No information needs to be removed; brief biographical sections will be added based on the structure of e.g. :Category:Lists of minor league baseball players articles. To avoid duplication for multiple-time Olympians, selective transclusion will be used with the source of truth being the earliest article. Most redirected Olympian stubs already link to their "Country at the YYYY Summer Olympics" articles, but for the few that don't exist or target elsewhere I'll create or retarget them to their earliest Olympic participation.

The first example is here: Cornelius von Lubowiecki now redirects to Austria at the 1900 Summer Olympics#Cornelius von Lubowiecki using the new {{tl|R from Olympian}} redirect template, where relevant details are.

I plan on first doing this for athletics Olympians, which I created a list of in full here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Athletics/Tasks/Olympians. (AFAIK, this is the first ever complete listing of all athletics Olympians on one page.) I also created a script to monitor progress (to be clear, the script is only for monitoring progress but all edits will be manual). In order to keep track for the script, the {{tl|R from Olympian}} template can be added to Olympians that redirect to a dedicated section with prose like for von Lubowiecki, which adds a special tracking category. There are "only" 393 athlete sections and 223 "Country at..." articles that would need to be edited in total for this initial task.

A similar format could be applied to Winter Olympics or non-athletics articles once this initial task is done. --Habst (talk) 20:04, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

:You have no consensus to do this. It's effectively merging biographies into these articles like [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bangladesh_at_the_2008_Summer_Olympics&diff=prev&oldid=1296572306]. You're effectively quoting this as if it's an accepted policy as WP:COUNTRYATOLYBIO when it's not. Pinging @FOARP, @Let'srun, @Svartner, @Geschichte, @JoelleJay LibStar (talk) 02:11, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::Also pinging @BeanieFan11 and @Clariniie here as a cursory. Let'srun (talk) 02:16, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::Agreed that this is yet another attempt at disrupting AfD consensus. Coatracking with irrelevant primary-sourced material on non-notable people is unacceptable. JoelleJay (talk) 02:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::: How is adding brief details on the few Olympians in an otherwise-permastub article focused entirely on those very subjects "irrelevant"? How is this different from the accepted ways of doing it in football, baseball and cricket as mentioned below? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:33, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::It's not adding "brief" details, in many cases it's effectively copy and pasting a whole article. This is s back door way to circumvent consensus. LibStar (talk) 02:35, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::: Copy-pasting like, four sentences. What "consensus" is it "circumventing"? The consensuses are that the athletes are not notable enough for a standalone, not that they can never be discussed anywhere. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:36, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::From the all AfDs you have participated in the consensus is usually redirect or delete, not merge. Many get redirected in prod stage. LibStar (talk) 02:38, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::: {{tq|The consensuses are that the athletes are not notable enough for a standalone, not that they can never be discussed anywhere.}} BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:39, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Where is the consensus to merge? Habst has effectively spent the last few hours merging and quoting WP:COUNTRYATOLYBIO without community consensus. It should be sought here before making wholesale change. LibStar (talk) 02:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::: You don't need community consensus to add content to articles. And he did bring it here for discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:42, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::Brought it here for discussion and implemented it as WP:COUNTRYATOLYBIO without waiting for community consensus. People may or may not like this, or want to modify it. LibStar (talk) 02:44, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::: That's why it was brought here for discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::And yet to achieve consensus. LibStar (talk) 03:31, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::Bringing it here and applying it without even waiting for 1 response is not consensus. LibStar (talk) 03:34, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::Completely agree. All of these "merges" should be reverted until after this discussion has concluded. I do appreciate Habst starting a discussion on this topic, but only after consensus has been achieved should any wholesale changes be made. Let'srun (talk) 14:45, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::Dumping primary-sourced pseudobiographies of redirected/deleted athletes onto the pages for a country's performance at a particular Olympics directly conflicts with NPOV. JoelleJay (talk) 02:45, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::: How is this different from any of the football, baseball or cricket lists mentioned below? The article is dedicated to the athletes who participated for a particular country at the Olympics. When there's only, for example, one athlete competing at all, what else could possibly go in the country article? BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:47, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::::::That is really a argument that some of the country articles should be merged together to represent a larger set of Olympics, similar to how several of the early college football season articles were merged into a single article covering multiple seasons. Let'srun (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

: I think this is a great idea, and a valid way to include content on Olympians we'd otherwise have nothing on. These "Country at Olympics" articles are often very bare-bones and lacking content. Including content relating to the athletes, who may not be notable themselves, is I think a good solution to both (i) addressing non-notable Olympians and (ii) adding content to the stubby County/Olympics articles. This isn't too different from how its done in e.g. football, baseball and cricket (although cricket includes a little less content). BeanieFan11 (talk) 02:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::First of all, the football list is an actual list of people rather than an article on one country's performance at one Olympics. Secondly, the biographical content in the "list of Southwestern Moundbuilders head coaches" is limited almost exclusively to the individual's coaching career at Southwestern. They do not have sportsperson infoboxes; they are not formatted to be like the first line of a biography (e.g. {{tq|Frank Armin [dmy – dmy] was an American football coach...}}); and they for the most part do not include details that are not directly related to the subject's coaching at Southwestern. This is in stark contrast to the copy-pasting of deleted biographies into articles about a country's performance at one event that Habst has unilaterally undertaken against consensus. JoelleJay (talk) 03:29, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

::My issue here is that the content is not just about the Olympic performance, but is rather also including unrelated details and prose only sourced to primary sources, which is UNDUE to the topic of said articles. As such, I am strongly opposed to this proposal as it has been currently constructed. There are other details which can be included in these articles (information about the delegation as a whole, how the athletes qualified for the Olympics, etc) which will be WP:DUE. Let'srun (talk) 14:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)

I recently created a template to automatically calculate the total number of medals (gold, silver, bronze, total), highlight the highest number of each color in bold, and make the header sticky at the top of the screen when scrolling.

The style is retained as before with additional options such as displaying the Olympic Games flags and dual rankings of gold and total (like the USA).

I personally believe it has an advantage, since many edits occur during the games without updating the total row, so it could save some maintenance.

Example of an excerpt from Germany at the Olympics records with setting host for 1936 Olympics.

(also full examples for the Medals in Summer of Germany and United States an be seen here: User:Miria~01/sandbox3)

:This looks neat and could potentially help a bit with maintenance. Although you will always have to remember to update the rankings in the summary row. Nimrodbr (talk) 14:18, 21 June 2025 (UTC)