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antiquity - Feb 2003 Feb 2003 - Oct 2005 Nov 2005 - Aug 2006 Sep 2006 - Dec 2006 Jan 2007 - Oct 2007

I don't know why foriengers alway call it football. Can someone please explain why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.94.199.9 (talk) 15:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Foreigners? You don't even bother to explain what country you are in. There is no need to explain as it is called football in most countries, and only called soccer in a minority of countries. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 16:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

WHAT country are YOU from, Tangerines? This article should be renamed soccer, and all refrences to "football" should be removed. Football is a game that is a game that is loosly based on rugby, but is way better. Soccer is a sport where a bunch of guys kick a ball arount a field. Football is way more popular than soccer (worldwide). The only reason the want to call football soccer is so the can make this borning sport more popular. --64.94.199.9 20:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It makes no difference what country I am from, it was you who said "foreigners" call it football without explaining which country you live in. Apart from which I don't hide as my profile shows which country I live in. You are as has been stated clearly a wind up merchant. However, simply because countries like the United States, Canada and a few other countries call the sport soccer, does not detract from the fact that the sport is known as football. The funniest thing I have read for a long time on here though is trying to make out that what is presumably American football / gridiron is more way more popular than football worldwide. Good attempt at a wind up though so well done. There is already a compromise in the title using both football and soccer. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 02:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Football is the more common international name for this sport. This article only has "(soccer)" as an afterthought to disambiguate it from other, less popular sports which share the name. EuroSong ^talk 23:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it just be better to delete comments made by wind-up merchants clearly fishing for bait, rather than responding to them? Marky-Son 00:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably. But the point is Association Football is more commonly known as soccer in most English-speaking countries, although I will freely admit that those who actually care about the game are more likely to call it football. The current title of the article is a good compromise for the english-language Wikipedia. --Michael Johnson 01:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Football covers both rugby and soccer - properly called "association" football, the "soc" syllable giving rise to soc-cer. So there is also football - rugby. This is in addition to rugby basterdardized in the form or gridiron when they added the forward pass. Radio Guy (talk)i —Preceding comment was added at 05:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the more common name is football, it is just a few places that call it "soccer". But that is just my impression. What do the regulatory bodies of the leagues call it? 1 != 2 01:23, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of English-speaking countries only in the United Kingdom and Ireland is Football the most common term. In Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, and South Africa the most common term is Soccer. In Australia the national body recently changed their name to the Football Federation of Australia, but still call the national team the Socceroos. --Michael Johnson 01:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the question about what the regulatory bodies (governing bodies) use - the worldwide governing body is FIFA - Fédération Internationale de Football Association (International Federation of Association Football), and each regional body such as in Europe - UEFA (Union Européenne de Football Association or Union of European Football Associations ) and perhaps more relevant to this discussion - the regional governing body that covers North America uses the word football not soccer - CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football). Soccer is a word used in some countries where they have their own version of football. USA and Canada - American football = football. Australia - I think it is Aussie Rules which is called football? ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 02:29, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, except that in a large part of New South Wales and Queensland someone referring to football will most likely be referring to Rugby League. In New Zealand, they most likely would be referring to Rugby Union. So for most English-speakers referring to football would be referring to a code other than Association Football. --Michael Johnson 02:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've always thought Association Football would be the better title for the article, as this is official name given to the sport by the game's governing bodies. Although soccer is used as the name of the sport in some countries, it is more of a nickname rather than an official name for the game. American Football and Rugby Football have their full names in the article title, rather than Football (American) (or Football (Gridiron)) and Football (Rugby). Dave101→talk  10:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Holy crap! Look at how much text was created just by my stupid comments. "Wind up merchants", is that what they call it now? Even if I get blocked for this, it was still entertaining and worthwhile. It is sad that this has to be an issue. I can see where you "Foreigners" are coming from. In most English speaking countries it is called Football, I get that, it's just disconcerting as an American to have all this confusion. (not that it should be changed)--64.94.199.9 13:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Europe, Afrika and other parts of the world, it's know as Football or Fotball. The EnglishWikipedia isn't just used by English speaking countries, it's also used by most other non-English speakers becouse of the better and longer articles. Just becouse Americans suck at all international sports, like the worlds most popular sport Football, doesent mean that you have to go and agress yourself all over this article. It's becouse of you we have closed for edeting... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.231.129 (talk) 15:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we should title the article association football. I don't see other Wikipedia articles with this strange compromise like color (colour), eggplant (aubergine), wrench (spanner), etc.. That seems like the best title. Reginmund 01:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've been saying that for ages. Jooler 01:10, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently consensus can change. Is it possible to get enough consensus to move this page from this pseudo-encyclopaedic title? It is really an unusual and unorthodox compromise now. Reginmund 01:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, let's move it to soccer, since that's what most native English speakers call the game and it is therefore the common name....oops, sorry that isn't what you were suggesting, is it? ;-) In that case I think it should stay here. 10:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant65 (talk • contribs)

Dear unsigned user,

Please read this stream of text in this article: Including all countries which have English speaking populations, football is the most commonly used term for the sport.

In that case, I think it should be moved to association football. Reginmund 15:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think soccer definitely should be removed from the title, i don't really like "association football" because its never used, I'll always want this article to be at "Football" but i could go as long as "Football (sport)" or "association football" (though is it association Football, Association football, association football or Association Football?) Chandlertalk 15:26, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We all know that in the USA, and some other countries, the sport is called soccer. However, that does not detract from the fact that the sports full official name is Association football and that the word soccer is not, and never has been, the name of the sport. The Spanish word futbol comes from the English word football and not from the word soccer. The word soccer is quite simply a slang name for the sport, and nothing more than that. There has been this compromoise though to accomodate those who call the sport soccer for some time now with the title as it is. Yet still some insist on calling for the title to be changed to soccer, and insisting that the sport is called soccer. I doubt very much that fans of American football would be too happy if the word Gridiron (which is presumably a slang word for the sport) were to be in the title of that sports article. I would prefer the title to be Association football if anything, with soccer as a redirect while still retaining the content and still using soccer within the article. However, I also accept that some know the sport as soccer and realise that it probably will never happen. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 20:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is a possibility to move this page. A lot of people call maize corn (which is colloquial). We have the page at its proper name, though. Reginmund 15:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a joke argument? Of course the sport is called football, there is absolutly no reason to rename the article just because Americans invented their own sport and called it "football". Bogdan що? 02:29, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is. I was being sarcastic. Reginmund 19:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I sure hope it is a joke, or else it might just be typical American ethnocentrism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.131.114.90 (talk) 04:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While viewing the article while logged out, it appears to be vandalism, reading "Ben Daley, stop looking at this. Just do your work and get back to business. Jezz Ben. Always trying to find an ewasy way out." but it is viewed normally while logged in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.248.174.37 (talk) 15:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That was a previous version of the page. If you are using firefox, click "ctrl,shift,R" at the same time to purge your cache. Try refreshing your page. Does do that do it? Woodym555 16:02, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Block voting the entire population a country isn't very scientific. Such stats are only used to make a point and are not in themselves useful. The article in question is by an American journalist living in Berlin (note the spelling of 'traveled'). Oh and he forgot India. The Ethnologue page is hardly an accurate guide. The figures for English speakers in India is from a census in 1961. That's 46 years ago when the population of the USA was at 60% of its present level. Frankly these kind of suspicious stats should be avoided. Jooler 03:32, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the edit initally because it came across as being done to make a point.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 03:52, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well said, Jooler. Football it shall remain. --John 04:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can prove anything by statistics except the truth Jooler 04:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed the edits were WP:POINT. However the article states the sport is known by a number of names throughout the English-speaking world. Really? What names other than football or soccer? It would make an interesting addition to the article if there are other names, otherwise this sentence should be corrected. --Michael Johnson 05:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is called "Calcio" in Italy, which means "to kick" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.89.17.221 (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I suppose three is a number. You have a point that the wording is a little infelicitous. --John 06:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, well the only other words I can think of are the slang word footy - which isn't a name for the sport of couse!! And the word futbol does seem to be used by some English speakers, though how many I don't know as I only know a few people personally (American friends) who use futbol and I won't be quoting any statistics either to back it up :) ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 06:23, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fitba? --Stormie 05:48, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Football it shall remain." Ooh... I don't see how anyone can seriously doubt that more people who speak English as a first langauge call the game "soccer". Or that the number of people who speak English as a first language in India is insignificant compared to those in the USA. This smacks of systemic bias, in the preponderance of UK-oriented editors editing this article. And before someone brings it up, soccer is only "slang" in the UK; elsewhere it is part of the language and is the official name of the sport in the USA and Canada (and probably Australia again one day, when the administrators come to their senses). Grant | Talk 08:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

<non sequitur> Well I speculate that more people call a teepee a wigwam than use the correct name, but so what. </non sequitur> Jooler 12:57, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Soccer is the correct name to a majority of native English speakers and in several countries, so WP:Don't be a dick. Grant | Talk 13:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BTW Jooler, what you said above was erroneous and seriously misleading. If you check List of countries by English-speaking population you will find that 178,598 people in India spoke English as a first language in 1991, not "1961" as you claimed above. Even if that number had doubled in the last 15 years, they would be equal to ~0.017% (i.e. less than 1/500th) of the people who speak English as a first language in the USA.

I would also like to know how experienced editors can justify deleting referenced material.

For the record, I would like the article to stay where it is, I am not campaigning for it to be moved to soccer. Cheers, Grant | Talk 13:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant. The 1961 date is from the Ethnologue page (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng) that you used as a reference in the addition you made. This lists a moderate 11,021,610 second language speakers of English. I have no idea how much this might have increases in 46 years. India is rather special of course because English is used in everyday business by a very large number of people as a lingua-franca despite it not being their first language. Jooler 19:35, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your "referenced material" is just POV on behalf of yours. The material you have inserted is obviously just an opinion. Reginmund 15:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry but nothing that has been said makes me think any less that this edit was WP:POINT which it clearly was. And stating that the official name of the sport is soccer in some countries and only slang in the UK is totally missing the point. Regardless of the sport being called soccer in some countries it is still a slang word as it is taken from the word association from association football. And this - "it is part of the language and is the official name of the sport in the USA and Canada (and probably Australia again one day, when the administrators come to their senses)." specifically the part in brackets proves beyond any doubt that the edits are being made from a POV and not NPOV from a user who wishes to push their POV about the name of the sport. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 19:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I wouldn't push the slang thing too far. "Football" could easily be regarded as a shortened or slang version of "association football", just as "soccer" is. In any case words frequently move from slang into the language as "proper" words. --Michael Johnson 03:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is though, a huge difference between the slang word soccer coming from the word association and football merely being a shortened version of association football, which is in no way slang at all.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 04:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've re-written this section removing the reference to multiple names for the game. The three names mentioned can easily be referenced. If anybody has referenced sources to other names used by English-speakers, by all means add them. --Michael Johnson 03:53, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the previous "multiple names" was somehow left in from a previous edit by mistake as there are surely only two words in common use, football and soccer. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 04:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Soccer does indeed have multiple names, including "Association football", (the archaic) "footer" and "footie". It is a common misconception that there is a hard line dividing "proper English" and slang. This is simply untrue and such views lack a historical perspective. Many slang words become formal English words (and the reverse is also true, albeit to a lesser extent). There are also many different varieties of English and soccer is not slang in American English, Canadian English (to such an extent that it is le soccer in Canadian French), Australian English, South African English (to such an extent that it is sokker in Afrikaans), New Zealand English, Irish English etc. It is the name of the game in those varieties of English. To say otherwise is simply wrong and reflective of pure anglocentric bias and non-NPOV. And if you think the fact that the article uses British English is a good enough reason to be biased in this way, then you are wrong for the same reason. To say that this article should reflect British prejudices about language is also wrong and against WP policy. I am sorry that some British people dislike the word soccer so much, but they are in the minority among native speakers of English and Wikipedia should not be censored because of the sensibilities/aesthetics of one nationality. That is political correctness of the most the most ludicrous form.

Reginmund, everything is "just an opinion" if you want to reduce it to that level of banality.

Jooler, the figure I cited for first language speakers is from the Indian Census of 1991. And I'm sorry, but second language usage is not significant in this context. Our usage stats show that people read Wikipedia articles in their native languages. Which is perfectly natural. And your reference to the source being an "American journalist" is an ad hominem and betrays national prejudice. The reference is from an English language article in the most respected German weekly magazine. What could be more non-NPOV than an English language article from a non-English speaking country?.

Tangerines, everyone has a POV. And you are pushing yours. I was merely attempting to bring this article into line with football (word), following a lengthy discussion of this very issue at talk:football (word). Grant | Talk 15:26, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant, yet you are wrong again. Not everything is "just an opinion". Obviously you havent read WP:NPOV. If you did, you wouldn't be so banal. Reginmund 15:30, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I have. And you don't seem the know the difference between POV, NPOV and non-NPOV. You seem to think it's just an "opinion" and "non-NPOV" if its material that you disagree with on the basis of your POV, regardless of references. Grant | Talk 22:56, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant: Jooler, the figure I cited for first language speakers is from the Indian Census of 1991. Yeah - The figure you just cited here in the talk page. But this is something you brought in to the discussion after the fact. My comment at the top of this heading was specifically about the Ethnologue site that you had referenced in the article. That site was used to back up some dodgy stats about the number of native English speakers. It could hardly be considered accurate if it used a 46 year-old census from India. I don't give a monkey's what the 1991 census figures were because it has nothing to do with the bit that I removed. Re: Second language speakers, please. The usage of English in India is somewhat different to say the usage of English in China, surely. As regards my comment about the journo that wrote the article, that was merely pointing out that he was writing from an American perspective, as opposed to a German one which some people might have believed given that the article was from a German publication. At the end of the day it was a journalists opinion pushing his POV and not a scholarly piece of research. Also I don't quite understand what you mean about the Alexa stats, perhaps I'm missing something here, but it says that 54% of people who visit the site go to en.wikipedia.org, and it says that 16.5% of people who visit wikipedia as a whole are from the USA, so if for the sake of argument everyone visiting from the USA goes to en.wikipedia.org that leaves another 37.5% of the 54% coming from other countries. So by my reckoning nearly 70% of people visiting English Wikipedia are not from the USA and we're left guessing how many of those are non-native English speakers. Of course this is just OR by me and another load of dodgy stats and probably a load of cobbler's too. Jooler 01:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant: Tangerines, everyone has a POV. And you are pushing yours. - totally missing the point. This is a discussion in which we all express a POV. Your edit though was quite clearly pushing your POV to make a point, and not a NPOV edit as is quite clear by your comments above. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 01:06, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant, you have not read WP:NPOV because I know the difference between NPOV, POV, and non-NPOV and you obviously do not. Everything you wrote on the article was POV, non-NPOV, and an opinion. It is material you have cited simply based on your POV, non-NPOV, and opinion. Such a tactic is as unoriginal as citing references defending Holocaust denial. Reginmund 01:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reginmund & Tangerines: my edit pointed out that the name "soccer" is more commonly used by native English speakers than the name "football" for the code in question. This was supported in almost as many words by one reference from a respected source, dealing with that very subject: Michael Scott Moore, "Naming the Beautiful Game: It's Called Soccer" (Der Spiegel, June 7, 2006. It was further backed up by population/language statistics. What I say and do here is not what I do on the page, because this is not an article, it's a talk page. You can cry non-NPOV all you want, but in this case it will always be nonsense. Moreover, to cast aspersions on my article edits based on what I write here is against WP:AGF.

Furthermore, Reggie old son, your comparison with Holocaust denials is wrong-headed, since I'm not saying anything that flies in the face of logic or common knowledge (unless one is in denial about the preponderance of American English). It is also obnoxious.

Jooler, since you need me to break it down for you: my original edit concerned first language speakers. Anything that ethnologue.com says about second language speakers is irrelevant to that edit.

On the point of relevance of first languages, you have conveniently overlooked the breakdown of the Alexa stats:

"Wikipedia.org users come from these countries:

United States 16.1%
Japan 5.0%
Germany 4.3%
Poland 3.9%
France 3.4%
Mexico 3.3%
United Kingdom 3.3%
Chile 3.1%
Brazil 2.7%
Philippines 2.5%
Canada 2.5%
India 1.9%
[...]"

That is Wikipedia as a whole, not the English language Wikipedia. Furthermore:

Where people go on Wikipedia.org:

en.wikipedia.org - 54%
es.wikipedia.org - 18%
ja.wikipedia.org - 4%
de.wikipedia.org - 4%
fr.wikipedia.org - 3%
pl.wikipedia.org - 3%
pt.wikipedia.org - 2%
wikipedia.org - 2%
ru.wikipedia.org - 1%
zh.wikipedia.org - 1%

As GordyB commented when I put the above figures at talk:football (word): "the obvious conclusion is that, amazingly, most people use Wikipedia in their native language". Such as Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, et c.. All of which have more than 50 million native speakers and their own versions of Wikipedia, with several thousand articles each. Grant | Talk 10:10, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant: You added "... out of 309-380 million native speakers worldwide ([http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=eng ethnologue.com, 2007, "English"])." to the article. This source does not break down the numbers of native speakers per country, but it DOES give the number of second language speakers in India. However here it uses a 46 year old census. Presumably this figure is used to calculate the 508,000,000 of total speakers. It is impossible to says what source for India the page uses to calculate the 309,352,280 figure. There's absolutely nothing to suggest a 1991 census and everything to suggest it might be the same 1961 census. We can't be sure. But we can be sure that the figures for India that are shown are 46 years out of date. - Thus when I said The Ethnologue page is hardly an accurate guide. The figures for English speakers in India is from a census in 1961.. I was correct - the only figures shown for India are 46 years old. BTW where does the 380 million figure come from? 17:19, 10 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jooler (talk • contribs)

Grant This was supported in almost as many words by one reference from a respected source, dealing with that very subject - NO. What this was was a essay from an American journalist pushing his POV in a German magazine that is not beyond courting controversy by publishing polemic essays. It was not any kind of scholarly work. Jooler 16:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

conveniently overlooked the breakdown of the Alexa stats - WTF are you talking about? - I specifically referenced the breakdown when I said - 54% of people who visit the site go to en.wikipedia.org, and it says that 16.5% (that's the figure I got not 16.1%) of people who visit wikipedia as a whole are from the USA, so if for the sake of argument everyone visiting from the USA goes to en.wikipedia.org that leaves another 37.5% of the 54% coming from other countries. So by my reckoning nearly 70% of people visiting English Wikipedia are not from the USA and we're left guessing how many of those are non-native English speakers. to clarify there are not enough native English speakers in the breakdown above to make up that remaining 70% of the 54% that go to en.wikipedia.org not event close. The correlation of the figures for French visitors with fr.wikipedia.org German visitors with de.wikipedia.org is suggestive that visitors to these site are native French and German speakers but this cannot be said for en.wikipedia.org. You seem to be using an "all elephants are grey, a mouse is grey therefore a mouse is an elephant" type argument (which is a logical fallacy of a type that escapes me at the moment). Your assertion about Indian languages is quite frankly pure unadulterated nonsense. Remember we're talking about Wikipedia readers here not editors. People use this site because it is an encyclopaedia and they want to find out things, with a mere 12-14 thousand articles (English Wikipedia increases by that number of articles approximately every 10 days see Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia), a native Tamil speaker is going to be hard pressed to find out about cosmic rays or the sound barrier or penguins if they stick to their native language because these articles do not exist in Tamil Wikipedia. Even the football (soccer) article in Tamil is only about 150 words in length, hardly educational. Jooler 16:34, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've blanked the last few offtopic comments. I know the naming issue is contentious, but turning it into a discussion about holocaust denial is ridiculous. Oldelpaso 09:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jooler, you can rattle on as much as you like about second language speakers, but that was not the topic of the edit in question, and the source for first language speakers of English in India was the 1991 census. Grant | Talk 12:02, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I repeat, you brought up the 1991 census here on the talk page. That census has nothing to do with the edit you made or my comment on this talk page after removing it. Jooler 17:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spiegel is a credible source which would be acceptable in any scholarly/academic writing. It is quoted relatively often in WP articles, as are the similarly-styled New Yorker, Spectator, New Statesman and Atlantic Monthly. The Spiegel reference was backed up with official language population states. Furthermore, I think you know the statement in question is true: more native English speakers do refer to the code as "soccer". Grant | Talk 12:11, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Mistress Grantie, (as you seem to have corrupted my name also). Assuming that I am "crying" NPOV is no excuse to use POV in any regards. Your post was pure POV in regards to your source and nothing of the sort should be taken seriously, just like Holocaust denial which I'm not surprised if you are disposed to do. FYI, "Reggie" is a shortening of "Reginald". However, "Reginmund" is just the cognate of my given name, "Raymond". Henceforth, using "Reggie" as a substitute for "Reginmund" is as incorrect as the cruft you have posted on this article. Reginmund 17:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reginmund, "Reggie" is affectionate rather than insulting and I think most people would see it that way. I have no response to the above.

Jooler, WTF are you talking about? The edit I made did not mention ESL/EFL speakers at all. It was you who brought them up, along with the Indian census of 1961. Grant | Talk 04:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant. This is getting rather silly here, and going round in circles, but what I said was "The Ethnologue page is hardly an accurate guide. The figures for English speakers in India is from a census in 1961." - because the figures that it shows for India are indeed from 1961. You then - said "BTW Jooler, what you said above was erroneous and seriously misleading. If you check List of countries by English-speaking population you will find that 178,598 people in India spoke English as a first language in 1991, not "1961" as you claimed above.". Now 1961 at least has some connection with the site. 1991 has none. I'll leave it at that. Jooler 23:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mistress Grantie, "Reggie" is a mere shortening of "Reginald", not Reginmund. But then I guess that you wouldn't mind if I corrupt your user name also. I see that you cannot make a response... is there a reason for this? Reginmund 05:05, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A response to what? Grant | Talk 06:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To my post given at 5:09 p.m. GMT on 10 November 2007 Reginmund 07:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is contemptible, especially the insinuation that I am a Holocaust denier. It doesn't deserve any further response. Grant | Talk 15:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that you read the post correctly. I made an analogy to how you use the same arguments that Holocaust deniers do to prove a point. Hence insinuating that you might as well be a Holocuast denier with the tactical arguments that you give. Reginmund 19:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FFS, was I supposed to write a bloody essay? It's a bit difficult when one is arguing against three or four people. Grant | Talk 05:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since there have been no substantial or substatntiated objections, I assume that no-one will object to the reinstation of the wording in question. Grant | Talk 02:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you taking the piss? Jooler (talk) 09:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not if the best you can manage is a smokescreen/obfuscation related to ethnologue.com and 1961 census figures. Grant | Talk 02:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

About 4 people have commented that it was POV edit. It was also using a POV source and dodgy figures. Enough. Jooler (talk) 03:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Four people who did not offer any substantial/sustained objections. Consider once more the wording which you object to — "Today, the sport is known mostly by two names to people who speak English as a first language: soccer and football". I believe you know this to be a true statement and that soccer is the more common name among native English speakers. Far from being "dodgy", my sources were absolutely watertight: The Economist, Der Spiegel (which is both highly credible and similar in style to The Economist) and ethnologue.com (and before you erroneously claim otherwise again, their figure for native speakers of English in India is not derived from the 1961 census). Since you feel so strongly about those figures, perhaps you should take it up with the sources. Further support for my case can be found at List of countries by English-speaking population. I find it hard to escape the conclusion that it is your claims and motives which are "dodgy". Cheers, Grant | Talk 08:58, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"...their figure for native speakers of English in India is not derived from the 1961 census" - where is it from then? There's very little to choose between the wording above and what was there before. What was objectionable was the use of an opinion piece and some dodgy figures to back it up with a definite POV being displayed. At the end of the day it's up to the consensus and there is no consensus to have your bit with its dodgy citations in. I couldn't give too hoots about the exact wording as long as its accurate. Jooler (talk) 18:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The part of ethnologue.com that you are so exercised by deals with ESL/EFL in India. Not English as a first language. It's irrelevant anyway; why use the 1961 Census when data from the 1991 Census is readily available? In any case, the number of people with English as first language in India is so small as to make them statistically insignificant: 178,598 in 1991, or less than one percent of the world total.

It's an unfortunate fact that some Wikipedia editors believe (falsely) that they have the protection of policy, when they engage in gang tackles on passages in articles, not in terms of whether said passage is true/false, but in terms of specious/spurious/diversionary attacks, on perfectly logical statements, based on perfectly acceptable sources. Grant | Talk 02:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So thae answer to my question is "you don't know". Jooler (talk) 13:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is: it is irrelevant. My purpose in citing the page from ethnologue.com was the number of first language speakers (309,352,280) worldwide. You are not questioning that figure, but a source for the (insignificant) number in India. I have shown you that the number of people with English as first language in India is so small as to be statistically irrelevant (178,598 in the 1991 Census), i.e. 0.00058 of the total, or 0.058% if you prefer.

"Play the ball and not the man"....as we say in Aussie rules circles ;-) Grant | Talk 01:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The point about this that you have singularly failed to recognise or address is that the site gives NO REFERENCE WHATSOEVER for its figure for first language speakers. The only detailed figures it does give is for second language speakers and in that specific case the figure for India is from a 46 year old census. We can only guess at the source for first language speakers and so as per my original comment "The Ethnologue page is hardly an accurate guide.", and how did I come to that conclusion? Well parly by the fact that "The figures for English speakers in India is from a census in 1961.". Well they are! - and what was your response? "BTW Jooler, what you said above was erroneous and seriously misleading. - really why was that? "If you check List of countries by English-speaking population you will find that 178,598 people in India spoke English as a first language in 1991, not "1961" as you claimed above." I'm sorry? where did I make such a claim? I only stated that the figure for India on the ethnologue site are from are from 1961. I didn't say anything about first language speakers. So where did 1991 come from all of a sudden? It looks like you're suggesting it comes from the Ethnologue site. But there is no mention of 1991 on that site or another date for India apart from 1961. You might as well have chosen 2001 or 1981 or any other year you like. Furthermore you hark on about first language speakers consistently dismissing second language speakers. You then use Alexa stats to prove your point only to have them them thrown back at you to indicate that it actually suggests the opposite of what you were trying to prove. You can't give me one good reason why second language speakers should be ignored? Jooler (talk) 01:52, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You make me laugh. So we're back to the issue of 2nd language speakers are we, now that your various feint attacks on the key fact have failed?

"The opposite of what I were trying to prove?" That's a good one.

Are you are seriously questioning the 309 million first language speakers? That is a conservative figure. The real figure is probably closer to 400 million. Grant | Talk 02:19, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Right so you deny that the Alexa stats suggests that many people from non-English speaking countries use English Wikipedia (which is the opposite of what you were trying to suggest), you won't admit that you pulled the 1991 date out of a hat and that it has no known connection to the Ethnologue site that you were quoting, and you have no answer as to why second language speakers should be ignored. Fair enough that doesn't leave you with many legs left to stand on. I haven't got a clue what the figure for first language speakers is and neither do you. 300 million-400million is one hell of a margin of error. Basically you're just pulling figures out of the air (you quoted 380 million earler). Ethnologue's figures cannot be verified. But the most important thing which I kicked off this whole thread with was that it doesn't bloody matter what the figure is because "Block voting the entire population a country isn't very scientific." You're just bandying these figures about and trying to prove a WP:POINT. Jooler (talk) 02:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your attempts to raise smokescreens and muddy the waters are becoming more and more obvious, and less and less effective. Your claim about Alexa is incomprehensible. You can bang on about the ethnologue.com figure for Indian speakers of English as first language as much as you like but (1) no figure is specifically mentioned there; (2) you don't know what the source is either and; (3) it is statistically insignificant. If you want to bring up EFL/ESL speakers in India again, then that is a quite different issue.

To return to the issue at hand, you know very well that my text was faultless; I provided references as a matter of good manners and to appease pedants and linguistic bigots. Regardless of whether there are 300 million or 400 million native speakers of English, an absolute majority of them live in the USA; you know that as well as I do. You also know that normal usage in American English is "football = American football". I referenced the latter fact with an article from a magazine (Spiegel) which would be accepted as a citation in a PhD thesis. Grant | Talk 05:02, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI I won't bother posting on this issue any more because I believe that you are just trolling on this issue now. Re:Alexa - Jesus its obvious, try actually looking at the figures again, I've spelt it out twice already. And yes you finally got it - I don't know where the Ethnologure first language figures come from and neither do you. How can we trust them as modern and accurate when dates it gives for are so out of date. I picked second language figures for India from 1961, but many of the dates given are also over 30 years old. I will finish off with the following: In relation to you saying "native speakers of English, an absolute majority of them live in the USA" This is the whole point that you are just not getting - firstly I have no idea whether this is true, if you add up every single little bit of the old Empire etc it may exceed it, I've no idea, I don't have the data, but I don't care. Even if it is true, it is irrelevant because football is an international game. For example about half of the players in the English Premier League come from countries where English is not the native language. The world is not made up of people who only speak one language and Wikipedia expressly treats all varieties of English, even what you might consider non-native like Indian English and Malaysian English, with equal measure. The 'Der Speigel' article was a comment/opinion piece which does not cite the source for its figures. The conclusions are merely the opinion of the author. It could be cited in this context but not as an authoritative source. End. Jooler (talk) 12:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The cry of "trolling" reeks of desperation. The statement "I've no idea, I don't have the data, but I don't care" says it all and reveals the purely ideological basis of your position.

Your "bush lawyer" standards of proof (as in neither official nor rational) for ethnologue.com and Der Spiegel are patently absurd and would be failed by thousands of WP sources/citations. Especially where they are merely reinforcing an axiom/commonplace.

"If you add up every single little bit of the old Empire etc it may exceed it..." No mate, it wouldn't, because the number of people who speak American English as a first language represents an absolute majority of people who speak English as a first langauge. I'm sorry that you don't like this, but it is a fact. I suggest you look up the concept of an "absolute majority", because your maths/statistics skills seem to be a bit shaky.

A prime example of your embarrassingly inadequate maths ability is your complete misreading of the Alexa stats, as shown by your analysis above. Oh dear. It's as if you were saying: "Beckham scored 54% of the goals for LA Galaxy; Beckham scored 16.5% of the league's goals, therefore other people scored 37.5% of the Galaxy's goals"!!! No wonder you are so cynical about stats. It also illustrates why you so dramatically underestimate the predominance of both American English and US usage of WP.

"The world is not made up of people who only speak one language", no but all of them have a first language, which they use to do things such as read encyclopedias

"Wikipedia expressly treats all varieties of English, even what you might consider non-native ... with equal measure." Yes and the number of people who speak American English as a first language represents an absolute majority of people who speak English as a first language. Grant | Talk 05:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay this is my final final post in this thread.

Lets look at those stats again. Let's say for the sake of argument that the figures represent stats based on 100,000,000 people. 54% of people who visit Wikipedia (as a whole) go to en.wikipedia org. So that would be 54,000,000 people. The stats also say that of the people who visit Wikipedia (as a whole) 16.1% (according to the stats on this page) come from the United States. So that's 16,100,000 people. For the sake of argument lets say that everybody from the USA is visiting the English Wikipedia. That leaves 37,900,000 (54,000,000-16,100,000) who are not from the USA. 37,900,000/54,000,000 = ~70.18% of people visiting English Wikipedia are not from the USA and one can only guess how many of them are from countries which do not use English as the first language. Jooler (talk) 10:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Problems: (1) you are assuming that the same sample is used in both surveys; you don't know if you are comparing apples to apples, or apples to pears. (2) The number of visitors from the UK is only 3.3% (3) These figures for UK and US visitors both seem low seem low and the "Other countries" figure of ~31.0% seems high. While Alexa can accurately record the language in which people are reading Wikipedia, IP address prefixes — the only means of identifying location — can be used by people in a third country and/or are frequently spread across one or more national borders. Grant | Talk 11:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"you are assuming that the same sample is used in both surveys" - no I'm not. The sample might be 10,000 for the first survey and 50,000 for the second survey but it would make no difference because we're dealing with percentages. I included a hypothetical count here to help you understand. Even if they are actually using different samples it is presumably an accurate enough sample to generalise and scale up to the actual real count of visitors and I just used a hypothetical figure of 100,000,000 ro represent that as it's easy to plug in the percentages. I don't know what leads you to believe that they might perform two completely separate surveys firstly to do the count of people visiting Wikipedia tallied by their country of origin and then another one to query the count of people visiting Wikipedia tallied by the sub-site of Wikipedia that they visit? Normally a number of queries are posed of a single sample. Not that it matters as I say. Ok so now it looks like your now disputing the figures themselves rather than my maths. I did say you can prove anything but the truth with stats and it looks like you now agree with me. May I remind you that it was you that brought the Alexa stats to this discussion. Jooler (talk) 23:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and I stand by them. If you don't understand the problems with your assumptions about the figures, or basic facts that they illustrate, then that is your problem.

Inter alia, they illustrate that less than four per cent of the visitors to WP are from the UK, i.e. a proportion less than one quarter of the number of visitors from the USA.

It is, as I have said to you time and time again, a commonplace that speakers of British English are outnumbered on a massive scale.

If the interests of ESL/EFL speakers were even a consideration, then the whole of en.wikipedia would be written in Indian English. But they aint. Grant | Talk 01:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LOL you make me laugh. I've argued for ages (as David Levy will testify, and perhaps yourself if you look back at that Rio de la Plata debate) that the US usage of the Internet higher than its population percentage would suggest, because the US is a wealthy technologically advanced country with a much greater internet presence and usage. This is part of the systemic bias of Wikipedia and there is a Wiki project to counter it. Yes the interests of of ESL/EFL speakers ARE a consideration. As for UK usage the UK population is about 1/4 of the US's so that sounds about right. Jooler (talk) 13:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let me get this straight: you opposed the name Rio de la Plata for River Plate because the latter is "English", and you consider that to be consistent with your opposition to mentioning "soccer" before "football" in a paragraph on the name of the game? Now you try to hide your opposition to the word soccer behind "systemic bias". Unbelievable.

The reason why ESL/EFL speakers should not be a consideration in this case is not what you think. It is this: no-one knows whether the preferred name is football/soccer in ESL/EFL, because no-one has studied it. I can tell you that when I did a search of English language pages on (for instance) .br and .mx sites, I discovered across more references to "soccer". Not surprising if you consider the geo-economic ties between Brazil and Mexico and the USA. Whereas .ar sites favoured "football". No-one even knows how many ESL/EFL speakers there are in China, let alone the proportion who say "soccer". So we are back to square one: we don't know what the preference is among ESL/EFL speakers, so we stick with first language usage.

The only systemic bias evident in this case is a peculiarly British prejudice against supposed "slang", especially if it has a "American" feel to it. (Never mind that soccer is neither slang, from where many of us are sitting, nor American.) Grant | Talk 15:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Let me get this straight: you opposed the name Rio de la Plata for River Plate because the latter is "English"" YES! - This is English Wikipedia! - "Rio De La Plata" is NOT English - neither is Munchen or Roma or Koln and I wouldn't expect those pages to be used when perfectly good English names for these places exist. Soccer and Football are both English and this article is written in a British English dialect so it predominately uses the word football, and that's been established for a long time and follows WP:ENGVAR, so it's perfectly justifiable. Its also obvious that with a mature and appropriate article at football, this page isn't going to move there. But we've been conflating two separate issues. You were not using first-language speakers to justify a different usage on this page, that's a spearate argument and you've already stated that you are not trying to get this page moved to soccer, but you brought together the whole issue of second language usage and Wikipedia usage when you said "but second language usage is not significant in this context. Our usage stats (pointing the Alexa data) show that people read Wikipedia articles in their native languages." - which really has nothing to do with the usage of the words football/soccer in a wider context. Of course as the point you were trying to prove with the Alexa stats is actually disproved by them (as far as English Wikipedia is concerned), I couldn't really resist picking you up on that point. Honestly, as pointed out above I'm making no 'assumptions' with those stats, other than that they both represent a true representative sample. If they don't their useless, but you can hardly blame me for bringing them to the table. Jooler (talk) 18:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And so, as with the River Plate/Rio de la Plata case, this article is yet another case where the linguistic tail wags the dog...to such an extent that one can't even mention "soccer" before "football" in a sentence near the end of the article.

I admire the strength of your ideological commitment to promoting the norms of British English — because it is not "English" per se — but not the poverty of your understanding of/adherence to Wikipedia policy. Grant | Talk 03:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As stated above repeatedly I didn't remove what you added because of the wording, as far as I'm concerned there's no issue there at all, but your citations left something to be desired in the reliability and authoritativeness stakes and an implied POV. Jooler (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bollocks. Grant | Talk 09:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed at the bottom of this page: "Category:Wikipedia featured articles in other languages (Malayalam)". A language spoken by 37 million people in South India. Highly resonant evidence that people use their first language to read encyclopedias. Grant | Talk 13:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Errr, I don't know how you came to that conclusion. It is only evidence that someone (need not be more than one person) decided to make football a featured article in Malayalam. Nothing more. Football was once a featured article (now delisted) on the Swedish Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean that most Swedes would prefer sv.wiki before en.wiki when it comes to information about football. In my circle of friends, I'd say ~90 % primarily use en.wiki when they want to find information, even though their first language is Swedish. So your highly resonant evidence is... bollocks. ;) – Elisson • T • C • 17:19, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the Swedish WP is so crap, why don't you go and fix it then? I find it quite ironic that ESL/EFL speakers are prepared to collude with anglocentrics like Jooler. Grant | Talk 15:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously folks, don't feed the trolls. Sebisthlm (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Grant I used to have a lot of respect for you as an editor. Not any more. Jooler (talk) 01:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wish I could say the same, but your English nationalist bias has long been clear to me. Grant | Talk 01:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's actually 100% Irish blood that run through my veins. Jooler (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a common misconception that an individual's nationality, or nationalism, is closely related to that individual's genes. If that were the case, I would be stridently supporting you. Grant | Talk 11:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure what you would be supporting me in. All I did was remove some dodgy stats and come on the talk page to explain why. I think perhaps you should re-read what I wrote here viewing it in that context ignoring other people's interventions. You've variously accused me of raising a "smokescreen/obfuscation" you then said "Your attempts to raise smokescreens and muddy the waters are becoming more and more obvious, and less and less effective" then "...reveals the purely ideological basis of your position." and then called me "an anglocentric" and having "English nationalist bias" - I don't quite know what the smokescreen is meant to be hiding, as I said right from the start my issue was with the unscientific block voting of entire countries of English speakers backed up by dodgy stats and a polemic essay. I couldn't give a toss whether it said "Today the sport is known by a number of names throughout the English-speaking world, the most common being football and soccer." or "Today, the sport is known mostly by two names to people who speak English as a first language as soccer and football" except to add that the specific mention of first language speakers appears to only be in there just to make a point. Without the words "who speak English as a first language" or retaining the words "the English-speaking world" the information about the different names is still there and the whole WP:Point issue is gone. Jooler 04:55, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jooler, Wikipedia policy does not decry articles "making a point". What it decries is the inclusion of "points" which are unverifiable. That does not apply here for reasons already stated. However, it does decry gaming the system, especially lawyering, which you have done here. The only charitable interpretation I can find for your approach is that you do not understand the spirit of these policies, considered as a whole. They are clearly not intended to prevent articles from expressing a point which you find unpalatable.

The sources clearly support my relatively minimal change to text and they are accepted sources in plenty of other Wikipedia articles. You are plainly wrong on this matter and are hiding behind the populist prejudices of other editors.

You said on my talk page:

The vast majority of USAians have no interest in Association football whatsoever so why should their opinion on the naming of the sport be given more weight than my Dutch friend who speaks excellent English, lives in Switzerland and loves the game? Why does living in the USA make all the difference? If he moved to the USA, would he be counted as a native speaker? Block voting entire countries is simply not scientific

Consider again what we are debating. Not the name of the article, but simply the order in which the most common names of the subject are mentioned, in a obscure part of the text. I believe this article should reflect the relative commonness of those names. Whereas you are now saying that the text should reflect the name favoured by the closest/elite followers of the subject, be they native or non-native speakers of English; which is a totally new argument, and is not supported by policy. We do not write articles for ourselves or "fans", we write them for a notional average reader, who in this case is likely to live in the United States and to speak American English. Your Dutch friend, if he/she moved to the USA, would have to refer to the game as "soccer" when conversing with locals, if he/she wished to be understood. That is simply the cold, hard logic of human culture. And no "block vote" is necessary, because we have sources.

Anyway, I find the collective approach to editing this article about as attractive as a team of professional divers . I'm not going to debate this any more at the moment, because I think we should probably drop the sticks and back slowly away from the horse carcass. Grant | Talk 15:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Consider again what we are debating. Not the name of the article, but simply the order in which the most common names of the subject are mentioned" - dunno what you're on about here, I've never once considered this an issue in this debate at all, and in fact see no mention of this in the above debate whatsoever. What you left out from my post of your talk page was the preamble "One thing that's just occurred to me regarding second language speakers. ...." - Yes it is a new argument I admitted that up front, and one that I thought might appeal to your sense of give and take not Wikipedia policy, which is why I posted it on your talk page and not here. As far as this article is concerned within the strictures of WP policy, the well established guidelines are already being adhered to. Because this sport has such a strong association with Britain and a relatively weak association with the USA it comes under the "British subject" category ruling of WP:ENGVAR, no other argument is required to support the use of British dialectical usage on this page. Jooler 16:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've just listened to part of the spoken article. Good effort and all that, but really the amount of mispronunciation is really quite staggering.

• IFAB is not pronounced as "eyefab" but I. F. A. B.
• It's not "uston villa"
• Alcock is pronounced All cock not 'Al Cock'
• Blackheath is pronounced like "teeth" not "black herth"
• Sheffield , there's no strong emphasis on the first syllable and it's not fast-then-slow. It's not CHEF-field. The emphasis is even and it's more like "chef-yield" (this description still doesn't quite explain how wrongly it is pronounced in the spoken article).
• There's more but I got tired. Jooler 04:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It probably needs a new one, given that the FAR removed lots of content from the history section and gave the whole article a copyedit. Woodym555 10:33, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lets make it clear where I come from. At school I played soccer from primary till my final year. I still follow soccer to a certain extent, and when I barrack for Australia in the World Cup, I support the Socceroos. When I look up results in the newspaper, I look up soccer results, and when commentators talk about the sport on the radio they normally talk about soccer. I never refer to it as football when talking about it to friends, because that would just be confusing, and I am a little annoyed when others refer to it as such to me.

It seems quite possible that the majority of native English speakers, like me, call the sport soccer, but frankly that is unprovable and anyway not important. It is clear that most of those who play and seriously follow the game do call it football, though. So it seems to me important that the article does refer to the different names the sport is called by those involved in the sport, and that is football. Likewise an article on Australian football should define its terms and then refer to that sport as football, as should an article on American football (which by the way I call Gridiron). That just seems the logical and fair thing to do. So let's drop this attempt to split hairs over census figures and move on. --Michael Johnson 04:48, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fully agreed. No matter what anyone calls the sport whether football or soccer, the official full name, whether anyone likes it or not, is Association football. Soccer is not the official name for the sport which is why the world governing body is FIFA and not FISA. I fully accept that some people call it soccer. There is already a compromise with the title of the article using both names even though the official name is Association football. Statistics are all well and good but the fact remains that the offical name is Association football and not soccer (and not just football for that matter). Your comments about the various articles about different forms of football perhaps is also reason for this article to be renamed Association football, not that I think it will happen as is evidenced by the above debate, and previous discussions such as the "its called soccer" section, there are some pretty strong views both ways and I suppose at least with the title as it is it is the best compromise to cover both views. ♦Tangerines♦·Talk 18:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in total agreement with Tangerines, here. Both "football" and "soccer" are bastardisations of the sports proper name, which is "association football". Regardless of whether you call it "football", "soccer" or anything else, the only constant is the game that you're talking about. The article should be called "Association football", full stop. - PeeJay 18:08, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree, the official name of a sport should be used where possible. We do not name other codes of football as Football (American) [or Football (Gridiron)] and Football (Rugby), so why should this article be any different? Dave101→talk  18:29, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should always follow WP:COMMONNAME for article titles. And "association football" is quite formal and uncommon. The fact is the game is known as "football" in British English and "soccer" in US English. As the English Wikipedia does not have preferences between them, I think the statu quo is a fair solution. --Angelo 20:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's more common to refer to the sport as "association football" than it is to refer to it as "football (soccer)." I find it odd that you would cite our naming guidelines, which clearly disallow such disambiguation. —David Levy 09:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this subject has just about been talked to death here. There will always be some people who call it "Football", and other people who call it "Soccer". It's time to put the issue to rest - and therefore, I call upon Wikipedians to participate in a straw poll regarding the naming issue. For the record, I personally call the sport simply "Football" - but for the purpose of this article I support a name change to "Association Football", which is after all its official name, and one that distinguishes the sport from others with similar names. No lengthy comments please: the issue has already been discussed inside out - just add your name to your preferred option. EuroSong ^talk 22:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not mistaken, "football" shouldn't be capitalised in "association football", should it? Reginmund 01:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remember when polling here that Wikipedia is not a democracy. Don't put too much value in the result of this poll. — Gasheadsteve ^{Talk to me} 15:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I am fully aware of that - I know that "votes" do not get conducted in such a manner, and this is why I did not label this as a vote to decide the title of the article. It is simply a poll to gauge opinion. Wikipedia is not a democracy: but issues do get decided according to general consensus among editors. Since the naming issue has been rambling on for so long that it's increasingly unclear what the consensus actually is, it is therefore at least useful to have such a poll to take a snapshot of current community opinions. See? EuroSong ^talk 23:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa, calm down there. :) That was a general warning to everyone, not a reply to you, hence it not being indented from your message. — Gasheadsteve ^{Talk to me} 08:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are entrenched views here and the arguments pro and con get lost in the mire of mud slinging. Probably someone will come along and respond to this post with the same old mud slinging or counter-arguments. But I think a few facts are clear.

1. This page will never move to football. Too broad a subject and the article at football is very appropriate for that page.
2. This page will never move to soccer. Name disliked by a very large number of people.
3. A number of people are unhappy with the current name.
4. There is a clear alternative in Association football which a number of people support.
5. A number of people accept the status quo. Because don't care about the title and/or are sick of debate and wish everyone would shut up. Or think that the admin involved is too heavy or its a lame debate or whatever.

What I think is unclear is the people who genuinely think that the current name is the BEST name for this page irelevant of the inconveniences of moving it or any other issue not directly related to merits of the name itself. I.e. Would they choose it as the name for the article if it didn't already exist and the option of soccer or football had already been ruled out. I think rather than the endless going round in circles it would be clear to new visitors to this debate (if there are any left in the world) to see a simple tally of the pros and cons of the current name with as little associated debate as possible. I'll kick it off.

This should ONLY list pros and cons for the name on its own merit and not include administrative issues regarding moving the page from the current name. Such page move tasks have been carried out before for articles such as analog disc record to gramophone record Myanmar to Burma etc. Please no debate within the list. If you feel a that the bullet point is inaccurate, make it accurate, if you feel that the point is incorrect or a duplicate remove it and if you feel that your removal may be contentious then debate it.

1. Both names commonly used for the sport are included in the title

1. The current name (in its complete form with parenthesis) is rarely used to refer to the sport.
2. The current name is against the disambiguation guideline at Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Specific_topic and having both common names for a subject is unprecedented, few if any other articles follow this format e.g. we don't have petrol (gasoline).
3. Jooler is exactly right. Many things are known by multiple names, but we simply don't use more than one in the articles' titles. It doesn't make sense, and it was done here purely to prevent anyone from getting their way. I know this sport as "soccer," but it doesn't bother me in the slightest to see it referred to as "football" or "association football" (the latter of which is a perfectly suitable title for the article). What bothers me is this ridiculous "compromise" in which everyone loses. —David Levy 05:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep it simple. Why a point should be removed/or kept.

If you think this is another pointless exercise then speak here or forever hold your tongue. Jooler (talk) 11:52, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did. I emailed FIFA and they say that globally the sport should be termed, in an official sense, as Association Football {note capitalisation of both words}. This is the term by which the sport was modernised in England in the 1860s and also the terminology used by FIFA during its formation in 1904. The word soccer is regarded as a slang term by FIFA who have insted in recent years that nations who use it in their official titles change it to Association Football, hence Australia's recent change. The USA have been told to do the same although FIFA take nothing to do with the naming of league so MLS will remain the title. The USSF have been told to rebrand themselves as the United States Association Football Federation before they will be considered to host a World Cup again. On the term Football, FIFA regard this term as the family from which their sport hails and state "that calling the sport football would be similar to entering the home of the Smith family of six people and insiting on refering to each person as Smith rather than using their christian names to distinguish them." Official FIFA administrators are told to use the terminology Association Football in all international communication. Surely FIFA's oppinion should be the one taken as defacto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.101.22.20 (talk)

No, if you tell the truth (are you really, for example "United States Association Football Federation" doesn't give a single hit on Google, would FIFA really tell you about that demand, before anyone else in the internet world?), that opinion should be taken as de jure. De facto, FIFA refers to the sport all over its website and other medias as only "football". Only in very official documents and when they want to be extremely clear, do they use "association football". – Elisson • T • C • 11:26, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As it happens a very long time ago I emailed David Barber at the FA regarding this and he replied that there's no de jure "official name" as such in that there's no document that says "the name of the sport shall be ..." but that the official FA publication on the laws of the game is "The Laws of Association Football" (http://www.falearningshop.com/TheFASite/pages/product/product.asp?prod=FLOAF08) and so that that is the de facto official name. Jooler (talk) 11:40, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They where called "united states football association" from the start and that will give you some google hits. Chandlertalk 15:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the American Football Association. In Australia, in the early years, they prefixed football with British to distinguish it from the native sport. See List of defunct sports leagues#Soccer Jooler (talk) 15:32, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"What is now the United States Soccer Federation was originally the US Football Association." is the first line of the History about the USSF. Chandlertalk 13:39, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be no consensus to change the name from Football(soccer) to Association Football. Perhaps it is time to drop the debate and move on. The debate should be over which name better defines the subject. Instead the debate seems to break down into petty arguments over who calls what where. And most people just seem bored by all this. So lets leave it as it is. --Michael Johnson (talk) 09:00, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It should not be dropped as Football (soccer) is wrong and Association Football (the official name of the sport in the english language) is obviously right. Chandlertalk 13:41, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How were you entitled to decide what is wrong and what is obviously right here on Wikipedia? As a side note, if "official names" are what decides an article title, why is Sweden at Sweden and not at (the official English name) Kingdom of Sweden? – Elisson • T • C • 19:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As the saying goes: "ah de Nile, it's more than a river." Grant | Talk 02:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Football (soccer) is wrong because while the sport is commonly known as "football" and "soccer," it isn't commonly known as "Football (soccer)" (nor is such disambiguation permitted under our style manual). We should be using the sport's official designation, not creating our own. —David Levy 09:00, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How then could "Association football" be obviously right, when the sport isn't commonly known by that name? You see, there are no wrongs or rights in this discussion, there are only opinions. – Elisson • T • C • 17:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Association football" is correct because that's the sport's official name. "Football (soccer)" is not.

"Association football" isn't the most common name for the sport, but it's far more common than "football (soccer)" is. It's also a less problematic article title than "football" (which also commonly refers to several other sports) and "soccer" (which is regarded by many as informal slang).

Where I'm from (the U.S.), the sport is known as "soccer," but that doesn't mean that I want to have that word sloppily thrown into the article's title as part of a crude "compromise." —David Levy 20:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll only say this one more time. Nobody decides what is right or wrong, correct or incorrect. This article has lived through a couple of years, including a featured article candidature, a main page display and a featured article review, despite this so called "incorrect", "wrong" and "unofficial" article title. So please, let's just move on and focus our energy on stuff that actually needs attention, as Michael Johnson suggests. – Elisson • T • C • 21:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, we have a style manual that indicates which conventions are correct and incorrect for Wikipedia. According to said guide, this "compromise" is patently incorrect.

We also can consult the various authorities from around the world, none of which use the designation "football (soccer)."

In no way does the fact that the article has carried this title for a while render it sacrosanct. It's unfortunate that the problem has existed for so long, and I believe that finally correcting it is quite worthy of our attention. If you disagree, you're welcome to ignore the issue and focus on other pursuits. —David Levy 22:19, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely agree with you, David. This has been my point all along: YES, there are differing opinions, and YEs, we're never going to please 100% of the people, 100% of the time. However, Wikipedia does have guidelines for things like this, and therefore in a sense there are "rights" and "wrongs". This article's current title goes against naming guidelines. Personally I would love for the title to be simply "Football" - since that's what I call the sport. However, even I must concede that I can not get my personal preference all the time - and therefore I support a change to "Association football". EuroSong ^talk 00:41, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I have seen many useless and unending debates on naming issues, however the current title of this article is ridiculous. It is a bizarre compromise between two names that makes no sense. Of course, either one of those two names by themselves could be used, and various descriptors could be added to make the definition more specific. However, soccer is not the type of football, it is simply another name for what many call "football." The fact that this issue has been vigorously debated in the past or that the debate often breaks down along national lines does not mean that an attempt should not be made to remedy this unfortunate situation. I think moving the article to Association football is the most logical solution. TSO1D (talk) 17:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We need to determine what article title would be the most appropriate. Due to its ambiguous nature, it isn't "football." Due to its etymology and negative perception in many circles, it isn't "soccer." Due to its nonstandard format (and general ugliness), it isn't "football (soccer)." That leaves "association football," the official English-language name according to the sport's highest governing body. As an American who knows the sport as "soccer," I don't understand how the title "association football" is remotely objectionable to anyone. —David Levy 23:29/23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually David, this discussion that you've posted on here is on a completely different subject. It is about some text introduced by Grant that got reverted. Bye. Jooler (talk) 23:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, you're right. The argument dragged on for so long that I actually forgot what started it. Accordingly, I've relocated and slightly edited my text. —David Levy 23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're absolutely right, David. Your points are quite simple. "Football" by itself is not appropriate for the reasons given; neither is "soccer". I am glad that you, as an American, have no objection to "Association football". I just wish there were more sensible people here who thought like you do. EuroSong ^talk 21:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really think that it is time for a formal vote. It appears that there is an overwhelming consensus to move the page to association football. If nobody objects, may I or someone suggest a move within 24 hours? Reginmund (talk) 00:39, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone needs to "bite the bullet" in my opinion and change it to Association football.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 01:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any overwhelming consensus anywhere. There was a vote above which had the outcome that voting is evil. There have been attempts to move the page before which were overturned. And on, and on, and on this nonsense discussion goes. You think there is consensus because the people that prefer the status quo are busy improving football articles rather than discussing the title of the article, while the people that would like a move of course discuss it. – Elisson • T • C • 01:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Attempting to move this article to a logical, MoS-compliant title isn't "nonsense."

The current title is not the product of consensus; it merely ensures that no one "wins" or "gets their way." That is nonsense. Instead of using a title designed to be equally bad for everyone, let's use a good title ("Association football"). Some soccer fans might not like it, but Wikipedia fans will. —David Levy 03:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ultimately this is futile. Any attempt to move the page will be reverted by Johan Elisson on the basis of 'lack of consensus'. I don't see how the status quo will ever change (regardless of how poor it is), so htere genuinely is little point in trying to argue the point. ReadingOldBoy (talk) 10:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Johan, unless I am sorely mistaken, there has never, as far as I am aware, been a formal vote on moving this page to "Association football" as I pointed out earlier this year (Talk:Football (soccer)/(archive 5)#top_of_talk_page_banner) all votes to move have been for ""soccer" or "football". What we have above re:voting is evil was a straw poll, it was not posted to Wikipedia:Requested_moves. I also note that no one has managed to come up with a good reason for keeping the current name, beyond that it includes the words 'soccer' and 'football'. I can't see why people like yourself still defend it. Jooler (talk) 05:02, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be good to have a section on fans with a bit on hooliganism associated with football ( but make sure it doesnt concentrate on hoolganism too much).

and stupid north americans trying to call it soccer, thinking that everyone in the world is only them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.157.251.128 (talk) 22:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please, do us a favour and stop trying to start flamewars.

Looking at the anonymous troll's IP address, he is using "BTCentralplus" which I assume is British Telecom. However, since there is no website of this "BTCentralPlus" and a quick search on Google lists its IP ranges as being involved in Proxies and Botnets, I suspect he is a ban evader. Sneakernets (talk) 22:14, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there no better source for the statement that socer is the world's most popular sport than Encarta? -Michaël (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Football (soccer) → Association football — I am going to be bold and request a move. I'll explain my reasons below. —Reginmund (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you not just summarise them? You haven't actually explained your reasoning. Woody (talk) 22:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Woody. Do you expect us to weed out your reasons from the discussions above? Peanut4 (talk) 22:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support - As nominator. My reasons are throughout the talk page. I would also like to add that the current name is against naming conventions.Reginmund (talk) 22:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - I don't think it will be necessary to repeat my arguments here. I would also like to add that the proposed name is against naming conventions. And voting is evil. – Elisson • T • C • 22:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per all previous discussion.
  1. We should be aiming for "least worst" if no title is perfect.
  2. The current title is egrecious, breaking uniquely awful in its noncompliance to WP:NAME. This is definitely not the "least worst" name.
  3. The proposed title matches the convention of other football articles (American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football and Gaelic football) which all get called "football" in the vernacular. In addition, it is the official name of the sport according to its highest governing body.
  4. "Association football" is thus the least worst name, and should be the title. Chris Cunningham (talk) 01:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support - "Football (soccer)" is against naming conventions as the item in parentheses is not a disambiguator, in that football is not a subset of soccer. "Association football" is the least worst term we have for the game, given the effectively even split between "football" and "soccer" in the English-speaking world. – PeeJay 23:16, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Association Football is the legal name, and more common names are inappropriate for one reason or another. Football (Soccer) is against naming conventions. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Association football should be the name for this article as it is the sports full name. Football (soocer) has only ever been a compromise, and other forms of football all seem to have similar titles.♦Tangerines♦·Talk 23:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Support. The title "Football (soccer)" was invented not due to any consensus, but to ensure that neither the "football" advocates nor the "soccer" advocates prevailed in the dispute. ("If we can't use our preferred title, no one can!") It's a clear violation of our naming conventions for no good reason whatsoever.
  "Association football," conversely, is the sport's official English-language designation according to its highest governing body. It isn't the most common term, but it's far more common than "football (soccer)" is, and it's the fact that it's usually shortened to "football" (a title that cannot be used for this article, due to the fact that several other highly popular sports are commonly known by the same name) doesn't affect its logicality.
  It also is entirely consistent with the titles of our articles about American football, Australian rules football, Canadian football and Gaelic football (all of which are commonly referred to as "football"), as well as the article for Rugby football (commonly known as "rugby").
  As an American who knows the sport as "soccer," I hope that we can finally set aside nationalistic bias and use the title that's best for the encyclopedia — "Association football." —David Levy 00:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Support - No name will ever be perfect for this article - but "Association football" is the best we'll ever get. Even though it may not be the most common name, it's the official name given to the sport by the governing body, and it is consistent with the naming of other types of football on Wikipedia. It's also formal English and not slang. EuroSong ^talk 00:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• V. Strong Support - I've been arguing this for about 4 years. Jooler (talk) 02:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any additional comments:

• This discussion has been included in WikiProject Football's list of football (soccer) related page moves. Nanonic (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Oh boy, here we go again, Oh and m:Voting is evil (It's not a vote). Woody (talk) 22:37, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes people should read the essay Polls are evil, because reading it will show that the author was not talking about this situation, where there is a clear choice between two options, and only two options. By consensus we have reached the conclusion that other options are not suitable. It is NOT evil to make the final, yes/no, decision by a straw poll. There is no other way. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By "you people", do you mean me? Polling is not a substitute for discussion, which has been had above many times without a consensus. The argument is circular and this is not a vote. Editors aren't giving reasons for it, they are just saying against conventions or looks funny. There is no discussion going on here and I really don't see how a consensus will form out of this. Woody (talk • contribs) 00:26, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did not say "you people". I suggested all authors should read the essay before taking the oft-repeated slogan "voting is evil" at face value. --Michael Johnson (talk) 00:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise, I read what I wanted to read. Principle still remains though and the commentary in that essay, particularly near the bottom is appropriate for everyone namely, Who decides? Woody (talk) 00:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that you read this talk page. There has, in fact, been a great deal of discussion (and many reasons have been provided). —David Levy 00:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have read this talk page many times, it is on my watchlist. Did you read my comment? Editors still need to back up their !vote with some sort of reasoning. My point remains. Woody (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Did you read my comment? Again, numerous reasons have been provided. If you disagree with them, that's fine, but please don't pretend that they don't exist. —David Levy 00:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And many reasons against a move has been provided as well, during a long time. That's why the page has been at football (soccer) for the last years. – Elisson • T • C • 00:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1. I didn't claim that no reasons to not rename the article had been provided.

2. The article has retained the title "Football (soccer)" because people were too busy debating whether to use "Football" or "Soccer" (and trying to ensure that the opposition didn't "win") to see that a logical alternative existed. —David Levy 01:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ehm. I don't think you've been following this never ending discussion long enough. Association football has been discussed as the name for the article since, to quote the archive box, "antiquity"... – Elisson • T • C • 01:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, I am quite familiar with the dispute's history. Sure, "Association football" has been mentioned, but it's never been given due consideration (because people instead focused on "Football" and "Soccer" and/or interpreted "Association football" as "not soccer"). —David Levy 01:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I might have misread this and I'm certainly not having a go at you. But Association football as "not soccer"? Where do people think the word soccer comes from? Peanut4 (talk) 01:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think David's meaning was that users who commented saying "this should be moved to association football" were interpreted as meaning "this should not be moved to soccer". Chris Cunningham (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's basically what I meant. This dispute always has been widely perceived as "football" vs. "soccer" (and some people even view this as a matter of national pride). The current title is a stalemate, and some people are content in knowing that neither side has prevailed. The name "Association football" is perceived by some as a victory for the "Football" camp and a loss for the "Soccer" camp (because it includes the word "football" and doesn't include the word "soccer"). —David Levy 01:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm familiar with the term's etymology. I meant that people opposed using Association football as the article's title on the basis that it doesn't include the actual word "soccer" (and therefore constitutes a "victory" for proponents of the title Football). The article's current title is a so-called "compromise" designed to ensure that neither side in the dispute would "win." As a result, everyone loses. —David Levy 01:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The current title is nothing more than a compromise. The brackets don't really do much other than act as a substitute for the word or. Peanut4 (talk) 01:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Would people care to tell me why they use the argument "the current title is against naming conventions", when the proposed title is against naming conventions as well? – Elisson • T • C • 00:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand why Association football would be against naming conventions? Peanut4 (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While said conventions call for us to use the most common name, that isn't always feasible. In such cases, our normal practice is to select a title based on other logical criteria. "Association football" is a title logically selected by applying the spirit of our rules and common sense. "Football (soccer)" is a blatant deviation that satisfies neither. —David Levy 00:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why "breaking" (we're talking guidelines here, not rules) one guideline, perhaps the most basic one, "use common names", would be less bad than "breaking" an in comparison very minor guideline like what to use in parantheses to disambiguate? – Elisson • T • C • 00:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are degrees of badness. "Association football" fails on the "not the most common name" criteria, but is (a) consistent with the naming of every other football variant and (b) the sport's official title according to the highest governing body. By contrast, all "football (soccer)" has going for it is (a) the rather dubious assertion that common names with parentheses are globally superior to other solutions, and (b) the weight of incumbency. Chris Cunningham (talk) 00:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And the easyness in writing [[football (soccer)|]] rather than [[Association football|football]]. And the fact that we'll only use two names for the sport for all possible article titles. Either it's football, or soccer, or a combination of the two already used words. A move would require that we use Association football, football, soccer, and perhaps even retain football (soccer) since some countries most commonly use soccer but also commonly use football (and it'd be strange to then use Association football and completely remove soccer which is a common name in that country, for example Australia). The two arguments "for" Association football are in turn very weak. There is no "official name" for the sport. And the disambiguation used for other articles doesn't really matter here as this is a different case. – Elisson • T • C • 01:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No offense, but your "easyness in writing" argument is quite silly. Your "two names" argument ignores the fact that we already refer to most other varieties of football simply as "football" in most contexts. —David Levy 01:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with Chris Cunningham. I would also like to add that not all articles are named solely on how they are referred to simply in common parlance. Granted that association football is more official, when choosing against a name as unusual as "football (soccer)" as Chris Cunningham described, association football is certainly the lesser of two evils. Reginmund (talk) 00:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's exactly why I asked why association football was against naming conventions. Football is its commonname in some countries, soccer in others. Combining the two is trying to curry favour with as many as possible. I'd say the article should be called football, soccer or Association football. And the first of those is out. To me Association football isn't perfect but is the best option. Peanut4 (talk) 01:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? I'm arguing that the title "Association football" is more compliant with both our naming guidelines and common sense. —David Levy 01:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)r[reply]

• My 2p worth regarding the "voting is evil" argument: I do believe that that essay was put forth just to make the point that Wikipedia is not a democracy - meaning, issues are not simply settled by a majority vote. Disagreements are settled by discussion and consensus - that is why it's said that "voting is evil". However, I do feel that the spirit of this essay asserts that the "evil" label only really applies to situations where people are trying to use voting to push through opinions which have not properly been discussed. The "evil" label should not apply across the board. In fact, there is nothing wrong with holding polls to tot up the weight of editors' opinions on one side or another - providing the issue has been properly discussed and all relevant viewpoints have been made clear. This is indeed the case with this naming issue: in fact, it's been discussed to death. Therefore the "voting is evil" argument is not really valid, because there is no reason for such a statement here other than that it sounds slightly cool to be able to wikilawyer in this way. EuroSong ^talk 01:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not applicable here anyway. That all the "for" votes just now have the same arguments doesn't indicate that they're just piling on: it means that the arguments presented are consistently solid and that the majority that supports them agrees to them. Furthermore, the "no consensus" argument which has been trotted out consistently to keep the article where it is over the years is at odds with the not-a-vote principle, because it implies that discussions can be sunk with dissenting comments but not won by agreeing ones. The arguments against moving have been rejected on their merits. Chris Cunningham (talk) 01:18, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Johan - "I don't think you've been following this never ending discussion long enough. Association football has been discussed as the name for the article since, to quote the archive box, "antiquity"" - you seem to have a blind spot about this, I don't know why I have to keep repeating this. The specific use of "association football" as opposed to "soccer" or "football" or "football parenthesis soccer" has not been formally voted on and all discussion has been shut down by people using the argument that it has already been decided and a discussion on the merit only began when I brought it up almost a year ago. "I don't see why "breaking" (we're talking guidelines here, not rules) one guideline, perhaps the most basic one, "use common names"" - "football parenthesis soccer" is not a common name either. Jooler (talk) 02:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]