Talk:2011 AFL season

"their" vs. "its"

Hey guys, I just thinking about the grammar in this article and I tend to believe that when we're referring to teams that it is better to use the word "their" rather that "its". e.g. "Collingwood have their biggest ever win in AFL history." instead for "Collingwood have its biggest ever win in AFL history." I mean that you don't call people "it" over "he" or "she". So want do you guys recon? McAusten (talk) 13:28, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

It really comes down to whether football clubs are perceived as a singular or plural entity. For example, most football club articles use the singular form eg. "the Hawthorn Football Club is" rather than "the Hawthorn Football Club are"; "the Camberwell Football Club was" rather than "the Camberwell Football Club were". There are, however, exceptions to this where the club name is a plural: "the West Coast Eagles is" is nonsensical. I think the current terminology is probably the more correct, though an argument could be made for both sides. IgnorantArmies^?! 13:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

I think its is chiefly US English, whilst their is favoured in Commonwealth English.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.52.75 (talk • contribs)

To me, as an Australian educated here in the 1950s and 1960s, the ONLY correct usage is to treat teams as singular items, so, it's "its" rather than "their". It's not a US thing. And it's quite valid to say "The West Coast Eagles is a team...." If it bothers you, just leave out the "Eagles". It's only a recent convention to add the animal or whatever all the time. HiLo48 (talk) 04:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

It would seem to me to be a problem with the Western Bulldogs. "The Western Bulldogs is..." seems a bit unnatural to me, but it might just be me. They should've just left it at Footscray! - IgnorantArmies^?! 12:19, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree. The marketers at North Melbourne tried to deny their roots for a while, then came to their senses. I hope Footscray does too. HiLo48 (talk) 02:45, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, with the above statement, I would say it as "The Western Bulldogs are..." rather than "The Western Bulldogs is...", same for West Coast Eagles. However I think something like "West Coast is a team" sounds perfectly normal to me. It really pretends on what wording and context you are using. McAusten (talk) 06:09, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

In British English and traditionally in Australian English as well it is considered more correct to use "their" etc for an entity with multiple members (such as football teams and music bands etc). Therefore it would be considered more correct to write that "St Kilda have won THEIR last six games" than "... ITS last six games." However, if referring to the suburb of St Kilda it would always be correct to use "IT" etc. American English doesn't usually use "their" in these kinds of instances. I would strongly encourage "their" when it's appropriate and have edited Australian and British English articles accordingly. Afterwriting (talk) 17:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

What's interesting here is that you and I have made effectively opposite claims about traditional usage in Australian English. I don't think I'm going crazy yet, and I can distinctly remember being taught that a team is always singular, long before American TV overturned our language. Just curious. I'm in my 60s. You? HiLo48 (talk) 00:19, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Hey IgonorantArmies and HiLo48, It is possible that you can remove the small text or make it biggest as I'm unable to read what your opinions are. McAusten (talk) 12:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

You can make all the text bigger by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing + (the = key) as many times as you need. HiLo48 (talk) 12:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with HiLo48 here. I'm 10+ years younger than him and I was taught the same thing. I currently work at a local primary school and we have discussions about English all the time in the staff room. Kids are still being taught the same thing, albeit in a different way, as I was taught in the '60s and '70s. In Australian English, "their" traditionally refers to a group of people, not an entity. If the focus is an entity comprising a group of people, "is" is used. If the focus is the group of people, "are" is used:

• The West Coast Eagles is playing in Botswana this Thursday.
• The West Coast Eagles team members are flying to Botswana this Wednesday.

Even though "Eagles" is plural, "The West Coast Eagles" is the name of a singular entity so "is", not "are" is used. Singular = "is", Plural = "are". The same rules apply to "has" and "have":

• St Kilda has won its last six games.
• St Kilda team members have been extremely lucky that their opponents have been so hopeless.

To the original poster, "Collingwood has its biggest ever win in AFL history" is correct because the team (a singular entity) is the focus, not the group of people in the singular entity. --AussieLegend (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

So Aussie, you reckon it should be put as "Collingwood has its biggest win in AFL history." rather than "Collingwood have their biggest win in AFL history." or "Collingwood have its biggest win in AFL history."? McAusten (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

If we're talking about the team, it's "has its". If we were talking about the people it would be "have their". --AussieLegend (talk) 11:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Agreed HiLo48 (talk) 11:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Birds fly; a flock flies. I am strongly in favour of the use of the singular form 'its' to describe clubs; and to take it a step further, we should be deliberately phrasing sentences in a way that avoids the ambiguity. For me, it is correct to say "In Round 21, Hawthorn had its greatest ever win against Port Adelaide", and incorrect to use 'their'. For the case of "In Round 9, the Western Bulldogs suffered its/their greatest ever loss against the West Coast Eagles", I personally think we are better off rephrasing this sentence as "In Round 9, the Western Bulldogs suffered the greatest ever loss in the club's history against the West Coast Eagles"; it's a bit more cumbersome, but grammatically it is unambiguous and therefore preferable. Aspirex (talk) 08:21, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that we have a pretty strong consensus (not necessarily unanimity) that teams are singular. Can we run with this? HiLo48 (talk) 06:56, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy to follow this, particularly if, as Aspirex suggested above, we specifically word sentences to avoid any awkward sounding phrases. IgnorantArmies^?! 08:08, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

We have a problem. McAusten is unilaterally changing "its" to "their" in the article, despite the seeming consensus above. He participated above, but hasn't posted here for a while. I've asked him to pay some more attention to what others think here. HiLo48 (talk) 12:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

McAusten and "their" vs. "its"

McAusten is choosing to ignore everything I and others have written here and on his Talk page. Where do we go from here? I don't want to confront the three revert rule. My view is that by ignoring proper Discussion he is vandalising the article, but I'm not wanting an Edit war. HiLo48 (talk) 03:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Having looked through McAusten's talk page history, it is clear that we have all had the same experience: any attempts to open dialogue being ignored and immediately removed without reply (or, occasionally, with an offensive edit summary). I reported McAusten to the edit warring board in September 2010 over a disagreement with the AFL finals series article (link to diff). I don't remember the exact result, but I think it was a short ban (one or three days, something like that). Has anyone else has reported McAusten for other disagreements in the past? I can't see any other way to get traction. Aspirex (talk) 10:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

And again. Not really sure there's much we can do – his recent block hasn't really changed much. I'd just advise McAusten to tread carefully if he wants to keep editing here. One thing that really bugs me is his tagging every thing as minor edits – not sure if he's got his preferences stuck on that or what, but quite a few edits definitely aren't WP:MINOR. IgnorantArmies^?! 13:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I've never reported anyone for anything. I've been reported several times myself for quite frivolous matters that went nowhere. I don't want to appear to be reporting frivolous matters myself. I much prefer negotiation locally. But this is ridiculous. We can't discuss it with him because he won't discuss anything. It's quite strange behaviour. As I said in my now deleted comment to him, I would dearly love to understand his behaviour. So, because I've never reported anyone, I have no idea how to do it. Anyone? HiLo48 (talk) 15:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

The article history now shows McAusten as having made an edit here this afternoon, but nothing seems to have changed. What's going on? I'm busy, and don't really have the time to follow up this silly behaviour right now. Can anyone else do it? HiLo48 (talk) 08:41, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

He did make an edit to this talk page this arvo. He changed a "*" to a ":" in this thread. Nothing that really needs to be followed up on, but a bit strange that he made that minor edit yet didn't actually comment on this thread which is about his behaviour. For what it's worth, I've also given up trying to communicate with him and I agree with IA that his constantly marking edits as minor is irritating, especially when he's making obviously controversial edits. Jenks24 (talk) 09:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I've taken it to Wikipedia:Wikiquette assistance. HiLo48 (talk) 10:12, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The adult thing to do would be to just ignore it. It's not factual dispute, and it cannot be argued that it introduces any confusion, and thirdly it's not some esoteric usage e.g. Adelaide's team page uses it in the majority, probably some of the other teams' pages do to.

Yes, possibly. My personal problem is that my high school English teachers would have failed me for using "their" for a team. I'm brainwashed. I know there can be different usages elsewhere, but I truly think that in Australia such usages are just sloppy. But that's just me. I will never be able to ignore what will always look wrong to me. The important difference is that I'm willing to talk about it. HiLo48 (talk) 11:37, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The issue of McAusten's behaviour has been resolved by him being blocked indefinitely. HiLo48 (talk) 04:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

would it be amiss of me to say "Good Riddance"? Trex21 (talk) 11:58, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Round descriptors in headings

Just a thought: would it be better if we gave each round just its most simple heading? e.g. Round 5 instead of Round 5 (Easter and Anzac Day). It makes it much easier for a few years time; i.e. if we want to include a link to 2011 AFL season#Round 5, we won't have to go back and check whether or not it has a bracketed comment hanging off the end of it. Then we can describe the theme of the round in the AFLGameHeader template. Aspirex (talk) 13:45, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. It would simplify things. There have been some editors here with too much of a love affair with fancy names and the AFL's (now fading) habit of giving rounds "special" names. At least one of those editors is no longer an editor. HiLo48 (talk) 22:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Also agree and thank God that the AFL finally appears to be giving up on the whole "every round must have a special theme" idea. Jenks24 (talk) 01:06, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Awards

There are two awards sections and both say pretty much the same thing

Also, under 'controversy' shouldn't Kim Duthie be mentioned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.32.135.162 (talk) 09:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

• I see the two Kim Duthie controversies as occurring chronologically during the 2011 AFL season, but not being relevant to it. I'd include it in a separate article about her, but not in an article about the season. Aspirex (talk) 07:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Article size

WP:SPLIT would suggest that as an article over 100KB that this article should or could be split into separate sections. The article is quite large, which might reduce readability or make it harder for people with slower computers. 2011 NRL season has done this quite well IMHO by creating 2011 NRL season results, which a lot of larger sports seasons/competitions do, probably for the same reason. Any thoughts on a split? IgnorantArmies 04:57, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

• The main benefit to a split would be that we could have a much more selective list of game-notes and list them in the main season article, like we used to up to 2008 AFL season, and then leave all of the excessive, semi-notable comments to take up space in the results page. Other than that, I have no strong preference either way.

But, the first thing I'd split out is the "Team changes" section; that's a list that doesn't need to be in the main article, and that the average reader would have very little interest in. In fact, I'd argue that the relevant information should be put into the individual club season summary pages only, and that only the retirements of players with more than 300 games experience or some other particular notability be mentioned in the main article. Aspirex (talk) 07:36, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Requestor asked to make splitOp47 (talk) 20:25, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I was intending to reformat the page in a style similar to 2011 NRL season and 2011 NRL season results, but I really don't have time for a project like that right now. I might consider some time later, but for now I'll remove the notice. Thanks, I♦A 12:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Op47 (talk) 22:58, 6 February 2012 (UTC)