Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:28, 3 March 2014

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Soccer in Australia article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9Auto-archiving period: 2 months

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Football: Australia High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Football, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Association football on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FootballWikipedia:WikiProject FootballTemplate:WikiProject Footballfootball High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Australian soccer task force (assessed as High-importance). Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Australia: Soccer High‑importance [REDACTED] Soccer in Australia is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Misplaced Pages's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AustraliaWikipedia:WikiProject AustraliaTemplate:WikiProject AustraliaAustralia High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Australian soccer task force (assessed as High-importance). Need help improving this article? Ask a Librarian at the National Library of Australia. [REDACTED] The Wikimedia Australia chapter can be contacted via email to helpwikimedia.org.au for non-editorial assistance.

Archives (index)

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

This page has archives. Sections older than 60 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

POV regarding gender

I added the pov tag because a quick read through indicates that the article does not encompass both women's and men's soccer as one would expect in an article with a general name such as this one is. The links that sound general take you to a men's team. Women's soccer is put in one section. That seems very outdated. I realize that the title has been under discussion over a period of time so I'm not unilaterally moving it but instead tagging it to show that the bias needs to be addressed. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 21:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

There was a lengthy discussion on Talk:Australia national association football team about gender equality in article names. Anyway, about this article. When I cleaned-up the article a few months ago, I moved most of the women's information to Women's soccer in Australia, I didn't think there was any bias in doing so, though as a result the article became solely about the men's game. To make it more inclusive of the women's game I clearly stated 'Men's national teams' in that section and I added some representation of the women's game in the specific section with a Main link to Women's soccer in Australia. The women's game has grown separately to that of the men's, and it still does - maybe that should be included in the article. But again, I don't think there's any bias.--2nyte (talk) 02:23, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

An article with this general title needs to be inclusive of all aspects of soccer in Australia and not focus on men's soccer or the highest levels, and then have the other aspects of soccer appear as add-ons. Otherwise it seems as if the men's game is the "normal" game and the rest are alternatives. This is framing the content in a way that does not make a judgement about which kinds of participation in the sport are more important to be covered. Instead the content is driven by discussing the full range of ways that soccer is experienced. Being able to print one stand alone article that discusses the full range of soccer in Australia should be our goal. To accomplish this I think the article needs some tweaking. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 15:50, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

The women's article already existed, I only wanted to expand it, and in doing so I removed the content specific to the women's game. I did add the women's section which has specific content to the women's game though otherwise I didn't think it a good idea to duplicate the information from Women's soccer in Australia to this article. This article still contains general information on the game (not specific to a gender).--2nyte (talk) 16:07, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi there 2nyte, I'll be happy to work with you to create a general comprehensive standalone article about Soccer in Australia. IMO, soccer/football is one of the most important topics for Misplaced Pages to have a comprehensive general article because it is an important global topic and there is a high probability that the article it will be included in print books and an abridged offline Misplaced Pages as well as being read online. So whether the reader is looking at a general online article or one that is more focused, it is important to have a good overview of an important topic like soccer/football. Right now the way the article is organized it is primarily about the development of the men's game in Australia that led to the top national teams with much less mention of the other ways that soccer is commonly experienced in Australia. The good news is that Misplaced Pages is a work in progress and no one expects perfection today. But it would be really great if we can get this article up to feature article quality since it is an important topic. To do that now, it will need to be much more comprehensive. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 16:47, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Ok, but in terms of gender and Women's soccer in Australia. I would rather not duplicate the information on this article. What would be the better option, merging it with this article or continuing to develop the women's article similar to Women's football in England and Football in England?--2nyte (talk) 17:27, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I see this article as a comprehensive general article so it will give a general overview of all aspect of the sport of soccer in Australia. This would include a general high level discussion of each aspect of soccer, including women's soccer, woven throughout the article as appropriate. Some of this will overlap a bit with the women's soccer article, but not as detailed. This will largely depend on the need for the article to be written in a manner that gives the reader a broad understanding of the topic. Remember, the women's soccer article exists to be more detailed about women's soccer. Additionally, a section on Women's soccer in this article could be included to give a summary of the topic if weaving the information throughout the article leaves some gaps in coverage. Or we want to draw the readers attention to subtopics like Women's soccer, or youth soccer. The content of this article is intended to include a broad range of information in one article so that it can be be stand alone article about the broader topic. Does that make sense? Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 18:04, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I've restored the article to this version before the system purge of wome by @2nyte:. The version that was here could be renamed Men's soccer in Australia without a problem. --LauraHale (talk) 09:39, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

LauraHale, please don't make careless edits like that. I spent many hours rewriting the article, adding references and content. I am welcoming of further edits but please do not 'restore' the page as you did.--2nyte (talk) 00:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

FloNight is clearly correct. Readers coming to an article on "Soccer in Australia" are entitled to expect that it will include proper coverage of both men's and women's soccer. They are both within the article's scope, which is set by the title. If the article is to focus on men's soccer, then it should be titled "Men's soccer in Australia". Neljack (talk) 00:35, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm reading this page due to a little issue at WP:ANI, but am pausing to confirm that the comments by FloNight are entirely correct. It does not matter what a local consensus has decided because an article on Soccer in Australia simply must be generic. It does not have to be fixed immediately, but it does need to be fixed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm a soccer fan

Well, not really. I prefer the use of "soccer" to describe the football game played with a round ball. However, my personal preference, like those of any other editor, doesn't weigh highly here. Looking at the sports pages of online Australian newspapers, such as The Australian or the Sydney Morning Herald, I'm finding that most have a list like this: Rugby League, AFL, Rugby Union, Football. The exception being The Age, where it is called "Soccer" (as opposed to "Real Footy").

I think if the newspapers are calling the game football rather than soccer, we're going to run out of reliable sources for the title of this article pretty soon. In fact, I'd say that the weight has shifted already.

If I can ask those supporters of the current title to list their reliable source, that would be helpful. Cheers! --Pete (talk) 10:21, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem is the universal applicability of the term in Australia. I think we can be agreed that many media sources are calling it football. Similarly, many media sources are still referring to soccer, in particular in states where "football" is the common name for "Australian rules football". So we have an ugly situation were:

• "Football" has been the official name of the sport since 2003, but is not universally the common name, and creates ambiguity in some states.
• "Soccer" is the common term in some areas, but has not been the official name since 2003.
• "Association football" is neither a common term nor an official term in Australia, but is generally recognised to refer to the sport.

So what do we do? Do we use an official term that isn't (and is unlikely to become in the foreseeable future) the common term in all states, a common name which is universally recognised but which the code is deliberately trying to move away from, or a term that isn't in common or official usage at all? - Bilby (talk) 10:43, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

The pertinent issue is deliberately moved away from, it is not really a matter of tried, but did, officially as I added myself in referenced edits here. The proponents of the other side of the debate largely rely upon an issue of linguistics of which there are few works out there attributed to the research of the word football itself purely from a linguistics research perspective in Australia. I have raised issue that I would like to see someone contribute some sort of meaningful editing to the matter under WP:V rather than replying that they don't need to bother. The terse response in reply is generally "why should I bother, I can say whatever I like so long as there is consensus with my fellow meat puppets." which my general response is... well then why should I bother editing Misplaced Pages? This type of response is what leads to the general frustration of many of the soccer supporting editors on this talk page. If someone wants to actually put some more effort in here there might be less animosity rather than simply claiming something is the case under WP:BLUE perhaps they should refer to WP:NOTBLUE especially on what is a contentious issue such as this. The synchronic view of linguistics that exists on this page, particularly in terms of certain users vocabulary really does amaze me. Of course as history reminds us, those things that become so synchronically defined usually end up dead. --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:59, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps a worthwhile question to explore right now, is not "do we use soccer, football or association football", but simply "how do we proceed?" We have two issues - what to do about the articles recently changed by User:Portillo, and what to do about this article. In regard to the articles about Australian soccer/football players and teams, that's probably best left for AN/I at the moment. In regards to this article, Misplaced Pages doesn't offer much once we've been through an RfC. We could try mediation, but in all honesty I don't see that coming to a satisfactory conclusion, as there hasn't been any sign that compromise is possible between the more polarised editors, and the role of mediation is generally to find a compromise solution. But we could try and give it a shot - nominate some editors to approach the mediation committee, and agree to abide by what eventuates if it is accepted and works. Alternatively, we could try another RfC, as ArbCom doesn't solve content disputes, and there is no higher recourse than an RfC or mediation open to us. The problem is that the last RfC closed in August, so it seems a bit early to start another one. Constant RfCs don't help, but perhaps we can agree on a decent interval before starting one again? I think six months is not unreasonable, so that would suggest March. - Bilby (talk) 11:37, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I think an RfC isn't really going to go anywhere in the short term at least, probably not in the long term either. The contentious issue that remains with consensus is also the fact that football (soccer) supporters in their truest sense are also likely going to be in a minority anyway, so consensus decisions aren't really ever going to be resolved favourably on grounds that are likely seen controversial, for whatever reason, by the two other dominant football codes Rugby League and AFL. For whatever reason however, there has appeared ever since this became an issue to be a mostly dominant contribution in RfCs by users who support AFL. At this stage there really is two options:

1) We wait until this inevitably boils over into another RfC either now or in 6 months time, where football (soccer) supporters are still not happy.

2) We go from this point into some sort of mediated solution where no one is happy with what will likely be a poor compromise due to the polarised views opposing any use of the word football in these and other football (soccer) related articles on Misplaced Pages that are Australian related.

--Orestes1984 (talk) 10:56, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

We're in a situation where there are going to be unhappy people, no matter what. But personal feelings shouldn't determine our actions. We have wikipolicy developed over years as a guide, and I ask where is the reliable source that says that the Australia-wide name of the roundball game is soccer? We need a source. The official sources, such as they are, don't support soccer, and very few mainstream media outlets use the term. I've spent fifty years using the term "soccer", but if we go by wikipolicy - and we must - my personal feelings count for little. We have to have reliable sources for our content. If we have an RfC, then my vote will be different to the last time around, when I supported "soccer".

What i really detest is the level of personal animosity displayed here. It has gone on for a long time. We don't make an encyclopaedia by calling each other names. We work together. If there is some way to end this disruption sooner rather than later, I'm all for it. If that means a fresh RfC, then bring it on. Let us devote our time and energy to positive work. --Pete (talk) 21:21, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

On this one I'm not quite sure what you are asking for as a source. If you want to know if there are media sources that still use soccer, then yes - the Advertiser and The Herald Sun, or example. In regard to statistics, a quick search of Newsbank for "soccer" in Australian press during 2013 gets 18,000 articles. There's a good discussion of the issues in Rosenberg, Buck Clifford (2009) "The Australian football wars: fan narratives of inter-code and intra-code conflict", Soccer & Society. 2:10. There isn't any real question as to whether or not "football" has different meanings for different people and in different states, and that soccer is used where football isn't. The question is really on how we reconcile this. - Bilby (talk) 02:12, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd be looking for a statement in a very good high-level source saying that soccer is the name of the sport in Australia. Not just a few regional papers or counting google hits. Not something that is synthesis. If soccer really is the name of the sport, do we have a government report saying so? Something like that. --Pete (talk) 04:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

That's an overly high bar. The claim is not that soccer is the official name of the sport in Australia. The claim is that football is now the official name of the sport in Australia, but soccer remains a common name of the sport, especially in states where "football" is predominantly used to refer to Australian rules. I don't see that this point is in doubt. - Bilby (talk) 04:18, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It may be a high bar, but if we just write our articles by gut feel and who has the loudest voice, we aren't doing our job. We have good sources for "football" as a name, but where is the source for "soccer"? Inside ourselves? I personally prefer soccer as the name in general conversation, but for Misplaced Pages we need - as you put it - a higher bar. I'm seeing a lot of doubt and dispute on this very point, just reading through the talk page. --Pete (talk) 05:19, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be misreading the discussion then. I'd be really, really surprised to see someone say that the sport is not referred to as soccer in Australia. I'm very happy to agree that the sport is also referred to as football, and that football is the official title (as of 2005), but you'd be hard pressed to make a viable case that soccer isn't a common name of the sport as well. That has never been the issue. - Bilby (talk) 05:53, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The issue never really was whether or not soccer is a commonly used name for the sport in Australia , for me at least, yes it is A commonly used name, however, no longer is it THE commonly used name by the administration body that gives it, its official name, the government, or by a large percentage of its fan base. The issue is reconciling the fact that football is now the official name of the sport in Australia. The ongoing issue here is the fact that I cannot see how using the official name is the least bit problematic SO LONG AS we disambiguate via a link that is not ambiguous, edit the lead paragraph to also known as soccer, and edit in such a way where ambiguous terms are linked to non-ambiguous redirects, or pages.

The reality is that is now eight to nine years down the road. The majority of people who have taken the time to take a glance at news/media their newspaper of choice or any other medium whereby they get information on current terminology will understand that soccer is also known as football and vice versa. There is a myriad of platitudes here that would keep most parties for the majority happy. Association Football in Australia as per the common global term for the sport, with a redirect to soccer in Australia, Association Football (soccer) in Australia, with a with a redirect to soccer in Australia and many others.

It amuses me that after 8 years we really cannot come up with an adequate solution here. The AFL and rugby code fans could simply click the soccer in Australia redirect, and we can click the association football in Australia link as per the common global name for the sport on Misplaced Pages. I do not see how this is unreasonable. We have one sport that is association football in Australia and it just seems a little silly that out of all the football codes in Australia, it would appear that it is the only code that is not allowed to have references to the word football in articles pertaining to it... --Orestes1984 (talk) 06:49, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

No one is standing in the way of using association football in the first instance and subsequently using football, nor moving this article to association football in australia except those that want it to be referred to solely as football.... Gnangarra 07:24, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

On that other debate about football in Australia, on a matter purely of personal opinion, I don't think we can have any one sport in this country with an article on football in Australia. To do otherwise ignores the current global consensus that football is not a term specifically owned by one sport. The current page as it is, for football in Australia is fine. It really is more so about how we go about making less of a bun fight about it and actually coming with a better page over there. Every football code in Australia should be able to use the term football and as per the global consensus this page really should be association football in Australia --Orestes1984 (talk) 07:42, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

…you'd be hard pressed to make a viable case that soccer isn't a common name of the sport as well. That has never been the issue. That's not in dispute. I highlight the difference between making a statement of general opinion - sourced from where, precisely? - and complying with the requirements of Misplaced Pages. We require sources for our material. That's pretty basic. Where is our source for the implicit thrust of the title? Where is the reliable source that authoritatively states that the name of the sport in Australia is soccer? Is there such a source, or is it something we just go along with because we as editors feel that we don't need a source? --Pete (talk) 09:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

There seems to be an ongoing spate of users who edit this page who need to be reminded of verifiability. Rather than referring to essays which are not rules, or guidelines. There is also a few editors here that need to be consistently reminded of WP:CIRCULAR especially in regard to referencing that article on the barassi line. There are certain users who are using these and simmiliar justifications for their editing to justify why this articles main term should remain soccer. The way that they are going about it is consistently breaching WP:CIRCULAR, WP:NOR and WP:ORIGINALSYN and this really needs to stop. IF you cannot verify your argument you must desist, IF you cannot verify WHY concepts such as the Barassi line are relevant to the main term in this article you must desist and allow the use of the word football in this article. I have gone to the lengths of verifying why "soccer" in Australia is called football (soccer) and has been since 2004-2005. It is about time those opposing either put up an argument why soccer should remain relevant as the main term for this article or desist from their POV arguments. I suggest they start by reading WP:RELIABLE and then I also would suggest that they come up with some reliable sources to justify their position as to why soccer should be the main term that is used in this article. If you believe that soccer should be the main and relevant point to this article then score a point against me by justifying your point of view with a few good reliable sources. --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Pete, I'm loathe to buy into this "we need a source to say that soccer can be called soccer in Australia" argument. But although I don't have a copy of the Macquarie on hand, how about "On Friday 26 August 2005, a new national football league kicked off in Australia – again. Football, or soccer as it is generally called in Australia, has tried and failed numerous times to establish itself in not just a saturated and small sporting market, but a saturated football market". Rosenberg, Buck Clifford (2009) "The Australian football wars: fan narratives of inter-code and intra-code conflict", Soccer & Society, 2:10, p245.

What I'm mostly concerned about is process. Is it worth having an RfC again, given that the last one was less than six months ago, is mediation viable, or should we just call this an unsolvable problem for a few months and tackle it again at some point in the future? - Bilby (talk) 11:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not really a matter of whether soccer can be called soccer in Australia by all means call it soccer, or call it that game played by "sheilas, wogs and poofters" . It's not a matter of personal opinion, or what you call it, vs. what I call it and that's not what this article is about. What we should focus on is consistency, the term association football is in common usage cited in the Macquarie dictionary, as is this in the definition of "football."

Football in particular references any of the sports that involve kicking a ball with your feet. This list may include, Australian Rules, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Soccer and its dialectical variants of soccer including "British Soccer." Furthermore it also includes American football in that list. According to the Macquarie dictionary all of these sports are football. The Macquarie dictionary also defines football as soccer interchangeably and as a "form of football", but we can't use that as its ambiguous as is the Macquarie dictionary definition "to soccer a ball along the ground" in terms of Australian rules football. Association football would appear to be the current global consensus on the matter and so I think we should be sticking with consensus --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:20, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a reasonably old source. I'll bet that at that time, sports supplements still had sections headed "soccer". And that the sport had not attained the prominence of recent years, where the World Cup proceedings are of national interest, and the sport as a whole is one of the top participation sports in Australia. Look, I've always called the game soccer, but I just didn't think about recent changes. Seemed to be not worth discussing, really. Until I looked at all the disruption and acrimony here and thought, well editors aren't listening to each other, just getting upset and going around and around and around and achieving nothing but making each other unhappy. This is Misplaced Pages, we have ways of dealing with disharmony, let's get back to basic wikipolicy and go for the sources. So I went looking, and I found that "soccer" isn't quite as widespread as I thought. In particular, media outlets have pretty much stopped calling it that, at least in their section headings. Now, I don't think that "football" is going to unarguably mean the roundball sport any time soon, but we really should quit arguing and look to external sources for illumination. There seems to be a compromise position available in related articles at Australia national association football team, Football Federation Australia, List of association football stadiums in Australia, Association football in South Australia and many others. For the sake of consistency, we should get our act together.

I've mentioned Gorgias before as a way forward. Put simply, Plato tells us that when we listen to two debaters, neither of whom is prepared to concede defeat, we go nowhere, because it is personal. But when ego is set aside and the facts are sought, we progress. Misplaced Pages is about facts, not personal preference,

Do we need another RfC? Well, I've changed my !vote, so that's a little bit of difference. If the wrangling here goes on and on, then we are going to need some formal mechanism to end the disruption, and if an RfC isn't the answer, then what is? Every week there's more argument, more personal attacks, more mentions in ANI. This cannot go on. --Pete (talk) 18:47, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see another RfC in due time but I think we might need to sit on it for a while because the last one we had wasn't all that long ago and it didn't really get us anywhere. As far as the Macquarie dictionary definition. It is a reasonably old source, however Macquarie Dictionary is considered an authoritative source for dictionary specific definitions of words in Australian English. The trouble is that unlike other languages such as German, French and etc, we don't have an official orginisation that defines the language we use. We can do better here though as you suggest and as I have suggested by looking at context specific external sources.

I think there are only a select group of editors here that actually want the article on football in Australia to be moved to this article, I'm not one of them. We have to be realistic here that there are many games in Australia that are called football and the current compromise with the article on football in Australia is a good one. We could in fact look at the global page on football in order to get a better idea on how to handle the issue. I think you're also correct that there are a number of platitudes here that are available and that we need some consistency here, as you say we've got the Australia national association football team on the one hand and we've got Soccer in Australia here which is causing ambiguity in and of itself.

The major Kerfuffle here seems to stem from the actions taken by the federation which regulates the sport in this country circa 2004-05 when they adopted the name football, but we're not alone. New Zealand also adopted football, as has Samoa, and a few other current/former OFC member nations including Australia. The current wiki page for New Zealand is Association football in New Zealand but they seem to be having as many issues as we are about all of this.

I would like to hope that there aren't editors here who would like to go down the ultimate pathway of using the Fasces to resolve this matter and I would hope that we could come up with some sort of reasonable solution here. This is where as above I have stated that if some editors would like to pursue the linguistics pathway as their means of keeping this article title as soccer that I think a few credible sources could come in handy --Orestes1984 (talk) 04:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Is the Australian Bureau of Statistics credible enough for what the "official" government name is? They use soccer. The-Pope (talk) 16:11, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. The figures refer to five years back. The contention here is that circumstances have changed over the past few years. What the mass media calls the game now is a better indication of current thinking than a Stats report from some time ago, to my mind. However, it adds a data point. --Pete (talk) 01:48, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

• What I'm reading is that we have advanced this discussion to point where a proposal with simple voting would be a good indicator of future direction for an RFC. To this end I have started a section to garner a clearer idea of direction, please keep discussion to this section and leave the proposal section to just a simple response. Gnangarra 14:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I think we should aim for a resolution like Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Football in Australia). Though change Football (soccer) to Association football.--2nyte (talk) 01:37, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Gauge future direction

For the purpose of clarity please just choose either support or oppose, this is not a vote nor is it a discussion its purpose is solely to enable a clear gauge of where the on going discussion is at. After Jan 26 I'll commence an rfc on the matter based on this survey, even if there is an unambiguous indication. The RFC will include both this articles usage as well as usage in other articles related to this sport in Australia

article renamed to Association Football in Australia.

Support

1. . Gnangarra 14:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
2. .Orestes1984 (talk) 14:51, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
3. . 2nyte (talk) 08:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
4. Support with a rider. The three major sporting codes in Australia already use their official names (Rugby League, Rugby Union, Australian Rules). Association Football is not the official name, Football is. However, Association Football is a far better alternative to ridiculous status quo of one state's nickname for the sport being kept because a wiki project for a sport unrelated to the actual topic would rather die than allow the real name for the sport to be used instead of the nickname used in states that don't even make up a majority of the population of Australia. Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Pete (talk) 01:43, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
6. Support SFCTID (talk) 03:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
7. Support The term football has become far to common for soccer to really work anymore. The "official" term is not really that important. I think "Association football" works, and any ambiguity should be dealt with in the opening sentence. -- Shudde 09:53, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
8. Support --TinTin (talk) 07:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Neljack (talk) 11:43, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

lead to start something like Association Football in Australia also known as Soccer or Football.... with football sufficient for all further usage within the article except where quoting or referring to a specific usage where soccer or some other term maybe appropriate.

Support

1. . Gnangarra 14:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
2. .Orestes1984 (talk) 14:52, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
3. . 2nyte (talk) 08:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
4. . SFCTID (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:38, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
5. Support --TinTin (talk) 07:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose Neljack (talk) 11:44, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
2. Oppose Macktheknifeau (talk) 13:46, 12 January 2014 (UTC) Use the correct official names. If we have to add a 'disclaimer' for Football, will we have to start adding them to Rugby League, Rugby Union and AFL articles?

"Soccer" is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia

We seem to have three options on the table - football, association football and soccer.

Despite some strange denials, football is going to be ambiguous to most Australians, no matter how it's linked to something else. In fact, one could argue that for those on the Aussie Rules side of the Barassi Line it's not ambiguous at all. It means only Aussie Rules.

Association football is that mysterious term which definitely means the round ball game, but nobody actually uses it to describe the game in Australia, and most wouldn't know what it meant without looking it up. I'm a mature aged sports nut, with an interest in soccer going back over half a century, and I had to look up association football when I first saw it used in Misplaced Pages. Obviously not universally understood. Not a good option.

OK, time for some evidence...

I have been doing some research at school websites. School is where kids learn their "common" language. Check out this. It's typical of the language used in schools. The school plays football and soccer. Obviously football means Aussie Rules. Also out of many suitable examples (I found none unsuitable), I point editors at a couple of websites for more soccer oriented schools, here and here. Now, the former is a Greek school, so it has a strong commitment to soccer. The latter is in a high immigrant part of Melbourne, an area where soccer is very popular. What's worth noting is the name of the round ball game. Soccer every time.

Australia's biggest selling daily newspaper, Melbourne's Herald Sun, still uses "soccer" in its print edition. I could normally point you at the table of contents of the web copy of their print edition, but they must be in holiday mode at present. All sport is under the simple heading of "SPORT". Maybe wait until next week when games are underway again after the break. I think we all know that Melbourne's other daily, The Age, uses soccer. See the index bar here.

I also Googled "soccer club" in all the states on the Aussie Rules side of the Barassi Line. I found many, many examples of clubs with that as part of their name, in every state, even as far north as Wagga Wagga in NSW. I won't list them here, but I've saved dozens of URLs if people really want to see them.

Soccer is obviously a name many Australians, including many fans and players of the game, are very comfortable with, making it their choice for the name of their club and the name they use for the sport in daily discourse.

Some here want to reject soccer for a range of reasons. Some say it's offensive. Well, it's obviously not offensive to all the above mentioned fans and players. To say their language is offensive is just silly, and possibly offensive in itself. Others point out that the national body changed the formal name to football a few years ago. Yes, it did, but obviously not everyone has followed their lead, including many fans and players.

So, back to evidence. Can anyone provide a current reliable source that tells us that soccer is an unsuitable name? If not, it's by far the best of the three options in my first paragraph above.

So where's that mysterious source telling us that soccer is unsuitable today? HiLo48 (talk) 07:57, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Well then I guess you're abstaining from the vote above? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Orestes1984 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Please read WP:NOR, this includes any analysis or synthesis of published material . The perfectly acceptable section above did not ask for comments, it simply asked you to state a position here support or object. There are editors here that are trying to seek a consensus towards moving forward about what to do next who are trying to handle this in a civil and polite manner rather than Civil POV pushing which includes pushing marginalised viewes or pushing views beyond the requirements of WP:NPOV, or giving undue weight to fringe theories without providing reliable sources to substantiate the fringe theory that the Barassi line deliniates the soccer/football boundary when the article itself contains no such evidence and there is very little evidence out there to substantiate that it actually does.

There is a global consensus on association football to disambiguate the term "football" and besides, some editors that are also part of project AFL such as User:Jenks24 here in Australia there has been little issue with the change on other former "soccer" countries page articles such as association football in New Zealand. I'm not sure what the problem is here, I can assume under any changes made the term soccer will not be leaving this article, and that a redirect would be in place for those who searched for soccer in Australia. This really only affects the updated and current official name of the sport, there is not much left here to object to for any other reason purely than a POV argument. All I see from all of this is a bunch of meat puppetry going on, on behalf of Project AFL.

Please refrain from passive aggressive argumentation which is getting us exactly nowhere and as per WP:MEAT Do not recruit your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you for the purpose of coming to Misplaced Pages and supporting your side of a debate.--Orestes1984 (talk) 14:14, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

The ONLY reason the unknown name "association football" is being proposed is because some editors here won't accept the quite popular and ONLY non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia, "soccer". That unwillingness to accept the name "soccer" seems to be a pure POV position, not supported by any current, reliable source. Where is the source telling us that "soccer" is an unsuitable choice today? HiLo48 (talk) 20:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I have already sourced the official name which you conveniently continue to ignore for your own reasons much like the drive by commentary from your fellow AFL editors in New Zealand of all the places, seriously? Project AFL it would appear would like to wage a global editorial campaign to have the word football struck from all "soccer" related articles on Misplaced Pages. Including in countries where there football code is irrelevant at best and at the most a fringe sport played by expatriates.

There is also a consensus that affects Misplaced Pages globally where if there is more than one sport known as football, football adopts the term association football. It is really not that hard to understand. The official name is football, the majority of the media that represents the sport call it football, 58% of the viewing public is on the opposite side of your fringe theory line which makes AFL the minority in that regard. The only thing that stops us adopting the word football is a minority of POV pushers who just can't accept that even New Zealand of all the places can use the word football because of Project AFL. Project AFL wants to be coddled and have exclusive rights to the word football. Sorry HiLo48 it doesn't work like that --Orestes1984 (talk) 21:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Please drop the attacks. You obviously don't have a source teeling us that "soccer" is an unacceptable name. So, can you point us at the policy that says "...if there is more than one sport known as football, football adopts the term association football"? (LOL, can you see how stupidly that sentence reads, absolutely proving the ambiguity of the name "football"?)

see the page on association football, I don't have time to explain things. There are no personal attacks here excepting your own, once again, I am pointing out the issue here that Project AFL has been running an ongoing campaign against the use of football, on an international level, as I have shown this is occurring in countries where Australian Rules have little to no significance, or established relevance to claiming the name football, where if anything the only football codes in New Zealand of particular interest are the rugby codes. This is beyond ridiculous as is the maintenance of fringe theory articles purely for the purpose of claiming a one up in this debate. I already went to the lengths of cleaning up the majority of extraordinary claims that were in that article previously. Unless you can substantiate why soccer should remain the name here rather than a platitude of association football you should desist from this line of argument --Orestes1984 (talk) 22:15, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Please discuss the points I am making, rather than an alleged malicious campaign against soccer. If I go anywhere in Australia and say "soccer", everyone will immediately know precisely what I mean. If I go anywhere in Australia and say "football", people will either assume I mean Aussie Rules in one half of the country, or ask "Which football?" in the other half. If I go anywhere in Australia and say "association football", almost everyone will say "What?" "Soccer" is the ideal solution, unless you can provide a really good current source proving that it's not. HiLo48 (talk) 22:35, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I've already provided a peer reviewed journal article that states the current official name for the sport as adopted in the period between 2004-2005 is football which you continue to conveniently ignore. You are being tendentious, it is not up to me to find an article that the sport should be called soccer, that is up to you. As I have said if you want to prove me wrong, do it through linguistics and prove your fringe theory about the Barassi line correct. Find me some articles that go against the well established position that football is where it is positioned in Australian culture because it has been seen as a foreign sport, nationally. If you would like to claim it is because of a magical fairy line in the sand then do it and put the editing effort into this article and desist from this nonsense on this talk page. No one will object, if you can substantiate. You should know this given that you are degree qualified. I'm assuming you are not just a VET teacher --Orestes1984 (talk) 23:03, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Wow. Are you deliberately misrepresenting me, or...? In my very first post in this thread I acknowledged the formal name change by the FFA (9th paragrah, if you want to check), so please stop accusing me of ignoring it. And I am not asking you to provide a source that says we CAN name the game "soccer", I'm saying that it's the obvious common name and YOU need to provide a source that says we CAN'T. The desire of some to not use the name "soccer" is the only reason the generally unknown name "association football" has been suggested. "Soccer" is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia. Unless you can provide that current, reliable source showing why we cannot use "soccer", it's the obvious choice. HiLo48 (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Firstly, I obviously don't think much of your claims. I have substantiated why we cannot, it's blindingly obvious that soccer is a non-word in terms of describing the sport as it is currently being played. The term does not exist in any officiating body for the sport at any level. The referred terminology for the sport is football NOT soccer. It really doesn't need to go any deeper than that. You must establish the case after all levels of officiation have called the game football, why it CAN be called soccer. The weight of balance of historical correctness is on your shoulders to establish why it SHOULD be called soccer in this day and age when the term has been discarded from the code itself by its governing bodies in this country. It's not good enough to just say, "well that's what my mate calls it so fair play" --Orestes1984 (talk) 23:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

But it IS called "soccer", by an awful lot of people. That was the point of my first post and the research behind it. To all those people it's obviously not a "non-word". It's THE word used to describe the game. HiLo48 (talk) 23:50, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

So establish the case that all those people living on your side of the fairy line are calling it soccer, do it in the article and stop arguing --Orestes1984 (talk) 23:53, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing to establish in the article. The name is in the title. Because some here disagreed, persistently and repeatedly, I presented this detailed case here on the Talk page. I know it won't please you, but it hasn't been refuted. Only a current reliable source telling us why we cannot use "soccer" could do that. HiLo48 (talk) 00:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I've already told you why we cannot use soccer, purely from a historical perspective it is the incorrect terminology for the sport according to the official name, IF we are running an encyclopaedia we must represent the historical facts of the matter correctly. It's not about what you call it or your mate calls it, the governing bodies who run the sport call it football. There are other football codes out there, so the only solution that is viable is to call it association football in line with every other association football page on Misplaced Pages in these circumstances AND the Australian national team. That's right you had better tell Project AFL to get over there to fix that up as well --Orestes1984 (talk) 00:13, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Do have a look at the last RfC. It was agreed, in the interests of good will, to not change the name of the national team article. And I don't believe there's a Misplaced Pages policy that says "official" name (whatever that means) trumps common name. HiLo48 (talk) 01:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I believe it states "Official English names are candidates for what to call the article, because somebody presumably uses them. They should always be considered as possibilities, but should be used only if they are actually the name most commonly used". You're the one that wants to keep the "common name" so quit wasting my time here and prove that it is the common name. It seems you like to talk a lot, but rarely edit anything with supporting evidence to prove your point.

Furthermore, for someone who complains about ambiguity in the once sense you sure are creating a lot of ambiguity by splitting the sport in two. On the one hand, you've got the Australian national association football team, on the other hand you've got soccer in Australia. You might even say you're contradicting your very own argument by supporting this page staying where it is, creating a lot of fuss over nothing and being a hypocrite, purely for the purpose of splitting the sport in half on Misplaced Pages --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Nothing new there. Even the abuse is becoming repetitive. I suggest you drop it. HiLo48 (talk) 08:43, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Let me make this as simple for Orestes as possible. As I have already explained several times on this matter before, Misplaced Pages's article name policy is that article names use the subject's COMMON NAME when that is different from the official name. As the sport's common name in Australia is still "soccer" ~ and the word "football" has long been used by other sports in Australia ~ all of Orestes' arguments about the sport's official name are, therefore, completely invalid and irrelevant. Afterwriting (talk) 08:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

There is a lot of talk that this is the case yet no one is willing to substantiate, for someone who likes to engage in copy editing pedantry it shouldn't be too hard to actually substantiate the case, or really is it? I see a lot of people linking to essays rather than the official policy on the matter which the facts are you must substantiate if this is your claim --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:56, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

There are various official Misplaced Pages pages which include information on this issue.

THIS ONE on "article titles" ~ and THIS ONE on "official names" ~ may be the most definitive on the subject.

The introduction to the second page says:

"New editors often assume that, where an official name exists for the subject of a Misplaced Pages article, this name is ipso facto the correct title for the article, and that if the article is under another title then it should be moved. In many cases this is contrary to Misplaced Pages practice and policy.

Misplaced Pages:Article titles is the relevant official policy and reads in part:

Article titles should be recognizable to readers, unambiguous, and consistent with usage in reliable English-language sources.

In many cases, the official name will be the best choice to fit these criteria. However, in many other cases, it will not be.

I suggest that you read these official Misplaced Pages pages and familiarise yourself with their information. Afterwriting (talk) 09:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

All of the above is irrelevant, I suggest if you want to do anything you substantiate the case as to why soccer is the common name, once again more talk, more rhetoric, little evidence from a reliable source that states that soccer is the currently accepted common name for the sport in Australia --Orestes1984 (talk) 09:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Are your comments a pathetic joke?! These official policies are entirely relevant. You have just proven your complete inability to understand and follow Misplaced Pages's clear policies on the matter. Your own opinions on this matter are entirely without merit. If you seriously think that "football" is the common name for the sport in Australia ~ and unambiguous ~ then you are seriously ignorant and out of touch with reality. Afterwriting (talk) 09:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Hence the effort I put into collecting the evidence for this thread, all up there in the first post. Even a Melbourne Greek school, that doesn't have Aussie Rules in its sports program at all, uses the name "soccer". Orestes, you really have to accept some realities here that don't fit what you want the world to be. I HAVE provided evidence. Please accept it. You're welcome, of course, to check other school websites in the Aussie Rules part of Australia yourself. Please share any that call the round ball game "football". (You won't find any calling it "association football"!) I'm always happy to learn new things. HiLo48 (talk) 10:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not a dispute, it's a simple matter of agenda here which is not my own. If it really is so easy to claim then find a citation --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Evidence has been provided. HiLo48 (talk) 10:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Orestes has taken the battle elsewhere

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. Please discuss the article rather than the editors. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:47, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

To Names for association football.

I don't want an Edit war. Can other editors please try to help sort this out? HiLo48 (talk) 10:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

There is very good evidence that Orestes also edits soccer articles under at least one other user name as well as anonymously as an IP editor. See my talk page for some information about this. Afterwriting (talk) 11:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, I had seen the IP editing, using exactly the same style as Orestes. Hadn't picked up "Danausi". Not sure about that one. HiLo48 (talk) 11:27, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Some of "Danausi's" edits have the same idiosyncratic writing style as Orestes as well as the same kind of comments worded very similarly. Too similar, I believe, to be purely coincidental. Last time I checked, however, that account seems to have been abandoned. Afterwriting (talk) 12:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, what exactly is wrong with this edit? I see no problem.--2nyte (talk) 11:02, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Fairly significant changes without discussion. Something along those lines could have been OK, but to do it unilaterally, without discussion, in the current climate, was purely confrontational. You will note that when asked to discuss it, he simply abused. Not smart. HiLo48 (talk) 11:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with my editing, I have removed the reference to broad claims, irrelevant material and weasel words what HiLo48 is asking for is nothing short of support in a round of meat puppetry. If you would like to continue this I am more than welcome and willing to go to AN/I on grounds of harassment. You have refused to discuss and have used expletives in your edit summary. There are grounds enough there alone... --Orestes1984 (talk) 11:06, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

What utter nonsense. Just about everything to do with your editing is a problem. You don't seem to have a clue ~ and you have already revealed yourself as a sockpuppet. Afterwriting (talk) 11:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

LOL... This is my only account on Misplaced Pages, your claims are baseless, and you are being verbally abusive here as well AGAIN. This counts as nothing other than grounds for harassment. There are no grounds here for confrontation other than in the thoughts held be HiLo48. Furthermore, discussing matters surrounding a separate article on this page are nothing more than silly. Furthermore, I was never asked to discuss the matter on the specific article page. If you wanted to discuss then I would be more than willing to discuss on the appropriate page which is Talk:Names_for_association_football or at a stretch my user page, Hilo didn't bother to engage on either front before unilaterally reverting. --Orestes1984 (talk) 11:21, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Pull the other one ~ it has bells on it! There is very good evidence indicating sockpuppetry by you on soccer articles. And you have also repeatedly shown yourself to be incapable of intelligent discussion as your silly dismissal of Misplaced Pages's policies on article titles as "irrelevant" amply demonstrated. You are just another repeatedly contentious editor with a personal agenda who pushes the agenda against all evidence and logic. Your criticisms of HiLo are also remarkable examples of hypocrisy. Afterwriting (talk) 11:51, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I will reiterate that this is my only registered account on wikipedia, your accusation otherwise is nothing short of harassment, particularly when you fail to substantiate your claims. This thread in particular is nothing short of wikipedia:hounding where I am being asked to discuss changes being made on a separate page. This is not User talk:Orestes1984 or Talk:Names_for_association_football. The claims you've raised about Misplaced Pages:Official names are irrelevant as that's not what I am discussing. I was merely asking for a substantiation in the page that the common name is soccer and have been nothing short of harassed. I am dealing with a user here who has repeatedly been engaged in battles that display nothing short of incivility and your character defamation is nothing short of harassment. If you want to continue with this do it, at AN/I I've had enough of this. --Orestes1984 (talk) 11:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Your repeated hypocrisy and ridiculous comments are quite remarkable. Who the hell do you think you are?! Do you think we have nothing better to do than to keep putting up with your continuous nonsensical "arguments" and contentious editing? I've certainly had enough of your crap! Afterwriting (talk) 12:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Raise the issue on AN/I if you have one otherwise desist from your harassment --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:14, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

More of your hypocritical crap! Afterwriting (talk) 12:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

This is not the place to clear these kinds of incidents up, if you have an agenda to put forward do it at AN/I --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The only "agenda" I have is to try and prevent people misusing Misplaced Pages for their own silly little agendas. You just don't get it! Afterwriting (talk) 12:22, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

A friendly reminder that purposely tracking a user for reasons such as the above can be construed as wikipedia:hounding. I would desist before you get too far along your little agenda here as this thread is evidence alone of wikipedia:hounding and WP:MEAT . If you have an ongoing issue with me, be brave and raise the issue at AN/I. This is not the place to resolve it. I am not simply just going to follow your directives by your "who do you think you are" harassment. If you have substance in your claims then raise an issue at AN/I --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

When all else fails you resort to these silly games. You still don't get it! Afterwriting (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

There are no silly games going on here you do not have rights under WP:OWN to that other article, neither yourself or Hilo raised an issue in the appropriate manner either on my talk page or on the talk page of the specific article. There was no agenda involved in my edits, this is nothing short of wikipedia:hounding. If you have a serious issue with me then raise it at AN/I or desist you are playing the ball in the wrong court and you have failed to even discuss with myself in the appropriate places before you made any of these wild accusations. --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Your comments, as usual, are both absurd and hypocritical BS. You will need to be a lot more clever if you want to fool me with your little games. You won't achieve anything except further wasting everyone's time. Afterwriting (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

If it is a game then call me out raise the matter at the appropriate place, otherwise please desist from your abusive language. --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Yawn!!! Snore!!! (Can someone please wake me up when Orestes finally stops all of his boring hypocrisy.) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Afterwriting (talk) 12:58, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

OK then we're obviously good then and the previous changes on the other page I made can be reverted back to. There was no agenda involved other the preposterous ones raised in Hilo48s head, there was no need to discuss and if there was a need to discuss then it should have been done appropriately either on the article page itself or on my talk page. --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:BRD says you can Boldly make such changes without discussion if you really, in good faith, believe them to be justified, then someone else who disagrees with that view can Revert, then you MUST Discuss. Discuss doesn't mean "Accuse those you disagree with of being stupid and part of an evil conspiracy". HiLo48 (talk) 22:03, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Well said! Afterwriting (talk) 22:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

BRD also says that you must discuss, a concept that you failed to address before getting all the way down this path and flaring up issues that could fall under WP:MEAT AND furthermore it also says BRD must not be used simply to revert edits that you disagree with. Anyway, I'm about sick of THIS issue and the ongoing harassment and user space harassment which is unjustified. NEXT TIME, use the correct talk page if you wish to discuss, THIS is not it and do not create threads that could be construed as WP:MEAT simply to support your pro AFL agenda --Orestes1984 (talk) 02:22, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Disengage

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. Please discuss the article rather than the editors. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:47, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Everybody needs to disengage with the personal attacks, this is getting beyond where any resolution can be obtained without WP:ARBCOM intervention which will result in editors being topic banned, or even enjoying holidays that is neither good for the article nor the subject matter. I have offered to frame an RFC after 26th but I can as easily frame an arbcom case as well. PLease discuss the subject but keep the opinions of others out of the discussions. Gnangarra 02:39, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

That post contains unhelpful generalisation. You said "Everybody needs to disengage with the personal attacks". I don't believe I've been making personal attacks. I did a lot of research into the use of the name "soccer", carefully prepared a comprehensive and informative post about it, and was roundly abused by Orestes. I don't know how many warnings he can get without real sanction. I have a quiz question: When is a warning not a warning? When it's followed by further behaviour of the kind the editor was warned about, then followed by another warning, then followed by further behaviour of the kind the editor was warned about, then followed by another warning, then followed by further behaviour of the kind the editor was warned about, then followed by another warning, then followed by further behaviour of the kind the editor was warned about, then followed by another warning, then followed by further behaviour of the kind the editor was warned about, then followed by another warning, then..... Please note the repeated allegation in the post immediately above this thread about my "pro-AFL agenda". This allegation has been made dozens of times by Orestes, about several of us here. Is it not enough evidence on its own of behaviour deserving sanction? HiLo48 (talk) 03:23, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Exactly. It is disgraceful that appropriate action by an administrator wasn't taken against Orestes much earlier. This could have spared us all a lot of grief. I have seen some ridiculous and immature behaviour on Misplaced Pages over the years but Orestes probably takes the cake. Virtually everything he has attacked other editors about is a much more accurate description of his own behaviour. And yet I get the administrator warnings for "personal attacks" instead of him ~ giving him "permission" to think he is in the right and encouraging him to be even more abusive. This is farcical. We should not have to tolerate such behaviour by an editor who clearly lacks the needed competence to contribute with intelligence or maturity. Afterwriting (talk) 09:43, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, a very shallow and insulting approach from Gnangarra. This a geographically complicated issue. All but one of those arguing against soccer come from Sydney and Brisbane, all on the non-Aussie Rules side of the Barassi Line. It's obvious they don't know how the language works on the other side. Each time I try to explain it, at least one of these editors abuses me, and the people living on the other side of the line. Any wise administrator who had a good look at at least some of the broader history would have made a fairer comment than that. HiLo48 (talk) 21:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

ok these must be erroneous , Comment on content, not on the contributor please chose your language more carefully in the future because that is not what I've been reading and understanding with your comments. Gnangarra 13:24, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The first of those links is me highlighting the fact that a user was creating massive disruption on hundreds of soccer articles. He was not communicating at all with other editors, and still hasn't! He was probably led astray by the bullshit editors like Orestes1984 have been posting. It needed to be stopped quickly. I believe he is incompetent, but he's still here! (Did YOU do anything about him?) No apologies from me on that one. The second link is one from Afterwriting. I could try to say something, but I'll leave it to him. HiLo48 (talk) 06:44, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

You should also "choose your language more carefully in the future". Your highly inadequate and inconsistent behaviour as an administrator has only helped to fuel matters. You should pay more attention to justified criticism of how you have mishandled things. Afterwriting (talk) 06:07, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

If I may pleas comment?

Simply the fact that "Orestes has taken the battle elsewhere" should be seen for what it is. Hilo was using this page to establish a case for meat puppetry and nothing else and in terms of administration he should consider himself very lucky not to be sanctioned for such a statement. I have been as abused, if not more so and had my "competence" challenged by both Afterwiting as well as Hilo and verbally threatened with "who do you think you are" type comments merely for stating my opinion and going against a consensus which I believe is false, I have also been followed by a number of users. One in particular, Bidgee, who was not even originally a part of this discussion, I have an ongoing assumption also that my edits are also monitored by Afterwriting purely for the purposes of harassment. This is ridiculous on both sides of the argument. I do believe Hilo in particular needs to step away from the keyboard as he already has a track record of incivility towards other users particularly on football (broadly) related pages. The fact Hilo is trying to paint me alone out as being uncivil does not help his cause --Orestes1984 (talk) 16:04, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Your latest comments only serve to demonstrate your lack of personal insight into your own offensive and disruptive behaviour. You are principally responsible for this saga. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and begin to recognise how your negative comments about others apply to yourself. Enough is enough! Afterwriting (talk) 06:18, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Disengage and look at your own behaviour in a mirror, I'm sick of these kinds of incredulous statements purely being directed towards me. --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

"Soccer" is the "gentleman's name for the sport"

And "football" is the commoners' name for it,

See here. (Right near the end.) HiLo48 (talk) 06:29, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

How is this information relevant to the article?--2nyte (talk) 06:35, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, just doing some research and wandering through some documents. Thoughts I'd share some fun and/or interesting ones. HiLo48 (talk) 06:56, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, this is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.--2nyte (talk) 06:59, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

And here is a Commonwealth Government article effectively describing the Barassi Line. (Though they missed the Riverina.) HiLo48 (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

And, rather tellingly, this "barrassi line" is not mentioned anywhere.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 08:34, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Again, how is this information relevant to the article? The linked article debunks your Barassi Line theory, stating "Football (soccer) is recognised by many to be the first sport in Australia to establish a truly national competition", meaning not restricted by region, unlike AFL and NRL. Also the first article was posted on Feb 1, 2001 and the second on Jan 10, 2004. Since that time the Australian sporting landscape has dramatically changed.--2nyte (talk) 06:56, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, the soccer landscape has changed. The other sports haven't changed much. The Barassi Line is still there. I have no idea what you mean when you say the article debunks my Barassi Line theory. Do you pay much attention to any sports other than soccer? HiLo48 (talk) 07:48, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The Barassi Line has nothing to do with soccer in Australia. It has zero to do with soccer. The Barassi Line is purely about where rugby league is played versus where Australian rules is played. The only possible universe where Barassi Line is debunked by soccer is if some one is arguing "Australian rules is the exact same sport as soccer." Barassi Line is not a linguistic concept of where the term football is used. It is about the relative REGIONAL popularity of these TWO codes as they compete with each other. @2nyte:, which sport are you arguing soccer is as it related to the Barassi Line? Rugby league or Australian rules? --LauraHale (talk) 09:04, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Interesting link from HiLo48 as it states Soccer is now formally known as 'football' in Australia, in line with international usage. its uses Football(soccer) for clarity Gnangarra 12:52, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

There's not really any question about what the formal name is. :) The debate is only about what the common name is. I am a bit lost about what is being referred to as the "Barassi line argument", though. - Bilby (talk) 13:00, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The argument is the same as Mumbai and Uluru more sources for old names but the new name is what is being used and has been the dominant name to describe the sport for a reasonable period of time. Gnangarra 13:28, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

It would be the same if there was already a big rock called Uluru when the name was changed, that was just as popular. :) What makes this difficult is the ambiguity "football" causes, such that it may not be the dominate name in all states. So we either a) go for a formal name that creates ambiguity and isn't always the common name; b) go for a common name that isn't the formal name, and which the formal body is trying to move away from; or c) go for an international name which is barely used in Australia. At any rate, the issues haven't changed. Maybe "Association football in Australia" will win enough support to let us move on. - Bilby (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

There are a number of editors that are trying to mainain a fringe theory here that the Barassi line, a concept which according to them divides Rugby and Australian Rules football, is also applicable to "soccer." I have tried to also remove this from the names for Association Football article on the grounds of relevance, but am currently tied up in a BRD over that. Frankly, BRD is not something that has to be officially be followed, but unlike some others here I am actually willing to and have a proven track record of compromise in my actual article editing.

There is very little evidence out there that the Barassi line has anything to do with soccer, other than indirectly. In fact from the research I've done on the matter "soccer" has been seen as a football code that has been played by foreigners and migrants pretty much as long as there has been recorded history on the matter, those who wish to continue along that path should really read Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories and come up with a solid evidence based position to support this linguistic divide in Australia or desist from that line of reasoning. They should particularly look at this bit A theory that is not broadly supported by scholarship in its field must not be given undue weight in an article about a mainstream idea, and reliable sources must be cited that affirm the relationship of the marginal idea to the mainstream idea in a serious and substantial manner. IF the Barassi line has any relevance to the name of association football or "soccer" in Australia it must be substantiated as any other claims aside from that are fringe theory. --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:03, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit lost by that, as clearly soccer is played nationally. My best guess to what you are referring, if I understand things correctly, is that the argument at issue is HiLo's one that says states where Australian rules is traditionally played used "football" to refer to Australian rules football. Thus in those states there has been a resistance to moving to calling soccer "football", as the term already had a different meaning. Is that what the "Barassi line" argument is about? If so, it doesn't appear to be a fringe theory. The use of "Barassi line" to distinguish the Australian rules football states may not be used often in the relevant sources, but the situation seems reasonable. Or are we referring to a different argument? - Bilby (talk) 14:21, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

That's pretty much the crux of this ongoing debate, Hilo seems to suggest that in states where AFL is dominant, football has been and continues to be used pretty much exclusively to refer to Australian Rules football because of the Barassi line at least in the direct sense. The line I take which is reasonably well supported is that "soccer" is in its current position as its been traditionally a sport considered to be played by those on the outside of Australia's football culture divides which has very little if anything to do with it being a result of the Barassi line. If anything, the marginilsation of "soccer" has had an indirect effect on both sides of the line where "soccer" has been pushed to the margins of society where it has been played by "sheilas, wogs and poofters" . It still is if we look at the recent media about "soccer" fans that has been getting fairly broad coverage. This has been the case, it would appear, since the 1800s according to what I've read and that's both in Sydney (Wanderers) and Melbourne (Victory) where it would appear to be continuing. Pretty telling that it has nothing to do with the Barassi line, but general acrimony towards the sport on both sides of the fence.

In terms purely of anecdote and nothing more, I have played "soccer" since way back 20 odd years ago, even then while we played "soccer" in Queensland the discussion was relevant that the game was "football" elsewhere and rightfully "football" (soccer). Also from an anecdotal context this has always been the case among most "migrants" of which I might also be considered (for the purposes of "soccer") even though I was born here full well knew that the international game was "football" even those of my extended family who originate from Melbourne like a large percentage of Australians of Greek descent.

While at orginisation and club level it may have been soccer, I have a fairly dim view that it has anything to do with the Barassi line, and from what I've read I'd loosely suggest that it was if anything more to do with the broader historical context and the establishment of other "football" codes before "soccer" really gained any traction with the wave of migration of predominately Southern European migrants after World War II. Football was already rugby in the northern most states of New South Wales and Queensland, and AFL elsewhere but this is not the Barassi line this is just an Australian context of wherever so it happened that a code simply became dominant historically while "soccer" was an outsiders sport. The Barassi line simply does not explain away the nation wide hostility towards the sport of "soccer" nor does it adequately explain the issues with the name "soccer" in Australia. "Soccer" is, or was depending on which way you look at it "soccer" purely because it never got the traction to become football in any part of Australia. It has very little directly to do with any artificial lines in the sand and if anything it has more to do with not being "Australian" enough.

I had used references that supported this assertion in my most recent edits of the history of the sport, but for the majority it would seem they've been removed. I'm not sure why other than the fact that they're behind a paywall, but as per the rules on sourcing, just because it is hard to access does not make it any less acceptable as a source --Orestes1984 (talk) 15:34, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

We're actually getting somewhere here. Unfortunately, it's obvious that some here don't like the concept of the Barassi Line. Feel free to challenge the existence of the article if you wish, but right now it exists, and I find it a handy term to describe the division of Australia into parts where Rugby League AND Union are more popular, and where Aussie Rules is more popular. My point is that in the Aussie Rules part, "football' has meant only one thing for 150 years. In the other part, "football" already had multiple meanings. Adding an extra meaning for football was always going to be easier where people were used to multiple meanings, but not where it only meant one thing. That, combined with the fact that "football" is the common name for Aussie Rules in that part of Australia, means that "soccer" is the common name of the round ball game there. And "soccer" carries no negative connotations there. It IS the name of the game, for virtually everybody. (Including gentlemen - see the title of this thread.) And the game is thriving. There is nothing wrong with "soccer". Yes, the Barassi Line thing is an indirect connection. I've never tried to claim otherwise. I'm not trying to prove anything here, or convince anyone of anything. I'm just describing a very relevant reality in a part of Australia where most of those seeking change don't live. HiLo48 (talk) 21:35, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, so in the Aussie Rules part of the country, "football" has only meant Australian rules football. How would you explain the use of "football" by hundreds of association football clubs, and the use of "football" by Football Federation Victoria, Football Federation Tasmania, Football Federation South Australia and Football West? Surely these recent changes represent a change in the sporting landscape / culture / or language. As you said, the game is thriving, and the sport has the highest participation and supporter rates in those states out of the football codes.--2nyte (talk) 01:26, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

The clubs and association were told to change by the national body. Many did. Surely what's more notable is the number that haven't changed. That so many are willing to defy a national instruction is telling. (Have any not changed to "football" in Sydney?) And even with all those clubs that have changed their official name in the Aussie Rules domain, I can assure you that the fans and players still call it "soccer" in day to day conversation. Not sure about the highest participation claim. Certainly true at a junior level, but figures at a senior level are hard to come by. Not arguing about it though. It may well be true. Just advising caution in claiming it. HiLo48 (talk) 01:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Clubs and associations were not told to change their names to "Football", that was decided by the individual clubs and associations themselves. The only such incident in the sport was by Soccer Australia in the 90's, when clubs were required to change their names and badges to remove any ethnic ties the clubs had.--2nyte (talk) 02:30, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Hmmmm. I noticed a pretty powerful campaign to get rid of the name "soccer". What was it? "Old soccer, new football" or something like that? And a lot of clubs in my neck of the woods have ignored it. So that was a serious question. How has the conversion rate been in Sydney? HiLo48 (talk) 03:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, the "old soccer, new football" slogan was a marketing campaign by FFA to gain public awareness of the "rebranding" of the sport. There was never a push by FFA for clubs or state federations to use "Football", they were never told to change their names, they just decided to do so on their own merits.--2nyte (talk) 04:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

OK. How has the conversion rate been in Sydney? It's a genuine question. I know the situation in Melbourne, but not Sydney, and I'm curious. HiLo48 (talk) 04:55, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, if you are asking how many clubs have changed their name from Soccer Club to Football Club in Sydney then I don't know the answer, though I do know that all of the high-profile (top division) clubs have changed to "football", and I know many hundreds outside NSW, as well as many Victorian clubs have changed to "football"; again, these recent changes represent a change in the sporting landscape, culture, and language in Australia. On the other hand, maybe a good question would be how many association football clubs have changed their name in recent time from Football Club to Soccer Club? I would suspect none.--2nyte (talk) 05:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Almost certainly true. But what gets me is that there's a handful of you here so determined to not allow "soccer" to be used that you will accept a name nobody knows, "association football", while many clubs all over the country, along with their fans and players, are perfectly happy to use the single, unambiguous, universally understood, common name of "soccer". I truly don't understand your position. HiLo48 (talk) 05:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, it is an academic position. We are forming an encyclopedia, so how should we present this sport to not only Australian readers, but to readers who know nothing about the culture, the language and the sporting landscape in this country. What is the best way to present the sport to all these people without bias. I do agree that "soccer" is currently the single, unambiguous, universally understood, common name for the sport. Though it is not the only current name for the sport, and unlike "football" or "association football" it's specific usage has been 'called off'. The title Association football in Australia is the best title simply because it doesn't have the restriction that "soccer and "football" have. It is a completely unbiased and very common name for the sport on wikipedia; and that's what we should be seeking.--2nyte (talk) 05:43, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

"Soccer" is used by an awful lot of Australians. I don't think many people around the world will be confused by our usage of it. It works for America. Your term "called off" is unconvincing. Clearly, soccer fans themselves do not have a common view on the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 06:35, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Clearly the sport is moving away from the term "soccer", as are many media outlets in Australia (based in NSW or otherwise), and the article itself explains a move away from the term "soccer" in Australia. It would then seem confusing to many - biased to others - that we would continue to name this article Soccer in Australia when Association football in Australia is a perfectly acceptable, maybe even better fit title.--2nyte (talk) 06:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

How can a name that nobody understands at first sight be "perfectly acceptable"? (And how on earth did Misplaced Pages decide to use it at all?) HiLo48 (talk) 06:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, do you think readers (that don't study biology) actually understand every word in the opening paragraph of Mycobacterium at first sight? Of course they wouldn't and we don't write article for people to understand every word at first sight. Soccer in Australia would be redirected and the term "association football" would be explained in the first line, as it is in the Association football article.--2nyte (talk) 07:10, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Mycobacterium is a complex scientific article, with few alternatives to the proper scientific language. Soccer in Australia isn't. You still don't really seem to have an answer to "Why not use soccer?", apart from "I don't like it". A lot of other people do, including fans, players and club officials. HiLo48 (talk) 11:02, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the problem is that you still think the use of "soccer" is still acceptable on wikipedia. - The governing body change its name. The state federations independently changed their names. Hundreds of clubs independently changed their names. Media (not all regional, but all national) refer to the sport as "football". If you read this article, your conclusion would be that the sport is called "football". Many people still call the game "soccer" (and that is fine), but on[REDACTED] there are only two outcomes we can draw from: those are, 1) Football, 2) Not Soccer.--2nyte (talk) 12:35, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

The claim that soccer has the highest participation rate is a bit misleading - Australian rules has a higher participation rate in SA, WA, NT, Victoria and Tasmania. (Also, if you look at attendance, rather than participation, the attendance rates are much lower than the other codes in all states). It isn't a core issue, but it helps explain why the term "football" can mean different things in different states, due to the different dominate codes. - Bilby (talk) 01:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

"I find it a handy term to describe the division of Australia into parts where Rugby League AND Union are more popular"

Maybe it is, but until we get some solid evidence supporting the case it affects all sports in Australia it's a minor theory at best and at worst it falls under Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories. As I've stated it doesn't go broadly enough or deeply enough to explain a lot of things, which would appear to be glossed over, it doesn't explain the national agenda both AFL and Rugby Leauge in particular (of the rugby codes) have against the "soccer" code. It doesn't explain the history of the establishment of the game, as I've said, "soccer" until fairly recently has failed to gain any real traction in terms of broad public interest, and so never was established as the dominant code anywhere in Australia. You could argue that, that this is still the case, it would appear the average A-League fan has little interest in the international game, and furthermore that there is only narrow interest in the success of the Australian national team much in the same way there is only narrow interest in the northern most states in the success of the Swans/Lions in the AFL.

Anyway, the "Barassi line" or any such concept does not in terms of historical evidence explain away enough the situation which has led the sport of soccer to where it is now and furthermore as with that other article I see no point in inserting things into articles that could at best be described under Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories to come up with answers as to why it is the case that a sport for the majority played by the population of 3 states should have exclusive rights to the term football in any way shape or form, including a hands off policy on association football.

I've found it hard to find any real evidence from sources that the Barassi line actually delineates the term football in any state in terms of a soccer/AFL/rugby divide, if anything historically football is not soccer because it failed to gain any sort of prominence on Australia's sporting landscape. If anything you could argue for this case, but trying to explain it on a linguistic concept that does not exist in the sport of "soccer" really is pushing a heavy object up hill. Anyway, the point remains, it's football now which cannot be explained away, the obvious and open compromise is the use of association football with a redirect from this page to association football in Australia. This divisiveness to a non-threatening concept really must stop, or this article really is not worth maintaining. The use of I statements should also be refrained from --Orestes1984 (talk) 03:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

One of the sources you have used in the past, Rosenberg (2009) p248, mentions the Barassi line when highlighting the regional distinctions between football codes. It then discusses the "football wars" in terms of the use of the word "football". I am a bit confused as to why you refer to the Barassi line as a fringe theory - it isn't a theory, but just a term used to identify the traditional Australian football-playing regions from the regions that have traditionally supported other codes. - Bilby (talk) 04:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and Orestes is quite right in observing that the AFL and NRL will do anything in their power to limit the growth of soccer. That's how business works. And at that level, it's a business at least as much as it's a sport. And surely the only reason you want to use the effectively unknown name "association football" is because you won't use the much more common, universally understood, unambiguous name of "soccer". I keep trying to emphasise that there's nothing negative about it anywhere these days. A lot of players and fans use "soccer", as do many clubs. If you can show me that there is a problem with it, I may begin to see things from your perspective. So, show us the source that says that "soccer" is a bad name today. HiLo48 (talk)

Anecdotally soccer is and always has been an anachronism, a commonly understood anachronism but an anachronism none the less, there's also the many links to the word and what ended up happening when the NSL and soccer Australia collapsed which should be reason enough for any well minded "soccer" fan to support football and the FFA, in the end it was about taking the spirit of the game where it was envisaged by people like Johnny Warren and Frank Lowy, how well this has been achieved is an obvious matter of dispute. Anyway, a friendly conversation with someone who supports the world game proper will highlight this, as opposed to fans of "new football" (general) aka the A-Leauge. I'm not sure it needs much further explanation. If you have a long winded conversation with a "migrant" Australian you'll soon get a pretty good explanation as to why it just doesn't sit well. Anyway, I can't be bothered pushing this any further at this stage, so I'm going to sit on it for now. Sometimes it's best just to walk away.

As the general debate usually ends, its "Soccer" for the general public unwashed who don't understand the nuances and details of the game in Australia for the game played in Australia and football for those who support the game in Australia as well as watch the international code. You go off and sit in that corner over there -> I'll sit in that corner over here <- Really though it's simply just about growing up about things and that's where the anachronism stems from --Orestes1984 (talk) 07:13, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Please come to a "soccer club" (there are plenty of them), or a school, where "football" means "Aussie Rules", and tell them they're using an anachronism for the name of the game. That's a really stupid claim. It's worse when you declare that such people are not "well minded" or "grown up". You're back on the path of insulting people. Be careful, or I will report you this time. I'm getting very sick of your approach. HiLo48 (talk) 11:02, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Calling something an anachronism isn't an insult unless you choose to take it that way, it just is what it is, soccer is a well recognised anachronism of the sport at an international level in just about every country that calls the game football or a language/dialect spelling of football, you're out on your own if you wish to disagree with me on that one. There was also no reference to Australian Rules in my comment above, I am talking about "soccer" and we should remain on topic rather than having a blow up about a subject matter I didn't even touch. If you also consider "growing up" an insult I suggest you merely stay away from the game because they're not my words. It's the general perception held by "soccer" analysts and people of historical notability to the sport such as Les Murray, Johnny Warren, Frank Lowy as well as the current administrative body, the FFA has stated that the sport needed to grow up and part of that was "new football." To be insulted by the comments above shows a lack of understanding of the position of "soccer" in Australia, and particularly the last 10 years of the game in this country. It also really puts you out there as an Australian Rules supporter, that's not an insult either, but a perspective. Please do not take a trip to England, you may be easily insulted by someone over there who calls you a stupid git for using the word soccer. --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Calling anyone stupid, or not grown up, or not "well minded" for using the language the way it's been used for 150 years where they live IS an insult. You need to stop now. HiLo48 (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

As per above you are missing the concept and understanding of how the word football is used internationally, I would also seriously reconsider any AN/I reports as "nothing good ever comes from that place" and with the way you have been throwing mud at me you're just as likely to get a sanction. This has already been explained above. If you want to ignore the friendly advice from an administrator above you are more than welcome to go there though. But, I'll say one last thing... This place seem to mean a hell of a lot more to you than it does to me, so I'd watch it if I were you --Orestes1984 (talk) 03:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Now you've called me and others stupid, not grown up, and not "well minded" for the way we use the language, and you're accusing me of throwing mud at you. Please go on. HiLo48 (talk) 05:27, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

No, you have simply interpreted this in the wrong way. You are looking for a reason to be upset about the decision the orginisation that controls the sport in Australia made that it is "new football" and that its about time we all moved on. They also stated obviously it would take some longers than others. On the issue of being a stupid git, I did not call you a stupid git, I merely stated that if you went somewhere abroad you may be easily offended by someone who may call you a stupid git for using the word soccer. This is not an insult but a matter of cut and dry facts. --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:41, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I wouldn't be offended. Just further convinced that (some?) soccer fans are not very polite people. And I'm not upset that the FFA decided to change the name to football. I just don't think they realised or properly thought through how such a change was going to work where the word "football" is so ingrained with another meaning. They obviously marketed their idea successfully to you, but you don't live in the problematic area of Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 08:51, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Some British folks are just plain offensive as a matter of course, some "migrant" Australians are just as much so, I digress, Australia has never felt what it is to have a real conflict in their country, or a real reason to not be polite to people in general. If you lived under the Nazi government in Greece, or the military dictatorship, or in a former yugoslavic state you would think most people in general were contemptible idiots 90% of the time.

There is also simply the fact of misinterpretation between having an offensive opinion on a matter vs. having a spirited opinion about something some Australians can have about as much emotional feeling as a bag of cement. That being the case, what can often be seen as offensive behaviour by some members of Australia's multicultural society, can often be seen as nothing more than a spirited debate and at some point this all ends, we both call each other wankers (loosely translated) and we simply move on in a more "normal" conversation. The social movement towards causes that are either just or against those which are unjust is practically non-existent in this country and sometimes when people don't speak up they get exactly what they deserve. For as long as we're all Australians living in a multicultural society we must realise not all of us live the dream of VB and XXXX ads while singing come on Aussie come on, and I come from the land down under at the same time while listening to John Williamson. I invite you to take a trip down to Carlton, or Lygon street, or St Kilda wherever there is a large ethnic population even further out and actually sample what the culture is like out there.--Orestes1984 (talk) 10:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Yawn. HiLo48 (talk) 10:52, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

come on, stop being like that bag of cement --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Regional Variation: there should be no blanket rule

HiLo argues that "football" cannot be used since in AFL states that only means AFL. He's spent a great deal of time using the (irrelevant, in my opinion) Barassi Line to explain why "football" cannot be used Australia-wide. Fine, that's an argument for another day. But in non-AFL states, "football" (and particularly "association football") are commonly accepted and largely unambiguous terms for the sport. As such, it makes little sense to prohibit Western Sydney Wanderers or Sydney FC being called "football clubs" in their respective articles. I think it is quite frankly ridiculous to say that Sydney FC shouldn't be called a "football club" just because someone in Geelong, or Perth, might find this confusing. These clubs are teams for *Sydney*- not all Australia, not Victoria. If you think it's confusing, then don't call A-League teams in AFL states "football clubs." Go ahead and call them "soccer clubs." But in Sydney, the potential for confusing AFL fans in other states is absolutely irrelevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

There's a repeatedly achieved consensus on this. You have produced no new evidence. Please stop Edit warring at Sydney FC. I will treat future such changes as vandalism, and look towards reporting you for your behaviour. HiLo48 (talk) 02:01, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Now you're just refusing to answer the argument. Explain to me why the common meaning of "football" in Geelong or Melbourne is at all relevant to the name of association football in New South Wales. In Sydney- which is where Sydney FC and the Wanderers play -association football is commonly and regularly known as "football." *Your* name for the sport is irrelevant- what should matter is the name of the sport in the region that the club is playing in. So- once again, explain to me why the name for association football in Geelong is relevant to an article about a football club in Sydney. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 02:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Apologies if you're confused by the fact that it has been archived from this page, but see Talk:Soccer in Australia/Archive 3#Requested move again for the most recent formal move discussion. Please don't continue arguing it here without new evidence. HiLo48 (talk) 02:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

NO, the other discussion area is irrelevant. I'm not talking about the name for association football in Australia. I am talking about the name for Association football in *SYDNEY*. Answer my question- Why does the name for Association Football in Geelong have any bearing on a club from Sydney, — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 02:30, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Three minutes is not long enough for you to have read that thread. No point discussing this further until you do. HiLo48 (talk) 02:36, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Far out- I read it before I started this! Answer my question or you obviously have no justifiable response. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 02:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

OK. I'll humour you briefly. Sydney FC plays in a national league. It would be silly to have different teams in that league listed as playing different sports. I don't believe there's a precedent anywhere in Misplaced Pages. "Soccer" is the ONLY unambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game across all of Australia. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. HiLo48 (talk) 02:47, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

"Listed as playing different sports?"

You're kidding right? Association football and soccer are the same sport, just different names. The Socceroos play in international competitions- and internationally "football" is the most common word for the sport -and yet I recall you spending a great deal of time attempting to change the Socceroos'[REDACTED] page to "Australian national soccer team." Clearly you don't actually think that all teams should use the same name for a sport if they're in the same competition. You only use that argument when it suits you.144.132.236.205 (talk) 02:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you intend to grace me with a reply, HiLo? I want recourse to reason but you simply seem focused on pushing your on agenda of calling the sport "soccer" regardless of the situation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 03:25, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

When did I attempt to change the Socceroos' Misplaced Pages page to "Australian national soccer team"? I would not have done that. You clearly have not read all the preceding discussions. It was agreed that we would not change the national team and internationally oriented articles, and I have not attempted to. And to answer your core question, it would be just silly to have different names for the game being played by members of the same league. I know you are going to disagree with that. That's fine. This is a discussion page and differning views are welcomed. But please stop lacing your responses with attack style language. I am not pushing an agenda. This has nothing to do with anyone being an AFL fan. I've played more soccer than Aussie Rules. It's all about the name more than half of Australians use for Aussie Rules and for the round ball game. In Aussie Rules territory, even people who hate Aussie Rules call it "football". This has all been said before. Using these facts as attack points is foolish, and shows bad faith. HiLo48 (talk) 03:34, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Here is where you tried to change it: https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Australia_national_association_football_team#Soccer.3F_Has_it_become_a_non-word.3F Moving on, I don't see the problem with having different names for the sport in the league, especially considering that is the reality of the situation- Sydneysiders call the game football, Melburnians call the game soccer. If we're happy to call the game "football" in England and "soccer" in America, then we should be equally happy to call it "football" in New South Wales and "soccer" in Victoria. We don't have to decide which one of them is "more correct" and then adopt a blanket rule- there is no reason why we can't refer to the sport as "soccer" in Melbourne-related articles and "association football" or "football" in Sydney-related articles.

I am a member of Sydney FC and I have been since the club was founded. I am also a member of the Sydney Swans, for even longer. I honestly think it's misguided and unfair for my A-League club to be told the name of the sport it plays by some Aussie Rules fans from south of the border. 144.132.236.205 (talk) 03:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, you got that allegation about me completely wrong. Here are my precise words:

"I have no intention of trying to change the name of this article away from "...association football...". That's fine with me."

I await your apology. HiLo48 (talk) 03:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

I apologise :D But you still haven't responded to the bulk of my post, so I'll paste it here:

"Moving on, I don't see the problem with having different names for the sport in the league, especially considering that is the reality of the situation- Sydneysiders call the game football, Melburnians call the game soccer. If we're happy to call the game "football" in England and "soccer" in America, then we should be equally happy to call it "football" in New South Wales and "soccer" in Victoria. We don't have to decide which one of them is "more correct" and then adopt a blanket rule- there is no reason why we can't refer to the sport as "soccer" in Melbourne-related articles and "association football" or "football" in Sydney-related articles. I am a member of Sydney FC and I have been since the club was founded. I am also a member of the Sydney Swans, for even longer. I honestly think it's misguided and unfair for my A-League club to be told the name of the sport it plays by some Aussie Rules fans from south of the border." 144.132.236.205 (talk) 04:19, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Simple response. I disagree with you. And it's silly to say you are "to be told the name of the sport it plays by some Aussie Rules fans from south of the border". Isn't that effectively what the Sydney based administrators of soccer did when they decreed that the name of the sport throughout Australia would be "football"? At least you have the wisdom, something those administrators didn't appear to display, to see that the name "football" really is already taken in Aussie Rules territory and unlikely to ever become the common name for the round ball game there. HiLo48 (talk) 04:27, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

That's a silly comparison to make. Having random AFL fans tell me what to call my sport is entirely different from having the governing body of my sport tell me what to call my sport. Go to an A-League game- even in Melbourne -and the vast majority of football fans refer to it as "football." You still haven't explained why we can differentiate the name of the sport between England and America but not between New South Wales and Victoria. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 04:59, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

This isn't about "random AFL fans" telling you anything. Among other things, it's about me, and many others who know the situation, telling you that "football" means only one thing to most people in Aussie Rules territory. It means Aussie Rules. And it's the most common name for that game in that area. Even people who hate Aussie Rules call it "football". Soccer players call it "football". And all of those people call the round ball game "soccer". So please drop the "AFL fans" nonsense. That's alleging bias where none exists. On your other point, Misplaced Pages is unlikely to treat two states of one country like two entirely different countries. Of relevance there is the fact that a lot of non-soccer fans in NSW still call the game "soccer". And I'll try this one with you. Nobody else with your perspective is able to answer it. What's wrong with "soccer"? Don't tell me about the "official" change. That doesn't answer the question. I ask this knowing that all my soccer playing friends very happily call the game exactly that, "soccer". My suburb has a soccer club. It's a normal word around these parts. No negative associations. So, what's wrong with "soccer"? HiLo48 (talk) 05:18, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Media, governing bodies and clubs have dropped the usage of "soccer" in preference to "football". It's plane and simple. it's not personal opinion, it is fact, "soccer" has been dropped everywhere in Australia to an extent.--2nyte (talk) 05:41, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

That doesn't answer the question, what's wrong with "soccer"? And without quantification or other specifics those claims are meaningless anyway. You even felt the need yourself to qualify your own claim with "to an extent". What's wrong with "soccer"? HiLo48 (talk) 05:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

For the record, people can call the sport what they like, but in an encyclopedia I think football is the more appropriate name. The problem I- and the majority of football fans -have with the name "soccer" is that it is anachronistic. In fact it is often pejorative. Maybe not in your case, but many non-football fans use that name as a pejorative, without doubt. Ultimately, people use the proper names of all the other sports but then refer to ours by a nickname. It's debasing. Many non-football fans take glee in refusing to use the sport's proper name. If you haven't read Johnny Warren's book 'Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters' I recommend that you do. The fact is, "soccer" as a name will always have negative connotations for most football fans. It is an (often hurtful) reminder of an inglorious and unfair past.

So essentially, call it what you like in conversation. But this whole thread shows just how much association football fans care about the name of their sport. It's strange that non-football fans such as yourself are equally obsessed by the name of a sport that you don't follow yourselves. Clearly, there is controversy about the name of the sport. Clearly, a lot of people care. The only obvious solution is a compromise whereby the title becomes "Association football in Australia" with an opening line including the words "commonly referred to as football or soccer" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.132.236.205 (talk) 05:50, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

And that post displays the shallow bullshit that epitomises soccer=football campaigners. It completely ignores what I've said about language usage in half of Australia. It's a pointless post. Show me a good current source that says thee's anything wrong with soccer NOW. And I say again, ALL my soccer playing friends call it "soccer", so what are you saying about them? HiLo48 (talk) 05:57, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

And I'm retiring from this repetitive nonsense for the moment, unless something really demands attention. HiLo48 (talk) 05:59, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

We came to a pretty quick consensus as soon as I mentioned the word filibustering on that other article page HiLo48? It's just a shame that there is so many needless RFCs going on here, because the same situation probably wont work on this page. As I said this really isn't that painful and I wouldn't want to raise an an AN/I on this and/or other pages, because that's the way I see it, but I may have to if pages are consistently reverted just because you disagree with the terminology, particularly on an "association football" page. I have proven repeatedly that I edit in good faith, it's about time others were treated with the same dignity and respect. I am willing to wear one on the chin and raise this at AN/I if it does mean resolving the issue of filibustering. If it means kicking the can a bit further down the road so we can deal with this in a sensible manner, so be it, so I wouldn't tempt me to do it. Its about time we leave pages alone that clearly reference football, association football, or whatever in the article itself, and likewise AFL folks stay on their side of the line (NB: not referencing Ron Barassi). If you can't edit in good faith then clearly you are not competent to be here on this page. As per examples, It is bad faith to consistently revert edits to flagrantly incorrect article versions as you did Names_for_association_football. You have consistently railroaded and blockaded other editors from making changes to this and other soccer related articles purely because of a POV agenda, it's about time somebody actually said something. --Orestes1984 (talk) 07:21, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

In my experience, most people in NSW and QLD that I have spoken to use "football" in reference to rugby league rather than association football. Spinrad (talk) 10:07, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter, there is a group of editors that won't be happy with anything but soccer who think the whole of Australia needs to be coddled. They think people will confuse a game played with four goal posts and oblong ball on an oval with a game played with two goal posts, a cross bar with non extending posts and a round ball on a rectangular field. This has already been to AN/I where the user HiLo48 thought they could get rid of me, but that's not the point. AN/I cannot be used to resolve this matter, despite the fact that user HiLo48 believes that every user who disagrees must be subordinate to the users views... Or in direct quote "give up the fight." As HiLo48 should know though AN/I is not the place to resolve naming disputes such as this one... Nothing can change here until we have a change of consensus, or arbitration on the matter and no single user has to change their world views because of a set of rfcs that have occurred here.

As I said above, it really is a shame that this has to go through so many pointless rfcs... No one here is happy, but there is nothing we can do about it, this is an issue that will be irreconcilably unresolved simply because certain people need to coddled, and cannot even accept a broadly accepted Misplaced Pages wide compromise of association football. It really is more than a little bit silly... It is actually completely offensive and borderline derogatory when users such as HiLo48 call this all "shallow minded bullshit." Furthermore, that kind of language will be the same type of language that will see HiLo48 back at AN/I with another case to answer for with regards to his consistent and ongoing personal attacks against every user that does not subordinate to his own short sighted and reactionary viewpoint purely because the user lives in Melbourne. As far as I can see that argument has nothing at all to do with the contents of what should be an encyclopaedia that is both current and relevant, and everything to do with what is simply a POV agenda. --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Orestes, you just said "HiLo48 should know though AN/I is not the place to resolve naming disputes such as this one". I explicitly said in my opening post at that AN/I thread "This discussion must not turn into one on what the game should be called." It was intended to be entirely about your behaviour. My thoughts on your lack of manners, comprehension and competence are now further reinforced. I know you will probably fail to understand this post. It is primarily intended to show others how bad an editor you are. Those who want to present a serious case about changing the name of the game here should be doing all they can to get rid of you. HiLo48 (talk) 20:56, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

The way you phrased your discussion on AN/I made it anything but the case, this was not about me, but your shallow minded personal vendetta to get rid of anyone who doesn't believe in your version of the "facts" otherwise it would not have been about "giving up the fight" and before you say anything, those are your words not mine. I have bared witness to this on more than one occasion, what's worse is that you really are a cunning individual in the way you go about doing this. Now that is the truth. You continue to throw around issues of competence and yet you have shown consistently that you cannot edit within the lines of facts to save your life. Your consistent questioning of my intelligence is actually beyond being uncivil and is nothing more than a personal attack. You were reminded on AN/I to look at your own behaviour, do not turn this around and throw it back at me again... Your behaviour is completely and utterly atrocious and I have never ran into an editor that is more poorly mannered and impossible to work with than yourself, do yourself a favor and just walk away while you have some dignity, I'm over replying to your nonsense. --Orestes1984 (talk) 01:33, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Absolute rubbish. I go out of my way to choose explicit words saying it was not about the name of the game, and you insist that I really meant it to be about the name of the game. How much clearer can I be? You really are incompetent. How much longer can you be allowed to post here? HiLo48 (talk) 09:41, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I know it's easier said than done, but when dealing with incompetent editors there really isn't much point trying to have intelligent discussions with them. They simply, unsurprisingly, cannot understand or recognise just how incompetent they actually are and the negative effects they have on others. Attempting sensible discussion is nearly always more trouble than it's worth and a waste of time and energy. They usually have trouble expressing themselves with logic as well as emotional objectivity and common sense and prefer to keep provoking others and then blaming them for the resulting conflict. So it's generally best to try and ignore them until they find something else to focus their negative behaviour on. Afterwriting (talk) 15:06, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry HiLo48 I have no case to answer, as the administrators have stated, you have a history of throwing around this language and have been called out for it on more than one occasion with lengthy bans as a result. I will no longer put up with this, call me incompetent again and you will run the risk of going back up on AN/I for another round of incivility charges. Next time it will be me doing it so you cannot back away before a throwing stick hits you in the head... desist immediately or I will have no other option --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:24, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I dare you to take a case to AN/I claiming that when HiLo said "X" he really meant "Y". Laughable. Do try discussing the subject rather than me, honestly and rationally, accepting information from others that fills gaps in your own knowledge. HiLo48 (talk) 16:13, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

This talk page is a disgrace

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. Please discuss the article rather than the users. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 19:55, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

What a sad and sorry advertisement for Misplaced Pages and coöperative editing. --Pete (talk) 20:38, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Sheesh, tell me about it! And I thought Americans referring to "football" as this instead of this drives non-Americans nuts! Lol, I guess it is just as heated for Aussies too, not just us Yankees. Dwscomet (talk) 22:23, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry guys, there are certain users here that have a previous track record that speak for themselves, I am not one of them, I have never had as many issues with cooperation as I have had until I ran into a certain couple of users who patrol this page. --Orestes1984 (talk) 01:36, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

A group of meatpuppets who don't even like football have vowed to create false consensus in favour of keeping the official names of three sports on Misplaced Pages while stopping the fourth major sport (Football) from using its official name to appease those people who come mostly from one city of Australia who prefer a quaint sport truly popular only in that one city. Until they accept that all four sports should use their official names, there will continue to be issues. Macktheknifeau (talk) 01:53, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

"Only popular in Melbourne and nowhere else" Regardless of the side of the argument you are on I don't think we should be promoting falsehoods like that. Spinrad (talk) 04:03, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Please don't misquote me. I said only "truly popular only in that one city". No-one could possibly deny that the AFL is only massively popular in one city, Melbourne, considering that city provides 50% of the clubs in the highest level competition worldwide, and until relatively recently (on a timescale since the creation of the league), provided 100% of them.Macktheknifeau (talk) 10:11, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Correct, AFL has a proven interest at the highest competitive level with teams in a national competition in three states. Historically there is little proven interest in the sport outside of the areas of Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, or internationally. None the less anyone without their own biases would note the Australia wide attempts by some members of the rugby and AFL community to denigrate soccer at every given opportunity and no one should put it beyond them bringing their own biases here. If I refer to my own editing here names for association football it should be seen that I've done nothing more recently than attempted to clean up this mess. How this has gotten this far is well and truly beyond me. --Orestes1984 (talk) 04:36, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that this talk page is a disgrace. And I have been one of the culprits. But you really cannot take Orestes' comments above at all seriously. These are just further examples of his repeated inability to recognise the major unconstructive contribution he has made to this mess. His comments about others and his feigned innocence are risible. All he ever seems to want to do is blame other editors, distort and misrepresent their comments and then proclaim how good his intentions are while accusing other editors of "persecuting" him when his own frequently erroneous and abusive comments are challenged. He has also been treated favourably by an administrator who shares his opinions and who should know better. A neutral administrator should have taken appropriate action about his behaviour weeks ago. Enough is enough! Afterwriting (talk) 05:15, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Nowhere above did I state I was "innocent" or being "victimised" the words feigned innocence are your own and beyond what is actually being stated here. Your own abusive language and personal attacks at times have been reprehensible, there are no innocent parties here, so I wouldn't even begin to claim you're better than anyone else here. I am merely taking up defense of a position where other users have sat on the sideline and put up with the nonsense from yourself Hack, and HiLo48, sometimes that kind of confrontation to the status quo can be a little challenging to deal with. My intentions are clear as above, that is all I am saying, you are reading what you want to see in this where there is nothing to be seen beyond what I have stated. If anything I have brought this kind of disrepute in discussion with yourself and the aforementioned parties simply to address your true character, which is what stands out every time my intelligence and integrity is challenged by yourself, Hack, HiLo and the rest of your tag team, the fact you believe that this should be resolved purely in your favor is entirely incomprehensible. --Orestes1984 (talk) 05:37, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

As I said, Orestes, enough is enough. You have been repeatedly and excessively offensive and abusive to myself and other editors. You have also repeatedly accused other editors of "persecution" and played the victim card. That is an undeniable fact. You constantly see the chip in someone else's eye while failing to notice the beam stuck in your own. Responsibility for the conflict between you and other editors on this page and elsewhere is overwhelmingly due to your behaviour. The sooner you realise this the better it will be for everyone. Afterwriting (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Hows about no, your own behaviour needs looking at and the consistent and ongoing use of four letter words by HiLo48 should have seen him blocked ages ago, your actions are a little better but not by much, if you want to throw personal attacks at myself I will not simply stand down. You are not an authority to yourself here either, so I wouldn't try that role. User interaction history is not in your favour here, so I would strongly consider you take a good hard look in the mirror before you continue hounding me about not falling into line. The facts are,[REDACTED] is not a bureaucracy and I do not have to agree with your position, nor do I have to fall in line with consensus here. If you do not like me, that's fine, stay behind your line in the sand. Nowhere in the rules does it say we have to be friends in order to edit here... Every time you have a disagreement with me you paint this horrible picture which is exaggerated beyond belief. I'll give you something Afterwriting, you'd make a good politician. Not only have you created a good smear campaign here, you've also dragged administrators into it. Well done... --Orestes1984 (talk) 06:22, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Usual self-pitying comments ~ "tag team", "smear campaign", "personal vendetta", "hounding", "persecution". Your list of provocative and false accusations against me and other editors who challenge your opinions continues to expand. Very sad. Afterwriting (talk) 12:26, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Except no it's not and I didn't say I was being persecuted, get your facts straight. There is nothing going on here other than your own dramitisation of the events because you would wish to label me with a non-existent persecution complex. --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:50, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the talk page is really that big of a problem. The fact that the name of the page has remained stable despite all the disagreements here is a positive sign of Misplaced Pages's collaborative editing. -- Chuq (talk) 13:18, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I think its time we archive the last 6 discussions on this page and get on with the business of what to do next --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:57, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The disagreements are the problem here. The name of the page itself, not so much. It's not as if this was a highly-politicised or religious topic, where editors are inclined to kick heads. It sets a bad example for newer editors to see folk who should be setting the example acting so poorly. Hatting or archiving non-productive sections would be a start - like immediately cleaning up graffiti tags. Keep the personal warfare invisible and leave the talk page for useful editing discussion. You know, like 99.9% of Misplaced Pages talk pages which are boring in the extreme. --Pete (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed these insults serve no purpose other than to make us all look like children, something I shouldn't have been drawn into in the first place, but it's a bit hard not to with charges of "incompetence" and being called a "moron." That kind of language is clearly unnecessary, and charges of lack of[REDACTED] competence should not be something that should be used where the same claims can be returned to the user that first threw them out. Lets start by sorting this mess out and returning to the discussion on where to take things from here. It would be wise if someone would archive the last 6 discussions here. The real questions to be answered are 6 discussions up. --Orestes1984 (talk) 18:44, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

Just quietly, but do you think you are helping keep things cool? Maybe dialling things back a notch might help. Your voice is important, of course, but maybe counting to a hundred before responding. I always find that a moment of stillness and quiet helps focus my thoughts. --Pete (talk) 19:19, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

About time we talked about the name again

Looking at the !vote on consensus for a name change, there look to be more for Football or Association football than Soccer. Time for a formal discussion? --Pete (talk) 05:01, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

My opinion is to update Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Football in Australia) and have it as standard on Australian[REDACTED] articles.--2nyte (talk) 05:10, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

What is the actual reason for a name-change? So far I haven't seen any solid reasons for a name-change, just ideology and opinions. Spinrad (talk) 06:17, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Change in usage. Mass media calls the game football or association football nowadays, the official bodies and clubs go the same way. The only people calling it soccer seem to be those not involved in the sport. --Pete (talk) 06:23, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I've only seen "football" used in a couple of newspapers and their websites (and only in the sport sections) it isn't a universal thing from what I can see. I've never heard anything other than "soccer" used in TV media either. Involvement in the sport may be too difficult to define to make it a relevant argument. Spinrad (talk) 06:34, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

No offence, Spinrad, but do you really think that anecdotal opinions of a couple of editors are a good basis for this? How about we assemble some reliable sources? Perhaps the sport sections of major newspapers would be an excellent place to start. --Pete (talk) 12:06, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that anecdotal opinions of a couple of editors is a good basis for this, which is why I asked about actual reasons in the first place. Spinrad (talk) 13:40, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. That's why I mentioned sports pages of major newspapers. Something everyone may easily check. The Australian, for example: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/football --Pete (talk) 01:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

As mentioned a while back. NewsBank lists 23,766 articles in the Australian press during 2013 which used the term "soccer". While we can debate the extent to which the term may be becoming less common, it continues to be extensively employed. I don't think the use of football or soccer in mainstream media is going to help decide this, given that both terms are being used, and I doubt that there is data available to let us know which is being used the most. - Bilby (talk) 01:32, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I would like to know how many uses of "soccer" were actually for "Socceroo". Though I agree with you last point, I don't think this should be decided with statistics. We know "soccer" and "football" are prevalently used to refer to the round ball game, though the usage of "soccer" is lessening and the usage of "football" is only increasing. That alone draws a pretty solid conclusion.--2nyte (talk) 02:01, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Just as a point of interest, searching for soccer and excluding socceroos gives 21,535 articles in 2013, when limited to Australian press. - Bilby (talk) 13:18, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Spinrad, on your first post: What is the actual reason for a name-change?. The fact is that many hundreds of clubs all over Australia have independently changed their names from Soccer Club to Football Club, all governing bodies have done so as well. As the sport has risen in popularity over the years, media (most notably national media) have adopted the usage of football in reference to the sport. That is not "ideology and opinions", that is fact. We would do well to follow, using the terms "association football" and "football".--2nyte (talk) 12:50, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Last I checked Misplaced Pages generally prefers common names to official names. So I don't see why any name-change should even be considered until it can be proven without a shadow of doubt that "football" or "association football" is the most commonly used name for the sport in Australia. Spinrad (talk) 13:40, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

That was the point of my last post; that the usage of "soccer" has lessened and the usage of "football" has increased in recent time. I would even boldly state that a majority of clubs have dropped the usage of "soccer" and same with national media. If this is true I see the need to use the terms "association football" and "football".--2nyte (talk) 01:01, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

This discussion has come down to something very simple.

In Australia common name can not (or should not) apply to the term "football". Specific to this discussion, in Australia association football is commonly know as both football and soccer. As Bilby mentioned above, "I doubt that there is data available to let us know which is being used the most" - we should not expect this to come down to 40% "Football"/60% "Soccer" - such statistics simply do not exist.

Again, this discussion has come down to something very simple: On a national scale the usage of "soccer" has declined and the usage of "football" has increased in reference to association football - that is what is spearheading the argument, and if we are to continue referring association football as "soccer", then that statement must be proven false. If that statement is deemed true, then we should drop the usage of "soccer".--2nyte (talk) 04:12, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't see a single thing in the guidelines that recommends a change of article name on account of an apparent uptick in the use of a different name. Spinrad (talk) 05:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Now, now! It really comes down to how we editors interpret the sources available to us. There is definitely a surge of interest in the roundball game in recent years, presumably due to our participation in the FIFA World Cup and the changing demographics of the population. Whatever it is, there is a corresponding surge in support for Association Football as the "correct", "official" name for the sport. Just looking at the media, the names of the clubs, the various bodies, it's undeniable. Call it an "uptick" if you will, but I see that as denial, an attempt to sway opinion without reference to facts. In all honestly, can we see the change in media sites replacing "Soccer" with "Football" in their sports coverage as "just an uptick"? --Pete (talk) 06:01, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I haven't seen anyone using or advocating for using "Association Football" as the sports name. "Football" sure, but we can't really use "Football in Australia" for the article name. Also the media is not some silver-bullet for justifying a name-change because they are small, closed organisations of people that don't necessarily reflect the general public. You just can't use a handful of media outlets using "football" (usually only in said sport's section) as evidence that it has become the most common name for the sport in Australia. Spinrad (talk) 06:51, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Superbowl in America, hyperbole in Australia. Let's look at the evidence. I posted the link to "The Australian" above. The heading of "Football" under "Sports" leads to what used to be called soccer.

• Try it http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport
• Likewise the ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/sport
• Ninemsn, the same: http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/default.aspx
• Yahoo 7: http://au.sports.yahoo.com/
• SBS: http://www.sbs.com.au/ (Don't even have to go to their sports menu; it's right there on the main line as "Football".)
• Ten is the exception here: http://tenplay.com.au/sport/sports-listing they call it soccer, alone out of the national networks.

It's the same everywhere - any media outlet serving an Australia-wide audience, chances are very good that they use "Football" in preference to "Soccer": http://www.theguardian.com/au is a recent example. Now, maybe you see mass media in Australia as a closed shop, but consider that there is fierce competition between the outlets for the market share that drives their revenue, and that audience votes with its feet. Media here - as everywhere else but in dictatorships - are driven by their audiences. Niche markets will differ, of course, but national audiences overwhelmingly prefer football to soccer. --Pete (talk) 07:50, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian isn't a great example because it uses "soccer" on its Australian page which then links to an international page for the sport which remains static no matter which edition you view it on. Also as I said before the media is pretty much irrelevant to the argument.Spinrad (talk) 08:41, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. I see the mass media as woven directly into the popular culture. In a free market, the people reflect the media they consume, and the media takes its material from the population. You differ. Fine. --Pete (talk) 10:24, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Agree, the media takes its position based on what people are doing, clearly people are happy to understand that football means soccer. For the duration of the World Cup, as the premier dominant football tournament played out through Australia's sporting media millions of people will be hearing the term football. It's been this way for at least 8 years now... We can say for at least a fortnight every 4 years association football becomes the dominant football code in Australia. It has to a fairly significant extent rubbed of on the broader sporting landscape. It is now time we adopt the Misplaced Pages wide policy of using Association Football, and use football as the word for the sport in the article. A disambiguation can be placed at the start of the article. No one will be confused... --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:13, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

What does "common name" really mean for this topic?

There seems no doubt that "football" is the common name for the round ball game among its hard core Australian fans who live outside Aussie Rules territory. I believe that describes all those who come here arguing that it is "THE common name" these days. But that cannot be our definition of common name.

The article title uses the name "Australia", so for starters, we have to consider the whole country.

We must also consider usage among non-hard core fans of the game. They are in Australia too, and until Australia falls out of the World Cup later this year (hope it's not too early), will be talking about the game more and more. We almost all become at least soft core fans during that time.

This means that we must look at the name all Australians in all parts of Australia use for the game.

We need to look at what the media does all over the country, not just "nationally", which in fact has little effect on the local stage. The ABC, for example, might use "football" on its single website for the whole country, but it uses "soccer" in its Melbourne studios, and, I would strongly suspect, in its Hobart, Adelaide, Perth, Broome, Wagga and Darwin studios. (And many other places.) Other TV networks (apart from SBS) do the same. The country's biggest selling daily newspaper uses "soccer" in its print edition. Other newspapers in Aussie Rules territory do the same.

I have already provided evidence. A month ago up above, at 07:57, 3 January 2014 (UTC), in the thread titled "Soccer is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia" I provided considerable evidence for the point I am making. It wasn't just restricted to where I live. I looked at other states too. I think other editors need to become certain about how things are in parts of Australia where they don't live before they again make sweeping claims about the common name.

Just repeating, my main point is that the common name has to be based on the name all Australians in all parts of Australia use for the game, not just the usage seen by its hard core fans in part of the country. HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

HiLo48, you speak of "the name all Australians in all parts of Australia use for the game", yet you're examples are regionally specific. As is being discussed above, we have to go past the region verse region mentality. On a national scale the usage of "soccer" is in decline and the usage of "football" is increasing in reference to the round ball game; this is evident in national media and within the game itself.--2nyte (talk) 02:52, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

To be more precise, the usage of "soccer" HAS declined and the usage of "football" HAS increased, in part of the country, and by some people. We cannot predict the future, so we cannot really even describe it as still changing. Yes, my examples ARE region specific, but I've already acknowledged that serious fans in your part of the world do use "football". I'm saying that it's the other places and the other people we must look at. My main point is that "national" usage as claimed by many here is not representative of the whole country. And I strongly submit that we must look at the whole country. HiLo48 (talk) 03:00, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, I don't think decisions should be made on Misplaced Pages based on things in the future we can't predict. Also I can confirm that Hobart's ABC studios use "soccer" exclusively, as do the other networks. Spinrad (talk) 03:36, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm glad we're in agreement but I used present tense, not future tense.--2nyte (talk) 03:55, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, and I explained the problem with that. While you may know roughly what has happened up until some recent time, you cannot know what is happening right now across the country. Past tense is the only valid one. HiLo48 (talk) 04:06, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

If we need to look at anything it will be what the national broadcasters of the game are doing, in this case the licensing agreements are with SBS and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, Fox Sports I suspect which will be the other major player during the world cup will also be using football nationally. The print media then falls under that as a dwindling market. That isn't an attack, it's a simple look at the reality of what is going on regarding print based media.

We also seem to have an ongoing tense issue simply to insert agendas that could be covered under WP:Weasel certain words like "partial" as if reference to partially completed, period which is not the case at all seen here names for association football. As to what the country calls it, there is a lot more to this that is historical in nature, I won't get into that argument here again as it simply will not be acknowledged. I suspect, when we look at what it is called during the World Cup due to the current television and radio licensing agreements in Australia you're going to be hearing a lot about football as will the majority of people tuning in. For the duration of the World Cup football will be the dominant term as SBS and Fox Sports is where the majority of viewership and listenership will simply be getting their information from on the world cup.

Pushing the print media perspective is not going to get you anywhere... During the previous world cup "soccer" attracted the highest listener/viewership out of any football code in Australia, which can be categorically proven as a fact. Millions of people heard the words football repeatedly, day in and day out and not once did I ever see anyone running around like the sky was falling in the same way people do here. IF the World Cup is anything to go by then the name for the spo here should be football, it really is as simple as that. Millions of people simply accepted that football was the term being used, at least as far as the duration of the tournament. --Orestes1984 (talk) 12:43, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The frequency of "football" potentially increasing over a period of two weeks this year is a pretty bad reason for a move. In fact at this point you don't even seem to be debating why the article name should be changed, but rather why the general public should stop using "soccer" and start using "football". Spinrad (talk) 13:52, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The frequency of the usage of football for soccer will indeed be increasing as it has done and as it will continue to do so pretty much since around 2004, when all of these changes began to happen, our relative success in recent years of qualifying for the World Cup 3 times in a row is just a catalyst for this. But, at least every 4 years soccer does become the dominant football code, we can look at these facts in terms of raw viewership numbers. What that has to do with overall word usage is the fact that it has spawned a catalyst for ongoing attention to soccer (football) in this country.

The World Cup and Australia's predominately successful move to the AFC illustrates that there is more than a general interest in what the Socceroos are doing on an international level where the game is considered to be football. The broad national consensus for the usage of the word football in terms of national media as addressed above would appear to be football, the ABC, SBS, Nine, Seven, and Foxtel would all appear to have football as the dominant usage word in their style guides. This would appear to also be the case on every major network except channel 10. Using print media as an example is a pretty bad one primarily because print media is dying out anyway. We should look at digital media, analogue radio and the web. We've got a fair indication that most of the web based presence for the major networks are using football, most television based networks are using football, and the radio where football is predominately broadcast on the ABC and SBS are using football, either predominately or interchangeably.

The changes are occurring and it is fairly wide spread association football is a widely spread and accepted[REDACTED] category, and there is also a portal for association football. It's about time we got over this and accepted a widely held Misplaced Pages wide compromise of using association football where we cannot use what looks to have become the common name for the sport at least as far as the media is concerned. --Orestes1984 (talk) 15:34, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Orestes, you have not discussed the actual topic, which is by what process do we determine the common name for Australia. And to say "The frequency of the usage of football for soccer will indeed be increasing..." is pointless WP:SPECULATION and nothing more than wishful thinking on your part. Oh, and can we drop this ridiculous nonsense that TV networks are using "football"? Apart from SBS, it's just not true. The types of prgorams where the name of the game will be mentioned are produced locally (news, sport, etc) and the word used is the common one for each particular area. You have been told by two other editors in this very thread that in Hobart and Melbourne it's "soccer". Claiming otherwise is incredibly bad manners. HiLo48 (talk) 19:47, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

The national television networks are using "football" - SBS, ABC, Fox Sports, Sky News - they are all nationally represented and they all predominately refer to association football as "football". So in terms of on a national scale, in recent time the common name for association football has become "football".--2nyte (talk) 00:49, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Fox Sports and Sky News have a negligible market share and the ABC doesn't really seem to use "football" in its studios anyway, not that corporate policy is proof of common usage by society. Spinrad (talk) 03:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

HiLo once again you demonstrate your inability to think outside of the box you've put yourself in and we've returned to your commentary that everyone who disagrees with you is a "wishful thinker" a "moron" or something similar. I've been sorely tempted to start an RFC/U about this behaviour, it's just not acceptable. I'm sick of it and your behaviour that started all this nonsense not only with me but with everyone else. Please stop this needlessly derisive behaviour. You have been called out as childish by a number of administrators here when it comes to resolving disagreements with other editors.

By what process do we determine the common name of the sport?

One example is by what the media is doing at a national level and you have been given examples of this by another user here that the predominance of style in terms of web presences is football and furthermore that the two main broadcasting networks in Australia call the sport football. Your claim about it being apart from SBS is just not true, apart from SBS there is also Fox Sports, and Channel 9's Wide World of Sports as notable examples of national coverage I can think of off the top of my head that use the term football. From a national perspective this simply has been increasing and has been doing so since right about 2004, this is not wishful thinking.

Another way is to look at all those people, sporting clubs, etc, that have decided voluntarily to adopt the word football, even in your home state of Victoria for the game being played... They don't have to but they do, while here in Queensland my local club has been renamed the Coolum Football Club. They've been around since 1975 and don't have to mandatorily change anything but they did anyway.

The other way is to look at what people are doing on the street, unfortunately despite your own "wishful thinking" we don't have a survey of linguistics that identifies that any one sport in any state has a predominant word usage of football that refers to any one sport, historicity tells us that this was the case at one point in time, but the modern landscape and influences of rugby league, union, and AFL across Australia have muddied the waters without looking at soccer on top of that, therefore we must look at what the current evidence based position is on the matter.

Until we have an evidence based position we can only go with what we know and that is that there are many sports called football, so the Misplaced Pages wide catch all category applies of association football. --Orestes1984 (talk) 02:11, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

2nyte and Orestes, you are both wrong about the ABC. The free to air commercial networks use the common name in each state, so it's "soccer" in Vic, Tas, SA, WA, NT and the Riverina. (Fox and Sky are irrelevant.) In repeatedly saying otherwise about the big networks you are claiming to know better than other editors who actually live there, and I'm pretty sure neither of you have ever been. It's not a sensible position to take. HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages guidelines seem to recommend avoiding name-changes unless there are very good, objective reasons to do so. So far no reason has been provided that isn't a matter of personal opinion or corporate media policy. Spinrad (talk) 03:52, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Spinrad, "very good, objective reasons"? - hundreds of clubs have independently changed their names, all organising bodies have independently changed their names and national media has independently adopted the usage of "football". Those is the best reason for name-changes. What more do you expect? A petition logged to Misplaced Pages from the Australian population? As was said above, "people reflect the media they consume", and the national media for "all Australians in all parts of Australia" has adopted "football" in preference to a long-standing historic usage of "soccer". That is completely objective and it must be represented on wikipedia.--2nyte (talk) 04:36, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Clubs changing their names doesn't really prove that "football" has become the most common name for the sport in Australia. Again corporate media policy isn't really an argument, not to mention the media's use of "football" is patchy at best outside of the internet. Doubly not to mention that many of the "national" media outlets mentioned above have tiny market shares at best. Spinrad (talk) 04:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, "We need to look at what the media does all over the country" and what the media does all over the country is "patchy at best" I think we can agree, and I stated further, it's getting worse which is why we have to look at the digital/analogue landscape of the national television and radio broadcasters SBS, the ABC, and Foxtel to find out what their respective style guides state. Predominately, this is football. As far as most of the other national broadcasters excluding 10, the dominant term seems to be football as well, seriously, watch Channel 9s general broadcast outside of the AFL Footy show, you have Wide World of Sports where football is used, I heard a bunch of cricketers talking about the football where they were referencing the round ball game on this years Ashes coverage, we see it in Channel 7's coverage. In general media outside of specific local news the use of the term football has more traction than those opposing wish to give it credit. The catch all category however where the case is that there is more than one code known as football is association football. It really is not that difficult, soccer in Australia would become a redirect and nobody except the die hard AFL and rugby supporters opposing would lose any sleep --Orestes1984 (talk) 06:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

You are wrong about the ABC and commercial networks. SBS and Fox have a direct commercial arrangement with soccer, so they are not taking an independent position. HiLo48 (talk) 07:49, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Anecdotal examples of traction aren't really a good basis for an article name change. We've also really got to get past the (wrong) idea that the media is some kind of arbiter of sports names in Australia. "Association Football" probably shouldn't even be a catch all category in the first place, since it's neither common or official in Australia, so that's another shaky argument at best. Spinrad (talk) 06:58, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the media could count as part of the evidence, but that evidence is not what Orestes and 2nyte claim it is anyway. As for what the clubs do, that's insider behaviour, and clearly only a minority of Australians. We must consider what Australians everywhere, fans or not, do. HiLo48 (talk) 07:49, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Lets face it HiLo, not to be rude or anything but... everyone who disagrees with you is wrong...I'm not asking you to comment on the above discussion but look at the links how am I "wrong?" How am I wrong when the most prominent all sports program on Channel 9 uses the term "football" to refer to soccer? What your local news broadcaster, not sure if you watch NBN, Prime, or whatever, but eitherway, what they do... It's actually kinda irrelevant, because that is a very small world perspective... You do know they call it "local" news for a reason right? --Orestes1984 (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

All those local stations that use "soccer" are going to add up though. Also as I said before what the media chooses to call a sport is not guaranteed to be representative of what a majority of a population calls said sport. We don't really know if it's even intended to be representative in the first place. Spinrad (talk) 12:37, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, I've suggested that someone find a linguistics study in the past, of which there isn't very many to put this all to bed, but HiLo seems to find it an afront that there is even such a discussion going on, or that such a concept should even be sourced. Let us be frank, we all know what Misplaced Pages says about unsourced information. "It may be challenged and deleted," personal anecdotes are not what this is about. We've all got more than a few to substantiate our own "personal" opinion. However, personal opinions violate NPOV and are seen as original research.... On two grounds, that's just not cricket. IF we ever want to resolve this then we need some research based linguistics studies from a credible source into how the word football is used in Australia at present, not 100 years ago, not 50 years ago, but what is actually going on now --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:46, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

I provided multifarious sources a month ago, at 07:57, 3 January 2014 (UTC), in the thread titled "Soccer is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia". I have many more. HiLo48 (talk) 20:18, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

There are four major sporting codes in Australia. Three use their official names. One is forced to use a nickname because of the AFL project meatpuppets creating false consensus. There would be no 'ambiguity' on Misplaced Pages should the fourth code be allowed to use the official name for the sport, because none of the other sports share that name. If there is 'ambiguity' that is a failure to correct report or use the right name in any article and should be fixed to point at the right sport. Rugby Union. Rugby League. Australian Rules. Football. I do find it interesting that people want to use the WP Common guideline as a reason to not use football, when I could just as easily use that same guideline to request that all use of Australian Rules on Misplaced Pages be changed to AFL since QLD & NSW (which are a majority of the country in terms of population and media) use AFL and not Australian Rules to describe the sport. Macktheknifeau (talk) 00:07, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Mack, the only case of meatpuppetry in the last RM was from you, recruiting Soccer supporters via Twitter, which you admitted to. Jevansen (talk) 09:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I think it's also important to point out that the use of "football" to mean "Aussie Rules" in the Aussie Rules part of country is not just a fan or "AFL Project" thing. It's everybody. Even people who hate the game call it "football". It's universal. Which is very different from the situation with the name in the other part of the country. Some use it for the round ball game. Some for rugby league. And even some for rugby union. HiLo48 (talk) 10:03, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

To almost all our readers in the Aussie Rules part of the country "football" almost exclusively means Aussie Rules. So it's worse than ambiguous. It means something quite different from what you want it to mean. HiLo48 (talk) 00:43, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Very good point... Why do we not simply go over to the AFL page and create a false consensus that AFL is the only non-ambiguous name for the sport of Australia Rules Football? We are in the majority here in the north and that is the only name we know it by. The reality is that the majority of us here do not even care remotely enough to be threatened by another sport using the term football or a derivative there of such as association football... Do you see how ridiculous this all is HiLo? You're getting wound up, time and time again and have been told off by more than a few administrators for being childish, immature, and just plain impossible to work with and you've dragged me down to your own level. Over what really? An article on Misplaced Pages for a sport that you actually in reality, probably do not even care about in the same way as the majority of people who will read this article. Is it really worth all of the drama you have created over the last year at least to maintain a position that is simply causing everyone here to be more than a little annoyed? --Orestes1984 (talk) 02:48, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

A consensus isn't false just because you disagree with it and level of extracurricular interest in a subject is a personal matter that doesn't add or subtract weight to anyone's arguments on Misplaced Pages. You keep bringing up HiLo48 being told-off by admins and I don't see why this has anything to do with the name of the article. He has been behaving just fine in this section of the talk page anyway. Also I find it extremely unlikely that "football" is the only name for the sport used "in the north". Spinrad (talk) 03:15, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It's not. League fans call their game "football", and use "soccer" for the round ball game. And "football" means Aussie Rules in the Riverina. HiLo48 (talk) 04:25, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say football was the only name used in the north... I can say for the majority, AFL is the only common unambiguous name for Australian Rules football in the north though.... YET... Neither myself or anyone else cares enough to push that agenda, on every single AFL talk page out there. Clearly from an unbiased perspective there are OTHER issues going on here as to why those in the south have decided that they don't want to accept the[REDACTED] wide catch all category of association football

This is all despite the fact that we have the majority population of Australia here north of the ACT/NSW border.... I have the same right here to say "AFL is the only common unambiguous name in the majority of Australia's population for that sport played for the majority in Victoria." It's funny that... I don't go there, I have no need to go there... I don't go there because it's silly, pointless, and unnecessarily antagonistic as are the last eight, count them, eight, discussions on this talk page.

Extracurricular interest or not it's not about that.... I'm not saying anyone is stupid, not you not HiLo48, but this whole issue going on this take page and every other soccer related articles talk page IS stupid and I'm calling it for what it is. --Orestes1984 (talk) 04:12, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

"Association football" is clearly not a common name. But that's not the point of this thread. It is to clarify by what criteria we decide on a common name. HiLo48 (talk) 04:28, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

"Association football" is the default name for the sport on[REDACTED] (much like "Australian rules football" is for Australian football), and in the current circumstance it is the best name for this article.--2nyte (talk) 05:00, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

But "Australian rules football" obviously IS a common name for Aussie Rules. All Australians will instantly know what it means. Not so for "Association football". Most Australians wouldn't have a clue what it means. I certainly didn't until I began working on Misplaced Pages. HiLo48 (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

"Three use their official names. One is forced to use a nickname". Um, no Mack, 2 use official names, 2 use common names. Australian Football is the official name of the sport known here as Australian rules football, because we accept the official name is ambiguous on a national and global scale. The-Pope (talk) 13:02, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter whether people have an understanding of what association football is, a redirect will fix that, and editing this article in such a way to represent what it is will clarify it for anyone who is confused. It really is that simple, but to break it down into tiny little chunks for HiLo here about how the human brain works

1. types in soccer in Australia...

2. hmm redirect "wonder what that is... could it be soccer?"

3. Association football, otherwise known as football or soccer...

4. Lightbulb moment, "Eureka! The round peg goes in the round hole"

5. No more confusion.

How is that hard at all? As they say "problem Solvered." --Orestes1984 (talk) 15:09, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

But completely unnecessary. There's nothing wrong with "soccer". No redirect needed. And you've gone off topic again. HiLo48 (talk) 19:54, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Once again... There's nothing wrong... provided HiLo48 agrees with it... You are not a force unto yourself here --Orestes1984 (talk) 23:26, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing to do with what I think. It's what I observe. I've just started work at a new school, one with a strong Italian flavour. Naturally there's a lot of the round ball game played here. A big part of the school's internal website is a section all about their, wait for it.... "Soccer Tour to Italy". Everyone in this part of the world is comfortable with the name "soccer". So it's not just my opinion. That's why I did all the research behind my earlier post up above, at 07:57, 3 January 2014 (UTC), in the thread called "Soccer is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia". "Soccer" works here. It's practical. No embarrassment. No confusion. (Apart from when we do encounter people trying to call it "football", because THAT'S confusing.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:20, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Really? "Everyone" according to furthering the point being driven home here about "everyone." According to "everyone" living in the majority of Australia, AFL is the only non-ambiguous, universally understood name for Australian Rules Football in the majority of Australia if I were to say Australian football, I could very well be talking about an Australia version of soccer. Do you see the problem with "everyone" here now yet? Now As I said previously... I don't want to go there... I have no intent of going there... HOWEVER, I do on the other hand have trouble with your persistence to consistently revert good faith edits to largely incorrect content, or simply just to revert problems rather than fixing them... The later is just lazy editing. I do also have trouble with the fact that you just don't seem to get the whole picture on this issue... It's rather polemic, I can understand your lack of desire to go into it, but on the other side of the coin, competence is required if you want to be here, and part of competence IS understanding the subject matter at hand and why certain editors here find the term soccer either outdated, abhorrent or both. Just because you find soccer is OK to "everyone" in your microcosm does not mean "everyone" else does. I also see a lot of issues going on here that could be interpreted as falling under WP:WEASEL much like other polemic issues, but I really don't see why this should be the case, it IS just a game... --Orestes1984 (talk) 07:28, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's obvious that some find "soccer" outdated. Unfortunately, if it's still the only non-ambiguous, universally understood, common name for the game in Australia, that's just bad luck. The non-outdated name is "football", and that's too ambiguous. As for finding it "abhorrent", please provide evidence that your feelings are any different from WP:IDONTLIKEIT? HiLo48 (talk) 07:40, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

"Sheilas" "Wogs" "poofters" connotations to girly men who play "wogball" what's not to love about "soccer" or the persistent media outcry, most recently both in Melbourne and Sydney about "soccer hooliganism" really this isn't an insult at all and I have no intention of making it one, but part of the key issue about having competence in a certain subject area is being able to understand all the facets of what is going on. Clearly you do not understand all of what is going on here and the polemic nature of "soccer" in Australia which is why you continue to get other editors backs up, I'm not sure if you're doing this on purpose or whether you really are not competent to edit in this space. It's OK to admit where you are not otherwise competent to edit and desist from doing so, or to come back when you have a better understanding of what is going on. --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

What? I have no idea what that post means, apart from again demonstrating that you don't like the name "soccer". That counts for nothing here. I've presented many sources showing that many people who love the game are very happy with that name. Your opinion hardly cancels them out.

But anyway, you've moved off topic again. HiLo48 (talk) 08:19, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

This is a lot more than simply "I do not like it." Let me break this down into simple english we all can understand. The use of the word soccer leads to hostilities and animosity, and strong worded tirades on both sides of the fence here purely because of its historical context. There are many strongly worded examples I have used in the statement above, it continues. Soccer continues to be associated with "ethnic tension" in this country directly, most recently both in Sydney and in Melbourne. This whole thing with the FFA using foothall was to a large extent to stop this nonsense, and your persistence of dragging it back to this without understanding absolutely everything involved in the situation is doing nothing more but adding fuel to the fire. That is a lot more than "I don't like it." Contextual knowledge is required before you're fully competent to edit in this area HiLo48, it's not beyond you either. --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

This is the first I've heard of the word "soccer" causing hostilities, I thought the FFA using "football" was just a marketing thing. Also I'll second HiLo48 in that it's getting harder and harder to figure out what point you are trying to make. Spinrad (talk) 08:49, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not the name that causes the hostilities. It's idiot fans. (Note that I am not saying that all fans are idiots.) And perhaps a game where the excitement comes in such short bursts, and where fans get segregated, so they only meet each other elsewhere. But that's WAY off topic. HiLo48 (talk) 08:55, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Soccer historically has always been associated with minority groups and it is representative in it's culture. Part of "old soccer, new football" was steering the governing body and the league at the time out of that quagmire, new football was supposed to be exactly that which is why old soccer had such a bad reputation. New football brought with it new clubs (predominately) that were not tied to old ethnic rivalries. In a lot of ways we only have ourselves to blame for it and why it copped names such as "wogball", which I find extremely offensive as with any derivative of that word. The analogy is similar to Nick Gianopolis, I don't find it humorous in any way shape or form to take such a racially charged word like "wog" and denigrate yourself like that. Likewise, I don't take the cultural connotations that come with old soccer with much good light either. The FFA moved to football and this was one of the reasons, it was an escape from this quagmire, those who hold onto it just drag us back into it, unknowingly or otherwise and that's the thing. I'm sure you mean well, but you might not understand the deep seated issues that come with soccer in this country, and for those who grew up outside of the ethnic confines that come with "soccer" in this country probably never will unless they take their blinkers off. Please do not dismiss this simply because you do not understand it. --Orestes1984 (talk) 14:15, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

There's something I've noticed. I try hard to post about the word "soccer". You seem to post an awful lot about me. HiLo48 (talk) 20:08, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Your name keeps coming up because it seems at times you don't take into account that there could be some logic in what other people are saying and resort back to "we call it soccer where I'm from, so that's OK and nevermind what others might call it." It seems at times you are dismissive when you are given an understanding of some of the other factors in why the sport is now known as football. When it comes to a naming dispute like this, you really have to take into account everything is going on and sometimes I think you might not have a full understanding of the historical context. It's not your fault, you didn't grow up in that part of Australia, you don't live as I do on this side of the ethnic divide, and you will never see Australia through my eyes, or through the eyes of anyone else in that position. This isn't off topic... It all boils down to what the common name is here HiLo, and it's simple...

You say there is nothing wrong with soccer, everyone understands what it is, I will give you a conceded pass on the second, in other words a D+/C- what I wont give you is the first one, when you won't actually stop to consider all the factors in coming to your understanding of what IS wrong with soccer... Particularly when you can spend a little longer actually wrapping your head around it rather than simply saying "there's nothing wrong with soccer, it's unambiguous."

Claiming ignorance to the problems of soccer (and don't twist that into a personal attack) does not get you around the facts of what is wrong with it. I live it, I breath it, I grew up in the culture, you didn't. You talk about the Barassi Line, I talk about the ethnic divide.... It is something that is very real in this country you must understand before you even bother getting into talking soccer. --Orestes1984 (talk) 20:56, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe there WAS a problem with the name "soccer". Is there still? (Evidence please.) Look at the enthusiasm with which the FFA now embraces the Socceroos name. Check out the website. It's everywhere. I am considerably older and much better travelled within Australia than you, and probably more aware of past issues, but we need to talk about the present. HiLo48 (talk) 21:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The evidence with old soccer was seen roughly a month ago in the streets of Melbourne and Sydney, it's seen with some elements of the supporters of Melbourne Victory, and Sydney Wanderers and with teams like Sydney Olympic and South Melbourne continuing to push the agenda of being admitted into the A-League... the Meedya in Australia take these things consistently and run with "soccer hooliganism," "ethic/racial tension," and the ongoing debate that "sockahhh" is an inappropriate sport to be played in Australia, then you have people like Kevin Sheedy and Eddie McGuire run off at the first opportunity to grab a sound byte about how bad sockah is again, it happens without failure which is everything that is wrong with the term soccer... --Orestes1984 (talk) 22:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

"Old Soccer" as you're explaining it seems like a concept unrelated to FFA's attempt at changing the sports name in Australia. I still don't see how the name "soccer" actually has anything to do with the aforementioned ethnic tensions or how his proves that "Football" is the common name for the sport in Australia. Spinrad (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes Orestes, please be realistic. How can violence by and between stupid fans have anything to do with the name? That really demands evidence. If the name was a problem, there would be violence at every game in Melbourne, and there isn't. HiLo48 (talk) 00:02, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, OK, the we don't like it is a predominant reason, but it's explainable and furthermore, this was one among many reasons for the changes that occurred in 2004. That is, it was to remove the constant troll bait that the meedya has in this country to consistently refer to "soccer hooliganism" and "ethnic tension" which is associated with the general term "soccer" this is a very real reality. Actually the strict enforcement of "new football" during the first 5 years of the A-League where officials were quite strict on nonsense was also a part of this. Unfortunately it's quite hard to put a cat back in the bag once it has gotten out of one.

One of my other reasonings for pushing for a name resolution that is anything but soccer apart from it being historically incorrect, is the fact that it is inherently divisive and you've witnessed this yourself in the last few years being here. You may not realise why you're getting peoples backs up, but a lot of it refers to this. I am reasonable enough to recognise what the consensus is here and to discuss it in a reasonable way, I'm just highlighting what is going wrong here.

No one likes soccer on one side of the fence, and a number of users other than myself have stated openly it feels like it is being pushed upon this article, I have suggested an alternative which is a Misplaced Pages wide category. I can state that while soccer is a common name, it's ability to cause inflammatory debates does not make it a practical long term solution to this problem and it's not just me. You seem to have run into a number of editors that feel the same or similar about the term "soccer" in Australia. --Orestes1984 (talk) 05:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. It's clear now. Your opposition is a classical case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. But even a very intense feeling of WP:IDONTLIKEIT carries no weight here. HiLo48 (talk) 06:16, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

You are very dificult to work with, that does not illustrate my thoughts at all, and yet you are bound by such black and white understandings of how the world works in your head that you cannot see the many differentiations of grey going on here.... I have expressed a lot of evidence here, you can go through the archives on SBS and trawl away at the shitfest that was played out on live TV around 2004 and how "soccer" was held ransom. It all happened, and it all expresses why none of us particularly like soccer or the bullshit that is involved with soccer. It seems you're still not competent enough to understand the finer details of what's going on here and as soon as I desist from this simply because you do not get the point you are going to get someone elses back up.

HiLo, if I may offer you just a little bit of helpful personal advice and a life lesson... The world is very often not as black and white as you see things and neither is this, in fact this whole shit show illustrates over a number of years exactly why it is not, you need to really understand what is going on and to be able to put yourself in the shoes of both parties before you add your two cents worth to things in life.... This is a good case where a little bit more of an understanding would do you the world of good. Now don't get your back up either, because that's about as politely as I'm going to put it. --Orestes1984 (talk) 09:05, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

If it's really so bad a word, how come half the country lives perfectly happily with it? HiLo48 (talk) 10:36, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

If you were dealing with someone who was enforcing rules, claiming ignorance would not get you very far, if it were a police officer you'd get yourself arrested, ignorance is not a defence. Being deliberately ignorant of the facts does not get you very far with me either.... How come half of the United States accepted segregation until the federal government decided it was unacceptable? If half of Australia decided to jump off a cliff would you be perfectly happy with it as a norm? --Orestes1984 (talk) 18:12, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Nothing new there. Just more insults and pointless, irrelevant, attempted analogies. 20:31, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

You're not comparing the use of the word "soccer" to segregation now are you? And regarding your previous comment, I've always thought of Misplaced Pages as being fairly black and white on most subjects. Spinrad (talk) 22:07, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

And I had to laugh when I saw the US brought into this discussion. I assume we're all aware that the game is called Soccer in the United States. HiLo48 (talk) 22:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Just to illustrate the reality of the situation, I took a picture yesterday of the way the PE teachers organise the balls at my very soccer oriented school.
(Sorry about the quality. It was a dark spot.) HiLo48 (talk) 01:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

No one wants to see your soccer balls here, and no one wants to see your dismissive attitude here HiLo, as I have stated repeatedly you are not above everyone else here, so come off your high horse. As far as segregation goes, we're not playing an ignorance game about the history of this country here are we? Lets see now, Aboriginals, white Australia policy, ethnic divisiveness... Soccer being one particular side of that divisiveness.... Yeah... If I wanted to tally inflame this debate you would not have a leg to stand on regarding "segregation" and this country. I do not want to nor do I have any intention of going there though other than to use it as a loosely fitting analogy which will simply be ignored again by certain editors here to prove my point --Orestes1984 (talk) 03:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

You're right about one thing. It's definitely a loosely fitting analogy. As for "No one wants to see your soccer balls...", it's obvious that you don't want anyone to see them, but it's quite possible others are actually interested. HiLo48 (talk) 03:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

You have ignored my position and skirted what I was saying to come up with your own perspective once again and this is largely the problem with your editing manners --Orestes1984 (talk) 03:22, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Haven't ignored your position at all. It's clear that your position on the name "soccer" is "I don't like it" which, of course, means nothings here. Your feeling don't matter. And you also have strong thoughts on racial/ethnic issues. I suspect we would pretty much agree on the latter. Australia doesn't have a great history on that front. But it's completely irrelevant to a discussion on the common name of the round ball game today. HiLo48 (talk) 03:47, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

There is a lot more to my position simply than "I do not like it," I have attempted to put this into context in a way that would be understandable. Unfortunately you don't seem to understand where I'm coming from, that's fine, I'm pretty much done trying to get that through to you. You're simply not going to get it --Orestes1984 (talk) 08:22, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I repeat the fundamental point that if the problem with the name "soccer" really was so serious, it wouldn't be in such common use by players and fans of the game in the areas where Aussie Rules is the major code. It simply cannot be as big a problem for most people as you seem to think it is. HiLo48 (talk) 09:11, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

The fact that it is a problem at all should wave a red flag here, however you seem to be stating "I don't see a problem where I live, so it's not a problem for everyone" This at best is highly ignorant of others thoughts and feelings at worst it shows a major lack of competence and should flag a reason why you should stay away from this page. I'm really not going to bother anymore. I'm just going to sit back and watch with popcorn next time you get in a shitfight with someone else over this, because it IS a problem that is simply not going to go away. I'm done with this... --Orestes1984 (talk) 09:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

It's obviously a problem for you, but you seem incapable of explaining why. A whole bunch of people don't see it as a problem, and all the reasons you give for it being a problem to you would also apply to many of those people. Can you explain that. HiLo48 (talk) 10:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I have explained in numerous ways, you simply do not listen... I cannot help you if you are deaf to the problems that are going on here. I am done communicating with you... Consider this my self imposed right not to interact with you any further.... --Orestes1984 (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

OK. HiLo48 (talk) 10:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

FYI and goodbye

There is a discussion taking place at ANI, the very likely decision of which is that I will be topic-banned from all articles relating to association football. Apparently my presence here is seen by the community as disruptive. I have some grumbles about the process, but I'll take that up with a higher league, as it were.

The immediate result is that discussion here will have to take place without my helpful contributions. I would hold this page up as an exact model of what consensus is not, and it seems that my disruptive behaviour may be holding things back. May you all find consensus, happiness and tranquility. Thanks for the pleasure of your stimulating company over the last few months. I've learnt a lot about football culture. Cheers. --Pete (talk) 18:14, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

To each his own opinion is entitled Pete, I don't see that your contributions above directly infringe upon your IBAN but I did see this happening from a mile away when you opened up the discussion above. Unfortunately, it seems like it's too close to everything else that is going on and the long drawn out arguments elsewhere that WILL NOT be discussed here as it's completely inappropriate to both parties. Unfortunately you have an IBAN because of this and this I must say I abhore process where someone can be silenced like that and that I've been down similar pathways myself, but this is how Misplaced Pages works, in fact it's how systems work, and you've done wrong in the past so it's now easy to get caught back up in that net

It reminds me of the pettiness of when I was in high school, and the way AN/I plays out which is much the same... You try to avoid it at all costs, but eventually you'll get hit in the head with a boomerang as you're already on notice as a "trouble maker." Whatever that means, once you're affixed with that label it's almost impossible to get rid of it. Sorry you couldn't stick around.... --Orestes1984 (talk) 07:17, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

For some reason I'm still able to post here. Not for much longer, I guess.

I thought we were getting somewhere in the threads I started, looking at sources, dealing with facts. Other threads just went round and round in circles and acrimony. On that point, may I suggest NOT engaging with editors who view things in personal terms? Nobody gets anywhere that way and it's just a big time-waster. Follow the logos, follow the thread of the discussion, be prepared to change your mind when shown to be wrong. I called the game Soccer for decades, but I can't deny that the newspapers and the TV networks have switched to Football. I don't need to quibble when the facts are presented calmly and lucidly. I just accept the new reality.

Don't worry about me. I'm a big boy now and whatever happens I'll find a way to accept it and be happy. No point being all upset and stress-filled over trivia. In the big scheme of our own lives, the name of the game isn't what it's all about. In a couple of years time it'll be like looking back on arguments about VHS and Beta, and we'll laugh at how we wasted time on such rubbish. The Football tide is flowing in and one by one the Soccer sandcastles are crumbling.

Perhaps one way forward is to create a section in the article dealing with the name. List the media outlets that use each name. List the official bodies likewise. Be fair. Use reliable sources. After a while even the most dogmatic will have to accept the facts when presented calmly and clearly. It's like accepting the final score in a match; one might be a lifelong supporter of a particular team, but if the other side is carrying away the trophy and singing their victory song as they march to the sunny side of the stadium and overflow the crossbenches, one accepts the bitter truth. --Pete (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

First game in Australia debate

I think the constant reference to the Paramatta Wanderers game is a bit silly when the Hobart Cricketers game and the Qld Asylum game both clearly preclude it. While the exact nature of the Qld Asylum game is a little unclear, the Hobart one played under 'English Association rules' to me would seem very clearly to be Association rules one year prior to the Wanderers game. --TinTin (talk) 01:49, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Precede! --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:17, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Orestes1984, do you mean proceed? Anyway, the first match in Australia is truly unknown. We do know that the first recorded match played under the Laws of the Game was the Wanderers match in Parramatta, 1980 - as confirmed by FFA, and generally known within the sport.--2nyte (talk) 16:01, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

No I mean precede, as in the games came before... But actually, if we look at the history of football in Australia, no one is actually sure what type of game was played, or when it actually occurred. On the basis of that, we really shouldn't have a "first game" at all... --Orestes1984 (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

1980? Really? That seems quite late for Australia to be adopting the Laws of the Game. – PeeJay 23:15, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that was a dyslexic moment, it should be somewhere closer to 1890... --Orestes1984 (talk) 02:21, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Leave it alone the both of you 2nyte and HiLo

Hilo We have a long standing convention going on here that it is Association Football on Misplaced Pages globally and you continue to ignore this fact. I have maintained convention here, not to change this article one way or the other to football or soccer despite my ongoing opposition to the term Soccer... You are continuing to attempt to introduce the words soccer into articles here despite convention otherwise you are not a force here to ignore this convention, I foresee further disruptive editing will lead to a block. Just leave this article alone until the issue is resolved or you will be introducing more tension into this debate yet again. Bold editing simply will not resolve this conflict!

For the time being 2nyte, all references to the word soccer should be reverted as they were. I have added a neutral perspective description, should this be reverted I will see this as nothing short of disruptive editing. --Orestes1984 (talk) 13:34, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

There's no consensus for this change -- it should go back to "Soccer" per the prior consensus at Talk:Soccer_in_Australia/Archive_3. NE Ent 14:47, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes I have replaced all references of football to soccer where appropriate--Orestes1984 (talk) 14:51, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Except for the lead paragraph. I've restored it. NE Ent 14:55, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I've restored everything. Why were the changes made and then why were they reverted again?--2nyte (talk) 14:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I reverted to an incorrect version in the first place... However the change in the lead represents an ongoing problem with this article... Why was that change even made in the first place? --Orestes1984 (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

What on earth is this all about? It has my name in the title, but I have no idea why. No links have been provided. No articles have been named. It looks like just a typical clumsy attack on me from Orestes. I hope it's not. HiLo48 (talk) 17:36, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I would refrain from calling things clumsy or otherwise inciting more animosity into this debate than what you already cause the issue was with inserting the word "soccer" into the lead here.... Any unnecessary changes in terminology to this article at this stage should be discussed on this talk page until we have consensus about where to go next. It really is quite simple here, your attitude towards other editors categorically sucks... On the other hand my siesta between actually creating my account and the time I had away from here has led to certain issues with how I use this place, that doesn't impair my ability to actually communicate... You should really think about the type of garbage that comes out of your mouth sometimes. Admittedly I didn't read the full article and messed up the revert, that's not clumsy that's just being short sighted here, but that kind of language above is completely unnecessary... On the other hand, regarding your consistent behaviour and as noted by others, you make your own bed, and now you lie in it HiLo, there's not actually a lot of people here that like the way you act at the best of times. --Orestes1984 (talk) 00:35, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I think that there may be some confusion. Checking the history for the last month or so, the only changes HiLo48 made were minor copyedits or reverting back to the status quo, and while 2nyte made some bigger changes, there was nothing problematic in them. The nature of the reverts might have been a bit misleading if viewed on their own, so perhaps that is where the confusion came in. - Bilby (talk) 01:33, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for clarifying that Bilby. And Orestes, thank you for clarifying your concerns. Consensus is that the sport is to be called soccer in Misplaced Pages's Australian articles. I make no apology for reverting changes that move the article away from that usage. In addition, the title of this article is Soccer in Australia, and the content must reflect the title. I will continue to make such changes every time they are required. HiLo48 (talk) 01:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of this page is to discuss edits to this article, not cast aspersions on other editors. NE Ent 04:20, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes as Bilby stated their was some confusion, is there ever not? About what is going on with this article... I didn't take the time to fully investigate exactly what was going on with all the recent nonsense --Orestes1984 (talk) 06:49, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

In theory

Pithy warning

I am here because I am fed up seeing this on AN/I every two weeks. I am indifferent about which name this article is at, and I understand there was an RFC recently about it. I am here to say that if I see any commentary whatsoever about editors here I will warn once then block. I would also ask editors not to wind each other up by referring to WP:IDONTLIKEIT and the like. --John (talk) 22:22, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Can I also point out that Talk:Soccer in Australia/Archive 3 was only closed last August. I propose no more naming-related discussions, unless major new evidence is discovered, until August 2015. --John (talk) 09:27, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

John, I will desist if asked, but as one of the users who has been driving the discussion since July/August 2013, this continues to be a major issue, one that I don't think has been resolved yet. I am not asking for change in my favor, I, along with other users are only seeking fair and open discourse. This is what I feel has lowered the discussion to the state it's in - a lack of fair and open discourse. I don't know wiki policy that well, but I do want this discussion to continue (fairly and openly) with wiki administrator mediation.--2nyte (talk) 13:08, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a fair request, but I respectfully differ from your opininion that this is a "major issue". Unreferenced BLPs are a major issue, falling editor numbers may be a major issue, but the name of this one article that was RfC'ed last August is not currently a major issue. I strongly propose taking even a few weeks or a month away from this, until the heat goes out of it. You will see what I mean if you do that. --John (talk) 15:05, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

John, users are applying the outcome from the last Requested move (to use "soccer") in every Australian based article. There have been hundreds, if not thousands of edits, a few edit wars (see Western Sydney Wanderers FC), all done so because of the decision? made in the last Requested move. Trust me, I have tried to stay away from this talk page as it has caused me a lot of grief, though I am a key editor on this topic in general (currently one of the main) and this discussion is always brought up in some way, necessarily so.--2nyte (talk) 13:01, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. There doesn't seem to be any edit warring currently at that article. Are there any editors or articles which are currently problematic? --John (talk) 16:17, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

• The discussion at archive 3 proposed moving Soccer in Australia to Football in Australia. I can readily understand why that proposal was rejected. Has there been a recent (formal) discussion about moving the article to Association football in Australia? Jmorrison230582 (talk) 15:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

No formal discussion, but plenty of informal stuff. HiLo48 (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

• All unassessed articles
• C-Class football articles
• High-importance football articles
• C-Class soccer in Australia articles
• High-importance soccer in Australia articles
• Soccer in Australia task force articles
• WikiProject Football articles
• C-Class Australia articles
• High-importance Australia articles
• WikiProject Australia articles