Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports/Handling sports transactions

Failed transactions

I'm thinking this page might benefit from an example or two of a deal we were told was done "pending a physical" where editors jumped in to make the change, and then the deal fell through. The Matt Kemp deal nearly reached that. Grant Balfour's deal with Baltimore fell through last offseason. Are there any others? – Muboshgu (talk) 15:19, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. Don't rack your brain too much. Don't need many example of one example (WP:EXAMPLEFARM).—Bagumba (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: The recent Celtics-Cavaliers debacle might be a good one to fit in here. Even though it eventually did happen, it came a few days later and the deal had been altered. Lizard (talk) 19:24, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Lizard the Wizard: Absolutely. Great idea. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

@Muboshgu and Bagumba: The Josh McDaniels saga may be worth mentioning as an extreme example. The Colts made an official announcement and everything. Particularly amusing is an article the Colts posted "Getting to Know Josh McDaniels" which is now deleted. Lizard (talk) 03:11, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

The Colts seemed to have been accurate in saying that they "agree to terms" not that he signed.[1]—Bagumba (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

So would you say McDaniels' page should've never displayed that he was the head coach of the Colts? Lizard (talk) 21:43, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Probably should not have. I'm curious now how often teams state for the record that they have "agreed to terms" before the actual signing.—Bagumba (talk) 00:20, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

There's a whole running list at Template talk:Uw-sportstrans. Never trust a Belicheck disciple. I still remember when he burned my Jets after Parcells stepped down. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:05, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: I randomly clicked on a few of the links, but could not find one where the team spoke on the record about agreeing to terms. Maybe I didn't look at enough yet.—Bagumba (talk) 19:04, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

@Bagumba: You mean for McDaniels and the Colts? Here's the archive.org from colts.com. Here's ESPN. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:25, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I think he means one like the McDaniels one, where a team used the "agreed to terms" verbiage but the deal later fell through. Lizard (talk) 20:12, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Jamil Wilson never ended up signing with the Lakers after it was reported after he was sued for sexual battery. Rikster2 (talk) 18:03, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

There's the 2018 NBA deal that had to be redone because there was confusion over which Brooks, MarShon or Dillon, that Memphis was including.[2][3]—Bagumba (talk) 06:10, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Marcus Morris reportedly agreed to sign with the San Antonio Spurs. Days later, reports had him changing his mind to the New York Knicks.[4]—Bagumba (talk) 05:12, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Team announcements before press conferences

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association#Bogut_signing regarding press conference tomorrow about Andrew Bogut and the Sydney Kings.—Bagumba (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

RfC on inclusion of reported but not official sports deals

Frequently, contracts between sports teams and players/coaches are leaked to media outlets before they are officially announced.

This essay is often invoked to keep any mention of these reported details out of articles until the signing is officially announced [5], and articles are protected to prevent new editors from adding the information. For examples: [6] [7]

This RfC is to determine if the following line should be altered:

If anything is to be presented at all, it should be limited to prose attributed to the source that is reporting the transaction.

I would propose revising it to read like this:

Updates to articles subject to a reported transaction should be limited to prose that specifically attributes the source that is reporting the transaction.

This change would codify and encourage Wikipedians old and new to cover what reliable sources will often widely report, but in a non-crystally way that communicates the uncertainty. An example of how that could look is in Monty Williams' article. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:57, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Relevant links

• Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 47#Better communicating uncertainty in unconfirmed sports transactions

Discussion

A relevant guideline is WP:RSBREAKING:

Breaking-news reports often contain serious inaccuracies. As an electronic publication, Wikipedia can and should be up to date, but Wikipedia is not a newspaper and it does not need to go into all details of a current event in real time. It is better to wait a day or two after an event before adding details to the encyclopedia, than to help spread potentially false rumors. This gives journalists time to collect more information and verify claims, and for investigative authorities to make official announcements.

There's also the policy WP:NOTDIARY:

Even when an individual is notable, not all events they are involved in are. For example, news reporting about celebrities and sports figures can be very frequent and cover a lot of trivia, but using all these sources would lead to overly detailed articles that look like a diary. Not every facet of a celebrity's life, personal details, matches played, or goals scored warrants inclusion in the biography of that person, only those for which they have notability or for which our readers are reasonably likely to have an interest.

—Bagumba (talk) 04:23, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Bagumba, and thanks for commenting. Neither one of those pages speaks directly to the situation being discussed here. RSBREAKING is written for fast-breaking current events like a natural disaster or terror attacks (hence "all details ... in real time), although it often isn't followed for those articles anyway, and NOTDIARY is about tabloid material (hence why the list item is titled "celebrity gossip and diary"). I imagine you and I can agree that a reported sports transaction is not celebrity gossip. This RfC is about how we can best note the details of a reported transaction, with explicit in-text attribution, before an official announcement. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:54, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

I treat all breaking news with the same respect, irrespective of domain, without distinguishing "real news" from "other news". Athletes are often celebrities in the major North American sports, and with the internet, there's lots of speculation on their career and life.—Bagumba (talk) 05:13, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

This essay is often invoked to keep any mention of these reported details out of articles until the signing is officially announced...: Where does the essay say to keep out "any mention"? The reality is most drive-by editors just change the lead or infobox—unsourced—and often before a deal is reliably confirmed to have been completed. We rarely get into cases where an editor is actually adding nuanced text about a report with WP:INTEXT attribution and a citation. Allowing such text in a crowdsourced editing environment would require agreement on which sources on breaking news are considered reliable enough to mention on WP; no such list exists yet to my knowledge, even for non-breaking news. But ultimately, we circle back to RSBREAKING and its guidance to just wait a day or two—Bagumba (talk) 04:38, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

"We rarely get into cases where an editor is actually adding nuanced text about a report with WP:INTEXT attribution and a citation." – Well, that's the point of this RfC. If we codify one particular practice for doing this and encourage people to do it, we give them a model to work from. Right now, this page asks people to get consensus each time this happens, which is a major hurdle and effectively keeps out any mention of a reported sports transaction. Instead, what typically happens is editors revert all mentions of the potential transaction and an admin (often you, albeit in my limited view) protects the page. That's not ideal. To your other point, we don't need a special bar for what sources are appropriate for use on Wikipedia—that's why WP:RS exists. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:54, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

...this page asks people to get consensus each time this happens... I don't see where it says that. The normal WP:BRD process applies, but people can start a discussion first if they are unsure. That's standard WP editing.—Bagumba (talk) 05:02, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@Bagumba: You reverted my attempt to remove that wording. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:27, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

My edit summary did say "feel free to get consensus on the talk page for the other change". And now we're here. OK. "If anything is to be presented at all" is reflective that it hasn't been standard to update regarding these reports, and YMMV. —Bagumba (talk) 05:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Bagumba, I'm a bit frustrated as it feels an awful lot like you're twisting words to fit your preferred outcome (both here and above) and ignoring salient points. 1) You just said "I don't see where it says that", but are now skipping past that to refer to your edit summary. 2) A plain reading of "if anything is to be presented at all" is not to state that a practice "hasn't been standard". It's to place a hurdle in front of people. 3) A plain reading of NOTDIARY makes it clear that it doesn't apply here. I imagine that's one reason why it's not referred to in or linked from the essay. 4) Are you going to engage the RfC proposal, which would create a policy-compliant model for recording widely reported sports transactions, and propose ways that it could be improved? Yes, well-meaning new or anon editors currently try to insert the information and nearly always get reverted. There's another way. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

...an admin (often you, albeit in my limited view) protects the page...: I'll protect pages if it's undergoing frequent reverts of unsourced claims, without even a url in the edit summary, or a talk page discussion. Other people do tag[8], report and protect affected pages.[9]—Bagumba (talk) 05:07, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Notably I didn't say always, I said "often." But we're getting off-track from the RfC. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:48, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The crucial difference being proposed, compared to existing guidelines, is that the source of the prose must be explicitly attributed? CurryCity (talk) 18:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

No. The existing wording already says ...should be limited to prose attributed to the source that is reporting the transaction. They are proposing to remove "If anything is to be presented at all", when there is no standard practice to add WP:RSBREAKING news. For example, they twice tried to add RSBREAKING content to Monty Williams (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), but others reverted.[10][11] —Bagumba (talk) 18:40, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

@CurryCity: There would be two differences. First, the erroneous wording in "Attribute speculative reports if there is consensus to mention it at all" (my emphasis) would be fixed, as it's not an accurate summary of the page as it stands now. Second, it would make clear that adding content like the Monty Williams diffs above is acceptable by default (instead of needing to be confirmed on a case-by-case basis). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 05:28, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

• (summoned by the bot) I don't see the need for this change. In general we have a tendency to add too much unconfirmed breaking news to articles and should try to focus on more reliable long-term information. (This definitely isn't just a problem in sports articles.) I'm happy to keep the current guidance that gently encourages editors not to add unconfirmed breaking news. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:18, 5 June 2023 (UTC)
• The village pump didn't show any consensus to make this change, and I don't see why it's necessary. I feel like implementing it would lower our standards in terms of breaking news. If we make a change, I'd actually create the rule that transactions should only be documented when official, unless obviously extremely noteworthy. SportingFlyer T·C 12:56, 6 June 2023 (UTC)