This page is within the scope of WikiProject Contract bridge, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Contract bridge on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Contract bridgeWikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridgeTemplate:WikiProject Contract bridgeContract bridge
Pictures of players
How should we obtain pictures from bridge players? Is it OK to capture pictures from -- for instance -- the daily bulletins of major events? Or would the use of such pictures in Wikipedia constitute a violation of copyright? JocK23:18, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid, yes, it would be a copyvio. I don't know how to get to free images, especially of the deceased ones. Another question for WP:COPY. Duja13:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, The Bridge World agrees with Duja. After writing an article on Edgar Kaplan, I emailed Jeff to see if he could grant permission to use the photo that appears on TBW web site, which also appears on the cover of a collection of Edgar's writings. Jeff wrote back, in part, "Regarding the photo: No, sorry, we aren't authorized to release the copyright." I'm afraid we might find this to be generally true. Xlmvp18:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
For an active living player, anyone could in theory take a photo at an event and release it. For players who are dead, or firmly retired, a viable rationale for fair use may be possible to allow use of photos that are not released to us. This would have to be done case-by-case. DES(talk)14:45, 1 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to know why you guys have your project logo on the Omar Sharif "talk" page?
The Bridge info on that page was years out of date, in recent interviews he says he's through with bridge, and the Chicago Trib bridge column was bumped for SODUKO or sodoku or watchamacallit. I've updated it, but perhaps someone on your project might want to verify what I've found. thnx in advance Bustter20:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm that's a point - I suppose we hadn't accounted for a bridge player that is famous for other reasons. (heh - even James Bond plays bridge though we don't lay claim to that page). Does it harm for our logo to be on it? I realise that the majority of the article is unrelated to bridge but he is a famous bridge player as well as a famous person who plays bridge. Can be a part of 2 projects? Not really sure how to deal with this. You lot sort it out - I'm off to the Brighton congress tomorrow... Cambion18:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ely Culbertson
I lack the knowledge to take it on myself, but it seems to me that expanding the article on Ely Culbertson ought to have a very high priority. The current stub is very inadequate for the most famous contract bridge player of all time.
You're right. Lots of info can be found in the ACBL Hall of Fame [1], for example. I don't have time at the moment, unfortunately. Duja13:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, FWIW, although at first the "most famous contract bridge player of all time" sounded over the top to me, and I think it would sound so to most who started playing after Ely shuffled off this mortal coil. If only because of the extensive syndication of his daily bridge column, I'd have thought that the most famous player of all time was Alfred Sheinwold. But the contract bridge fad had ended (in the US, at least) by the time Freddy's column became popular, and Ely was surely the most famous player during the 1930s and 1940s when many more people were playing the game.Xlmvp19:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also Culbertson was such a brilliant self-publicist, that I suspect that in the 1930s even most non-bridge players in America and Britain had heard of him. I doubt that the same could have been said of Sheinwold. Many years ago I read a history of the early days of contract bridge, which Culbertson naturally dominated. It's "The Walk of the Oysters" by Rex Mackay. It's a very amusing book, as well as being informative, and I highly recommend it. JH17:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great book. It's been years since I read it and I'd almost forgotten it. I think the title alluded to The Walrus and the Carpenter. Xlmvp19:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In an interview with Audrey Grant [2], Sheinwold stated that he worked for Culbertson for a year and a half and was fired twelve times. He said that "we disliked each other" and that Culbertson was "a con-man, a crook but a wonderful P.R. man" --Newwhist (talk) 03:02, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We don't often need to say anything like "most famous contract bridge player of all time" in an article, and it needs care when if we do say it there. It's appropriate to say about Culbertson here.
Is there any cheap way to research something like the distribution or circulation of a particular bridge column at a particular time?
Josephine Culbertson has no entry at all. Five years later, that's remarkable.
I think the criteria should be 1 world championship (or runner up?). For ACBL, 10+ NABC wins is a high threshold. For players in other zonal authorities, similar. I would rather have too many than too few. Compare with other sports, where a single game played is sometimes sufficient for a Wiki article.Nicolas.hammond (talk) 01:12, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Notability of bridge people
I see that Michael Rosenberg is categorised as American whilst Alan Truscott is categorised as British. Shouldn't both be the same nationality, whether it's British or American? Unless Rosenberg has formally taken out American nationality and Truscott never did? JH20:49, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think we can find out their exact legal nationality, and I think it doesn't matter too much. In any case, it's merely an oversight; it's only an issue whether they're more recognized as British or American. Checking out the articles, it's neither here nor there. One possibility is to add them to both categories, which is probably the most correct thing to do. Duja07:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That is sensible for categories. After all, the category preface may and probably should be a note of explanation.
What about lead sentences? "Josephine Culbertson was an American ...". "Rixi Markus MBE was an Austrian and British ...". "Michael Rosenberg (born May, 1954 in New York City, New York) is one of the top bridge players in the United States. He moved to Scotland as a child ...". --P64 (talk) 22:41, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Emanuel Lasker
I'm editing Emanuel Lasker, and have found that he was a pretty serious Bridge player and possibly writer. Since I know next to nothing about Bridge, I'd be very grateful if you could check Emanuel Lasker and see if its coverage of his Bridge activities is adequate. Many thanks, Philcha (talk) 13:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Request for comment on Biographies of living people
Hello Wikiproject! Currently there is a discussion which will decide whether wikipedia will delete 49,000 articles about a living person without references, here:
Since biographies of living people covers so many topics, nearly all wikiproject topics will be effected.
The two opposing positions which have the most support is:
supports the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, User:Jehochman
opposes the deletion of unreferenced articles about a living person, except in limited circumstances, User:Collect
Comments are welcome. Keep in mind that by default, editor's comments are hidden. Simply press edit next to the section to add your comment.
Please keep in mind that at this point, it seems that editors support deleting unreferenced article if they are not sourced, so your project may want to pursue the projects below.
Tools to help your project with unreferenced Biographies of living people
List of cleanup articles for your project
If you don't already have this and are interested in creating a list of articles which need cleanup for your wikiproject see: Cleanup listings A list of examples is here
Moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation pages"
If you are interested in moving unreferenced blp articles to a special "incubation page", contact me, User talk:Ikip
Watchlisting all unreferenced articles
If you are interested in watchlisting all of the unreferenced articles once you install Cleanup_listings, contact me, User talk:Ikip
Any article on the Four Aces team will mention the Four Horsemen and should cover that team briefly. Among the inaugural Life Masters, ten men named in 1936, the Four Horsemen have individual entries here and the others do not. --P64 (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let me restate four Horsemen have individual entries here and the others do not. Burnstine, Jacoby, Schenken, Sims were not the most common quartet (Karn, playing with Sims?). --P64 (talk) 18:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Burnstine, Jacoby, Schenken, and Sims were Life Masters #1, 2, 3, and 5, and they alone among the first ten LM have "biographies" here (one month ago). Schenken was not one of the four frequent teammates commonly known as the Four Horsemen (Karn was) but he sometimes played with three of them as a team or with one of them as a pair. I suppose that bridge fans would have recognized him as a substitute Horseman, so to speak. Later he was one of the four Four Aces.
Nickell and Zimmerman
From the third millenium, certainly "the" Nick Nickell team (usually Nickell) and "the" Pierre Zimmerman team (usually Zimmermann) are notable. However, while Nickell and Zimmermann should both have biographies here, neither one would be notable except for his professional bridge team. Plausibly, neither one will ever be much covered here except regarding his team. The distinction may be nominal, but it's personal biographies (Biographies of Living People) rather than team biographies we should have as articles, with references to their teams redirected to their biographies or appropriate sections of same. --P64 (talk) 21:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am hoping to build guidelines for notability criteria for what makes someone notable in the games field i.e. Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Curling. Especially games players that I feel needs to have a section similar to the sports and athletes. An example of a question that has just arisen is does winning the first scrabble world championship count as just WP:Oneevent. Combined contribution issues also need defining.
In other words, what notability in bridge justifies or supports a biog? Is there any notability that makes a biog high priority even if it is a stub?
By the way: Today I checked the current list of Women World Grand Masters, who are ranked by mainly-recent achievements. Among the first fifteen, three have articles here (one stub, one start, one more than that) and two are in the list of Article projects/People. Partly that is because several Chinese women have recently joined the leaders, this is English wikipedia, and no one recently writes bridge articles anyway.
In other words, what notability in bridge justifies putting a biog in a bridge Category? and perhaps marking it for this project by use of the talkpage banner (see below).
On this point I have replied to Tetron76 elsewhere, by reference to the many categories of baseball people (too many in my opinion). Re Ben Affleck (sp) as a poker player I have noted that Dwight Eisenhower is a golfer, perhaps only because he is in the hall of fame (Category: World Golf Hall of Fame inductees), Charlie Brown is a baseball player (Category: Fictional baseball players), but Frank Merriwell is not in several sports player categories that I checked. --P64 (talk) 00:35, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My criteria was 10 NABC+ wins to deserve an entry. Nearly all those with 10+ who died have an obit in the NY Times. At the moment there are 131 players in this category. 296 have won 5+ (including the 131). There are over 2,400 winners of NABC+ events. Nicolas.hammond (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Biographical data
Bridge Base and Hoog Laag published blurbs for many participants in the 1997 Cavendish Invitational Pairs. This is available from the Internet Archive where service is always slow for me.
The print Official Encyclopedia of Bridge (first 1964, latest 2001) includes thousands of biographical blurbs. The seventh edition is in process.
I have followed some links to ECatsBridge player pages. They seem to be 8-11 years old and essentially empty: Name and Nationality, some email addresses. ECatsBridge (Who Are We?) is a source for the WBF Convention Cards of many pairs, among other Documents.
For people notable outside bridge, we should use class values (quality grades) up to B with reference to the general and the bridge content alone, without regarding content special to other fields. For example, assess Harold S. Vanderbilt and Irina Levitina without regarding any sections on yachting or chess or the substance of yachting/chess coverage in the lead section.
About repetitive content such as the familiar table of notable wins at the bridge table, MOS should provide some guidelines. Perhaps the definitions of class values should refer to some content such as that table. (Not that reference to general content such as nationality or year of birth is out of place. It may be appropriate.) Perhaps the Talk page should be used in a standard way regarding such content, or there should be a standard use of . (Ideally there would be a viable subproject on People which would track such points as when this table was checked against that database, etc.) (FWIW, I would cut systematic listing of runner-up achievements and define what tournaments are notable for systematic listing of wins and/or govern the layout for listing wins.) --P64 (talk) 18:13, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I ended up writing a program to generate the standard Wikipedia format for Bridge accomplishments. This is absolutely not the way to go. Much better is for someone to write a tool that would extract this information from a database and display it. I have the data. If someone else wants to write the tool...Nicolas.hammond (talk) 20:37, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Importance (importance=)
No article on a bridge player (Bob Hamman) or a conventional bid (Stayman convention) should have Top importance.
That comment is not limited to people. If I have much else to say soon, I will probably reorganize, maybe in terms of Quality/Importance rather than People and other content. --P64 (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why limit class to B and importance to top above? Bob Hamman is arguably the best world player ever; if he is not a 'top', then no one is and this seems wholly illogical - i.e. why does the class exist? Newwhist (talk) 20:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re quality. (Quoting the current draft, new since I wrote yesterday) "Assessment of the article quality classification is with respect to writing style, accuracy, completeness, verifiability etc. and is compared to an absolute standard." —This doctrine would often limit us to Stub and Start, so long as the article covers only a person's bridge career (plus basic "facts" such as nationality, full name, living or deceased). Certainly we could never give a B to Irina Levitina without assessing its coverage of her chess career or to Harold Vanderbilt without ... yachting. My hope was to ensure that the lower grades, at least, may be used frequently; to narrow the Stub and Start classes a little. --P64 (talk) 18:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re Quality. Quality is not defined by article length but by writing style and content accuracy, thorougness, verifiability etc. As long as the article has all these qualities as far as the bridge related component is concerned, even a very short article on a relatively unimportant individual (as far as bridge is concerned) can have a quality rating (by and for the WikProject Contract bridge ) which is higher than Class-B. I will acknowledge that this may be an infrequent case but it is not impossible. I also acknowledge that if an article's treatment on bridge related information is very short, there is an increased probability that the person is below 'low' in importance but again this is not automatic. Should we have an importance class called 'Unimportant' (as far as the WikiProject ontract bridge is concerned) to be explicit about it and leave it to others to judge the merits of an article on non-bridge related facts? And if there is no non-bridge related content in such a case, then we should just delete the article - sorry, we should nominate the article for deletion. Newwhist (talk) 21:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re importance. Ely Culbertson &c might be Top importance if Bob Hamman were not, but my suggestion was that no "biography" is top importance. I have no quarrel with Duplicate bridge and so on. Only the two proper-noun articles (now boldly identified above) seemed out of place to me when I wrote yesterday.
More re Importance: I might ultimately accept the view that no biography is 'top' importance (with reluctance). I wonder if any other game-related projects apply this standard. I will nose around. With respect to Stayman, no one could play at even the most basic levels of bridge without knowing what Stayman is; even if they choose not to play the convention themselves, they absolutely must know what it is when used by opponents and is therefor IMHO a very clear "top" imporance article. It is fundamental to knowing how to play bridge. With respect to Vanderbilt, I would rate him at least a 'high' importance in WikiProject Contract bridge (I am going to use WPCB from now on!). The debate on any specific article takes place on its 'talk' page. What we are trying to do here is come up with some general criteria for the WPCB recognizing that even the general criteria will give way to the occassional exception on any specific article. Newwhist (talk) 21:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In summary, it is my understanding that in the {{WPCB}} banner we are rating only insofar as the WPCB is concerned. The quality and importance ratings at the Wiki encyclopedia level are managed through other more rigorous processes and yes, contract bridge will be lucky to get a handful of articles rated in the top quality classes and in the top importance classes. Let's do more research on this and see what other projects are doing and how they integrate their project ratings on quality and importance with the encyclopedia level ratings. Newwhist (talk) 21:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Notability? or all about People?
Section "Notability of bridge people" is about nationality, not notability.
Sorry but I am not getting your point. The 'Notable people criteria' that this page applies to is:
for any bridge personality regardless of nationality
only about their notability as far as bridge is concerned (whether player and/or writer and/or administrator) independent of whether or not they are notable in any other respect.
User:P64 continues: Nominally this page concerns the notability of bridge people, not other aspects of the coverage of people here, such as their nationality. See the two lead sentences of the article as I revised it last hour. And observe, you imported section Talk:WPCB "Nationality of Bridge People" with a change of name (and appropriate lowercase B P).
Here are some other issues regarding our coverage of people, unrelated to their notability or nationality. "Issues" in a broad sense: material suitable for a general project subpage on coverage of people, not necessarily in biographies.
When should we use which names in prose and in lists? For example, should a list of Hall of Fame members list "Robert Hamman", presumably piped [[Bob Hamman |Robert Hamman]], if the Hall of Fame inducted him under that name? Should we list Sally Sowter here and Sally Brock there as a tournament winner? In prose she we call her "Sowter" regarding 1980 events and "Brock" regarding 2010 events?
I have made a suggestion on Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge/Manual of Style/Appendix 1: Article creation and naming guidelines as follows: "For people who have changed their names, the article title should be their current name or name used at death and redirects created for their previous name(s). When the person is in a list or referenced elsewhere, the name used should be the one used at the time of the event and a footnote added to indicate the current name and reason for change." Newwhist (talk)
This hour I have asked regarding general Wiki policy, if any, with reference to Mary Decker Slaney's biography, which actually reads "Decker blah blah blah ... Slaney blah blah blah".
(insertion) At the same time I have asked about listing, say, Hall of Fame members by names under which they were inducted, names that institution uses today, and titles of wiki-entries.
Alphabetization: should lists of team members be alphabetized by surname? If so, what's a surname?
IMHO Yes. I am sure there is Wiki policy on names that deals with things like 'de V. Hart' and complex Chinese names, etc. We should adopt them by reference. Newwhist (talk) 22:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Partnerships: alternatively, should we list teams by partnerships such as Balicki–Zmudzinski where known? If so, it is appropriate to mix pairs and individuals when we know some of a team?
IMHO list all as individual team members without specifying partnerships - it is a team event even if two people were always a partnership throughout. Newwhist (talk) 22:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Foreign-language editions of wikipedia may be useful both for diacritics in the name and for content. For example, Zmudzinski in Polish wikipedia. (That biography seems to have no content useful here, however, because our English-language stub is recently a translation from that Polish.) --P64 (talk) 21:17, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should import from our Wiki sister language sites. Not sure if we should limit ourselves to referenced information only or just translate the whole lot. This suggest that we should try to get a formal liaison system going with our Wiki counterparts in the other languages. Newwhist (talk) 22:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note. (which I intend to develop later) WBF/EBL database may list team members alphabetically by official surnames. If so, and automated, then out-of-order listings such as "Sowter first, Gardener last"[3] indicate that WBF/EBL webitors have used an alias. If such work is reliable the alias should be a contemporary name. (If contemporiety is unreliable, we still know that WBF/EBL identifies Sowter and Brock, etc.)P64 (talk) 19:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let me try again regarding part of this. Feel free to revise layout.
Suppose for illustration that we prefer "Kathie Wei-Sender" as a biography title, the article we hope one of the horde will write.
We use "Kathie Wei" in prose and in listings such as tournament results, where that is historically appropriate; we avoid the other where it would be anachronism. Probably that is "Kathie Wei", not "Kathie-Wei Sender|Kathie Wei", for we routinely postpone piping until an article exists; authors of new biographical entries should look for links that use alternative titles. [I advocate this.]
What about the New Article Nominations at Wikipedia:WikiProject Contract bridge#Articles needing attention? Should we always list Kathie Wei-Sender there, if we recommend or even plan to enforce that title? The general issue is whether the list of Nominations should use the commendable titles? [I say yes. And so I would also, there in WikiProject space, list the first of these two alternatives:]
What about the list of bridge people, which is a collection of lists that overlap. Should we use Kathie Wei-Sender thruout? Or should we use the name under which she is currently listed at the ACBL Hall of Fame? the name under which a particular author featured her? or by which a particular interview with her is currently available online? —in the sublists that are defined by HOF membership, that author's book, that collection of interviews. [I think Wikipedia bridge coverage has erred in favor of formality, probably following biographical entries and lists of champions in the Official Encyclopedia.]
What about bibliographical data in article space? Should and bibliographies and citations always display the alias used by the publisher? For example, "Dorothy Truscott" or "Dorothy Hayden Truscott" following the publisher. "Bill Root" here and "William S. Root" there.
About 2,500 players have won at least one national championship (with no upper masterpoint limit, of course) in the ACBL. Not to mention other organizations. Millions of players worldwide have won a regional championship.
It would be my view that regional championships alone are not an indicator of notability. However, for someone who is notable for other reasons, a summary reference with respect regional championship wins may be considered. Newwhist (talk) 03:09, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Proposed notability criteria
These include:
at least 3 world championship (specific list of eligible events to be identified) plus
at least 10 national or transnational championships (specific list of eligible events to be identified) plus
Presumably that's "played in" rather than "won", as if it's the latter it would be setting the bar very high? JH (talk page) 09:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did mean 'won'. Taking a step back and simply theorizing, how many people should be notable in bridge world-wide? 10, 100, 1000? I think more like 100 than either 10 or 1000. I would not argue against 200 but it is getting too weird IMHO if approaching 500 - and it is!. We have at present about 380 people by my rough count and this is in the face of being particularly ACBL-centric! I do not advocate for removals (I am an inclusionist), but suggest that additions be based upon more stringent and explicit criteria. AND people can be notable for reasons other than 'wins' If we develop listings based on the full range of number of wins, we can 'lower the bar' as we go; seems like a reasonable way of establishing a rough priority. Newwhist (talk) 15:01, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Other options have been proposed on this project page. It is clear to me that we should be focussing on people who have status as a (1) world champion with at least X number of such titles and/or (2) a national champion with at least Y number of such titles or (3) a member of a national hall of fame. I am prepared to accept that X should equal 1 but am unsure about Y.
Are all world titles of equal merit? National titles? Probably not. IMHO a list of 'qualifying' titles should be developed for world titles and for national titles for each major country (or WBF zone?). The lists should be era-sensitive, that is to say, world champions in the 1930s and 1940s would have to be based on different criteria than for more recent decades. Data accumulation will be more efficient if we have a master data plan to populate. I know this sounds a bit bureaucratic but without some predetermined structure, we are doomed to ongoing administrative and maintenance effort.
The name that leaps out at me there is Sidney Lenz. Given how important a figure he was in the early days of contract bridge, it's astonishing that he still lacks an article. JH (talk page) 17:40, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
From Gold Cup list of notables
A complete list of Gold Cup winners year by year can be found here. There's a more conveniently formatted list of players with four or more wins here.
List of ACBL Hall of Fame members not yet an article
Who gets to decide the notability/category of a particular person? Is it the original author? Should there be some guidelines? For example, if you have won 10+ major open events then you are more notable than someone who represented their country once. If someone is in a HOF should they have a default level? See the "importance classification" on the main page.Nicolas.hammond (talk) 12:30, 28 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To state the obvious - no one person decides. It is a collaborative process based on broader Wiki policies and guidelines informed by any further project specific guidleines we may come up with (which is the purpose of this Project page to establish!)
My personal view is that any criteria we come up with (be it a HOF member, or X number of NABCs wins or Y number of 'world' championships, or whatever) should be used for relative priority and not as a pass/fail criteria. I do not care if the cutoff for NABCs is 10 or 2 or 1000. Let's just start the list with the person who won the most and finish with the person who won only one. It would seem somewhat logical to devote energy to people higher on the list than people lower on the list. Same for other national championships. Same for world championships. If somebody wants to spend time on person 999 on the list, be my guest. I do not care. But I am not likely to become engaged with that person in improving that article, but again, be my guest, do as you please.
So I see this problem as one of creating a sortable table with a list of names and key data for each person. Key measures like
X number of world championships, minimum 1, with dates
Y number of national championships, minimum 10, with dates
