Talk:Rugby football

Not much useful information about the very beautiful game of rugby here!

Try adding what you know. (There's more at Rugby Union and the other codes.) Tristanb

Also alickadoos? What??? This must be a regional expression, it should probably state that in the paragraph. I'm gonna leave it though :-) Tristanb 10:08, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Why was France removed from the list of countries. They are rather prominent in the sport!Mintguy (T) 10:07, 3 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 On Rugby History 2 disambiguation 2.1 History of Rugby Football 3 IRB members 4 Rugby (footy) 5 girlfirend named Kay 6 Opinions wanted 7 History

On Rugby History

The page football covers the early development of the game in detail. The new page History of rugby union covers the development of Rugby Union where the history of football ends. Similarly the Rugby League#History covers the history of Rugby League. This is the format suggested by in the discussion pages of the Talk:Football#Details on the history and development of specific sports page by Mintguy and agreed to by Grant65.

I agree with this principle to a limited extent, but I think that there should be a summary of main points in the development of history of the game on the football page beyond the schisms. However as I agree that the football page is large I am willing to conceded that this may not be desirable. That though is a thread which should be argued on Talk:Football.

I mentioned the above because it seems to me that we have run into the similar problem in this page. Mintguy(talk) copied (and improved on) the information in the first paragraph of the history on this article in to the History of rugby union#Early history so improving that section in that article. As he did this, it seems like common sense to me that keeping almost identical text in to related article is not the best way to use resources. It is best to summarise on one article an put in a link from that article to the other if the reader needs more details.

Grant65 removed some of my edits which had reduced duplicated paragraphs to summaries, but left some of the summery points in place which had not existed before. The section is now a mismatch of detail and summary paragraphs with no link to History of rugby union or direct link to Rugby League#History so that the reader can view more detail on the summary points. He also posted a message to my talk page Please stop making major changes to the various football/rugby pages, without consulting Wikipedians who have been working on those pages for some time. It's rude and it's not in the spirit of Wikipedia. I disagree with him, the are open pages, and if one is too close to a page often one can not see the wood for the trees. As I have explained above there is a logic to my changes which I hope on reflection Grant65(talk) will agree with. If not then please make your case and I will consider it, just as I have on the size of the Football page limiting content to pre-schism) Philip Baird Shearer 10:33, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The football article is a quite long. Given that the title is football, I think it makes sense in that article to stop talking about the details of specific codes at the point at which those codes branch off because it will lead to the article becomming unbalaced if someone adds whole chunks of information about a specific sport, when this information would serve its purpose better on a page about a given sport. With rugby we have some slight complexity. We have a page called rugby football another called rugby union and another called history of rugby union and another called rugby league, there is inevitably going to be some crossover in these articles. The question is, does it matter, and if so, what is the best way to resolve it? Well wikipedia isn't runng out of disk space, so unless the articles are reaching the kind of length of the 'football' article I don't think it does matter. There is nothing wrong with duplication of information in different Wikipedia articles if the relevant text is in context and it doesn't unbalance the article. How many articles, for example, say that Germany invaded Poland in 1939? The alternative to having some crossover is to be strict and say that the article on rugby union should begin with the formation of the RFU, and the article on the history of the rugby league should begin with the formation of that organization and that in both cases the article should point to the article on 'Rugby football' for earlier history and 'football' for the ancient history. If this is the approach that is to be taken then Webb Ellis should be mentioned on the rugby football page only. However I suspect that people will be continually adding to the pages about rugby league and rugby union that the sport was invented by Willaim Webb Elllis. My opinion is that any article that starts of by saying "William Webb Ellis invented rugby" is just plain wrong. Either the myth should be explained for what it is, or it shouldn't be mentioned at all. So either this text is duplicated in the various articles or is left within the context of the rugby football page only. Mintguy (T) 11:30, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The major argument about duplication of data is not so much disk space as accuracy. For example you have just changed the date of the first written rules of rugby from 1843 to 1845 in the History of rugby union. Before you noticed that, the date was different from the one on [[Rugby football]. The more copies the more likely there are to be differences and the more pages which may need to be fixed, which mean more work. This is exactly the reason why procedures/functions and library calls were developed in computer programming.

For this reason as the history information is now in the Rugby Union and Rugby League pages there is no need for it to be repeated in detail on this page (just summarised). Particularly when including a line similar to this:

For a more details on the History of Rugby see the following articles articles:Football, History of rugby union and Rugby League#History

Philip Baird Shearer 15:02, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

disambiguation

Personally I'd vote for moving the information on this page to either the Rugby Union or Rugby League pages and turning this page into a disambiguation page. But as that is not likely to happen in the near future, moving detailed information and leaving summaries seems like the way to go. Philip Baird Shearer 15:02, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

What begins as disambiguation sometimes turns into prose. When I first discovered Wikipedia the page at 'Football' was about the association game, but there was a huge disambiguation block at the beginning. There was a page called 'list of football players' that someone moved to list of soccer players, this prodoced a debate about the naming and content of the former page. The page eventually became a disambiguation page and I wrote what became an article called "the history of football", sometime later the content at 'football' was increased and began to duplicate (sometimes inaccurately) the information at history of football, so I took a decision to move all of the information at 'history of football' to 'football'. So I take you point about duplicate information causing problems. Perhaps we should sort out some rules as to what goes where then. I'll wait for Grant to comment. Mintguy (T) 17:30, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I disagree Philip. More disambiguation and reconciliation of the pages is needed, but a disambiguation page need not be a stub. The Rugby Union and Rugby League pages should be bigger, but there was half a century of history before the split occurred, and the early history belongs on this page as much as anywhere else

You say "The major argument about duplication of data is not so much disk space as accuracy." I'm sure there are lots of discrepancies between Wikipedia pages. So what? In most cases they are easily fixed and are not likely to be reproduced widely.

The silly (but innocuous) stuff about "alickadoos" and "old farts" should probably be on the Rugby Union page, if anywhere, but that's about all that I would change at the moment.Grant65 (Talk) 17:34, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)

I will concede that the section on Rules should probably stay as it is informative and not easily placed into either Union or League without duplication. However the General description is a mess; (there is a far better section in the Rugby League article.( which the Rugby Union article would do well to mimic). The Culture and humour section is disingenuous as it is English Union specific (I would not expect that the are not many girls called Kay etc. in Papua New Guinea). But in the same section the piece on what the Rugby codes are called could do with expansion, because like the Rules it is informative and placed anywhere else would lead to duplication.

The 50 years of rugby you mention before the split with League is covered by the history of Football and the History of rugby union. The word Union only had to be added that code, as a shorthand, when the split with League took place for ease of reference, (but it is the same game run by the same governing bodies). This is exactly the same as the word Rugby being added to the handling game after the split with Association Football (AF) to differentiate the two codes (and why those English speaking countries which commonly refer to other codes as "football" tend to use "soccer" to describe AF). I think that the 7 years (Dec 1863 - Jan 1871) between the forming of the AF and the formation of the RFU, which it could be argued should be covered in this article, are too few to justify this as they can be covered in the quote Those who play the rugby-type game should meet to form a code of practice as various clubs play to rules which differ from others, which makes the game difficult to play which is in the open letter initiating the formation of the RFU.

If Wikipedia is to be a credible alternative encyclopaedia, then discrepancies (error) matter. The more pages containing the same information the more work in maintain them and the greater the chance that errors will creep in. This is why I think we should reduce the paragraphs to summaries if they are described in detail on other pages and those pages should be included as easily accessible links. Philip Baird Shearer 12:43, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

History of Rugby Football

I was asked to repsond here by User:Philip Baird Shearer who posted this on my talk page:

Nice job on your creation of History of Rugby League BUT I think that the page History of Rugby Football should not contain any details: See my comments on Talk:Rugby_football#disambiguation:

If Wikipedia is to be a credible alternative encyclopaedia, then discrepancies (error) matter. The more pages containing the same information the more work in maintain them and the greater the chance that errors will creep in. This is why I think we should reduce the paragraphs to summaries if they are described in detail on other pages and those pages should be included as easily accessible links.

So I would like to make History of Rugby Football a disambiguated page.

It is probably better that you reply there so that others who have an interest in this can see the conversation. Philip Baird Shearer 13:45, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I would say that we should consider Rugby before the schism as a seperate sport from the two new games. It should not be forgotten that by 1904 there were more rugby league clubs that rugby union clubs in England [1] (http://www.rl1895.com/rugby-divide.htm). If we are to make History of Rugby Football a disambiguation page then BOTH pages (RL & RU) should include information about earlier times - we should not give the (rugby union official line) impression that RL is simply an offshoot of RU, it is a game in its own right with equal claim to the pre-1895 history of rugby.Grinner 14:02, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

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Good luck with the history of rugby league/union pages, but as Mintguy has pointed out, the reason why he merged the "History of Football" page into Football was that the history page was being neglected. Not only is there room for full histories on the main pages for each code, I think those pages need a full history. Otherwise how is someone from Iceland, Indonesia or Idaho really going to appreciate the differences between them? Grant65 (Talk) 15:35, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

I would be quite happy for History of Rugby Football to be merged into Rugby Football; I would not be happy for the pre-schism history of rugby league to be on History of rugby union. Grinner 15:46, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

My argument is (as expressed above in the paragraph which starts The 50 years of rugby you mention before the split with League is covered... There was only 7 years between the formation of AF and the formation of the RFU which can be summed up in a sentence. To have a page on the History of RU and not include the formation of the first RFU [or by chronological order the IR(F)B] seems odd.

Although the popular label for RU changed with the Rugby schism all the formal names, institutions, and laws of RU did not. Your argument that RU did not exist (or was some how a diffrent organisaton) before the schism is not true. It was RL wich created a new orgnization the 'Old Farts' carried on as before. There may have been more League teams in England than Union, but by this time the IR(F)B based in Dublin was the Union "world governing and law-making body" was concerned with Rugby (Union) clubs and federations world wide.

That RL is a branch of RU does not demimish Rugby League (I think it deminished RU, as was proven when RU became an "open" sport). This is just the same as acknowledging that Rugby (Union) branched away from the most popular form of football and is not dimimished as a sport for doing so. The label Rugby Union is only one of convenience and acknowledgement that there is a daughter sport has grown to adulthood and that some way of distinguishing two equals is needed.

I would still argue, that whatever is decided (in article demarcation) only summaries of events should appear on all but one of the pages. Philip Baird Shearer 17:03, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Apologies that I appear to have wandered into something of debate here; there was no discussion on the History of rugby union page, so I felt justified in making bold changes. Had I come here first I probably would of steered clear!

PBS, I'm not quite clear on what you are suggesting, can you clarify your ideas please. Surely you're not saying that RL and RU do not each deserve their own history page?Grinner 08:46, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

I can see what you are saying because my wording about summaries is ambiguous. The main information should be in the article where it is most pertinent. For example a History of rugby union article is not complete without a (brief) mention of the schism and the formation of League. But the details, like the clubs which went to the George Hotel and formed NRFU, belong in the History of Rugby League article. IF there had been a significant period of Rugby history between the formation of the FA and the RFU, then that information would go on a History of RF. But because there were only 7 years and the period can be summed up in a sentence this is not necessary. So this is what I propose:

1. On Hru restore the information from the HR article.
2. On HRL summarise the history of Rugby before the RL/RU schism, links to Football and Hru for more details. This can be done with links in the text like it is in the current first paragraph of the HR for Football. Add more to the history of RL since the Schism: For example how did RL organise its self internationally (like the IRB) paragraph in the Hru.
3. Make the History of Rugby a disambiguation article links to History of rugby union and History of Rugby League
4. decide whether capitalise or do not capitalise all but the first words in the title so that they are consistent.
5. Cut down the history paragraphs in the Rugby Football, Rugby Union and Rugby League pages to a summary of the contents of the history articles. Philip Baird Shearer 10:25, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

OK, I think I can live with that, though any wording that sugggests that the schism was a minor side point in the history of rugby union will get re-written pretty swiftly!

Now capitalisation - I have always written Rugby League, this seems to be common for in League Express (http://www.totalrl.com/company/history.php) and the RFL (http://www.rfl.uk.com), conversley Rugby Union authorities do not capitalise. Personally I much prefer the capitals, but I accept that for titles the concensus is only capitalise first letter (History of rugby league, not history of Rugby League).Grinner 10:57, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Lets give it 24 hours to see if anyone else wants to comment. If not I'll do 1 and 3, also move the page from HR to Hr, and the links to those pages. Later I'll summarise history on the RU page and do a similar thing to history on the RF page. I'll leave the RL pages to you. Philip Baird Shearer 11:36, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

IRB members

I don't really see why the IRB members box is here, surely it should only belong on the union page? Grinner 10:33, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

I included it because it seemed to complement (and expand) the union paragraph in the General description. If you REALY think it is inapropriate and causes clutter then I shall not re-instate it if you remove it.Philip Baird Shearer 11:43, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It does seem a bit 'cluttery' to me, particulary because of the huge number of dead links, but I'll not remove it just yet. Anyone else got any opinions? Grinner 13:07, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

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Rugby (footy)

I've worked a lot in both australia and nz, and i've never heard of rugby union ever before reffered to as "football".

google [footy site:nz]. Did you never watch the "footy show" in New Zealand? As a sample site picked from the google have a look at:

• http://www.nzdf.org.nz/update/messages/2166.htm

Philip Baird Shearer 08:00, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I played second row and 8man in college, and my team was the SMCM Women's Rugby Football Union...

girlfirend named Kay

What does this expression mean? I've only played rugby in the US, so maybe it's a idiom from another English speaking country? I would love to know! smags

Opinions wanted

Contributors to this page and interested readers, please help adjudicate the controvery at Talk:Rutgers_University. Thanks.Grant65 (Talk) 08:38, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

History

I agree that most of the early history should be from this entry and not that specificially for RU. The branching should go football --> British Isles folk football --> rugby --> Rugby Union --> Canadian & American football (to follow just that line, for example).

However, I'd like to see acknowledgement of the view some hold who say that what they consider rugby in its essence (a type of football already distinct from others being played in the British Isles, and distinct in ways more significant than the ways all the different versions differed from each other) came to Rugby School from Wales.

What I'd most like to learn would be how the goals got to be 18'6" wide!

robgood@bestweb.net