Some Wikipedians have formed a task force to better organize information in biographical articles of baseball players. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions; it is hoped that this task force will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians. If you would like to help, please inquire on the talk page.
Note: This task is still at a very early stage. Contributions and suggestions in any area are more than welcome.
Article Improvement Drive[edit]
We now have a new Article Improvement Drive to improve all baseball articles to featured status. Click here to participate.
Templates[edit]
| What to type | What it makes | What it's for | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ((Infobox baseball biography)) Talk |
|
is an infobox template to be added to any MLB player's article. | ||||||||||
| ((WikiProject Baseball)) Talk |
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Added to the talk page of all baseball related pages. | ||||||||||
| ((Portal)) Talk |
Add this to the bottom of a page, right before the categories listing, to show a standardized link to the Baseball portal. | |||||||||||
| ((Baseballstats)) Talk |
|
Add the page ID's after the equals sign to properly direct the links that you desire to have. If you do not specify an ID, the site will not be shown. | ||||||||||
 | Do not upload images from MLB.com or any other site unless you are certain the images are public domain or otherwise fair to use on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Copyrights for more information. |
Scope[edit]
This task force aims to increase the quality and quantity of Wikipedia's coverage of professional baseball players, focusing primarily on Major League Baseball. If there is interest, the scope may be widened to include, for example, Nippon Professional Baseball players.
Goals
- To define a set of useful infobox templates
- To define a set of style guidelines for biographical, professional, and statistical information included in main article text
- To apply the style guidelines and appropriate template to all existing biographical articles of baseball players
- To create biographical articles for ballplayers who don't yet have them
- If deemed necessary, to develop a set of inclusion criteria for Major League Baseball players
How to help[edit]
This is a brief and incomplete list of the numerous tasks that the project has ahead of it. Pitch in where you can.
Article creation
- Go through the 67 team all-time rosters and create articles for the remaining redlinks (or create one of the 27 all-time rosters that is still needed).
Templates/Infoboxes
- Check this list of articles that need infoboxes and add ((Infobox MLB player)).
Stub sorting
- Review the player articles that use the generic ((Baseball-stub)) (link) template and sort them by position and/or nationality as needed.
Add images
- Go through Category:Baseball articles needing images to find articles which need images. Hints on sources for public domain or freely licensed images are here.
Tools[edit]
You can find articles on Baseball Players here:
- List of major league baseball players
- List of Negro League baseball players
- Category:19th-century baseball players
- Category:Baseball players
Participants[edit]
Active
- A-C
- Alexsautographs writes lots of articles.
- AmazinVenezuelan
- Aranda56 occasionally creates an article on a retired baseball player.
- AtomicXYC is writing articles on the forgotten players, especially Boston Red Sox. Newsletter editor.
- Bookworm1 is working on current NL East players, beginning with the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves.
- Branson03
- BRMo is mostly working on Negro League and pre-1960 Latin American players and teams.
- Caknuck has started plugging away at the Texas Rangers pitching staff (new articles where necessary, adding infoboxes, fleshing out stubs, etc...)
- Camanda is adding WP:BOSOX banners to Boston Red Sox player talk pages and creating articles for players who don't have them.
- CFIF (talk · contribs) has created many baseball player related articles (eg. Cory Lidle, Javier Valentin, Dewon Brazelton, Todd Wellemeyer, etc.) and will try to create any redlinked pages.
- cjosefy will help with the Houston Astros, starting with Brad Ausmus
- Coasttocoast adding templates to players
- Cookiecutter43 is working on adding InfoBoxes
- Couillaud is working on adding and updating Negro League players, teams, and related subjects. Primary expertise is in Negro League players from the 1920s.
- Cs-wolves will help with career statistics, and on players & teams.
- D-F
- User:Dan027 Australian players(MLB and ABL
- Dewelar Creating player articles and adding player information to team-season articles as part of overall team-season article standardization project
- Disneyfreak96 is working on bring Barry Bonds up to GA status
- Djrobgordon finished Detroit, Florida, Minnesota, Kansas City.
- User:Duckblazer will improve stub class articles
- User:Ekillian Has started making pages for retired players who have fallen through the cracks. You should go make those pages even better.
- User:Evergladephish11 Started copy editing all pages, looking for small grammar, spelling and factual errors. For example, I came across an article stating there are nine players on a team, and I changed it to say there are 25 players per team, with only nine players from each side participating in a game at any given time.
- False Prophet will help with the Minnesota Twins
- User:Fozart720 is updating Houston Astros players (Jimmy Barthmaier and Hunter Pence.
- FPAtl is working on Cincinnati Reds players.
- G-I
- gavindow is helping out sporadically.
- Geopipp is helping out with what needs doing
- Googie Man is working on uploading pictures of current MLB stars, and will work in the future on retired players.
- Goatenthal is adding images/infoboxes and updating articles after transactions.
- Brian Halvorsen is working on everything.
- Iceberg584 is working on past and present Atlanta Braves.
- J-L
- User:Jackson070792 is looking through his baseball cards and searching if people have pages, and, if not, creating them.
- jj137 is working on adding infoboxes to all retired MLB player articles.
- Jake Z. will work on present day baseball or anything Cubs. I like to write articles (though they aren't top notch) and find information on the web, whether it be a picture, video, etc!
- Kathy A. is working on pre-1920 baseball players. Also stub sorting and categorizing players in general, and vandalism patrol. (I'd love help on this!)
- Kingturtle is working on standardization, World Series history, All-star game history, and milestones.
- Kithira is adding in-line citations to baseball player articles.
- kjbopp is working on World Series pages - adding Offical Program images, statistics, and main text where needed. Also attempting to secure uniformity down throughout all pages.
- M-O
- main man1999 I will work on anything in present day major league baseball.
- Maple Leaf joined the project after working on the Hank Aaron article. Currently, he is adding transactions such as free agent signings and trades to the various season articles of the 80's and 90's.
- Masonpatriot is currently working on retired player infoboxes and league leaders (lists, stubs and succession boxes).
- Matt91486 will continue to create short articles on former Twins player, but at his usual leisurely pace.
- Meegs is working, but lacks focus.
- Michael Greiner has just joined the project after creating Andy Cannizaro article.
- Mickcullen is working on creating at least a stub entry for every former Chicago Cub who does not already have a Wikipedia entry.
- Mattingly23 is working assessing baseball articles.
- Neonblak works mainly with 19th century ballplayers and teams.
- Nishkid64 will help with adding MLB player infoboxes to currently active players, going from team to team. He also will help with add infoboxes for retired MLB players, and also getting images for current players.
- P-R
- Party29 will help make infoboxes and help the Red Sox and Pirates and help with new players.
- ΨνPsinu is sporadically adding or substantially upgrading bios for the obscure and long (or not-so-long) forgotten. Also anything and everything Red Sox. First player added: fellow Peabodyite Steve Lomasney. Last players added/upgraded: William Russell Johnson and William Russell Johnson (unrelated!).
- Penale52: making players pages, working on talk pages
- Rlendog mostly working on New York players
- Rogerd (talk · contribs) is working on retired players/managers
- RyanCross (talk · contribs) – Working on getting baseball stubs to WP:DYK. Working on some WP:GAs, WP:FAs and WP:FLs also.
- S-U
- SanFranMan59 - Working on Cleveland Indians player articles
- SERSeanCrane - Images, New York Mets
- ςפקιДИτς ☺ ☻
is working on adding templates to retired playersis working on current NL West players, starting with (of course) the Giants. - Sholom works on players from Washington Nationals (in particular, those making big league debuts), and also occasionally adds/updates bios for obscure and/or retired players, trying to give them their due.
- Soxrock (talk · contribs) Work on making all articles consistent to so some extent, along with doing everything else on my laundry list
- STORMTRACKER 94 Any player. I'll help with expansion and sources also.
- StormXor (talk · contribs) San Francisco Giants player pages
- Street20 is working on adding templates and creating articles.
- Tigersfan1992 has created the all-time rosters for the Braves, Tigers, Phillies and Giants, and has also made the page for Rod Allen, Brent Clevlen, Román Colón, Sean Douglass, Alexis Gomez, Jack Hannahan, Kevin Hooper, Josh Phelps, Humberto Sánchez and Jordan Tata
- TrafficBenBoy is currently writing articles about significant retired players and managers.
- V-Z
- Wizardman- I'll concentrate on infoboxes, article creation, stuff of that nature.
- Wxthewx99 is expanding bios, creating new player pages, and is helping where he can.
Inactive
- android
- Colin Kimbrell
- Kingturtle
- Mikedk9109 (talk)
working on Cleveland Indians playersfinished Cleveland Indians players
User:Mtrash
Structure[edit]
See the project's talk page for more information.
Resources[edit]
Here are some resources that can be referenced (or directly used, if in public domain) when creating or improving the quality of baseball players' articles:
Statistical information
Biographical information
- BaseballLibrary.com
- SABR, or more particularly, The Baseball Biography Project at SABR
- TheDeadBallEra.com - obituaries, causes of death on dead ball era players
Images
Preferably, photographs of players should be either public domain or released under a free license. The source of the photograph must be displayed.
Public Domain Images
In the United States, works are public domain if they were created prior to 1923. If an image is in the public domain, it should be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia.
Freely licensed images
If a person photographs a baseball player, that person can offer the image under a free license.
Fair use
Wikipedia has a fair use policy. The Wikipedia fair use policy does not necessarily parallel the actual law with respect to fair use due to policy considerations as to the goals of Wikipedia.
The Wikimedia policy discourages use of photographs of living people under the rationale that the preference is to have a freely licensed image of the person, and it should be relatively easy to obtain a photograph of that person. However, if a person is deceased, then, since it is no longer possible to obtain a picture of that person, then it is acceptable fair use to use a photograph of a person.
For deceased baseball players, there are a variety of sources for photographs, included the MLB Hall of Fame. For active baseball players, it is possible to obtain photographs of that player. For those players that are no longer active in baseball but are living, then it is difficult under the current Wikipedia policy to obtain an acceptable image of that person.
Sources
- Library of Congress--General Collection has many photographs of baseball players. These photographs are generally in the public domain or the copyright holder has granted liberal use of the photographs.
- The Library of Congress Baseball Cards - 2,100 early baseball cards dating from 1887 to 1914 (all should be in public domain in US)
- NYPL Digital Library (check copyright info before using)
- Chicago Daily News Has photographs from 1902 to 1933, including numerous baseball players and some Negro League players. Many photographs are in the public domain. For those photographs not in the public domain, the Chicago Historical Society encourages use of the photographs under the United States fair use laws.
- MLB Hall of Fame has many photographs of players. Under the current Wikipedia fair use policy, the use of photographs of living persons is not preferred, and thus the photograph may be deleted. However, there are numerous photographs of deceased baseball players which would be acceptable under the current Wikipedia poliy. The web site's usage policy states, "Except as expressly prohibited on this Web site, you are permitted to view, copy, and print documents within this Web site (such as FAQs, papers, datasheets, and so on), subject to your agreement that all of the following conditions are met: 1. Your use of the information is for informational, personal, and noncommercial purposes only. 2. You will not modify the documents or graphics. 3. You will not copy or distribute graphics separate from their accompanying text and you will not quote materials out of their context. 4. You will display the above copyright notice on all documents or portions of documents and retain any other copyright and other proprietary notices on any copy you make. 5. You agree that the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum may revoke this permission at any time and you shall immediately stop your activities related to this permission upon notice from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum."
- Flickr - users can copyright their photos using the Creative Commons licenses. The ones that should be used in Wikipedia are licensed "Attribution 2.0", or "Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0". This link is set to search for these photos only, however you need to check each one you upload to see which license it uses. Look under the "Additional Information" section of the photo's page to find its license. Tag the photo with either ((cc-by-2.0)) ("Attribution 2.0") or ((cc-by-sa-2.0)) ("Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0").
- Negro League Baseball Museum Photo Collection. The usage policy states, "Written materials, art work and photography on this site are copyrighted by the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, other writers, photographers, and organizations. Materials on these pages may be distributed and duplicated if unchanged in format and content."
Other
- The Library of Congress - Spalding Baseball Guides, 1889-1939 (guides published before 1923 should be in public domain in US)
- Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles - has back issues of The Baseball Magazine, issues published before 1923 should be in public domain in US
Userbox[edit]
Add ((user WikiProject Base-play)) to your user page to get
 | This user participates in the Baseball players task force. |
A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects.