Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Montréal Expos

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IMO, we should redirect to the new team if the old team does not have enough info in Wikipedia to have a standalone page, which is not the case with the Montréal Expos. Of the above list, the Brooklyn Dodgers may be another candidate to have it's own page. ... The NFL Raiders won't sit still, so let's keep redirecting the page. :-) BTW, is there a page in Wikipedia about moving professional sports franchises ? That's a COTW, eh ? -- PFHLai 22:47, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)

  • When a franchise moves, so with it moves its records. The Los Angeles Dodgers article lists the team's championships. The Sacramento Kings article lists the 1951 NBA Championship won when the team was in Rochester and called the Royals. Who is the all-time stolen base and all-time triples leader for the Baltimore Orioles franchise? George Sisler, who did it when the franchise was in St. Louis. Kingturtle 23:36, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why is this list growing ? Are we laying the groundwork for a Wikipage about translocation of North American major league sports franchises ? :-) -- PFHLai 02:11, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)

  • I am trying to show that the matter had already been figured out, not by one user, but by many users. Kingturtle 03:04, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I think many of those pages became redirects because there isn't much to write about. For a team that has left a mark in a city before moving out, a page is worthwhile. Things should be content-driven in a wiki, not a rigid policy. Fans of the Winnipeg Jets and the Québec Nordiques would agree that there were enough stuffs to write about to fill up a Wikipage before the Phoenix Coyotes and the Colorado Avalanche came into being, hence no redirects. The Montréal Expos should be treated the same, as long as there are willing Wikipedians to contribute content, and there is proper navigational info that readers can easily visit both pages. -- PFHLai 04:49, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)

Re: Expos/Nats Ownership[edit]

Correct me if I am wrong, but MLB took over team ownership from a local consortium as a "caretaker", with a plan to sell to the team elsewhere, such as Portland, Oregon or Washington, D.C. I was referring to this group as the last owners of the Expos -- they never own the Nats. I remember reading the news about these guys claiming that they had been misled in the negotiations and tried to sue to stop the team from moving or being contracted. MLB and whoever they sell the team to are and will be the owners of the Nats. -- PFHLai 23:24, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)

Be Consistent[edit]

I don't really care what rule y'all follow, but y'all should be consistent.

You have the Baltimore Orioles history as a continuous thread going clear back to the Milwaukee Brewers minor league club of 1893. As a baseball historian, I am fine with that. But there is another way...

The way it's handled in The Sporting News Baseball Record Book, in the section on team records, they have an individual section for each franchise and city, listing year-by-year standings and individual season records. Here's how they handle the Orioles:

  • Milwaukee Brewers, 1901 (when the A.L. became major league): "Original American League franchise moved to St. Louis after the 1901 season". Home run record is 8, by John Anderson, in 1901 of course. He also holds the hits record, with 190.
  • St. Louis Browns, 1902-53: "Original American League franchise moved from Milwaukee to St. Louis after the 1901 season and to Baltimore after the 1953 season". Home run record is 39, by Ken Williams, in 1922. Hits record is 257, by George Sisler, in 1920.
  • Baltimore Orioles, 1954 to date: ""Original American League franchise moved from Milwaukee to St. Louis after the 1901 season and to Baltimore after the 1953 season". Home run record is 50, by Brady Anderson, in 1996. Hits record is 211, by Cal Ripken, in 1983.

Thus the overall franchise home run record is 50 and the hits record is 257, spread across two cities.

The reason I like their approach is that it provides a balance between franchise continuity and city integrity. In their record books prior to about 10 or 15 years ago, they used to lump them together. But they responded to fans who wanted to know "their" teams' records vs. "the franchise" records. As you might imagine, they have two listings for the Milwaukee Brewers, one for the 1901 team and one for the 1970-to-date team. They also have two listings for the Washington Senators, one for the 1901-1960 team and the other for the the 1961-1971 team.

It might be that no one much cares about the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers. But if someone wants to argue that the Washington Nats should have a distinct page while the Brooklyn - L.A. Dodgers should not, please note that those Brewers have a full season of history (in the majors), whereas this "new" Nats team has a grand total of less than 4 weeks of "history"! Arguably, so far the 1901 Brewers are more deserving of a separate page than are the 2005 Nationals.

Anyway, you need to be consistent. Who actually makes these decisions? Or is it kind of a high-tech commune?

Wahkeenah 23:42, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, the entry for the Montreal Expos reads "National League expansion franchise moved from Montreal to Washington after the 2004 season". And there is nothing under the third Washingon franchise, because they had no history yet, on the field anyway, when the book when to press.

Wahkeenah 23:45, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, we will be consistent, and we are in the process of making a decision. If the page on the Montreal Expos stays, teams like the Brooklyn Dodgers and the 1901 Milwaukee Brewers will probably get their own page. Someone will have to put in the work and build the pages, though. -- PFHLai 16:33, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

Strong Keep[edit]

Because of the way that Major League Baseball has handled the relocation of the Montreal Expos to Washington, DC, I think the Expos page should remain as is. There are plenty of Expos fans who are not going to follow the team to DC and already are angry that the Expos history has been airbrushed by MLB. The people in Montreal are angry about how their team was taken away from them, at least leave them the history of the their team. Wikipedia is not owned by MLB, there is absolutely no reason why the Montreal Expos article cannot be kept and give Expos fans like myself a place to honor Nos Amours without having to look at a bunch of stuff about the Nationals. - --Mretalli 00:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wikipedia does not use anger as a reason to justify an article. Kingturtle 23:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's why this statement is on the talk page. I will post a rational argument on the voting page. --Mretalli 00:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why are we going by franchises ?[edit]

I would like to know why MLB info in Wikipedia is divided into Wikipages by franchises. When there is enough info for a stand-alone page, I think it's perfectly alright to have a new page. I think it's okay for the Expos/Nats to have two pages as long as there are enough contents for two pages (a little overlap is alright), and there are good links for easy "navigation" and disambiguation. Ditto for the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers. Same goes for the A's and the Giants, if we have enough Wikicontributions. If it's Wikipedia policy to go by franchises, or to blindly (sorry if this is offensive, but I don't have a better word in mind) go by precedences, then perhaps it's time to review such a policy. -- PFHLai 23:02, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

  1. it's not blind. it has been standard practice here for years for MLB, NFL and NBA franchises. this is not some willy-nilly, spontaneous decision. it is a policy that was so standard, that the regular editors of the MLB, NFL and NBA didn't even discuss it or write it down as a policy. we're not talking one or two examples - there are dozens of examples (see the list on this TALK page). please take a look at how the Charlotte Hornets are dealt with in New Orleans Hornets, and how the Vancouver Grizzlies are dealt with in Memphis Grizzlies.
  2. all business accounts reflect this change. consider it a name change on stationery. the change is reflected in all official MLB instances. the change is reflected by all professional and amateur statisticians. the change is reflected by every media outlet. it seems the change is reflected everywhere but wikipedia.
  3. we don't have separate biographies for Cat Stevens and Yusuf Islam, or for Cardinal Joseph Ratzingerand Pope Benedict XVI, or for Lady Diana and Diana, Princess of Wales. they are the same people. and this is the same franchise. Kingturtle 01:48, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Regarding Kingturtle's point 1: IMO, it's time to review such an unwritten policy. -- PFHLai 04:14, 2005 May 5 (UTC) (P.S. Pls leave out the NHL pages as examples, Kingturtle. So far, pages on NHL franchises worth writing about don't become redirects after a move.)
The NHL officially treats its franchise situations differently than MLB, NBA and NFL. I don't know if this is because it has its headquarters in Canada, and therefore has different traditions or laws. I am not an expert in NHL legalities - I know very little about how the NHL conducts itself. From what I understand, they treat franchises differently. Kingturtle 04:20, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Kingturtle, is this enough to convince you that whether there is a redirect or not should be considered on a case-by-case basis ? -- PFHLai 04:37, 2005 May 5 (UTC)
It is enough to convince me to stay out of the issue of NHL franchises, because I am ignorant of how they are treated officially. Kingturtle 04:45, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Kingturtle will never be convinced. He does not see that a team is different from a franchise. Nor does he see the immense good will Wikipedia will receive for keeping a separate Expos article. - Pioneer-12 11:59, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Good will should not be a determining factor in such decisions, IMHO. If we made decisions based on good will, then we'd never have content that people didn't like - and that would go against the purpose of an encyclopedia. Kingturtle 22:25, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think that, when principles such as NPOV and respect-for-honest-opinions are followed sensibly, good will is a natural result. And I also think that, all else being equal, it is better to err on the side of good will.
- Pioneer-12 09:14, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Companies[edit]

One thing which hasn't been brought up is the fact that each team is a company, and Wikipedia doesn't start separate articles when a company moves or changes its name (IBM, for example, didn't take its current name until 1924, 11 years after incorporation and 36 years after its founding - it's not based in the same city anymore, either; yet the article for IBM covers the entire history of the company, regardless of name or location). I think the decision to keep separate articles in this instance was a purely sentimental one, which doesn't reflect well on an encyclopedia. MisfitToys 23:51, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

  • That is an excellent point...and i touched on that point during the voting: Travelers Group redirects to Citigroup; WorldCom redirects to MCI; Bell Atlantic redirects to Verizon Communications; GTE redirects to Verizon Communications. as far as i can tell, the ONLY time a stink has been raised about such a redirect is in the case of Expos/Nats. Kingturtle 01:51, 5 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • What about Montgomery Ward? It went into Chapter 11, emerged as a subsidiary of General Electric then was dissolved completely. The name was revived in 2004 by an entirely different company, but the history is all contained within one entry rather than a redirect to GE with a separate article for the new MW. I think this is a perfectly sensible way to deal with that case because Montgomery Ward has historic significance in a way that none of the other companies you mentioned above do. I think it's a worthy goal to be as consistent as possible, but it's also important to know when to bend and break the rules you make. Baseball teams are not simply corporations like GE and Verizon. I don't think it makes sense to treat them identically.


    • I hope the contributors at the Montréal Expos page are leading the way in the continuing evolution of Wikipedia. I think it's a change for the good. ... I hope. :-) -- PFHLai 04:14, 2005 May 5 (UTC)
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