Talk:2004 Summer Olympics
what does "they had a bid that was not only founded on their tradition" mean? Kingturtle 02:22, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Duplicates
This is only the fourth time a duplicate has been made in the city of a Summer Olympic game, after:
- 1924 was a duplicate of 1900 (Paris)
- 1948 was a duplicate of 1908 (London)
- 1984 was a duplicate of 1932 (Los Angeles)
Are there any general rules about duplicates?? 66.32.149.57 01:01, 26 Apr 2004
Chinese Taipei my ########
- No personal attacks. Thanks. [[User:Sverdrup|User:Sverdrup]] 19:41, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Flags
The flags seem to be full-size versions shrunk down on display. The full size image still has top download. This is poor design and I feel sorry for the poor suckers with dial-up. Nelson Ricardo 20:20, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
- No, actually the server thumbnails them and serves images that are the size specified. The flag thumbnails seem to be only about 0.5 KBs each. [[User:Sverdrup|User:Sverdrup]] 20:35, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Korea
Just wondering, isn't North and south Korea going as a united team under that blue flag? Colipon 01:06, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I believe that they are walking under one flag for the opening ceremony to try and show unity, but are competing in the events under their individual country ie; North or South as all of the athletes and teams listed on the athens 2004 website show them under their respective flags.Scraggy4 01:44, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
United States team image
Isn't it a little POV to have a picture of the US team? I dont want to sound anti-American, but if we are going to have a photo of the Americans, then we need to have a photo of every team. Perhaps a better team would be the Greeks? Earl Andrew 21:10, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Oh nevermind, I should have read the caption. Actually, it still seems a bit odd. Earl Andrew 21:11, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, but since the site is edited by a majority (or large part atleast) americans, this happens from time to time. It only means that editors interested in other things than america has to find a lot to write about to even it out.
- I don't worry too much. I took out another statement though, that it was Hitler who personally established the torch relay tradition; I'm happy if we spare ourselves this blatant POV-pushing. [[User:Sverdrup|User:Sverdrup]] 21:23, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I added it because of the significance of the audience reaction they received when they came out. I guess if it seems NPOV still, anyone could remove it. --Gerald Farinas 21:24, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Risk of terrorism
"Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the risk of a terrorist attack is much higher."
According to who, exactly? I find this statement controversial, and it should at least be attributed. --Sam Francis
- To clarify, I don't think the risk of terrorist attack is very different after 11.09.2001, but the ability of people to imagine it happening is probably much higher as a consequence of that event. --Sam Francis
- That's a good point. The odds really haven't changed so much, we've just become more aware that it can happen. The Games are probably more secure, in fact, because of the insane amount of money being expended on security. Sam, you posted that message literally less than a second before I was ready to post mine ;) --cookiecaper
- Thought I might have interrupted someone's answer! Anyway, I think it should be changed to reflect the management's increased concern over security, signalled by increased budget for it, and possibly find out what reasons they have given for this expenditure, and whether or not it is specifically because of a perceived increase in the threat of terrorism, or perhaps because of the increased awareness and fear of terrorism, as we've both noted. --Sam Francis 18:55, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- That's a good point. The odds really haven't changed so much, we've just become more aware that it can happen. The Games are probably more secure, in fact, because of the insane amount of money being expended on security. Sam, you posted that message literally less than a second before I was ready to post mine ;) --cookiecaper
Inconsistent medal count tables
Several pages have a table of medal counts. However, there are at least two different sort orders being used: sort by gold medals as in 2002 Winter Olympics, and sort by total medals as in this article. Of those two methods, I would have thought that sort by total medals is better for a table that lists all medals. You might even argue that total performance requires some form of weighting by points with 3 points for a gold, 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze.
Finally, any ranking that does not account for population size is not very meaningful. It is misleading as a measure of national success, except to send out the message that countries with large populations are better than countries with small populations. Switzerland and Finland have few people, so will always be low on a medal total or gold total list. But they rank very highly on a population/medal table. It would be difficult to have accurate measures of population for countries all the way back to 1908. If the table cannot be sorted by population/medal, then perhaps it should simply be alphabetical.
Whilst people are debating that issue, I propose that the two current sort orders are reduced to one. I recommend that tables that are sorted by gold medals should be resorted by total medals.
Bobblewik 19:36, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
See also Talk:2004 Summer Olympics medal count. -- ke4roh 19:52, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)
- Would it be better if the country's population (and possibly number of athletes) was included in another column of the table? Kind of like this:
| 2004 Summer Olympics medal count | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Population | Athletes |
| 1 | File:China flag large.png China, People's Republic of | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 1,286,975,468 | 416 |
| 2 | File:Wikipedia flag united states large.png United States of America | 1 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 293,027,571 | 611 |
| 3 | File:Australia flag large.png Australia | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 20,003,249 | 512 |
| 4 | File:Russia flag large.png Russia | 3 | 1 | 4 | 145,537,200 | 512 | |
Just say yes and I'd be happy to do it. [[User:Supadawg|supadawg - talk - contribs]] 21:57, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I think it would be interesting to have the number of athletes participating listed in the table. As far as sorting, I think sorting by total medals, using whoever has the most golds to break a tie, and alphabetical listing where that still results in a tie works fine. Kairos 22:04, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Individual Country Articles
Just as we have articles such as Sailing at the 2004 Summer Olympics could we have articles for each country - People's Republic of China at the 2004 Summer Olympics. I, for example, am interested in the kind of preperation this country has made, how much they have spent, their team members - any statements from the government (probably candidly) as to how much they would like, or expect to win. And, of course, a table for their total medals - what they got them in - better or worse than the last olympics? Where have they done the best? There is certainly enough information to fill such articles - but are there enough people to help, to make it viable? --80.225.59.28 10:43, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I just don't think there's enough people to make it work. We're already struggling to keep up with the event articles. It's Day 2, and I've already had to enlist outside help to keep the swimming relatively up to date, and I suspect other articles are getting behind somewhat already. Ambi 10:46, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Yes, we have undertaken quite a project - the number of articles is quite amazing. I am impressed with Wikipedia's coverage of the Olympics. Would anyone object if I were to start doing country articles? --80.225.59.28 10:49, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I can see this as a possible separate page linked from the main page but cannot think of a decent name for the page at the moment. I don't think that we would need a page for each country but just one page with a small write up for each country. More important is to try and get a small write up for each of the events as pages purely containing results do not always give the true impression of what happened in each particular event. Cycling at the 2004 Summer Olympics#Road Race men is a good example of a good write up which we should have for all events, the problem being that most of the time is required to keep the results up to date. Any write ups added now will make less work afterwards in having to find interesting details about each medal won.
- No objection at all. I like the idea of country pages. I would be especially interested in seeing a list of who won the medals, in which discipline for each country. This could be under "Russia in the 2004 Summer Olympics" or something similar. Yardcock 15:14, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
For example see 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships, although far from perfect it is more interesting than just a list of results. I did this after the event but if I had done the write ups as I was watching the event I could have included more interesting details. Scraggy4 10:59, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Keeping an EU count of medals
What is the purpose of this? If the EU were to compete as one nation, they would have considerably fewer competitors in each event, as each nation is limited as to how many participants they may enter into an event. This is an invalid number. RickK 06:53, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
Performance is not correlated to the number of competitors. Why chould a European medal be less valid than an American or Chinese one? First time I see somebody discussing a medal's validity on such a ground. --Pgreenfinch 07:06, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I have to agree with RickK on this - the validity of the medal is not being questioned, but rather, the comparison of a multinational entity to a single nation. For example, take a relay event; each NOC is only allowed to enter one team (I believe). At present, the EU can enter over 10 teams into a relay competition, whereas other countries can only enter one. As this "EU team" can get multiple medals when other teams can only get a maximum of one, an "EU medal count" simply isn't valid as demonstrating how an "EU team" would perform. If there's some other reason to show this on the page, that's fine, but without it, I'm leaning toward deleting the section. -- Mike J. 08:15, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I'm with RickK and Mike - I don't think it is relevant, and definitely not encyclopediac. I vote it should be removed -- Chuq 09:03, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Would not be your stance a pure (POV) declaring hard data as irrelevant, invalid and non encyclopedic? Are not there some hidden reason behind your proposed censorship? --Pgreenfinch 09:30, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- In most legal systems the motive behind any argument is irrelevant. Whilst I too might not like the personal agendas that many expouse on these pages (particularly the Americentric ones), this should also be the approach in Wikipedia. The EU has no relevance in an Olympic context and for the reasons stated above (especially the distortion due to number of competitors) means that is a distorted and unhelpful set of statistics. Dainamo 09:46, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)