Talk:illegal formation

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illegal formation

Surely just a formation that is illegal? -- Liliana • 04:13, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Delete —Saltmarsh^{talk-συζήτηση} 06:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep. It has a specific meaning, not guessable from the parts. Requires prior knowledge--Dmol 09:32, 19 October 2011 (UTC).

Delete. IMO it is very much guessable from the parts. Equinox ◑ 15:33, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Delete current definition, if there is a definition not guessable by the sum of its part, Dmol should add it and then we'll discuss it. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:01, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Keep. Illegal generally means against the law in the larger sense of legislation governing a civil society, not against rules of a game. Is this used in any sport other than football, by the way? bd2412 T 16:39, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Illegal meaning against the rules is very common, it might even be more common than the against the law sense. In effect a law is a special type of rule, so there's not even different definitions. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

As for the second question, I looked at b.g.c, and illegal formation also occurs in football (the American one), volleyball, and even military aviation, so no, it is not specific to soccer at all. -- Liliana • 18:14, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I meant American football. Wikipedia only has one sense of illegal formation (the term redirects to w:Penalty (American football)); and that is:

Fewer than 7 players line up on the line of scrimmage(NFL/High School); more than four players in the backfield (NCAA only); eligible receivers fail to line up as the leftmost and rightmost players on the line in the NFL; or when five properly numbered ineligible players fail to line up on the line.

Ah! For some reason, {{football}} redirects to {{soccer}}. It should not do that. -- Liliana • 18:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This seems to me to be a very specific definition, one that does not even include formations that break the rules by having the wrong number of players on the field or having a player offsides. We should have a definition of the very specific sense used in American football. bd2412 T 18:45, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't get it. What does it prove that that there are more ways than one to end up in an illegal formation? --Hekaheka 21:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The point is that there are four specific formations that constitute an "illegal formation", even though there are other formations (one with twelve players, or one with a player on the other side of the field) that would be against the rules. Therefore, an illegal formation, in American football at least, is not any formation that is illegal, but only formations falling into one of those four specific rule violations. bd2412 T 23:06, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That makes it even more SoP. There are various conditions which determine what is "illegal parking" and what is not, what is "unlawful killing" and not, and so on - it doesn't mean we create a specific legal definition for each, that is what an encyclopedia is for. ---> Tooironic 23:27, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

In this case, however, there are "illegal" formations that are not "illegal formations". bd2412 T 23:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

In that case, the definition being challenged is wrong, because the definition says that it can be any formation that is illegal. Equinox ◑ 23:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. I've added the missing senses, and narrowed the RfD to the SOP sense, which I agree is SOP and should be deleted. bd2412 T 00:14, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Replace remaining sense with {{&lit|illegal|formation}}. DCDuring TALK 00:43, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

What makes the formation illegal isn't part of the definition; it's just any formation which is illegal. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:03, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

If anyone cares, I this doesn't seem to meey WT:CFI#idiomaticity as the meaning is easily derived from the sum of the parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:31, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

No more so than many of the cricket expression which we so lovingly include. DCDuring TALK 17:34, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I find this comment vague and provocative, hence not very useful. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:16, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I was trying to provoke looking at this kind of entry with respect for the possibility that this term has as much idiomaticity as comparable cricket terms, some of which have seemed SoP to me, at least at first. Terms in certain fields seem to get a much more sympathetic view than those from other fields, in a way that suspiciously reflects the background, training, and interests of active contributors. I have the feeling that our recent treatment of emergency medical technician jargon was a little less sympathetic than our treatment of, say, linguistic, cricket, or internet jargon. It is a reason why formal criteria, rather than pure votes, would make for more objectivity and a better Wiktionary. DCDuring TALK 20:21, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, and would add that I think our evaluation criteria should consider whether a phrase would be likely to appear in a specialized dictionary on a given topic. I have no doubt that illegal formation would appear in a dictionary of football terminology, just as equal rights in fact appears in every current legal dictionary, and various EMT phrases would appear in a dictionary directed towards that field. In a sense, I think when a phrase like this actually appears in another dictionary, the authors of that dictionary have done the work for us of determining whether the term belongs in a dictionary. bd2412 T 22:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is that simple really, but we could decide to let it be that simple. Many glossaries seem to include in their definitions a great deal of content I would characterize as encyclopedic. They often have, say, both "Adj" and "Adj + N" as entries, where N is not limited in its meaning to the area covered by the glossary. I would argue for only "Adj" being included. OTOH, the benefits of simplicity are such that it is tempting just to accept such terms without qualification, at least for now. DCDuring TALK 22:21, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

FWIW I edited Talk:caught and bowled to express why I think it's an idiom and I'd happily do the same for other cricket terms. There are some terms in Category:en:Cricket that I'd like to delete, but where I'm not confident enough of getting a majority so I'm not gonna even try. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Deleted. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 20:09, 12 August 2012 (UTC)