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Since it is basically just a name for an existing article, perhaps we should consider incorporating its contents more directly with the entries for the variants it describes. - Plasticbadge 02:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I added in a link to a picture of the old stadium that had been broken. Its just a drawing (I'm not sure what the original was), but it shows the field pattern better than any actual photos I could find. Dangermouse29 18:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
At present, I don't have a reference, but I've seen this in several places where the history of American football is discussed. Briefly, in the early days of the forward pass, the passer had to be more than 5 yards laterally away from the spot where the ball was snapped. Lines parallel to the sidelines were added to enforce this rule. Since the yardlines were already present, the field took on the appearance of a "gridiron". The forward passing rules were soon changed and the lines removed, but the name stuck. Or at least that's how the story goes. 65.24.249.74 ( talk) 01:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style for information on the style of an article. This article is lacking sections and headings, and has an over use of boldface type. -- Pinkkeith ( talk) 21:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Australia is cited as using the term, however it's just gridiron, not "gridiron football" —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
202.45.99.157 (
talk)
03:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Should the "old-style" image, showing more obviously the origin of the term, be moved up to the top? M0ffx ( talk) 15:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
What is the short dimension of the field (in the US, Canada)?
Capek ( talk) 17:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I think this is how this article should be called. Gridiron is mostly an informal term that has become widely accepted and used by the media in countries that are fairly aware of the sport, but is not used by any governing body to designate the game, and is not well known outside of North America and maybe the UK.
The official rules published by Football Canada are officially entitled "Canadian Rule book For Amateur Tackle Football". The Federation of the Philippines calls itself "American And Tackle Football Federation". So tackle football seems to be the official term recognized by governing bodies when they want a name inclusive of rule codes that are not strictly the American version.
I would use something like : "Tackle football, often referred to as gridiron football, is a sport..." - — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2a01:e35:2e96:ba90:4de7:d446:2b29:486a (
talk)
Merging to American football has been discussed and rejected on several occasions. This article, whatever its title, is intended to be an overview of all the North American football codes as a whole, which includes Canadian football, and as such should not be merged or deleted. - BilCat ( talk) 21:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Intention doesn't really matter, what matters is if that purpose is both necessary and fulfilled. This is neither necessary nor fulfilled as this is both a redundant and POV fork per Wikipedia policy:
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:REDUNDANTFORK
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:POVFORK
For the redundancy: Variations of American football are covered at: /info/en/?search=American_football#Variations_and_related_sports with links to the main pages of those alternative codes.
For the POV, there's no strong argument to keep this article except to promote the use of "gridiron football" as a name for this family of football codes.
To that argument: The useage of "gridiron" in the title is both undue weight to a minority use term and contrary to Wikipedia naming conventions. "When the subject of an article is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language reliable sources, Wikipedia generally follows the sources and uses that name as its article title (subject to the other naming criteria)." https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:UNDUE https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:NPOVNAME https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:OTHERNAMES
72.168.176.162 ( talk) 17:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. There is clear consensus not to use the proposed new title, although some commenters do think that the current title is inappropriate. ( non-admin closure) sst✈ (conjugate) 09:35, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Gridiron football →
Football in the U.S. and Canada – Simply put, the term "gridiron football" is not used in this way outside of Wikipedia. It's not an umbrella term for American and Canadian football together. It's chiefly a synonym for American football specifically.
[1]
[2]
[3] The phrase is rarely used in U.S. or Canada, and is mostly found in foreign works discussing American football. There really isn't a commonly used umbrella term for both American and Canadian varieties (other than "football", which obviously won't work here.) Some scholars use "North American football" to discuss both together,
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10] but barring that, it's probably best to go with a
neutral, descriptive title per the
article titles policy.
Cúchullain
t/
c
17:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gridiron football/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
It is too short to be anything other than a Stub. TFCforever ( talk) |
Last edited at 02:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 16:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Just a note but there's a proposed outline for this topic at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Drafts/Outline of gridiron football. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 00:57, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Not moved. There is a clear absence of consensus with respect to the proposal. bd2412 T 16:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Gridiron football → North American football – It's time to try this again, as this article's title is a substantial problem. As noted above, "Gridiron football" is not used in this way in any source outside of Wikipedia. The phrase is a synonym for American football, [12] [13] [14] and is not used as an umbrella term for American and Canadian football together. It's also a pretty rare term in the only two countries where this is a major sport. "North American football" is used in various sources for this topic, and it already redirects here. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] A descriptive title like "American and Canadian football" could also work, but as noted various times before, the present title is not in use in this sense in the real world, and so isn't an acceptable article title. Cúchullain t/ c 15:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
This is more complicated than I first thought, and I suggest we relist.
One of the problems is that pesky word American. Both it and America are embarrassingly ambiguous... we decided that America would redirect to United States (the USA), but that American would be a DAB, and please let's stick to those. But those decisions reflect a complexity...
If someone says to me "I'm an American", I know that they're from the USA not from Canada or Venezuala. So maybe American football is a suitable title for the article specific to the USA. Or should it be American football (USA)? Is the US code the primary topic of American football?
American football (America) would be logical for the US-specific article, but... EEEK. Please, no.
Other thoughts? Andrewa ( talk) 21:38, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Of course the word football is as pesky as American, with many strong local associations. So this article title is something of a perfect storm. But we'll get there! Andrewa ( talk) 22:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Gridiron football → Gridiron.
Whereas the word football was coined to describe a variety of games which involve playing the ball with the foot, but (a) Gridiron does not involve playing the ball with the foot to any significant degree, and (b) the vast majority of gridiron players never play the ball with the foot, therefore notwithstanding widespread incorrect usage of the word football in the North part of America, gridiron is objectively not a type of football and thus it should not be referred to using that word in any Wikipedia entry.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Epikuro57 ( talk • contribs) 16:29, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the forward pass is a big difference between American football and rugby, but not every play is a pass play. There's one thing that happens on literally every play that wouldn't be permitted in rugby: blocking.-- 98.111.164.239 ( talk) 07:38, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
I was reading that “gridiron” was an early slang term for the US flag, due to the bars or stripes on it. If so, perhaps the identification with the US and flag had something to do with nicknaming to sport. Might be a point of interest to investigate... Ptilinopus ( talk) 03:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
It seems like someone shoehorned the words "system of a down" in the History section. This could be a coincidence, but it looks like some headbanger is making a joke. Bardbarian201 ( talk) 05:42, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
This page serves no real purpose except, perhaps, to confuse readers. There already exists the main page, American football, and each level of play from professional to collegiate to high school has an individual page. Keystone18 ( talk) 18:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Since it is basically just a name for an existing article, perhaps we should consider incorporating its contents more directly with the entries for the variants it describes. - Plasticbadge 02:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
I added in a link to a picture of the old stadium that had been broken. Its just a drawing (I'm not sure what the original was), but it shows the field pattern better than any actual photos I could find. Dangermouse29 18:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
At present, I don't have a reference, but I've seen this in several places where the history of American football is discussed. Briefly, in the early days of the forward pass, the passer had to be more than 5 yards laterally away from the spot where the ball was snapped. Lines parallel to the sidelines were added to enforce this rule. Since the yardlines were already present, the field took on the appearance of a "gridiron". The forward passing rules were soon changed and the lines removed, but the name stuck. Or at least that's how the story goes. 65.24.249.74 ( talk) 01:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style for information on the style of an article. This article is lacking sections and headings, and has an over use of boldface type. -- Pinkkeith ( talk) 21:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Australia is cited as using the term, however it's just gridiron, not "gridiron football" —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
202.45.99.157 (
talk)
03:10, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Should the "old-style" image, showing more obviously the origin of the term, be moved up to the top? M0ffx ( talk) 15:57, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
What is the short dimension of the field (in the US, Canada)?
Capek ( talk) 17:45, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
I think this is how this article should be called. Gridiron is mostly an informal term that has become widely accepted and used by the media in countries that are fairly aware of the sport, but is not used by any governing body to designate the game, and is not well known outside of North America and maybe the UK.
The official rules published by Football Canada are officially entitled "Canadian Rule book For Amateur Tackle Football". The Federation of the Philippines calls itself "American And Tackle Football Federation". So tackle football seems to be the official term recognized by governing bodies when they want a name inclusive of rule codes that are not strictly the American version.
I would use something like : "Tackle football, often referred to as gridiron football, is a sport..." - — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2a01:e35:2e96:ba90:4de7:d446:2b29:486a (
talk)
Merging to American football has been discussed and rejected on several occasions. This article, whatever its title, is intended to be an overview of all the North American football codes as a whole, which includes Canadian football, and as such should not be merged or deleted. - BilCat ( talk) 21:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Intention doesn't really matter, what matters is if that purpose is both necessary and fulfilled. This is neither necessary nor fulfilled as this is both a redundant and POV fork per Wikipedia policy:
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:REDUNDANTFORK
/info/en/?search=Wikipedia:POVFORK
For the redundancy: Variations of American football are covered at: /info/en/?search=American_football#Variations_and_related_sports with links to the main pages of those alternative codes.
For the POV, there's no strong argument to keep this article except to promote the use of "gridiron football" as a name for this family of football codes.
To that argument: The useage of "gridiron" in the title is both undue weight to a minority use term and contrary to Wikipedia naming conventions. "When the subject of an article is referred to mainly by a single common name, as evidenced through usage in a significant majority of English-language reliable sources, Wikipedia generally follows the sources and uses that name as its article title (subject to the other naming criteria)." https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:UNDUE https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:NPOVNAME https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:OTHERNAMES
72.168.176.162 ( talk) 17:30, 23 January 2016 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: not moved. There is clear consensus not to use the proposed new title, although some commenters do think that the current title is inappropriate. ( non-admin closure) sst✈ (conjugate) 09:35, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Gridiron football →
Football in the U.S. and Canada – Simply put, the term "gridiron football" is not used in this way outside of Wikipedia. It's not an umbrella term for American and Canadian football together. It's chiefly a synonym for American football specifically.
[1]
[2]
[3] The phrase is rarely used in U.S. or Canada, and is mostly found in foreign works discussing American football. There really isn't a commonly used umbrella term for both American and Canadian varieties (other than "football", which obviously won't work here.) Some scholars use "North American football" to discuss both together,
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10] but barring that, it's probably best to go with a
neutral, descriptive title per the
article titles policy.
Cúchullain
t/
c
17:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Gridiron football/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.
It is too short to be anything other than a Stub. TFCforever ( talk) |
Last edited at 02:58, 24 November 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 16:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Just a note but there's a proposed outline for this topic at Wikipedia:WikiProject Outlines/Drafts/Outline of gridiron football. -- Ricky81682 ( talk) 00:57, 27 June 2016 (UTC)
Not moved. There is a clear absence of consensus with respect to the proposal. bd2412 T 16:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Gridiron football → North American football – It's time to try this again, as this article's title is a substantial problem. As noted above, "Gridiron football" is not used in this way in any source outside of Wikipedia. The phrase is a synonym for American football, [12] [13] [14] and is not used as an umbrella term for American and Canadian football together. It's also a pretty rare term in the only two countries where this is a major sport. "North American football" is used in various sources for this topic, and it already redirects here. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] A descriptive title like "American and Canadian football" could also work, but as noted various times before, the present title is not in use in this sense in the real world, and so isn't an acceptable article title. Cúchullain t/ c 15:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
This is more complicated than I first thought, and I suggest we relist.
One of the problems is that pesky word American. Both it and America are embarrassingly ambiguous... we decided that America would redirect to United States (the USA), but that American would be a DAB, and please let's stick to those. But those decisions reflect a complexity...
If someone says to me "I'm an American", I know that they're from the USA not from Canada or Venezuala. So maybe American football is a suitable title for the article specific to the USA. Or should it be American football (USA)? Is the US code the primary topic of American football?
American football (America) would be logical for the US-specific article, but... EEEK. Please, no.
Other thoughts? Andrewa ( talk) 21:38, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Of course the word football is as pesky as American, with many strong local associations. So this article title is something of a perfect storm. But we'll get there! Andrewa ( talk) 22:57, 12 October 2017 (UTC)
Gridiron football → Gridiron.
Whereas the word football was coined to describe a variety of games which involve playing the ball with the foot, but (a) Gridiron does not involve playing the ball with the foot to any significant degree, and (b) the vast majority of gridiron players never play the ball with the foot, therefore notwithstanding widespread incorrect usage of the word football in the North part of America, gridiron is objectively not a type of football and thus it should not be referred to using that word in any Wikipedia entry.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Epikuro57 ( talk • contribs) 16:29, 27 January 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the forward pass is a big difference between American football and rugby, but not every play is a pass play. There's one thing that happens on literally every play that wouldn't be permitted in rugby: blocking.-- 98.111.164.239 ( talk) 07:38, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
I was reading that “gridiron” was an early slang term for the US flag, due to the bars or stripes on it. If so, perhaps the identification with the US and flag had something to do with nicknaming to sport. Might be a point of interest to investigate... Ptilinopus ( talk) 03:32, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
It seems like someone shoehorned the words "system of a down" in the History section. This could be a coincidence, but it looks like some headbanger is making a joke. Bardbarian201 ( talk) 05:42, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
This page serves no real purpose except, perhaps, to confuse readers. There already exists the main page, American football, and each level of play from professional to collegiate to high school has an individual page. Keystone18 ( talk) 18:13, 16 August 2023 (UTC)