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Performance Tables.... again (but a more wider discussion)

Hi folks. I know we discussed performance tables recently (in the context of Championship League regarding WD usage), but I want to bring up the wider topic of how we can improve these tables long-term, while sticking to the existing format as much as possible. I intend to just list the proposals and then see what you folks think of them individually (though I have provided context to explain what they mean), in the hope that we can finally get a consensus on how to improve them.

Here are my proposals:

1. Any tournament entries which are duplicated -- because the tournament was previously a Ranking/Non-Ranking event, and then converted to Ranking/Non-Ranking -- should be merged into one row representing the in-progress version of the tournament. At the moment, this only applies to the Shoot-Out and the Shanghai Masters, however it could extend to others in future. Combining these into one row will make it easier to edit and reduces the need to colspan "Non-Ranking" or "Ranking" over multiple columns for the editions which were NR/WR. A symbol should be used to denote editions of tournaments which are of the alternative version (eg in the Shoot-Out, the symbol denotes that the edition of the tournament the player competed in did not carry ranking points; and vice versa).

NB: Championship League should NOT be merged: instead, these should remain separate, but should be clearly denoted in the text as "ranking" and "invitational", this will ensure we do NOT have the nonsensical colspanning of "Non-Ranking Event" in the ranking row for this tournament, when clearly its a relatively new event from 2020.

2 (Various points regarding the legend keys, there is a separate point about it later in the topic):

a. Where a player has repeatedly failed to qualify for an event over multiple seasons, the individual "DNQ" cells should be replaced by colspanned "Did Not Qualify". This will cut down on the amount of text in the pages (reducing their overall size), reduce the necessity of maintaining historical entries in an ever-growing table list, and also look cleaner in the page anyway. This should NOT apply to individual tournament editions the player played in, only generic text strings that can be colspanned in this way. You can see examples of this in the Zhao Xintong article, where it does not change anything in how the page is displayed.

b. In the same vein as above, "A" should not be used for invitationals or restricted-field events: we should use "A" for general ranking tournaments in which the player obviously chose not to enter, but any event which has a defined qualification criteria should use DNQ/Did Not Qualify if the player was not eligible to compete. Using "A" implies the player was eligible and just didn't bother entering, which is nonsensical for something like the Masters.

c. A row representing a tournament that a player has never participated in should NOT be added: many players will not participate in the Masters (for example), so adding the Masters to a players' performance table for it to just show "Did Not Qualify" over and over is redundant, we should add the row only when the player makes their debut appearance in the event.

d. We should do away with "Minor Ranking Event" designations in the table: instead, the players' actual performance should be included, and a symbol should be used to denote that the tournament was considered "minor-ranking" (whatever that means).

3. If a player has a column for a season, and the column only exists for one single tournament that they were playing in, the column should be removed and the relevant tournaments they participated in should be noted elsewhere, perhaps in a smaller -- compacted -- table. The likely impacts for this will be on players from China who competed in the Haining Open as amateurs: having a whole column for basically single entry tournaments is a waste of characters and doesn't really add anything. The same should apply for non-WST professional players who only played on a WST event for the World Snooker Championship qualifying phase, while participating in nothing else for that season, thus keeping things more focused on the times when they actively participated on the WST itself, rather than "one off" appearances.

4. Tournaments which have only been played once in the entire history of the tour should not be included in the performance table. The reason for removing these is because they are always prepended and appended by "Not Held" over many columns, which is a waste of characters and adds nothing. Single-instance tournaments would be better off being included in a separate -- collapsible -- table which contains the following details [in this order]: a link to the tournament page, if one exists; the season in which that tournament was held, as a link; the players' performance in that tournament, following the standard key but in longer-form; a reference to confirm the information. Separating this information into its own table will make maintenance of the players' career table much more straight-forward. It also means we can document those COVID-era events (WST Pro Series and WST Classic) without having it clutter the performance table for the rest of time. I also think this should include the invitational Hong Kong Masters, which has only been held twice and which many players would not have been involved in to begin with.

5. Regarding the legend keys, we should perhaps transition to more clear "values", as its been raised that the designation of 1R is not uniform. There are two ways this could be dealt with: replace LQ with a more clear indication of what Qualifying Round the player participated in (QR1, QR2 etc), with 1R only referring to rounds played at the final venue; OR, replace 1R with Last-XXX designations, where XXX represents the number of players left in the round. This should not apply to QF, SF, F and W, which have clear designations and are used over Last 8, Last 4 and Last 2.

Okay, that was a lot of text! But hopefully we can have a discussion around all of these points and come to a suitable agreement on how to deal with this table. Obligatory @ mentions following this to get users to comment (pinging just active editors, could not find anyone else): @HurricaneHiggins @Lee Vilenski @Nigej @AlH42 @BennyOnTheLoose @Andygray110 -- CitroenLover (talk) 12:47, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

On point 1, there are definitley more. See the Alex Higgins example I mentiioned above, where there are seven tournaments that switched between non-ranking and ranking. 2a i agree with using spans aross rows or colums to reduce visual clutter. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:28, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi @BennyOnTheLoose good shout that. I only included Shoot-Out/Shanghai Masters because I was just thinking of current tournaments with this problem, but we'll have the same issue on historical events as well: whatever we decide to do with current tournaments should be duplicated to older historical records as well. --CitroenLover (talk) 14:42, 1 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi @HurricaneHiggins @Lee Vilenski @Nigej @AlH42 @BennyOnTheLoose @Andygray110 this topic has been open for 2 weeks now, with only one reply -- the one from Benny above on two specific parts that he could reply to. I'm hoping you guys can see this ping, so you can share your thoughts and opinions on the proposal. If I don't receive a reply within about a week or so (ie by the end of the Welsh Open), I'll assume there is no opposition to the suggested changes and will start making them -- relatively slowly -- to some articles (Zhao, all top 32 Chinese players, and a sample of others). So would help if you can share thoughts to shape the future of this proposal. Thanks. --CitroenLover (talk) 19:00, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

@CitroenLover, here are some of my initial thoughts:

• 1/2(d): would including symbols not widen the table more, making it visually more unwieldy?
• 2(a): agree
• 2(b): may be difficult for invitational tournaments where there is no defined qualification criteria (e.g. General Cup). Perhaps DNP/Did Not Participate (which could be easily colspanned) would work instead of A?
• 2(c): I think this is already the case in the tables? I think the only time the Masters (for example) appears in the timelines of players who didn't participate Masters is when those players lost in qualifying for the tournament pre-2011.
• 3: I would suggest simply removing all the tournaments they didn't participate in (currently designated as A/DNQ) and just leave the tournaments they did participate in (per Jin Long, for example)
• 4: this could work if the table was clearly designated as something like "tournaments that were only played once"
• 5: this is a tough one. I think it's flawed either way - agree that 1R doesn't mean the same for every tournament, while including an L128 style will widen the tables (perhaps ludicrously so). I very marginally lean towards 1R being the lesser of two evils.

These are not criticisms - merely playing devil's advocate. It's definitely good to have this debate and I'm very much coming at this from the position of "do these changes improve the tables?" Or do they simply have the effect of rearranging them?

Or (more likely) I could be misinterpreting some of the suggestions. Maybe you could build an example here of what you envisage? Perhaps new suggested tables for someone like Judd Trump, whose table is close to spilling off the page. Andygray110 (talk) 23:11, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

Hi @Andygray110 thanks for replying!! I'll answer each of the points you queried here and looking forward to your reply to the below:

• 1/2d: This shouldn't widen the table too much: it would effectively remove an unnecessary row and the extra symbol added should still fit within the existing width bounds (assuming we use relatively generic unicode symbols, not {{Efn}}, to do this).
• 2b: DNP would work quite well (or Did Not Participate for colspanning purposes), if that gets consensus.
• 2c: As far as I can tell, this doesn't happen on a regular basis, but it would be good to confirm this in all player pages just to make sure its not been added by someone trying to make all tables consistent (ie add all Triple Crown Series events, even if they never played in them).
• 3: This should work, but only problem is when you have cases such as Wu Yize, Si Jiahui or He Guoqiang -- to name a few -- who have a column for a season because of the Haining Open, but have then subsequently participated in main tour events like the World Championship. This situation is largely going to be unique to Chinese players, who all will have participated at some point in the non-ranking Haining Open for amateur players, so we'd need to come up with a solution for these kind of cases.
• 4: I agree: any such table to hive off such events would be denoted as being "the following lists performances in tournaments which have only been played once in the players' career". Which would just make things so much easier for us in terms of one-off events.
• 5: Agreed, there is no perfect solution for this tbh.

In answer to your example, I am more than happy to build some examples to help visualise all of the above. I'll use Ronnie O'Sullivan and Judd Trump as examples of "big tables", with Zhao Xintong and Wu Yize as more recent examples to deal with their unique table entries. It might take a few days for me to get this done, but keep an eye on my user space for page creations relating to this. --CitroenLover (talk) 17:43, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm probably a bad person to ask as I don't think these tables are very fixable and are probably not really suitable for the encyclopedia. If we can make them less gaudy and readable, I'll support it. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:33, 17 February 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 Hi, unfortunately I was super busy over this weekend, so didn't get a chance to create any sandbox pages. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to do that... hopefully lol. --CitroenLover (talk) 18:44, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 @BennyOnTheLoose @Nigej @Lee Vilenski @AlH42 please refer to the following link for the first sandbox version I've made of the performance table for Zhao Xintong: User:CitroenLover/sandbox#Example_3:_Zhao_Xintong.

Appreciate any feedback on this layout and structure (changes are ideally needed on the heading name for one-off events, and the symbols used to denote ranking/non-ranking editions of tournaments that changed status, currently just using * and ** which are not ideal). I'm also looking into moving various columns associated to events Zhao participated in under non-professional status into its own table in a two-column layout, next to the heading for "one-off tournaments", to keep things more tidier. -- CitroenLover (talk) 17:05, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Hey @CitroenLover, responding here to your note on my talk page. I definitely think the Zhao Xintong draft in your sandbox looks cleaner and better than the existing one. Excellent work and I'll be curious to see how this looks when applied to the Trump/O'Sullivan examples. Seeing Zhao's table makes me wonder, though, if we need a separate code for when a player did not participate in a tournament because they were suspended or banned. This, to me, is a distinctly different case from a withdrawal, which is a decision made by the player, while a suspension or ban is imposed by the governing body. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 20:53, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch for the comments @HurricaneHiggins! Regarding withdrawals from events due to suspension/ban, I think something like S, SU or SUS could work, or alternatively, B. I agree that WD should be when a player actively has to withdraw due to medical, personal or visa reasons [and gets an announcement about it on WST’s website]. When a player is withdrawn because the WPBSA suspended them, thats quite different. Let me play around with some stuff, check the sandbox either later tonight, or tomorrow, and see what you think! — CitroenLover (talk) 11:13, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

Fantastic @CitroenLover, and thanks so much for all your great work on this! I'll check back later and see how things look in your sandbox. Great to see this taking shape. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:22, 3 March 2026 (UTC)

@HurricaneHiggins apart from the 2014-15 column that will be removed tomorrow (by all of its pertinent information being moved to the table below the main one), its largely all done now. Let me know your thoughts on the (mostly complete) Zhao Xintong performance table and tell me what you think! Zhao's "Pre-Professional Career Events" table is a bit longer than most, due to being invited to participate in so many pro tour events before he qualified, so is a bit more of an anomaly, but overall, I think this structure looks better: it preserves all the "he was an amateur" stuff in a way that doesn't create an egregiously wide "table" containing loads of A's and "Not Held's" over and over as well, making it much simpler to edit. I'll need to spend a LOT more time on other players because they have bigger tables, but this is a starting point if anything! --CitroenLover (talk) 20:39, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Hey @CitroenLover, I love what you've done here. It preserves everything important while also condensing the table down so that it's easier to navigate and read. Getting rid of all those A's and Not Helds makes a huge difference, I think. It's definitely going to be more complex for players with 30+ year careers but this is a fantastic start. Great work! HurricaneHiggins (talk) 12:35, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

(reset indents)

I'd appreciate some more thoughts from others on the sandbox article showing Zhao Xintong's redesigned "Performance Table" section. Does it largely match up with what I described before in my initial proposal, or anything else I should look at improving?

If there are no specific complaints about the new table layout, then I'll update Zhao's page to use this new structure and then will slowly update a selection of pages with the new structure. It will, however, be impossible for me to update "every single" snooker players' pages, so will need support of the community to update things (which means we take our time to update it slow, rather than rushing). --CitroenLover (talk) 17:19, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 seems like I can only do @ mentions through the reply box, but ^ see above, your thoughts would be great. -- CitroenLover (talk) 17:20, 8 March 2026 (UTC)

I like the colspanning, the better note referencing and the table legend updates. Rowspanning - meh. I'm not a fan of it in tables along with colspanning (especially when they collide) but I get that Zhao is an extreme example and can live with it.

I was initially open-minded about the additional one-off tournament/pre-career tables, but for someone like Jimmy White (another extreme example I know), wouldn't the one-off table end up being enormous? I just wonder are the additional tables an improvement or does this just end up shuffling table content into three different ones and lengthening the overall section. Andygray110 (talk) 23:02, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 missed this, but you do make a point. The tables can be broken up into sub-sections and/or made collapsible, which might be worth doing for some extreme examples. Or alternatively, we could do something similar to the Ronnie O’Sullivan career overview page and move very very long tables into their own page so the content can be broken up into more manageable sections.

but then at that point, it would end up being a page of stats, which isn’t very useful. As you hinted at, some people are going to have very extreme outcomes, which may be better handled separately from those like Xu Si or Sam Baird, who have extremely small tables anyway, and would not have as much impact when moving to the suggested layout. — CitroenLover (talk) 23:39, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Nitpicking over default en-dashes, references, etc. interfering with article creation

Hi all, it has become significantly more difficult to add new content to the summary sections of ongoing tournament pages. As soon as I add any new information, @AlH42 swoops in to "fix" the markup for a non-breaking en-dash (because he doesn't like the default inserted by the visual editor) or "correct" citations inserted by the visual editor (again, he doesn't like how the visual editor formats citations). There is nothing here that actually requires fixing, as the visual editor and associated visual editing templates have all presumably passed muster with the admins. But due to his following me around making constant "corrections," efforts to add additional content to the page is generally met with "Your edit could not be saved due to an edit conflict."

I have told him previously that none of these things actually requires "fixing," but that if he feels strongly about it, he could do a global search and replace after the tournament has finished and the article has reached close to its final form. That way, he wouldn't be interfering with the process of creating the article in the first place. But still this continues, day after day after day. Hence my raising the issue here.

This might seem like a minor gripe, but it isn't. For quite some time, I've been researching, writing, and copy editing the summary sections of ongoing tournaments virtually single-handedly, which is a lot of work. I don't mind that part, and I can do it just fine if left alone; several articles mostly written by me have been promoted to Featured Article status. What I don't need is the significant amount of time I already spend on snooker Wikipedia increased further by endless edit conflicts generated by one person trying to "fix" the default behaviours of the visual editor.

We will have more or less continuous professional snooker from now until the first week in May (World Open --> Tour Championship --> World Championship qualifiers --> World Championship) and I can't produce high-quality articles in this environment of constant obstructionism. Something needs to be done about this. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 21:06, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

Having looked at the history of 2026 World Open (snooker) I would agree that many of the edits were for things that did not need "fixing". These minor edits would be fine if they were not impacting other editors. Given the circumstances, though, I'd also request AlH42 to hold off on these minor edits to dashes and citation formatting while a tournament is in progress. There is a long list of snooker articles that do need fixes. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:57, 17 March 2026 (UTC)

Event finals list on the Q Tour page

Hi all. If anyone has been following the Q Tour, one should know that the tour itself has expanded itself pretty quickly over the last few years. The current Q Tour article has an "Event finals" section which lists out every competition's result in a table, which could have worked when the tour was only consisted of a handful of competitions - however there are now over 20 competitions under the Q Tour, and the table will be ridiculously long in a few years if it is kept that way. For me I think the article should not list out every competition's result anymore - just like there won't be one under the main tour's article. I would like to know how do you guys think. TheVictoriaHarbourer (talk) 19:35, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Agree, only adds unnecessary length and the info is already included in the seasonal Q Tour articles. Would also suggest removing the format/prize money section as it is subject to change every season (and is also included in the seasonal articles). Andygray110 (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@TheVictoriaHarbourer agree, those sections should probably be removed and links given to the individual Q Tour Season articles where such details can be provided. --CitroenLover (talk) 18:46, 21 March 2026 (UTC)

Peer review for 1977 World Snooker Championship

I've recently added to the 1977 World Snooker Championship article and would welcome feedback towards getting it ready for a featured article nomination. Please add any comments at Wikipedia:Peer review/1977 World Snooker Championship/archive1. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 15:55, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

Are non-breaking en-dashes worth it?

Hi all, I just want to raise this topic again. Recently there has been a move towards "non-breaking en-dashes" for scorelines in articles, but this has led to (1) edit conflicts over markup language (per my post above), (2) additional editing steps (before, I could just type an en-dash, while now I have to do Insert --> Template --> Non breaking en dash --> Insert every single time), and (3) significant software incompatibilities. When using the visual editor in Chrome (the dominant browser, with ~66% market share), trying to edit a paragraph containing a non-breaking en-dash leads to chunks of text vanishing. (Try this for yourself.) This is true across both desktop and mobile and it means that Chrome is now unusable for editing articles.

I worked around this by installing Firefox as as alternative browser to edit Wikipedia, but I only have Chrome on my phone, which makes mobile editing next to impossible unless the paragraph doesn't have a non-breaking en-dash in it. Other people may also be trying to edit articles using the visual editor on Chrome and giving up in frustration. By making it impossible to edit new articles with the visual editor in the dominant browser, I think we have created a much bigger problem than we have solved.

So I want to ask: Are these non-breaking en-dashes so vital that we have to create so much inconvenience and frustration? Before this non-breaking en-dash craze began, we had created hundreds of articles that still work just fine. The only benefit of a non-breaking en-dash is that a scoreline won't break at the end of a line, which is not a problem I've ever personally observed with regular en-dashes anyway. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 10:35, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

WP:IAR says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Even without that, my reading of MOS:SCORES is that the non-breaking dashes are a "nice to have" rather than required. IMO, regarding point 1 above, minor edits that discourage other editors from contributing actual information to articles should be avoided. These minor edits can be made after the event is over. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 14:09, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @BennyOnTheLoose. Appreciate your pointer to WP:IAR! For me, the deal breaker here is that an article can't be maintained using the visual editor in Chrome if it contains non-breaking en-dashes. That feels like a self-inflicted liability that will only deter editors from participating. Analogous sports such as darts function just fine without them (the 2026 PDC World Darts Championship article has no non-breaking en-dashes) and I don't see any significant benefit to justify all this hassle. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 22:12, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

2002 Premier League Snooker semi-final scores

Just wondering if anyone has access to any snooker publications relating to this event. See Talk:2002 Premier League Snooker. It seems likely that the semi-final frame scores we have are switched. cuetracker has them the other way round to us. I've looked in Newsbank but not found anything else, just the scores given in the Guardian. Nigej (talk) 07:55, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

Triple Crown

Hi there. An editor requested that the article undergo a GAR. I fixed the most pressing issues with sources, given that there were some tags for citations needed and failed verifications. I still think the article would benefit from some copyediting. Just letting you know in case someone is interested in working on that. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 16:46, 7 April 2026 (UTC)

World Championship article

Hi all, just a quick note. I am participating in the ongoing fuel price protest in Ireland. I only have my phone with me and can't edit current snooker articles on mobile due to the non-breaking en-dash issue noted above. Text disappears in Chrome. If others want to take over writing the summary section for the WC, please go for it. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 14:59, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, HurricaneHiggins. Have you tried the Wikipedia mobile app? It works for me even if there are templates on the article I'm editing. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 15:03, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, @Alavense, I'll give that app a try later and see if it makes a difference. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 15:11, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Read around ... it looks like the mobile app only lets you edit raw mark-up, which is too finicky for me. I depend a lot on the visual editor and templates. Looks like I'm out of luck. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 15:24, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Hey @Alavense, I saw your message notification but I can't get into that email on my phone ... sorry about that! HurricaneHiggins (talk) 22:04, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Also, guys, the score in the Mertens v Clarke match should be recorded as a 10-0 win for Mertens, as it is on the WST results page. Clarke withdrew after losing the first 5 frames and the remainder of the frames went to Mertens by default. A walkover is when the player doesn't play in the match at all. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WST do not record withdrawals in the way we do, so marking 10-0 would be inappropriate because that implies the 10 frames were played. See Alex Ursenbacher's Round 1 result in Worlds Qualifying, which is recorded by WST's system as 10-0 to Prin Ratmukda, even though Ursenbacher withdrew and the match was not played at all. We also have precedence in previous cases where a match was started and an opponent withdrew later for any reason: see 2024 German Masters in the match between Marco Fu and Alfie Davies, which is marked as a w/d for Marco with a note giving the score when he conceded the match, as he was noted as withdrawing for medical reasons. We should leave the Mertens v Clarke entry as provided since it is effectively a withdrawal and putting 10-0 would be completely misleading. --CitroenLover (talk) 11:45, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Okay, but look at the 2006 UK Championship quarter-finals as another example ... O'Sullivan walked out while trailing 1-4 and the result of that match is listed as a 9-1 victory for Hendry. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 12:01, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Snooker.org lists the Ursenbacher result as a walkover for Ratmukda but the Clarke match as a 10-0 victory for Mertens. So I think we should follow the same system ... matches are categorised as withdrawals only if a player pulls out in advance or is a no-show. If a player is not able to finish a match, they concede all remaining frames but still get credited for frames played & won. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 12:06, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Your point is well-made, but perhaps the article for the 2006 UK Championship should be updated (then again, we don't need to retrospectively correct old articles to use modern standards). I just don't think its appropriate to put in the draw tables 10-0 when the match didn't involve 10 frames being played, anyone who looks at the page later will think that the match was won 10-0 and that Clarke didn't really play. I think we'd need @Lee Vilenski to share some guidance on how to handle this tbh. --CitroenLover (talk) 15:14, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

I understand your point, but similarly anyone who looked at the draw and saw that Clarke withdrew might assume he didn't turn up for the match at all. When a player pulls out mid-match, they effectively concede all the remaining frames to their opponent, but they do get credit for any frames won and any centuries or maximums made. In other words, I think the 2006 UK Championship article is correct in giving the scoreline as 9-1. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 18:30, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

True, but there is a hat-note there explaining the situation so people wouldn't be confused by that situation. If we change it for this article, we'd need to revisit all previous articles (such as the 2024 German Masters) and correct them to the same standard for consistency, or we'll end up with a situation where different pages are following different conventions, which isn't very useful.

Personally, if a match is not fully completed and an opponent withdraws mid-way through it for medical reasons, or the match is not even played in any way, it should be marked as w/d with a note to indicate the reasons. I get your point that a match that is started and then one of the players withdraws for medical reasons during it results in all other frames awarded to the player who did not concede, but reporting it as a withdrawal is more accurate than 10-0, which is easier to misinterpret than putting w/d with a note.

I'm not really bothered by this, but it needs consistency across the snooker tournament pages so a standard should be developed and applied equally to all pages. A 2006 page is maybe not the best comparison though, because that was 20 years ago when the editors of that day reported on scores could have done so very differently and using different guidelines, to how editors of today would report them. -- CitroenLover (talk) 12:27, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I don't agree that "a standard should be developed and applied equally to all pages". Any improvement to a single article is a good thing. Even if one looks at the articles that have successfully gone through the Featured Article process, there are lots of differences between them. Also, who would offer to make such changes across hundreds of articles? A note seems like the best thing to do to explain a withdrawal part-way through a match, but sources don't always give details. (e.g there were loads of withdrawals from the 1992 World Snooker Championship qualifying, very few of which have details in sources. I'm in the process of adding the rest of the qualifying results to that article.) Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:51, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

@BennyOnTheLoose True, but I'm not suggesting we waste too much time updating old pages from pre-2010, nobody has the time for that. But very minor things like whether we report withdrawals (of any kind, whether prior to a match or half way through a match) should be reasonably consistent in most pages. My point on consistency is that, if we are choosing not to have any pages in the snooker space be consistent, then there's no real point in having things like a Manual of Style.

Not to mention, most readers -- ie not Wikipedia editors -- would have a reasonable expectation that they can read any snooker tournament page and expect the format to look about the same as possible on every tournament page (ignoring that different tournaments have different player counts so the draw template would be different). So having a "standard" in how articles get presented, which include the draw templates, isn't exactly a bad thing and ensures we're not having situations with different pages using different formats (excepting the Shoot-Out).

To put that in perspective: we already have the issue where recent editions of the World Grand Prix use the standard {{flagathlete|[[player name]]|player country}} {{tooltip|(seed number)|player seeding}} format, but some older editions don't use the tooltip template at all and put the seed number in the cell before the player name. That's an inconsistency that invites editors of the future to go and start potential edit wars over "what format they prefer the pages to read", especially when the format of the tournament hasn't changed since inception (beyond the extended frames for the first two rounds). -- CitroenLover (talk) 14:53, 12 April 2026 (UTC)

I always just say we should follow what the source says, and use a note if it's confusing. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:18, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

fwiw, I edit on mobile almost exclusively, just use the Chrome app (you can do Desktop view in settings). Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:16, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, @Lee Vilenski, but unfortunately that doesn't work for me either. Try using the visual editor in Chrome to edit any paragraph containing a non-breaking en-dash (e.g., in the recent 2026 Tour Championship article). You'll see that as soon as you begin typing, chunks of text disappear after the non-breaking en-dashes. This issue seems to affect all Chromium-based browsers (including Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera) and it persists across both mobile and desktop versions. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:31, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

I think this is the issue that was raised at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_219#Problems_in_Visual_Editor_(TM:nbnd), but that seems to have been archived without any resolution. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:44, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, @BennyOnTheLoose. Yes, this is exactly the issue that I'm experiencing with this template. Good to know it's been raised, but frustrating that there has been no resolution almost a year later. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2026 (UTC)

Good morning. Given that the template was preventing some users from editing the article, I went ahead and replaced the template for now, at least until the issue is solved. I've raised the issue at the village pump once again and I will try to get input from users who have a good command of templates. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 08:03, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

Wang Xinbo name in draws

We've mostly been writing the name for this player in the draw sheets as "Wang Xinbo", but WST is listing his name as "Xinbo Wang". Obviously this may be a choice of the player, because some Chinese players have tended to put their given names first and their family name last, instead of doing the thing of inverting their names (eg like Zhao Xintong). I feel we should perhaps update the draw sheets so that it uses the name given on the WST website (eg we should use Xinbo Wang for the 2026 World Snooker Championship since thats how he's logged on the match sheets), but welcome peoples' thoughts on this. --CitroenLover (talk) 19:45, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Hi @CitroenLover, WST is a disaster with Chinese names. I would stick with Wang Xinbo. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 22:10, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

@HurricaneHiggins lol thats true. Fair enough, happy to leave it as is. --CitroenLover (talk) 10:29, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

WST often gets Chinese names wrong. See snooker.org.  Alan  (talk) 06:21, 11 April 2026 (UTC)

Use of "nbnd" in pages

It's recently come to the attention of editors that the {{nbnd}} template has been added to certain pages in the snooker project: we're not sure when this started being added to articles, but please be aware this template has known incompatibilities with some of the text editors used on Wikipedia. These incompatibilities have, to my knowledge, never been fixed and thus prevents editors editing pages when it is used. I kindly ask editors in the snooker space to desist using the {{nbnd}} template as it breaks pages and makes editing impossible for our editors. If you find it in use on a page, please remove it with priority. The template should be replaced with an appropriate em-dash template or symbol: for example, in the source editor, you can change the dropdown to "Wiki markup" and select the second option to add an appropriate em-dash, which is displayed as — on the page. --CitroenLover (talk) 16:29, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree that we should stop using the template until a solution is found. As I stated in the other talk, I've raised the issue again at the technical section of the Village pump. Anyway, the one we should be using in these cases (at least for scorelines) is the en-dash, which is a bit shorter, not the em-dash: –. It can also be easily found. (If it creates no issues, the template {{ndash}} is available as well, but I think it's really unnecesary to use templates for these.) Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 16:38, 15 April 2026 (UTC)

I've used this a fair bit on player articles so will replace as many as I can during the World Championships. Canary757 (talk) 06:33, 18 April 2026 (UTC)

@Alavense: Your post at the Village pump has already been archived with no replies.  Alan  (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately. Anyway, I think it is better not to use a template that is not working properly and creates problems for users. Especially when the benefits are so limited. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 07:43, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

@Alavense: It should be noted that this issue only affects the (awful IMO) visual editor. It works fine for everything else.  Alan  (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

As I said before, in my opinion, a template that creates issues should not be used. Alavense (talk) 07:57, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

Agreed, @Alavense. This template has caused significant headaches for me, and I'm sure others as well. I don't think there's a legitimate case for using a template that is not compatible with the visual editor. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:35, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

MOS:HEADINGLINKS

Hi all, sorry I've not been about. I just came to the realisation that all of our tournament articles (or at least those with a tournament summary) is currently breaking MOS:HEADINGLINKS. We've currently got two section headers with "final", when they should be unique. (if you go to 2026 World Snooker Championship#Final, this takes you to the summary, and not the stats field). Any ideas what would be a suitable way to handle this? Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:11, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

This came up previously in the Championship League. See eg 2026 Championship League (invitational) where we solve it spelling out headings in excessive detail, eg: Group 3, Group 3 league matches, Group 3 table, Group 3 play-offs. I suppose we can do similar: eg Tournament final instead of Final. Nigej (talk) 10:20, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense. I did see the syntax works a bit better than it did in 2020, they just append a 2 to the end of the URL, but that's not really the point. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:31, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

The second heading could just be "Final: Frame Scores" or something like that? HurricaneHiggins (talk) 11:38, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

That makes sense. I'll change it to "Final: frame scores"  Alan  (talk) 16:13, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Performance table

With next season about to get underway relatively soon [July], it would be ideal if someone could go through the template and rearrange tournaments into the appropriate sections. IE Saudi Masters is a former tournament and China Open is a ranking tournament. I would advise that, given the Saudi Masters was only held twice and will never be held again, it should not be in performance tables and should be noted in a different way, because it will cause the tables to be filled with "Tournament Not Held" for the rest of time for every player who has participated in either the 2024 or the 2025 editions. I would suggest that this event -- alongside the WST Pro Series, WST Classic, Hong Kong Masters and the Turkish Masters -- should be hived off into a separate table, due to them having two or less held editions in the history of snooker. --CitroenLover (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

@Alavense not sure if this is something you may be familiar with, but you seem more familiar with Wikipedia stuff that I'm not particularly familiar with lol. -- CitroenLover (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on these templates, CitroenLover, I'm sorry. Kind regards, Alavense (talk) 07:39, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree. If you start removing tournaments, then it makes them seem less important or somehow carrying less than equal weighting to longer-lasting tournaments. Also, why just those five tournaments? There are dozens of tournaments in the history of snooker which have been played for two editions or less. And what happens if one of those those tournaments is revived again? Does it go back in or does it stay out? I think everything is better contained in one table otherwise there is a likelihood of these sections becoming very messy and harder to read. Andygray110 (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 those five tournaments were picked for the simple reason that they have only been staged two times or less. The WST Pro Series and WST Classic will obviously never be revived, and even if they were, they are just filler tournaments, rather than long-lasting events to be played for multiple seasons in a row. WST Pro Series was designed to fill up the COVID impacted 2020-21 season, and the WST Classic was a one-off replacement to fill a gap from the cancelled Turkish Masters. The Turkish Masters was also played just once before being cancelled and vanishing into the ether. In the context of the HK Masters, thats largely just been one-off editions for exhibition purposes, and is -- for all intents and purposes -- not a long-lasting tournament (arguably the 2022 HK Masters was just to see if HK had an interest in snooker again, which it did in the form of the WGP).

The same will be said of the Saudi Masters because the Saudis have binned off snooker. If they were revived, which I very much doubt, then they would be brought back into the template as required. But I don't think having an entry in the table that is just colspan=25|Tournament Not Held is very useful to anyone tbh. All in all, the point of my post was just to get someone to mass-update pages around the Saudi Masters (which is cancelled) and the China Open (which is revived). --CitroenLover (talk) 14:38, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

I understand the background of the tournaments, but what I don't understand is why only those five should be separated and not all the others that have only been played on two or less occasions over the last 50 odd years. It seems like quite an incongruous solution to a problem which isn't really an issue. I'm not convinced that the use of "Tournament Not Held" in the tables is such a problem that it merits siphoning off a select group of tournaments into a separate table.

In terms of rearranging the tables for the new season, I've done that quite a few times over the years so will be happy to have a go at it again, likely when we see some form of provisional calendar released by WST. Andygray110 (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2026 (UTC)

@Andygray110 This is the reason I picked just those five events: because those are events which are in the performance tables for currently active WST players and which will be there for at least 10-20 years for the current younger talent of players coming through. I'm also not all that fussed about tournaments from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s which follows the same logic, because the number of active players where that would be a problem is likely to be less than 10 players. Though if there are instances of that for any other tournaments, those should be siphoned off as well, if only because it will make table management easier. But my focus is just on the aforementioned five events, not "random tournaments from the 80s and 90s where nobody really needs to be editing them anyway". --CitroenLover (talk) 14:44, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

I accept the timelines aren't perfect (as has been discussed here for years), but my opinion is the tournaments are better kept together than separated. Same logic as the career finals section. I think a casual reader would find it confusing and hard to follow if separate. Andygray110 (talk) 19:45, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

CitroenLover, phrases like "the point of my post was just to get someone to mass-update pages" don't seem to be in the spirit of WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, which says "Focus on improving the encyclopedia itself, rather than demanding more from other Wikipedians." (I've probably fallen foul of that policy myself a few times.) I happen to agree with Andygray100 that, as a general rule, "the tournaments are better kept together than separated". My own suggestion is that the only distinction should be between "was ever a ranking event" and "was never a ranking event" which I've used to simplify the tables at Alex Higgins and Stephen Hendry. I also took up the earlier suggestion about separating out one-off tournaments at Stephen Hendry but felt it was best to keep ranking tournaments in the main table. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:29, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

Snooker 900 titles, Seniors titles, etc.

Hi everyone, an anonymous IP editor left a message on my talk page requesting that I add the Snooker 900 Global Championship title to Ronnie O'Sullivan's bio page, under non-ranking titles. The same editor has added the tournament to Luca Brecel's bio page (Brecel was runner-up at the event). An IP editor, possibly the same person, has also added a new section on Seniors titles in the Jimmy White article. I haven't touched this because I'm not sure how we handle Snooker 900 titles, Seniors titles, and the like, but these events don't seem to warrant inclusion as non-ranking titles on the same level as, say, the Masters or the Champion of Champions.

Advice and input welcome. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Probably the IP editor is User:DooksFoley147. He's had an interest in seniors events and has a history of asking other editors to create articles and make edits. Anyway, that's beside the point. There's always been a problem with the "non-ranking" section, in that there's no rules for inclusion and, as you say, there's a huge range in the importance of the events. Ronnie's article already includes the "Scottish Challenge" which was not a tournament at all, just an exhibition match played as a preliminary to the 1993 Scottish Masters, and the 1993 Nescafe Extra Challenge, a four-man round-robin event. So on that basis the Snooker 900 events are probably worth adding. Nigej (talk) 05:54, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Nigej. Good to know the history with that particular user. I see that a different editor has already added the recent Snooker 900 title to O'Sullivan's page. No real issue with that, since it was a mainstream televised tournament with major media coverage. That said, it does seem problematic that the rules for inclusion in "Non-ranking finals" range from the Masters all the way down to trivial four-man round-robin events. The section shouldn't just be a catch-all rag-bag of random events. HurricaneHiggins (talk) 12:03, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Definitely reminiscent of DooksFoley147. See recent edits at Rex Williams. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 16:29, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's the banned editor User:DooksFoley147 aka User:Sisao25 and his numerous other temporary IP's...who's been instrumental in these relatively recent changes and additions involving Seniors snooker and the new, variant, Snooker 900.

Any attempt to 'challenge' his edits fast becomes an 'edit war', and I gave-up with him a while ago!

I'm not calling for a purge on his edits, but would just like to highlight a 'paper-trail' of evidence that suggests this editor disregards his ban. The editing-style and patterns plus topics edited are beyond obvious!

There are plenty of 'smoking guns'!

As mentioned above, invitational 4-man exhibition tournaments with a 1-0 win have been added to some, but not all players' records.

There is no consistency - even if they are to be included.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-23482-97

The Oasis edits give the game away!

Other examples:

Retrospectively adding 900 “events” to previous seasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_snooker_season#World_Seniors_Tour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_snooker_season#World_Seniors_Tour

Crucible Cup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2025-32787-60

Result of that final

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2025-33135-90

Harassing an editor to add to John Higgins

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2025-33135-90

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:BennyOnTheLoose&diff=prev&oldid=1351819525#Snooker_events_with_900_Rules

Global Snooker 900 Championship

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2025–26_snooker_season&diff=prev&oldid=1332993204

Editor’s contributions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-29686-0

Other accounts – same Oasis, football and “Ronnie” edits

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-68682-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-10338-94

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-22589-25

Snooker 900 – Professionals League – retrospectively added

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2025–26_snooker_season&diff=prev&oldid=1348578690

From a previous sock account – geolocated to Ireland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/178.167.130.163

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Drago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Figueiredo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy_Fagan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023–24_snooker_season

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024–25_snooker_season

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hendry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Seniors_Tour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Bingham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Davis_(snooker_player)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Doherty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_White (added title but not runner-up to Reanne Evans) Woodlandscaley (talk) 16:36, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks, @BennyOnTheLoose and @Woodlandscaley. I'm also seeing a lot of edits by User:Ldnndrty. Is that the same person? HurricaneHiggins (talk) 17:25, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

@HurricaneHiggins - on a (related) side note, I siphoned off the seniors event finals into a separate table on the relevant player articles (including Snooker 900 seniors). It was something I mentioned doing on here a long time ago (and with no objections), but never got round to it until now. Maybe a drop in the ocean when it comes to tidying those catch-all non-ranking sections, but it's something. Andygray110 (talk) 17:13, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Great work, @Andygray110, and a definite improvement! HurricaneHiggins (talk) 17:27, 19 May 2026 (UTC)

Retired vs Former

An anonymous IP editor has been taking issue with the use of "retired" in article leads for players who have been clearly announced as having "retired" (this was initially started by another editor). For example, after I changed "former" in Ken Doherty to be "retired", it was repeatedly reverted, and then my attempt to apply that consistently to other player pages [eg Dominic Dale] were similarly reverted. The user has chosen not to discuss this, and seems to be insistent on removing the use of "retired" from such pages, even though we already have a precedent for doing this on various articles like Steve Davis and Alan McManus.

Personally, if a player directly confirms they are "retiring" from snooker, we should be using that in the lead over "former", which should be used to denote players who just naturally fell off tour, rather than because they made a decision to "retire". However I'm not interested in edit warring, hence this talkpage post.

@Alavense @HurricaneHiggins @Lee Vilenski @Nigej @Andygray110 your thoughts are welcome and appreciated on this issue.

EDIT: I just noticed the topic above mine and spot that the IP editor who was reverting my edits appears to share similarities in the IP address highlighted in the aforementioned topic. Would suggest its the same individual who persists in edit warring with editors for no reason. -- CitroenLover (talk) 16:24, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, a "former" player (or a former professional player) is always going to be correct. A retired player is only going to be correct when someone says they won't come back. I don't know why we'd change it if it says former. Retired also suggests that someone is no longer working. Which, in the case of a lot of players is not true. Ken Doherty for instance, isn't even a retired player, simply a retired professional player. He's still playing on the seniors tour and as a commentator. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:24, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski good point, although it'd be good to have consistency (technically Steve Davis is a pundit/commentator, just like Ken, but Steve isn't playing professional snooker). For me, if a player actively states they are retiring from professional snooker, then to say "is a <nationality> retired professional snooker player" would be just as accurate as "is a <nationality> former professional snooker player", but ultimately I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to get done in for revert warring with an IP editor who is clearly block-evading (per message below). --CitroenLover (talk) 19:10, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I'd agree it is as accurate. So why use it over just saying former. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 16:57, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Almost certainly all from the same banned, disruptive editor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sisao25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DooksFoley147

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-23482-97

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2025-32787-60

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2025-33135-90

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-29686-0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-68682-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-10338-94

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-22589-25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/178.167.130.163

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-32885-88

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Arsemagic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/~2026-37165-1 Woodlandscaley (talk) 18:52, 4 June 2026 (UTC)