BR Bullpen:Guidelines

Introduction

The SABR/Baseball Reference Encyclopedia, commonly known as the "Bullpen", is a companion project to Baseball-Reference, the most complete statistical database covering baseball. It was launched in 2005 and has since become endorsed by the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), when it took over the society's very similar project, the SABR Online Baseball Encyclopedia, which was launched around the same time but never achieved the critical mass that the Bullpen has reached.

The Bullpen is intended to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of baseball (not to be confused with the Baseball Encyclopedia) providing write-ups about participants in professional and international baseball since the game's creation, information about teams and leagues past and present, definition of terms, summaries of books about baseball, and various other items that relate to baseball and its rich history.

The creator of Baseball-Reference and of the Bullpen is Sean Forman. The site is based on contributions from the general public. While originally, everyone was open to edit any page with minimal control, a rash of spammers forced the Bullpen to introduce mandatory registration of contributors. A group of volunteer editors are responsible for ensuring quality control and keeping the pages up-to-date; employees of Sports Reference LLC, Sean's company, take care of the underlying technical framework and ensure everything is working properly.

The software used is based on the open-source wikidata software developed for Wikipedia. Anyone familiar with contributing to that site will have little difficulty editing pages here, with the caveat that many fewer templates are enabled on the Bullpen site. There is also a lot less bureaucracy, but certain pages can only be edited by users having Administrator status.

Notability

The Bullpen includes an article on every player, manager and umpire who appeared in a major league game, including in the Negro Leagues for the period these are considered major leagues. If such a player does not have a page, either it is someone who made his debut very recently, in which case a page will be created in a matter of days, or the person is in the Bullpen under a different name and some searching may be required. An effort has been made to capture all frequent name variations for a person, but some may be missing. Almost all major league coaches also have a page, although a small number may still be missing.

All minor league players, managers, coaches and umpires are also eligible to have a page, but pages have not been systematically created for every one. Users are encouraged to create such pages to make the site more complete - provided they have enough information to create a page that will not be simply a stub.

All players in top level international leagues are also considered notable, including Nippon Pro Baseball. the Korea Baseball Organization and the Cuban National League, but also European leagues like those in Italy, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and so forth. Pages can be created for these persons. All players taking part in major international tournaments are also considered notable.

Players not considered notable are amateur and semi-pro players, including college players. An exception is made for players who have achieved personal notability by winning major awards or through other means.

Similarly, there is a page not only for every professional team and league, but also for individual seasons of all major league teams and all major leagues. Some of the principal minor leagues also have seasonal pages, and all professional leagues are eligible for such pages. If a contributor wants to create a page for the season of a team that does not have one, he/she should first consider creating a page for the relevant league for that season if such a page does not already exist.

Teams not considered notable are amateur and semi-pro teams unless there are special circumstances. However. semi-pro leagues are considered notable, as are major tournaments featuring semi-pro or amateur teams.

Basic player page format

Player biographies follow a standard format as per below

Player Full Name
any alias or name variation
(Nickname)

• Bats , Throws
• Height , Weight
• School (college and/or junior college, in chronological order`; can include institutions attended after playing career)
• High School (there can be more than one attended)
• Debut (Major League players only)
• Final Game (Major League players only)
• Born
• Died

[BR page] or [BR Minors page] or [BR Register page] (BR page is for major leaguers only; BR Register page for those who have played internationally)

==Biographical Information==

==Related Sites==

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lastname,Firstname}} (names written without any diacritics and compound names merged into a single name)

[[Category:]] (as many as relevant; there is a more or less standard order of categories, and it is recommended to list each one on a separate line to facilitate reorganization if required. Note that every page requires at least one category in order to fit into the site structure).

Most contributions should go under the "Biographical Information" section. This can be divided into sub-sections to facilitate organization.

Other sections that can appear on a player page include: "Notable Achievements" which is a standardized list (see the linked page); "Year-by-Year Managerial Record" (in the form of a table); "Records held"; "Notes" (if footnotes have been used in the main text); and "Further Reading" (a bibliography related to the subject). Other sections can be added as required, but the above are the most common.

To be avoided

In addition to creating pages for non-notable subjects, users should avoid the following traps:

• Pages should be written in a way that they will not immediately become obsolete. For example saying a player is "currently" something or other is not useful when the page may be read five years later by someone who has no idea when the text was written.
• Personal opinions are to be avoided - this is an encyclopedia. Articles are not signed and are liable to be modified by anyone.
• Statistical tables that are hard to maintain - the main Baseball-Reference site has the resources to keep these stats up-to-date, and the relevant pages are usually just a click away. Duplicating this work is bound to result in pages that are quickly out-of-date. However, lists of rare occurrences are fine, as they are relatively easier to keep current, as are all-time list of statistical leaders. In that last case, a good practice is to identify active players and list their totals as of the end of last completed season, or else the tables become a nightmare to keep current.
• Any spam links, links to permanent pages, copyright violations, and inappropriate or insulting language will be deleted and the contributor will also be banned.

Images

Images should be public domain or have been given an appropriate license by their creator. Baseball cards can be used to illustrate a player page, in a reduced format. More information is available by clicking on the "Upload wizard" link.

See also

• About the BR Bullpen
• How to contribute