Talk:Ice dance

This article may be incorrectly titled

Hello, I have realised that this Wikipedia article may be fundamentally flawed because it keeps referring to "ice dance" as "ice dancing", the first example being in the page title itself, not to mention the filename! Just to be sure, I've checked with the ISU website and they do indeed refer to the discipline as Ice Dance, one of the four disciplines encompassed by the term "figure skating", i.e. singles (men), singles (women), pairs, ice dance.

Just to clarify my position/opinion, "Ice dancing" is an informal description of the activity of dancing on ice (granted) but in a more formal sense, the discipline itself is officially termed Ice Dance. I would like to suggest that we reflect this fact by changing the title of the article accordingly and correcting the wording, where necessary, in the page text. Not every mention of the term "ice dancing" would need to be changed, it would depend entirely on the context in which it appeared within the article.

The article is held in a file called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_dancing and I believe that could not easily be changed! I'm also aware that there would be repercussions for pages linking to the article if we were to change its title, but this can easily be bypassed using a redirect if necessary.

Rodney Baggins (talk) 20:03, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose This figure skating competition is commonly called "ice dancing" as can be seen by current coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post. A book on the event called Ice Dancing was published this year. According to WP:COMMONNAME, "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's "official" name as an article title; it generally prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:13, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

A widely cited book called The Key to Rhythmic Ice Dancing was published 60 years ago, which shows that the term "ice dancing" is well established. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:27, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

OK I submit to your argument in this case because I suppose this article is more generic. And having had a closer look at it I admit that the term "ice dance" is heavily used throughout in the appropriate context, so that's fine. However, I think the discipline of "ice dance" should be correctly termed in articles that refer to it specifically as a sport rather than just the leisure activity. I am of course talking about the Olympics! So I am going to suggest the change on the relevant articles there. Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:08, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

• Support, in the interest of accuracy. I know that I'm late to the game, but there have been plenty of other instances where the term for something was changed and we needed to change articles to reflect it. The governing body of the sport of ice dance refers to the sport in that way, so that should be reflected here. Bots can take care of changing the term and making redirects. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion currently going on about this here: [1]. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:26, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Competition segments

I'd like to suggest that we change the structure of this section to reflect the sport's current practices. What that would mean is that we'd move the CD and OD subsections into the intro part of the section and retain the SD and FD subsections as is. I'll create a version of what I'm thinking in my sandbox and provide a link here before I make the changes. Please discuss. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:45, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi all, no discussion, but here's the promised link: [2] It turned out a little different than I was thinking above. As you can see, I also revamped the section and updated it. If there's still no discussion about my changes in another 7 days (21 July 2018), I'll go ahead and publish it, replacing my version with the current one. Thanks, it was fun. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:19, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Hello again. No-one else seems to be interested in any of this, but we can carry on working on it together... I've had a quick look at your draft and it looks like a good idea. The only problem is the way you've structured it, the Compulsory dance and Original dance appear to be subsections of Free dance (as shown up in the contents list) so it looks as if they are part of the Free dance, which they obviously are not. I can see that you wanted CD and OD to have less significance in the order of things, but making them level 4 headings has automatically made them part of the previous level 3 section above. What I would suggest is creating two new level 3 headings: "Current competition segments" and "Discontinued competition segments", with SD & FD at level 4 under the first and CD & OD at level 4 under the second. Thus:

===Current competition segments===
(quick intro about how things are today)
====Short dance====
(SD text)
====Free dance====
(FD text)
===Discontinued competition segments===
(quick intro about how things were before the 2011–2012 season: FD was part of the competition, along with...)
====Compulsory dance====
(CD text)
====Original dance====
(OD text)

I can take a closer look at the content later today. Bye for now. Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:51, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Duh, I just saw this before posting on your talk page, Rodney. My weakness on WP has always been the technical aspects of things, so I thank you for your help. Marvelous, I'll go and fix it now, as per your suggestions. Looking forward to further collaborations with you! Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:50, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Done, although I didn't include an intro under the "Discontinued competition segment" section because there's really nothing to add that isn't already there, unless you have suggestions. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:08, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Christine. I've been through your draft. How do you want me to tell you my changes? Is it OK if I edit your sandbox directly? You can always revert anything you don't like if I do it in stages. I may as well tell you now that I'm not sure the dates are right. The decision to change the ice dance comp. format was taken at ISU Congress 2010 and first implemented in 2010–2011 season (re. Communication No. 1621), but you've said the decision was taken in 2011 and first put into effect in the 2011–2012 season. I've also got a slightly different section structure to suggest, along with quite a lot of wording edits... Rodney Baggins (talk) 22:08, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Rodney, whenever I've collaborated with other editors, I let them take the lead in how they want to proceed with suggestions. I've worked with editors who follow the FAC-method, where they describe the edits they want made and then we discuss them. I've also worked with editors who have made contributions to the sandbox where we work and then others chime in if they disagree. You seem to be the messing-around-in-the-sandbox type, and I'm fine with that. ;) I think that the reasons I got the the dates wrong is that the sources are confused, and I was following them, and then got distracted and didn't check for accuracy. I appreciate the catch; that's why we work collaboratively and in userspace. So please, go ahead and make your changes in the sandbox; if you're uncomfortable with being in my space, we can create another sandbox if you like. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I don't feel uncomfortable with it, I just wanted to ask your permission first. I hope you don't regret it! I'll do it in stages so you can revert whatever you don't like:

• (slight restructure)
• copyedit Competition segments (intro)
• copyedit Short dance
• copyedit Free dance
• copyedit Compulsory dance
• copyedit Original dance

I wonder why no-one else is interested in this? Maybe they just trust us to get on with it and they're patiently watching... Rodney Baggins (talk) 07:00, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

OK, so I've done that. I hope you're not too horrified with it all. I'll put in a page move request for the Ice dancing page next and see what happens. Rodney Baggins (talk) 17:18, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

And I just beat you to it, despite being confused about where we're discussing things. Yikes, sorry about that. No, I'm good with your changes. I'm also good with going ahead and replacing the new content, but I'll wait until your okay. ;) Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:40, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for advice/direction

Hey Ice dance fans:

So the ISU renamed the Short dance to the Rhythm dance, effective this season, 2018-2019. I wanted some advice and/or direction about how to reflect that in the Competition segments section. My understanding is that it's just a re-name, not an entirely new dance like when they changed the CD and OD to the SK and FD. Here are some possible options:

• We can change the Short dance segment title to Rhythm dance. The problem with that is the sources all refer to it as the SD, although the required elements are the same with the re-name.
• Place the SD section into the Discontinued segments and add a new RD section, stating that the RD and the SD are the same. The problem with that is that the SD isn't a discontinued segment; its name is just different now.
• Keep the segments as-is, but explain that the SD and the RD are the same. Perhaps we can rename the section "Short/Rhythm dance".
• Other options anyone can think of.

I'm leaning towards keeping the segments as-is. There has been a new article created, Rhythm dance, which was a good idea because the yearly Required elements can go there. Please advise. Thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:31, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi Christine, I swear the ISU keep making these changes just to annoy us and make life difficult! Assuming that the new rhythm dance is the same as the short dance (just a name change), then I would say keep the short dance section the same as it is, but maybe just rename it like you suggested. I would leave the text alone but add a sentence at the end along the lines of: "In the 2018-19 season, the short dance came to be known as the "rhythm dance", but the structure and rules for this competition segment remained essentially the same." The intro will probably also need a sentence at the end saying "In 2018, the short dance (SD) was renamed the rhythm dance (RD); the ice dance competition format therefore now incorporates the two segments RD and FD." The chances are the ISU will change their minds again next season anyway, they seem to be extremely fickle!

On the subject of the SD, have you noticed the errant {{refn|group=note| in a couple of places in the text that need sorting out? Also, I hope you don't mind I've been copyediting the OD again after taking a break from it, and I'll move on to the SD next anyway. Rodney Baggins (talk) 23:22, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Hey Rodney, just saw this. Yah, don't the good people at the ISU know we have WP articles to maintain! It makes me wonder; do other sports go through so many rule changes? I think your suggestions are sound; I'll make the changes shortly. I just looked, and added back the missing back ellipses. I appreciate the copyediting assistance. I assume that you're a figure skater, and I am not, so there needs to be someone like you going behind me and making sure the language is right. I learned a new referencing trick last week; I was going to just let the articles stand, but I'm going to use it, anyway. Then I'll tackle the History section of this article, even though I've been avoiding it for the past half-week. I need more resources to do it justice, but in the meantime, I'll clean up the sources and do a copyedit/re-write. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:33, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Equipment section

Everyone, I just removed this section because I couldn't find any sources about ice dance equipment (skates). If any of you skaters out there has information about the kind of skates and other equipment ice dancers use, please let us know so we can put the information back in again. Thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 02:20, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi I'm a skater and trained in ice dance as a kid. There are dance specific figure blades made by the major skate blade companies. They have a shorter heel, which allows for close footwork and intricate ice dance steps, reducing the risk of the blades clashing with each other in such. There's an article on ThoughCo that has a short passage that notes the shorter dance blade but doesn't give the reason. It notes that a longer blade helps landing jumps so is not a good choice for free or pairs skaters (ice dancers jump but not those really big jumps!). If you zoom in on the article picture you can see this ice dance couple using that shorter blade, notice it stops at the boot heel. By contrast, if you zoom in on the picture of Caroline Pere in the article on Single Skating, you'll notice the blade goes way past the heel of her boot.

Likewise, John Wilson and MK skate companies have dance specific versions of thier blades across their ranges. There may be other technical design differences that tailor a blade to dance or free & pairs skating. I hope this helps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CurvyEdges (talk • contribs) 18:33, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

@CurvyEdges: thanks for that info, it's very interesting. Would you mind pointing me to the ThoughtCo article you mention, and provide the URL? We can't really add anything that's not cited; see WP:WHYCITE. We also need to make sure the sources we use are reliable; see WP:RS. That's why I deleted the section in the first place, because it had no sources. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:25, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Update and next questions

So I've gotten really far in the improvement of this article. All that needs to be done is to improve the intro, and then some general improvements. I've removed the lack of references tag, because it's no longer true. I think that we should submit it to GAN and then to FAC.

I have a couple of questions I'd like to throw out there to the general community:

• How are the images? Are they appropriate, and are there others we can add?
• Is this article comprehensive enough? Is there content that needs to added that's currently missing? Do we need additional sections?
• This is the most important question I have: how specific should we be? For example, Pair skating is very specific in its "Accidents" section, citing specific examples. The problem is see with that is that it can become a trivia list of accidents, and they tend to be contemporary to the writing of the section. If we were to get as specific about costume malfunctions and falls in this article, I can see the same thing happening. On the other hand, it may be a good thing to include examples (with reliable sources like this about the most recent Olympics [3]) because it gives readers specific examples of what's being described. What does everyone think?

Perhaps once this article goes through some vetting and reviews, we'll get some of the answers from outsiders and non-fans. But I thought I'd throw it out here, much like a triple throw done without a mishap. ;) Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 23:35, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Ice dance/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sportsfan77777 (talk · contribs) 02:00, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

I guess I'm going to learn something about figure skating. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 02:00, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

Always a good thing! I certainly have learned lots myself, especially about ice dance. Thanks for the review.

Here are my comments:

Lead

• as described by in published communications by the ISU (bye by)

Done; ha-ha, nice nod to NSYNC.

• Switch U.S. to the United States. (see MOS:US).

Done. Didn't know about that, you learn something new everyday. ;)

• In the late 1990s and early 2000s, ice dance lost much of its integrity as a sport after a series of judging scandals. Teams from North America began to dominate the sport starting in the early 2000s. <<=== You could use a better transition there (unless ice dancing still has no integrity...)

Does this work?: There were calls to suspend the sport for a year to deal with the dispute, which seemed to impact ice dance teams from North America the most.

Competition segments

• in the 2018-19 season, the SD came to be known as the rhythm dance <<=== wrong dash

Got it.

• The structure and rules for the RD. however, remained essentially the same. <<=== typo before however

Thanks for the catch, what a silly error. Suggestion to you as a reviewer, though: I've always thought that if it's easier for me as the reviewer to just make the change, I go ahead and make it, especially a silly error like this. Good rule of thumb, for me: If it takes longer to direct the editor to make the change than it would be for me to make the correction myself, I go ahead and make it. Nobody could ever object to copyediting while reviewing! ;)

• Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron hold the highest FD score of 123.47 points, which they achieved at the 2018 Winter Olympics.[14]{{refn|group=note| <<<=== some issue with the ref

Again, just needed 2 ellipses.

• After the 2018-2019 season <<=== wrong dash; just 2018–19
• all statistics started from zero <<=== all statistics were reset
• The teams took it in turns to skate the same pattern around two circuits of the rink. (right?)

Yes, but I see now how strangely it was worded. Changed to: The teams performed the same pattern around two circuits of the rink, one team after another... The last 2 items also fixed.

Competition elements

• as described by in published communications by the ISU
• the spin and the combination spin. <<=== specify that a combination spin is just multiple spins in succession
• 2018-2019 <<<=== wrong dash and just 2018–19
• defines choreographic elements in Ice dance <<<=== ice should not be capitalized
  • I made these changes. Feel free to take a look at them. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 22:02, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

History

• such as Mokawks <<=== typo

Ha-ha, and another silly error! ;)

• a bunch of U.S. ==>> US (see MOS:US; albeit I see that the MOS changed in September to allow the use of U.S., so I guess you can leave it.)

Yah, I think I will. I personally support that rule change (like the ISU's for figure skating!), even though I didn't know about it. I also support the change in ranges for grade of execution scores, even though it's made it confusing for skaters thus far this season. ;)

• but it was the first time a team from North America won a gold medal at the Olympics, and the first time Europeans had not won a gold medal in the history of ice dance at the Olympics. <<<=== These two clauses seem redundant.

Moved the phrase for clarity's sake; it now reads: The European dominance of ice dance was interrupted at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, when Canadian ice dance team Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won the gold medal, marking the first time a team from North America won a gold medal at the Olympics, and Americans Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the silver. Russians Oksana Domnina and Maxim Shabalin won bronze, but it was the first time Europeans had not won a gold medal in the history of ice dance at the Olympics.

• 21st-century <<<=== no dash

Got it.

Rules and regulations

• and two points for if both partners fall.

Yeesh, did I really do that? ;)

• They can lose five points if they can resume their program three minutes after the interruption begins. <<=== This sentence doesn't quite fit in with the others.

Plus, it's not very clear. Changed to: They can lose five points if the interruption lasts three or more minutes.

• They can complete these programs within plus or minus 10 seconds of the required times; if they cannot, judges can deduct points if they finish up to five seconds too early or too late. <<=== are you sure it isn't "more than five seconds"

Yes, I am, but it can be clearer. Changed to: if they cannot, judges can deduct points for finishing their program up to five seconds too early or too late.

• less than 30 or more seconds early <<== something seems off

The regs are unclear to me, so I had difficulty paraphrasing it. I took the easy way out and just quoted it.

• "The personal, creative, and genuine <<<=== "the" should be lowercase

Ugh, stupid typos! ;)

• 1997-1998 season <<<=== wrong dash, just 1997–98

Got it, thanks.

Overall

• One dead link: How to be a better and smarter figure skating fan https://www.nbcolympics.com/news/how-be-better-and-smarter-figure-skating-fan

Fixed.

@Figureskatingfan: All of my comments are minor. The writing looks solid throughout, and is probably close to ready for an FAC (but I'm not an expert on that). Good job! Placing on hold. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 05:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)

@Sportsfan77777: Thanks again for the review. Glad to hear that it's already close to FAC, since that's my eventual goal for this article. I appreciate the fresh eyes, since one of my struggles with figure skating articles is that I'm not a skater, so I'm not sure if I'm summarizing, paraphrasing, and describing things from the sources well enough. I need to find more experts, either skaters or fans/other editors of figure skating articles, to put their eyes on them and make sure that I'm doing it right. I also anticipate that future reviewers will catch more. But once I get more expert input, FAC is next for this article. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 05:46, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

@Figureskatingfan: It seems good from my "I only watch ice dancing in the Olympics" perspective. I addressed the points above in the competition elements section, and will pass the review. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 22:18, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Segments

on original dance page it says The original dance (OD) was added to ice dance competitions in 1967, when it became a replacement for one of the two compulsory dances. Compulsory dance segment was (I guess) one of those compulsory dances, until it was removed in 2010. Which is the second that was replaced in 1967? Haven't found it in the article. 213.149.51.93 (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the wording isn't clear enough. The inference from the sources is that up to 1967, there were two CDs in competition; afterwards, there was only one, and the OD was added. I'll go and tighten up the prose now. Thanks for the question; it always helps to get feedback to help clarify the content of an article. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:03, 25 January 2019 (UTC)}}