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I don't think the new table format is right for this page. It works for F1 where every driver has their own number, but in this series where drivers are sharing cars, we should really separate each driver into their own box like in every other IndyCar page. JoeyofthePriuses (talk) 03:39, 20 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I think the current format overvalues the relevance of teams and suggests they are far more rigid in nature than the fluidity teams in Indycar have. I also foresee the inevitable disconnection of the number-entry correspondence as soon as the #20 is announced and suddenly we have two drivers with 20 besides their names and nothing suggests this is one entry. The format employed before suited the situation in Indycar whereas the current format seems designed to suit something else and is foisted upon Indycar despite the differences rather than respecting and accomodating those differences. Given no further disagreement I will restore the old format within the next few days. Quintinohthree (talk) 08:19, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this up and making the change. I redid the table to make it closer to the F1 style because I thought it looked/worked better, but I didn't consider your point regarding the different ways IndyCar uses numbers. Definitely doesn't make sense to copy F1's style. Wicka wicka (talk) 13:17, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than continue a pointless edit-war with user:Tvx1 over whether or not the entry table should include information on entries in future rounds, I have instead started this thread to allow him/her or anyone else to clarify why the existing convention that has been applied for years and is still being applied in 2018 Indycar Series Season should be overturned. First I will clarify my understanding of the current convention and why this should be maintained.

The current convention is two-fold. Not currently under contention is that the table should show which drivers were entered by which teams in which cars, as confirmed after a race. What is under contention is whether we should also include entries that will be made in future rounds that have already been announced in secondary sources. The current convention is however to include these future entries pending further announcements to the contrary as may sometimes occur for a variety of reasons. This means that under current convention the rounds column serves two purposes: to inform which team entered which car driven by which driver in prior races, and to inform which team will enter which car driven by which driver in every future race, barring further announcements. If for instance the last round held was "15" and a given entry in the column is given as "3, 6, 13, 16–17", that signifies to the reader that the given combination of team, car and driver has already been entered in rounds 3, 6 and 13 and has previously been announced to enter rounds 16 and 17 and should enter these races unless otherwise announced later. The current convention therefore provides the full range of information available at the time and only requires editing for extraordinary changes, without edits for every round required additionally.

As I understand user:Tvx1, this secondary purpose regarding future rounds is inappropriate because the information given is uncertain. This is simply nonsense as the information given about future rounds is of a different nature than that given about previous rounds, being information about previous announcements rather than events in the future, and is not at all uncertain as it is substantiated by announcements made previously which are referenced as per usual. In any case the logic presented by user:Tvx1 suggests a much further-reaching conclusion: that the entire Entries table should be deleted untill the first entry list has been announced or even untill the first race has started. After all, untill that time every single entry listed in the table may yet change and may eventually be entered in a different way. After all, entries in Indycar are officially seperate entries into individual events and carry no official connection to other entries by the same team, nor are drivers connected to a given entry outside of each individual event (and even then drivers may be changed at any moment for any reason between any set of sessions during an event), as opposed to for instance F1 where the championship takes precedence and teams are the indivisible units that enter the championship, designating a pair of drivers for each round, rather than individual entries entering individual events. This also gives a further reason to include entries in future rounds as these are not a given in Indycar whereas in F1 a team always commits to entering two cars in every round prior to the season and the greatest uncertainty is whether the team will succeed in this.

If as user:Tvx1 suggests his edits are in line with established conventions used in other articles, then clearly these conventions are not suitable for how things work in Indycar and need to be adjusted to accomodate the specific way in which things do work in Indycar before they are implemented on articles about Indycar.

With that all said, I would like to invite everyone to discuss this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quintinohthree (talk • contribs) 11:15, 26 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, this article is about an upcoming season not an active one. So your first paragraph dealing with two purposes is simply inapplicable on this article. Secondly, these drivers are merely contracted to enter the relevant rounds next year. There is no even remote guarantee they will actually enter them. Take the previous season for example. If compare the claims that were made prior to the season to the actual events at the conclusion of the season, I see four drivers wo were claimed to be entering all races who did not do so and one other driver who entered more rounds than predicted. The errors are thus clear and this is thus a demonstration of poor editorial practice. Bear in mind that this is general-purpose encyclopedia written for all sorts of readers and not only die-hard IndyCar fans. If a reader strolling through articles on current motorsports seasons finds tables with round for which competitors have actually been entered it's reasonable to assume they will take the round column on the IndyCar article to have the exact same meaning. Filling this column up with rounds these competitors have not been entered for is misleading, if not incorrect. And certainly ludicrous speculations like "6-10 round" has not place in an encyclopedia. Moreover, on an article on an active season it is not possible for the lay reader to distinguish between the aforementioned two purposes (races they were entered for/races they are expected to enter for). This does not boil down to just WP:Motor conventions, but also to general Wikipedia policies and guidelines like WP:VERIFY and WP:CRYSTALL. "We would need to edit the table for every round" is also a very poor argument and in reality an admission of laziness. We are able to manage that without trouble in any other motorsport article so that can perfectly been done here as well. Ultimately, IndyCar does not hold any special status giving it a trump card to ignore policies, guidelines and wikiproject conventions. It certainly isn't so special policies, guidelines and wikiproject conventions need to be written around it.Tvx1 14:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"First of all, this article is about an upcoming season not an active one. So your first paragraph dealing with two purposes is simply inapplicable on this article."

No, to the contrary, it means the one purpose is active while the other purpose is dormant. When the season starts, both purposes will be active and when the season finishes both these purposes.

"Secondly, these drivers are merely contracted to enter the relevant rounds next year."

False, this is not how things work in Indycar. The rounds column suggests not only that the driver is contracted to enter the round, but also that the entry (car) itself will enter that round. The driver may be replaced for whatever reason, or the entry itself may fail to enter the race, but that does not change the accuracy of the numbers in the rounds column because untill the failure to enter has been announced, the rounds column reflects what has been announced.

"There is no even remote guarantee they will actually enter them. Take the previous season for example. If compare the claims that were made prior to the season to the actual events at the conclusion of the season, I see four drivers wo were claimed to be entering all races who did not do so and one other driver who entered more rounds than predicted. The errors are thus clear and this is thus a demonstration of poor editorial practice"

Thank you for pointing this out. Notice how what you say is entirely irrelevant. As I understand it, if a combination of entry and driver is shown as entering some number of future rounds, this signifies that the latest announcement is that that combination will enter those rounds. It is not a prediction that they will enter those future rounds, because indeed circumstances may change and new announcements may supercede the previous announcements. Remember, it's not a prediction of the future but a recollection of a past announcement about a future event. Past announcements I should add that substantiate the entire entries table prior to the start of the season.

"Bear in mind that this is general-purpose encyclopedia written for all sorts of readers and not only die-hard IndyCar fans. If a reader strolling through articles on current motorsports seasons finds tables with round for which competitors have actually been entered it's reasonable to assume they will take the round column on the IndyCar article to have the exact same meaning. Filling this column up with rounds these competitors have not been entered for is misleading, if not incorrect."

Fair. I agree that we should have policies that facilitate a uniform presentation of similar information. These policies should however not be specifically designed to suit one form of motorsport with little consideration of other forms. There is a lot of diversity in motorsport and it only makes sense that this diversity should be accomodated. I honestly think the policies that you are pushing do not do so and I do take offense to the suggestion that I am a vandalist for pushing against a policy I feel needs to be revisited. I know you mean well, perhaps you should consider that I mean well too.

"And certainly ludicrous speculations like "6-10 round" has not place in an encyclopedia."

I've been over this. The exact 6 rounds have been announced already, the remaining 4 of the 10 remain TBA but their identity has also been announced. It is exactly as valid as "All" or "Indy 500" and it does not merit being singled out.

"Moreover, on an article on an active season it is not possible for the lay reader to distinguish between the aforementioned two purposes (races they were entered for/races they are expected to enter for)."

Yes, but do these two purposes really differ substantially enough to the lay reader? The lay reader will have to read the calendar table to make sense of the numbers presented in the rounds column and there they can see which rounds have already been held and which have not been based on the dates given therein. If they see "All" in the rounds column, they can immediately infer that entry should be back at all future rounds and has entered all previous rounds. The only misunderstanding I can foresee a lay reader making is that "All" signifies a guarantee of future entries, but I think an average lay reader can realize that one can not guarantee future events, one can merely announce them.

"This does not boil down to just WP:Motor conventions, but also to general Wikipedia policies and guidelines like WP:VERIFY and WP:CRYSTALL."

And as I say, the existing convention prior to new policy does not in my understanding bump into WP:VERIFY or WP:CRYSTALL because it never gives predictions of future events but merely verified announcements made in the past. Again, I add, the same announcements verifying the entire entries table prior to the season's start and all entries included in the table in future rounds after the season's start. By your logic, that entire table and especially the entries involving Helio Castroneves and Scuderia Corsa goes against WP:CRYSTALL, because it suggests all those entries and drivers will enter a race. Worse still, by removing the rounds column, the table suggests no differentiation between full season entries and partial entries, suggesting only that these entries will enter some race over the course of a season, and withholding the information about what races those will be, even though that information is included in the same reference. Think of the lay reader will you? How will they realize the differences between the full-season entries and partial season entries?

""We would need to edit the table for every round" is also a very poor argument and in reality an admission of laziness. We are able to manage that without trouble in any other motorsport article so that can perfectly been done here as well."

Fair. But that is not my point (and the fact that you misconstrue my point in your reply does not favor my conclusion that you mean well). My point is rather that these edits after every round do not introduce new information into the article. It was already known prior to the start of the round who would enter in what entries. Under the existing convention however, every announcement of a new or changed entry is an opportunity to update the article with new information not previously accessible to prior versions of the article. Thus under the existing convention the article always ideally shows the complete range of information available about what entries have been announced to enter future rounds whereas under the new convention, information that is relevant is not included for fear of later announcements superceding the information presented. This is the nature of articles about current and future events. New information may make previously presented information incorrect in the new present. All you need to do is edit the article if that happens. I think we're both advocating for laziness here, and honestly I prefer mine where relevant verifiable information is presented rather than withheld.

"Ultimately, IndyCar does not hold any special status giving it a trump card to ignore policies, guidelines and wikiproject conventions. It certainly isn't so special policies, guidelines and wikiproject conventions need to be written around it."

Indeed, it isn't. In fact, it's so ordinary in the world of motorsport that I think conventions that suit Indycar tend to suit other forms of motorsport pretty well.

In conclusion, I am not at all convinced that there is good reason to prefer the new policy over the established convention. You bring up a couple imperfections in the existing convention but these seem rather minor and certainly the new policy has considerable imperfections of its own. I believe however that this means that the existing convention and/or the new policy could perhaps be changed to overcome those. Finally, the logic you give to justify removing the rounds column does not justify removing the rounds column per se but rather the entire entries table, and the schedule table too. If tomorrow a driver dies or a track is demolished by an earthquake, then one or both of these tables will have been inaccurate. Now if you want to follow your logic, please go ahead and remove those tables. I will not, because I believe those tables simply provide different information to the reader than you suggest they do. Quintinohthree (talk) 18:01, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why you claim a "new policy" here when the relevant WP:MOTOR conventions, which are in turn derived from policies and guidelines like WP:VERIFY and WP:CRYSTALL are years old. Also, contrary to your claims, these conventions were tailored to motorsports in general and not one particular class. IndyCar was being an exception, not the other way round. Your analogy which claims my actions signify all tables need to be removed is completely wrong. The teams/drivers currently included, as well as the races, are backed up with reliable sources allowing us to verify that these have been confirmed/are contracted (though I will note that some of the included races are not backed up by a source). We cannot however verify at the moment, let alone assure our readers, that these drivers will enter the rounds column claim they would. Equally your response to my pointing out the confusion including rounds they are expected to enter is flawed. For instance the entry list for the Indianapolis 500 this year was published 26 days before the race and , crucially, before the previous round, the IndyCar Grand Prix. That meant that in early may of this year we actually had three categories of rounds in some cells of that column (rounds they entered and competed in, rounds they were entered for and rounds they were expected to enter in the future), without any means for the lay reader to distinguish them. That's just avoidable confusion. Contrary to what your are convinced of, it's perfectly possible at the moment for this article to be valuable without that extra column.Tvx1 20:24, 27 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I largely agree with Tvx1 on this, but I think it's absolutely critical that we specify which entries we currently know to be contracted only for Indianapolis. Right now the page implies that Helio will be a full-season driver, for instance, and that's not acceptable to me. Wicka wicka (talk) 13:20, 29 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that King has done too many races to be a series rookie, but is an Indy 500 rookie as he's yet to contest that race. Should the main table really define him as a rookie considering this?--MartinUK (talk) 22:44, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see, you mean the points table. I think that's just a case of someone copying the table row from last season's article but not removing the rookie tag. If someone hasn't fixed it by tomorrow, I'll sort it out when I'm updating that table with the DNQs. 🇮🇪 TheChrisD {💬|✏️} 23:30, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Man... who decided that Felipe Nasr and Tristan Vautier are driving the TBA oval races for Carlin. Come on now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DubsyWheels (talk • contribs) 02:10, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]