Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 14: Difference between revisions

Template:Infobox college football player (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) (514 transclusions)

Template:Infobox gridiron football person (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) (7,591 transclusions)

Propose merging Template:Infobox college football player with Template:Infobox gridiron football person.
[Posted per request on my talk page]

Most gridiron footballers played in college; the GFP template includes college-related parameters. We should not need to swap templates if someone is promoted from a college to a mainstream team. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closing admin: Please see the extremely partisan breach of WP:CANVASS at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football#Templete merger proposal; starting on 14 December; then again today; and weigh subsequent comments accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note to Andy: Your entire approach to this TfD is "partisan," and we have seen your approach to sports template merges in the past. I'm sorry to have to say it, but many if not most sports editors simply do not trust one-size-fits-all editors who have a history of proposing merges of templates they don't use. Perhaps you should rethink your own adversarial approach to attempting to force such merges on the actual users of such templates, and start next time by asking for input instead of trying to tell other editors what they should do based on your own predilections for merging templates whenever you can get a simple majority of TfD participants to agree. Frankly, I think the consumers of such templates deserve a blunt statement of what is being attempted. Your mileage may vary. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is entirely permissible to be partisan in a TfD; partisan canvassing is expressly deprecated. And your comments are an ad hominem logical fallacy. TfD is a request for input. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - While I appreciate the sentiment, this proposal betrays a lack of understanding of the sport of American/Canadian football, the differences between American and Canadian professional football, and the differences between college and professional football, as well as the purposes for which these two infobox templates are actually used. Template:Infobox NFL player is used for professional players of American football, and should be the exclusive infobox used for current and retired NFL players. Template:Infobox college football player is presently used overwhelmingly for currently active American college football players. The surviving template for this proposed merge, Template:Infobox gridiron football person, is used primarily for professional players of Canadian football (i.e., the CFL), but it has been imperfectly used for other purposes, including some old-time NFL players and recent Arena football players, whose infoboxes should have already been replaced with "Infobox NFL player." Not understanding what infoboxes are supposed to be used under what circumstances has also led to some editors improperly using "Infobox gridiron football player" for old-time college players.

We do not need to merge the infobox for American college football players with the infobox for Canadian professional football players. That is folly. What is needed is to rework "Infobox college football player" so that it includes specific parameters for current college players (i.e., college year, academic major, university, college team, other sports, bowl games, high school attended, etc.) and former college players (i.e., degree awarded, graduation year, subsequent degree(s), post-college career, etc.) who never played professional football and never became college or professional coaches. What we need is an "Infobox college football player" that is tailored to the core data points of current college players, but is versatile enough to be used for notable former college football players who never played professional football. We do not need a one-size-fits-all infobox that merges a template for American college football players with a template for Canadian professional football players. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:34, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment WP:WikiProject College Basketball had agreed to migrate from a college specific template to the basketball-generic Template:Infobox basketball biography at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_Basketball/Archive_4#Proposal_to_migrate_men.27s_college_basketball_players_and_coaches_to_Template:Infobox_basketball_biography. It seems logical for something similar to happen for college football. While the players are student athletes, their notability has little to do with their major. If they do not play professionally, their notability I'd imagine would be with their collegiate playing career, not their non-sporting career. However, unlike basketball which only has the one non-college template, football is complicated by having both Template:Infobox NFL player and Template:Infobox gridiron football person. Not sure if those two can be merged as well, but this is the type of discussion that might be better held outside of TFD and among WikiProjects.—Bagumba (talk) 06:21, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bagumba, what is needed is template that works for the hundreds of notable college football players who never played a down of professional football. Combining the infobox for American college football players with the already sub-optimal infobox for Canadian football players is not a particularly good idea. The college football player infobox needs to be retooled and tailored for its intended purpose, with enough versatility built into it so it can be used for the hundreds of notable college players who never played pro football of any kind. Most of those notable old-time CFB players were college graduates, never played pro ball, many were All-Americans, and then had significant non-sports careers after college. Trying to cram them into the poorly designed, graphically primitive "Infobox gridiron football player" is not a good idea. Trying to create a generic one-size-fits-all solution is not always a good idea. Sometimes a single-purpose tailored solution is better. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are also professional players who become notable for things besides their career too e.g. Billy Hunter (American football). I think a generic template could conceivably handle this for both former college and former pro players.—Bagumba (talk) 21:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • You can still use Infobox college football player for people who never turned pro. Example WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 16:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speaking of Template:Infobox NFL player, the 2012 closed discussion to merge that with Template:Infobox NFL coach to create Template:Infobox NFL biography still remains the oldest item in the TFD Holding cell. Something needs to be done with that issue too. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • No one has touched the Infobox NFL player merge because the TfD nominator failed to adhere to required TfD procedures by placing notices on either template, and the closing administrator flatly refused to address the procedural concerns after the fact. No one wants to implement the merge because it's a tainted close with no input from the editors who actually use the templates. That merge should have solicited the input of WP:NFL; instead it was a decision made by a small handful with no working knowledge of the templates involved. Not TfD's finest moment. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's not so, as this edit shows. The most recent discussion I can find is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 11#Template:Infobox NFL coach, which certainly does not make a case for ignoring the closure decision of the TfD (which is BTW off-topic here). Your claim that "no one wants to implement the merge" is also false, as can be seen at the earlier discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 10#TfD for NFL coaches infobox and proposed merger. In fact, it appears that the only person who does not want to do so is you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thank you, but you're ignoring the obvious, Andy: there was no proposed merge notice ever placed on Template:Infobox NFL player (please review the edit history), nor was the original creator of Template:Infobox NFL player notified, nor were the major contributors to the template notified. Care to argue the point further? Why are you determined to impose a unified template on WP:NFL when the editors of that WikiProject have consciously chosen not to have a unified template? It's also equally obvious that WP:CFL and WP:NFL do not want to use the same templates. I'm not sure what you believe the role of TfD is, but I'm pretty sure that it is not to impose uniform templates on editors who don't want uniform templates. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Your claim was that neither template was tagged; I have demonstrated unequivocally that that was false. It's also the case that the merger proposal was flagged on the project pages; that another editor invited you to relist (reopen) the discussion, but you did not do so; that the uninvolved closing admin noted that subsequent discussion on the project talk page was in favour of merging; that a proposal (now in archive 10) to proceed with the merger was endorsed by every commenter except you; that you failed to respond to questions put to you in the discussion (now in Archive 11) in September 2013; and (as I pointed out above) yours is the only dissenting voice. Like I said, this is off-topic here; please find a more appropriate venue if you wish to discuss this further. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Andy, I will readily concede the point that the template with 375 transclusions (Infobox NFL coach) was tagged, but I would hope that you would likewise concede the template with over 14,000 transclusions (Infobox NFL player) was not. You also continue to ignore the fact that absolutely ZERO effort was made to notify the template creators, major contributors, or the affected and very active WikiProject, in breach of TfD procedures. It was and remains a tainted close. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment There's also Template:Infobox pro football player. Seem that would be ripest for a merge with Template:Infobox gridiron football person. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • JW, virtually all of the 570 present uses of "Infobox pro football player" should be converted to "Infobox NFL player." It appears that most of these 570 players played in both the NFL and AFL (1960-68); when AFL Draft options were added to the "Infobox NFL player" several years ago, the primary reason for the existence of "Infobox pro football player" ceased. No merge is necessary; present uses should simply be replaced with "Infobox NFL player," but most of the work will have to be done by hand. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Wow. As an editor of American football, I had no idea there were this many different flavors of football templates. Mentioned above are Template:Infobox gridiron football person, Template:Infobox pro football player, Template:Infobox college football player, Template:Infobox NFL player, Template:Infobox NFL coach, Template:Infobox NFL biography. Any non-football editor would naturally guess that there has to be opportunities for consolidation here. At the same time, it's conceivable that maybe a lot of these are not used in new articles anymore, and any merging would just be creating busy work and opening up a window for merge errors. I have no opinion yet, so any insight from others would help decide on a plan here.—Bagumba (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge, as templates have semantics in parameters, rather than in the name like categories, so if one template is able to handle all parameters in each variation, or can be made to do so relatively easily, it would most likely be better in the long run than having several similar templates. —PC-XT+ 12:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would also support using stuff from the NFL infobox, which may not require it being listed, here. That would basically be forking it to both NFL biography and this template, though. —PC-XT+ 02:19, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose What would the merged template look like? Also, since the reason for this proposed merge is not wanting to switch templates when they turn pro, then you should actually be looking to merge with Template:Infobox NFL player. The Template:Infobox gridiron football person is only used for CFL players (and old college players who never played pro, though you can still use infobox:college player for that Example Note:I think the only reason Infobox:NFL players isn't used for college players who never played pro is because of the "debut" parameteers that you cannot remove and if you wanted to list college stats in the infobox it would still say "NFL statistics", you can list CFL and Arena stats in the NFL infobox though) and most college people who turn pro are going to use NFL player. Any college player who is notable enough to have their own article is not going to start their careers in the CFL. You are still going to have to change the infobox to NFL player. If you want to merge something, you might as well merge all of the gridiron football infoboxes into one. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 16:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I appreciate the merge request but it would be hard to fit all of the various gridiron football parameters into one neat infobox. If someone experimented and found an infobox that that would easily fit all of the information, then we could only have one infobox. All of the parameters that would be needed for a merged infobox may confuse editors. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 17:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It would look like whatever this discussion decides. All of the issues you describe can be addressed in the template code. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per the arguments made above by Dirtlawyer1 and WikiOriginal-9. This appears to be an opportunity for anything but a clean merge. A clean strategy for how such a merge would be executed, one that maintains all the existing relevant info where needed, needs to be drawn up before we can green light this. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The purpose of this discussion is to do exactly that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose Professional Canadian football and college American football have enough differences for a merge to make no sense. Even the templates don't look similar. And no one is complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro. Additionally, players in the CIS football ranks currently use the Template:Infobox gridiron football person as opposed to a college variant like the Americans have. Cmm3 (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • That the templates "don't look similar" is another reason we should merge them; there's absolutely no need for infoboxes to vary in visual layout like this. I am complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro; it puts up an unnecessary cognitive burden which is a barer to editing. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you were primarily complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro; then, like I said before, you would want to merge NFL player with college football player. Also, it is not a lot of work anyway (here is an example of me changing "college football player" to "NFL player". They are very similar already. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Add that to the fact that the graphics of "Infobox gridiron football person" are horribly primitive. Why would we want to use it? Graphically, it's hideous and its design is inconsistent -- years and year spans follow honors, awards; years and tenures precede team names. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• • • • It's concern, but it's not the primary one. And if the templates are so similar, that again points to the redundancy of having more than one of them. (Your link isn't a diff, BTW.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Most American college football players who go on to a professional football career, play in the NFL, not the CFL. To the extent "Infobox college football player" and "Infobox NFL player" share common data (e.g., name, weight, height, birth date, birth place, number, position, college, highlights, etc.), the field names should be standardized to facilitate easy conversion. That does not require a merge of "Infobox NFL player" and "Infobox college football player," and certainly does not argue for a merge of the standard infobox for American college football players and the standard infobox for Canadian professional football players. Only someone who does not edit American/Canadian football articles could argue in favor of the latter. That idea is goofy. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose for now On paper there seems to be commonality, but the devil is in the details. Judging by the opposes above, a successful merge proposal will need a comprehensive analysis that accounts for all the related templates: Template:Infobox gridiron football person, Template:Infobox pro football player, Template:Infobox college football player, Template:Infobox NFL player, Template:Infobox NFL coach, Template:Infobox NFL biography. They probably didn't all need to be created, but they were, and editors are justifiably concerned about how a merged infobox will both look to a reader, and whether it is intuitive and usable for editors. Also, the proposal should seek input from the affected WikiProjects: WikiProject National Football League, WikiProject Canadian football, WikiProject American football, WikiProject College football, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Arena Football League. This will require collaboration from both a skilled template editor and a knowledgeable football editor(s). The fact that the target template in the nomination is incorrect is a likely indicator this has not happened. The scope of this seems too large to continue discussing in a TfD.—Bagumba (talk) 04:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the target template in the nomination is incorrect " How do you feel it is "incorrect"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:MissGrandInternationalCountries (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Reason#3: The template is not used and has no likelihood of being used. Miss Grand International 2014 has been deleted multiple times and is now salted. Geniac (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as unused. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:18, 14 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as unused per nom —PC-XT+ 03:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]