Template talk:Basketballbox

Comma
I would like to remove the comma for American-style scores. While it is true that the convention in North America is Away 0 Home 0, I've only seen the comma used in newspaper match reports, when it is always listed e.g. Winning team 2, Losing team 0, regardless of which team is playing at home. —Wiki Wikardo 22:58, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions
I'd like to solve a couple issues I've seen while working on 2011 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, etc. There is inconsistent usage of punctuation and spacing in places like the scores, placenames, and points/rebounds/assists; some use a plain space between the name and count, some used colons or commas (I think), others use a regular-spaced dash, others (mostly my edit) use the correct Snd (more foolproof than, which is easily broken by those using the visual editor). I'd to separate the team name and seed, venue and place, time components, name and count, etc. into separate parms and let the template correctly place, format, and punctuate them, automatically bold the winners, etc. I'm also adding cites to sources to confirm the correct team order, attendance, referees, etc., as I've run across several that are wrong. I know that, with the NCAABB tourney, the events are held at third-party (neutral) courts, but there is still significance in the correct designation of the "home team" for wagering, database consistency, etc. I'm thinking I'll work up an example in the sandbox for comment (soon). —[ Alan M 1 (talk) ]— 08:52, 1 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The punctuation in the stats area in 2018 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Game is the only one that's different as compared to 2018 NBA Finals, EuroBasket 2017 Final and 2018 EuroLeague Final Four. If there's to be universality, US college basketball articles have to adjust. Howard the Duck (talk) 03:59, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Template:(OT)
I just created this because it seems basketball doesn't have similar to Template:Aet. Incorporating it to this template would be appreciated. Howard the Duck (talk) 14:53, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 April 2023
Hi there! After seeing some inconsistencies (specifically in dark-mode) with the background color of the table formatting in this template, I synced the main template into /sandbox and applied the background color to the various table styles where it was needed.

I added a number of test cases to demonstrate the differences (also now using Template:Test_case for consistency) and it seems like this could be a reasonable edit that will greatly improve the look of the Basketballbox template when the dark mode gadget is enabled (particularly when the template's background color param is set).

Let me know if you have any questions or need additional info! Thanks :D

– Pedantical (talk) 05:23, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: 1) Not a fan of adding a parameter that encourages further addition of colors, and 2) don't see how adding transparency will help in the general case. That's the default state..... Izno (talk) 19:04, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Izno, thanks for taking a look at this! In the case of Basketballbox, the bg parameter already exists, and when it is used in light-mode on desktop, the template renders as one would expect. But in the desktop site's dark-mode, the bg parameter ends up only applying to portions of the template.
 * Could you take a look at the testcases page for this to see the difference with desktop darkmode enabled and let me know what you think of the changes (and if you still feel as though it's not a suitable enhancement, what would you rather see instead?)
 * Thanks!
 * –Pedantical (talk) 18:46, 18 April 2023 (UTC)


 * never had a need to use the dark mode gadget found at...
 * Go to
 * Scroll down to Appearance
 * Check the box Dark mode toggle: Enable a toggle for using a light text on dark background color scheme
 * Click
 * When I purged my browser cache there was a new link at the top of my page that toggles between dark mode and light mode. Editor 's sandbox edits have improved the test cases' backgrounds in the manner described. Seem to help a lot in mobile view, as well. So I for one support these edits as definite improvements.  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 23:32, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 18:51, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I was getting to "implement it". Anyway, some other improvements:
 * This shouldn't be a table at this point.
 * I'm pretty sure we can remove the color support entirely and treat the two particular colors most often appearing in the parameters (eee and fff) as keywords to do alternating colors on specific pages, which I believe is what they are most often doing.
 * Izno (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I can work on getting something tested for getting the color value abstracted to specific alternating color choices rather than hex codes (while also preserving existing color choices so they can be deprecated gracefully).
 * Also agree on reformatting the nested tables-in-tables-in-tables into something less... turducken-like. But I'll start on getting the color situation resolved. The way that the template was written previously also doesn't cover the situation where someone leaves the `bg` param empty, leaving `| bg = ` behind with an empty value. My changes that were implemented also didn't cover that one but that's also an easy fix :)
 * Any thoughts on alternatives to the table-in-table-turkducken, Izno (beyond just fewer tables)?
 * – Pedantical (talk) 21:27, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * CSS Grid probably, from what I can tell of this mess. Likely with WP:TemplateStyles so we can make things mobile friendly. Should allow us to remove the several bg additions just made. IznoPublic (talk) 00:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, did a grid implementation. Definitely some styles to adjust but that's a starting point.
 * Why are there two different ways to display the teams and scores? team1 and teamA? Izno (talk) 04:20, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, do we really need to distinguish between the two formats in a template? Izno (talk) 04:24, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Overtime wikilink
I would like to edit both overtime wikilinks in this template from: to: My proposal is more specific; when a user clicks on it, a specific article section will be opened. Maiō T. (talk) 09:55, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- Maiō T. (talk) 16:48, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Referees Officials
Description of suggested change: Change the prompt that precedes the undefined parameter from Referees: to Officials:. There is one referee on a crew of basketball officials. The officiating crew as a whole is referred to as officials. Benhen1997 02:17, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This sounds feasible. Do you have a source for your statement, like a publication of a professional basketball association? It would help to know if "Officials" is an accepted English-language term for basketball games played across the world. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:13, 18 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Definitely needs to be changed to something – see Official (basketball) – probably "Officials", which is a generic term that applies to the crew chief, referees, umpires, "the scorers and timekeepers, as well as other personnel that have an active task in maintaining the game". And there's a bit of a difference between the NBA and FIBA.  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 22:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm, this could be interesting. We have and WikiProject Referees. Do we just open up the whole can of worms? Maybe a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basketball would be a good step before we make this change. ETA: I have linked to this discussion from there instead of starting a new one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:17, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The problem is that this template is not only for the NBA, and are not subject to its niche titles. We also don't want to open the door for someone to add trivial listings of scorers and timekeepers there too. And yeah, I know we shouldn't use WP as a reliable source, but Official (basketball) does start with In basketball, an official (usually called a referee)... Perhaps the basic English interpretation of referee is fine.—Bagumba (talk) 14:54, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Unlike football (soccer), the highest levels of basketball are played in four rulesets: FIBA, NBA, NCAA and ULEB. (ULEB is a European organization operating in Europe outside of FIBA's auspices; I can't find their rules, but AFAIK, it's different from FIBA's).
 * FIBA's rules have 3 referees: a crew chief and 2 umpires. The crew chief has certain powers the 2 umpires don't.
 * There are no "Officials", at least by that name, but there are "table officials" (scorer, assistant scorer, timer, and shot clock operator), and a commissioner.
 * NBA rules have 4 officials: 1 each of a crew chief, referee, umpire and replay center. The crew chief has certain powers the other 3 officials don't.
 * They are assisted by an official scorer, two trained timers, and courtside administrator.
 * NCAA has several officials, which can either be one referee and an umpire, or a referee and 2 umpires, and two timers, two scorers, and a shot clock operator. The referee has certain powers the umpire/s don't. Unlike FIBA and NBA, the NCAA considers the non-playing participants on the table as "officials" in the same class as those 2 or 3 people running around the court which are not players.
 * In the 21st century, "referees" and "officials" have been the terms used to denote the 2 or 3 people on the court who are not players. In fact, verbs "refereeing" and "officiating" have become commonplace. In WP:RS and TV broadcasts, "officials" and "referees" are used interchangeably, with the term "crew chief" only being used to distinguish that person from the other officials/referees. The word "umpire" is almost unheard of (it's more of a baseball term).
 * Maybe it's proper not to change this template, but instead move Official (basketball) to Referee (basketball)? Or until that's done, to prevent confusion, this template has to be changed to "Official" as the article is indeed located there? Howard the Duck (talk) 16:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Merriam-Webster defines official as one who administers the rules of a game or sport especially as a referee or umpire. So it seems referee is more succinct. is currently a redirect to official (basketball), as it is a subtopic of the broader term official. —Bagumba (talk) 17:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd support an WP:RM of Official (basketball) to referee (basketball) or even basketball referee. It seems that calling the three non-players on the court as "officials" is exclusively an NBA practice, as FIBA calls them as "referees", and the NCAA calls all non-competitor participants (including coaches and team staff members), both on and off the court as "officials". Howard the Duck (talk) 17:43, 19 March 2024 (UTC)