Template talk:College athlete recruit entry

Autoformatting for dates
I had added code to turn strings of numbers into normal-looking dates which humans could read. This standardised the output of the template to something like "Jul 1, 2011". It even dealt with the likes of "6/1/2011", which, due to its ambiguity, is depreciated on WP. This code was removed by Zwilson14. I don't see how the removal of this code improves the template. The template is now displaying ambiguous date formats again. I'm reinstating the code. Please discuss the matter if you don't believe it should stay. J IM ptalk·cont 16:16, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with that format but it dosent fit in the space provided. It just makes the template longer than necessary. It looks alot better when the template is more compact, like it was before the change. Zwilson14 (talk) 22:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I made it so that it would wrap between the day and year so it should actually be shorter (though on two lines). J IM ptalk·cont 22:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Hometown links
I have a suggestion to improve the template:

Allow more flexibility in formatting of hometowns. I'm thinking specifically of cases that involve the following:
 * A city whose article title does not include a state (or equivalent) in its article title. That would allow one to, for example, direct the link to Chicago but still display "Chicago, Illinois".
 * For locations outside the United States, allow links to both the city and country—for example, if a player is from "Perth, Australia", allow separate linking to Perth, Australia

Think this would be a worthwhile change the template? (I'm not going to do this myself, since I don't know the syntax well enough.) — Dale Arnett (talk) 20:34, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I know Dale's comment is over three years old, but I have the same issues with this template. If the city isn't the standard  wikilink and you need to use  s, you cannot. If you only want to wlink a city the first time it's in the table, you cannot.
 * I'm tempted to remove the brackets from the template so the city isn't always auto-wlinked. Not having this will give more flexibility to the editor in how wlinks are piped (if necessary). If I remove the brackets, the effect on existing articles that transclude this template is their hometowns will no longer be linked. It's not the most desirable side effect, but it doesn't effect the readibility of the page.
 * note: I disagree with his statement about separately linking Perth and Australia, but I'd wager he now disagrees too 3.5 years later. — X96lee15 (talk) 12:53, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I support removing the automatic linking (i.e., changing to  ). Frietjes (talk) 16:30, 4 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think there will be any more comments on this so I'm going to make a change. If people disagree, then they'll come here looking. — X96lee15 (talk) 23:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

ESPN stars vs grade
Now that ESPN also gives a 5 star rating in addition to their grade, is there a way to change the template so that it can display both the espn stars AND grade? I see that there is an option for ESPN stars in the template, but it seems only one can be displayed at a time (i.e. if the ESPN grade is displayed, the stars can't be). I'd like to be able to display both at the same time. Rreagan007 (talk) 16:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I see it has been over 2 years since someone addressed this, but I just modified the template to allow both the ESPN Stars and ESPN Grade be shown. Note that unlike the other parameters (such as Rivals and 247 Stars), the ESPN parameters only appear if information is entered, instead of displying "N/A" --Zach Pepsin (talk) 15:28, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

"Commit date" column
The "Commit date" column has a fixed width, and the preferred date format "Jan 18, 2012" is longer than the column title. Thus, the date is displayed on two lines, and the table height is unnecessarily lengthened. Can anybody make the column's width flexible so the date will fit on one line? Thanks! -AllisonFoley (talk) 04:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * there were hard-coded &lt;br&gt; tags forcing the year on a new line. I removed them, but there may have been a reason for this?  if so, someone can revert my edits from today.  thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It looks much better now. -AllisonFoley (talk) 17:54, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Template is not self-explanatory
I believe that for a reader who is not well versed in US college sports (someone like me, for example), this template contains almost no useful information because those readers simply do not understand what this template is about and what the sections in this template mean. I myself am not sure what the template is about. Is it about high school athletes and their chances of getting college scholarships? Is it about college athletes and their chances of getting a high draft rank in the professional leagues? Or is it about something else?


 * I would suggest giving the part of the template which contains the stars ratings some kind of header or description which contains an explanation of its contents. E.g., I have almost no clue what "Scout: 2/5 stars" means. And what is an "ESPN grade"?.
 * And I would suggest linking the names to the corresponding Wiki pages, e.g. "Scout" to Scout.com and "Rivals" to Rivals.com.

I have noted further suggestions at Template_talk:College_athlete_recruit_start and Template_talk:College_athlete_recruit_end. Spike (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Scout.com recruit ratings
Does Scout.com still give their own ratings? Because, whenever I try to find any there, it sends me to 247Sports.com. —  Wylie pedia  01:47, 25 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Scout was bought out by CBS in 2017 after bankruptcy and thus merged with 247 sports. I don't know how to do it, but there needs to be an option to exclude Scout from future use in this template. Interwebs (talk) 12:30, 8 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Came here to ask about this being resolved. It might be an issue with older pages still having the parameter and newer pages not requiring it. Swimmer33 (talk) 15:35, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Composite stars
With Scout being a part of 247 now, I believe the template should be changed from "Scout stars" to "Composite stars" to account for the fact that there is often changes between 247's own rankings and the 247Composite rankings. Would it be possible to edit the template to that, or possibly add in On3 rankings since that is a new site as well? SilverPlacebo15 (talk) 19:43, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 November 2022: Page section link no longer works
Please change  to   (lowercase "ratings"), because the section heading in the target page has changed from "Star Ratings" to "Star ratings" and, because of that, the link to the section no longer works. Spike (talk) 11:16, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅.  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'r there 11:40, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Ranking by position
I've seen some recruiting tables that list a player's national ranking for a position (see Purdue's 2022 Class which (apparently?) shows Fletcher Loyer as the #18 shooting guard – 247Sports ranked him 18 in 2020.) Upon further investigation I see that Loyer is currently listed as the #9 SG according to 247sports.com and #26 according to rivals.com. Given the subjective and fluid nature of these rankings, can we provide some guidance on how a national ranking should be shown? I'm thinking it's probably best to not include a ranking at all. If so, I think we should explicitly say that in this template documentation. Thoughts? Hoof Hearted (talk) 14:58, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks Billgatenguyen for boldly removing those confusing numbers from the Purdue page. I'd still welcome any input from others as to how we should include rankings or if we should explicitly discourage their use. Hoof Hearted (talk) 13:50, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 June 2023
Suggestion to change 247Sports to 247Sports. There’s need for the redirect, per WP:NOTBROKEN. Thanks. Moist hammer (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2023 (UTC)


 * first you say "There's need for the redirect," and then you cite NOTBROKEN. Don't understand, because you're asking to bypass a good, working redirect?  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 19:55, 17 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Not done: unanswered inquiry.  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 03:48, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I meant “there’s no need for redirect” (Crucially, I left out the word ‘no’. That was my error.) Moist hammer (talk) 09:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)


 * .  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;, ed.  put'er there 12:03, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Scout.com Ranking
Is there something I can type into the template to hide the Scout.com rating? The site was folded into 247 so it seems repetitive to have to state the same rating twice. poketape (talk) 23:40, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Edit request 18 July 2024
Description of suggested change: Create a parameter to turn off Scout.com rating for newer uses of this template, or remove its listing if  is blank.

The website has merged with 247Sports and no longer releases independent rankings, but this template still produces a "Scout: N/A" listing for blank entries and includes Scout in the footnote. See earlier discussions here, here, and here.Hoof Hearted (talk) 14:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)