Template talk:Infobox AFL biography

Career and club kicking average ?
Is there a way to calculate these based on the fields in the template ? --Rulesfan (talk) 04:19, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you referring to goal averages? I'm not quite sure what you mean by "career and club kicking average". Please try to keep in mind, we do not want unnecessary information to clutter the infobox. It is merely a helper starter in providing basic information about the person. Boomtish (talk) 14:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes goal averages. Number of goals / number of games - gives average goals kicked per game.  Probably more useful for forward, but it is one of the key stats in the sport.  --Rulesfan (talk) 00:54, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I think it is better used in a relevant statistics section of the article. When we want a snapshot of the players, we usually only get the bare basics - total games played and total goals kicked. For averages and such, I think we can incorporate that into a more detailed and extensive statistics section. Boomtish (talk) 07:50, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Career Highlights
I reckon it was a mistake removing this section. It was a great snapshot and as a result of using this infobox several key articles are missing it. I can't tell, for example, in a snapshot how many best and fairests or All-Australians a player has without reading the full article. In many cases, this info is missing from the articles (see for example Lance Franklin) because there is nowhere else to put it. IMHO this is much more important than representative teams, given that unlike rugby players the focus of a professional footy player's career is their club and league awards because State of Origin and International Rules have been suspended for long periods. --Rulesfan (talk) 00:52, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * A fair point on the representative teams - perhaps that is something to bring up on the WikiProject page. But as for the other honours, I think it was agreed that it was making some articles far too cluttered. Honours and achievements do not necessarily have to be incorporated into the article body (where indeed they may be hard to pick out one by one) - there can be separate sections of the article dedicated to listing each players achievements out (see Joel Selwood), Jimmy Bartel).


 * Any reader can therefore still get a snapshot of any particular players' honours, simply by looking at a relevant "Honours" section of the article. However, the use of the infoxbox is not to list out everything about the player - we should strive to keep details to the bare minimum here. It has been pointed out before by readers from other WikiProject sports that the previous AFL infobox was far too cluttered by comparison. Boomtish (talk) 07:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Debut ?
What happened to it ? This information was really useful. --Rulesfan (talk) 03:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I will merge it back again in a few minutes, a copy and paste job of Infobox AFL player. mabdul 19:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Do we really need this? It's... really, really trivial and not really a vital piece of information at all. More something that should be addressed in the body of the article proper, rather than something that needs to be seen at a glance. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 23:51, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. There's a reason this wasn't included originally. Mabdul, you should notice that the outcome of the TfD was merge, while preserving the format of this template. No doubt a good faith addition, but it should be reverted. Jenks24 (talk) 00:11, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have no knowledge about this template/topic except taht I'm active at Tfds and the result was merge. While I was checking all parameters of both templates, I recognized that these four parameters were only missing. (and interestingly this template is not protected because of too many transclusions, which should be changed after the merge) I also created a "bot request" at WP:BOTREQ if anybody is able to do the transform of the parameters (which I doubt somehow). mabdul 01:50, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the debut parameters should simply be removed, not converted over to the new infobox. I saw the request at BOTREQ and hope someone will be able to do it. Lastly, if you must protect the template, please only do semi because none of the regulars at the Aussie rules project are admins which means full protection would cause a lot more hassles than it solves. Jenks24 (talk) 01:57, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Image Caption Wrapping
The Image caption does not wrap properly. See Adam Goodes. --Rulesfan (talk) 00:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Will work on fixing that. But personally, I don't think an image description is necessary for the image used on the infobox. Looking at many infoboxes used in various sports articles, they are essentially non-existant.


 * Perhaps only limit descriptions to the main article body, where they may become more meaningful in helping describe what the image represents and its importance in the context of the article. Within the infobox, however, the image is merely to help identify who the player is. Boomtish (talk) 08:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Previous club information
Under the heading 'Club information' I think there should be the name of previous clubs and the jersey number they had when they were in that club, or something like that. Grandtheftwalrus (talk) 05:01, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Link positions in template
Could we link the Position (s) option to Australian rules football positions? It's a permanent issue, not everyone is going to know what each position means in AFL, they need to be wikilinked no matter what, this would just make it easier. k.i.a.c ( talktome  -  contribs ) 12:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the problem is, each position needs to be specifically linked the relevant section. Too vague to link any and every position in the infobox to the the generic Australian rules football positions article. Boomtish (talk) 14:49, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Umpire stats
I notice that at some point that umpire stats have been removed from this template. Just wondering why this was... Hack (talk) 13:26, 18 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure who removed it, but my two cents anyway: I think the template should remain solely for players and coaches. Players obviously being the main sportsmen, and I think we find that coaches are often past players (very rare nowadays to have coaches who weren't, at one point, a VFL/AFL player). The link between an umpire and an AFL player is not as well developed - how many present day umpires are past players? Not too many at all. Umpiring is a part-time job for alot of them. I don't believe the information displayed in this template is relevant to an umpire (I'm not sure umpires even need a template to begin with). Cheers Boomtish (talk) 14:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it's pretty clear it's for players of the game. However there are 45 ex-players who have umpired VFL/AFL - I wouldn't think it would be overkill to have a handful of lines to show that information. Hack (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not just create a separate template for umpires, like we have done for others sports on here? See Óscar Ruiz for an example. Jevansen (talk) 06:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)


 * OK, seeing as the umpire stats haven't been part of the template for over a year, I've removed the umpire fields from the documentation. Cheers, Jenks24 (talk) 06:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Two templates
Why do we have Infobox AFL player and Infobox afl player NEW? They should be merged. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:51, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually there are three currently in use, see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AFL/Archive 5 for the last discussion about this. In an ideal world there would only be one infobox, but there isn't a consensus on which is better out of the two you mentioned. Jenks24 (talk) 14:14, 5 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the background, I'm going to take them to TfD for centralised discussion. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:12, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Optional comma when no death_place
12-Aug-2011: I have changed to omit the comma "," after, when the parameter is omitted. The template's new markup is:
 * colspan="2" |

I tested the change, and an empty {death_place} also omits the comma "," after the {death_date}. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:57, revised 09:24, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Nice idea. Jenks24 (talk) 09:21, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing that up. Jevansen (talk) 13:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

State leagues
I've noticed on Guy McKenna and a few other pages that people have decided to include WAFL, TAC Cup, SANFL, and VFA stats alongside VFL/AFL stats. To my mind, this is downright confusing unless qualified, and is going to result in a lot of clutter.

Would it be possible to add a separate section for state league statistics, since it's probably wise to include WAFL, VFA(L) and SANFL stats? I just think that they should be kept separate from VFL/AFL stats, purely because they're entirely separate leagues. .... 09:46, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Not in favour, considering that for most of the history of the game the SANFL, WAFL and V/AFL have been considered equal. The totalling of these separate is in fact quite a common usage amongst football historians, even in the AFL Record. The TAC Cup is another matter, as it cannot be considered equal to other competitions as it has an age limit applied. Perhaps a separate section could be created for under-age stats (Under-18 championships, Teal Cup, TAC Cup, etc.)? IgnorantArmies?! 10:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Largely agree with IgnorantArmies. The TAC Cup should not be included and I also think that adding a separate section for junior stats would just clutter the infobox, especially when some players already have playing, state of origin, "national" (AUS v IRL) and coaching stats. I think including WAFL, SANFL, VFA/VFL is fine, as long as that was the primary team they were playing for. For example, I think the Guy McKenna infobox is fine and I think it would be ok if Andrew Krakouer had Swan Districts stats in his infobox, but it's not a good idea to have AFL players with VFL stats in their infobox when the VFL teams are effectively functioning as a reserves side, e.g. Nathan Buckley should not have that he played one match for Williamstown in his infobox. It's also worth noting that some players who use this infobox never actually played VFL/AFL, e.g. bit stiff to say that Haydn Bunton, Jr. doesn't deserve an infobox just because he didn't play or coach in the VFL/AFL. Jenks24 (talk) 11:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree fully RE: the TAC cup, and I also agree that players that played in state leagues other than the VFL deserve infoboxes, I just think that it lacks clarity, and ultimately becomes confusing to list teams from separate leagues in the same space of an infobox, and could probably be remedied with separate sections a la the state and national analogues. I only think it's important to make the distinction between what has ultimately become the national competition and the smaller, state leagues. .... 12:02, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Historically, it is more than appropriate to list players like Brian Peake exactly as we do now, with both given equal listing. But players like Chris Judd shouldn't have 1 game with East Perth listed in the infobox (but it should be in the text... I'm sure I put it in sometime in the past!). Where it gets murky is for players like Hayden Ballantyne who won a leading goalkicker and Sandover at State level, or even guys like Harry Taylor who had a significant, but uneventual WAFL career.  What about James Podsiadly? His VFL career is probably notable enough for an article even if he never got a go with Geelong. And do we include TFL/QAFL/NEAFL games or just the big 3?  More questions than answers, so I think that means lets consider it on a player-by-player basis... but I don't like the idea of a separate section for "minor leagues", because they aren't minor leagues. The-Pope (talk) 12:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't necessarily think that they should be classified as "minor" leagues. Would it be feasible to have sections qualified as "SANFL Playing Career" and "AFL Playing Career," "WAFL Coaching Career," et cetera? The only problem I see with listing teams from separate leagues together is that with this infobox, typically stats from multiple teams are added together and presented as a total, but I think it would be wildly inaccurate to combine stats from, say, a WAFL career and an AFL career. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 12:39, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * And to answer the question of AFL listed players in the reserves, perhaps some base number of games would be wise, with exceptions to anyone who playing a premiership or received an accolade in the VFL/WAFL/SANFL, et cetera, while on an AFL list. And yes, I think the other state leagues should be included, especially since the AFL Hall of Fame thinks they're notable enough. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 12:43, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It was a while back, but I managed to slap together something for Choco that I think works to a certain degree. The formatting is a tad fancy, but there's just a clarity there, and I really do think there's very much a need to distinguish between leagues. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 04:39, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Draft field

 * Just a small suggestion, would there be massive opposition to changing the input for the draft field from having "XXst overall" to just "#XX"? It's a little bit cleaner and gets pretty much the same result across. Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 22:11, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Guernsey requires current club → current players only???
The documentation is somewhat quiet on the utilisation of the "guernsey" field. As it is only live when the "current club" parameter is used, does that indicate that these two fields should only be used for current players? If that is the case, then I find it unusual that past players are not able to be represented with their numbers. If that is not the intent of the instructions, then we need to look to clarify the documentation, to indicate the use of these two terms. — billinghurst  sDrewth  13:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * we could move that field up to the section above, which would make it not attached to the current club? Frietjes (talk) 19:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
 * As most players change numbers during their career, it really is a problematic field for most players. Do you put 3 or 5 for Judd?  29 or 9 for Ablett? 14 or 4 for Plugger?  39 or 11 for Stynes? Maybe we only use it for current club or single number players, and automatically move it up when currentclub is blank. Maybe there is a worthwhile reason to have the stats tables that others like adding, and I like removing! The-Pope (talk) 00:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Revisiting the state leagues
I know it's a topic that came up a few years back, but seeing the proliferation of WAFL stats mixed in amongst V/AFL stats I'm thinking that it's all just a tad confusing, especially when the standard for players on multiple teams is that we total those games and goals (which you obviously wouldn't do when cross-pollenating leagues.

I was wondering, then, if it would be possible to have separate WAFL, SANFL, and V/AFL sections of the infobox, which would be far more widely used than the Representative fields, for starters. The V/AFL section taking precedence because, like it or lump it, it has become the national league, and then WAFL and SANFL below. I wouldn't advocate necessarily having any other leagues, but there might be strong arguments for the Tasmanian league as well. Thoughts? Thefourdotelipsis (talk) 01:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * sounds reasonable. Frietjes (talk) 20:20, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I was also just thinking about this with The-Pope. So I thought to compare it to other sports...
 * In soccer there is only a youth/senior distinction, for example, Neymar has Santos and Barcelona in the same section, Del Piero has Padova, Juventus and Sydney in the same section, Raúl has Real Madrid, Schalke and Al Sadd in the same section etc. etc.
 * In basketball also... Omri Casspi has the Israeli league and the NBA in the same section, Gal Mekel has the Israeli league, Italian league and NBA in the same section. Anthony Parker also has Israeli league, Italian league and NBA, with a CBA team mixed in too.
 * I think how they did it with Anthony Parker is the best. If the leage is not AFL, have it in brackets after the club name. The idea done with Choco Williams is nice, and seperates them, but it destroys the chronological order, which I think is important in the career part of the infobox.
 * --SuperJew (talk) 10:35, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You should be able to include any significant state-level league experience. The exception should be minor involvements such as where a reserve system exists (the Chris Judd/ connection is a case in point). Hack (talk) 10:55, 16 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Ljubo Miličević for example, who was at Perth Glory for less than two months and didn't play a single game, is listed as being there in his infobox... --SuperJew (talk) 11:02, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The unwritten consensus for soccer players is that all club stints are listed whether a first team match appearance has occurred or not. I don't think that sort of approach is necessary for Aussie rules. Hack (talk) 11:16, 16 October 2013 (UTC)

Period
In a typical article like Paul Kelly (footballer), the infobox says "Playing statistics to end of 2002 season ." I believe the ungrammatical space after "season" could be removed from the template. Anyway, I'm not sure why this line, or the next two optional lines, have periods at all because they aren't complete sentences. 24.22.173.74 (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

24.22.173.74 (talk) 15:42, 8 November 2013 (UTC)
 * looks like this was fixed [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AInfobox_AFL_biography&diff=580770367&oldid=544475168 here]. Frietjes (talk) 20:29, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

StatSend, Pcupdate, repstatsend, coachstatsend
What are the functions or description of Statsend, pcupdate, repstatsend, coachstatsend Mayankmadan (talk) 11:37, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * they describe the ending date for the listed stats, see the example in the doc. Frietjes (talk) 18:50, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Debut parameter
Do we really need this in the infobox? I thought we agreed at some point to scrap but it somehow seems to have survived the various merges. Thoughts on just getting rid of it? Jenks24 (talk) 22:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

embedded infobox
Is it possible to use this infobox as a module in infobox person so that one infobox can cover both a person's playing career and a later different career? infobox scientist supports this, but the AFL biography box didn't blend nicely with it. --Scott Davis Talk 12:02, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Scott Davis, updated the code, so yes should work now. Frietjes (talk) 15:22, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Thankyou I have used it in John Riley (Australian footballer). --Scott Davis Talk 22:32, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Draft section
Just noticed that on Gary Ablett, Jr. and any other article with a draft section on the infobox formatted the same way, we have;

1. 40 (F/S), 2001 National Draft

instead of


 * 1) 40 (F/S), 2001 National Draft

Could someone please take a look? Jevansen (talk) 04:44, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Jevansen, should be fixed now. there are a couple ways to fix it (1) disrupt the automatic list generating feature (2) replace the # with something more informative.  I decided to try option 2.  let me know if there is a problem. Frietjes (talk) 12:52, 30 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Awesome. Thanks Frietjes. Jevansen (talk) 23:34, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Small text in template
Currently, this template uses small text smaller than 11px for statistical footnotes. This does not meet the WP:FONTSIZE guideline for accessibility. Is there an alternative way this information could be displayed to meet that guideline? As it stands, this text may be very difficult for those with impaired vision to read. Posting notice to relevant WikiProject. ~ RobTalk 09:08, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've reset the overall font size of the infobox to the 88% default; they're just about 11 px now. Alakzi (talk) 09:12, 5 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems like 10px, but that's close enough - way better than it was. ~ RobTalk 10:09, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Inaccessible markup
Currently, this template contains markup that's inaccessible to any readers using screen readers. Based on how it's currently coded for everything except the umpire section, the markup would be read to those using screen readers as all of the years, then all of the teams, then all of the goals rather than reading across horizontally. See WikiProject Accessibility/Infoboxes for more information. As per our guidelines on accessibility and the WMF's non discrimination policy, this should be replaced with numbered parameters more similar to the umpire section. I'm notifying WP:WikiProject Accessibility and WP:WikiProject Australian rules football about this discussion. Are there any specific concerns I should be aware of when I convert this to numbered parameters? ~ RobTalk 23:13, 19 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Hey Rob. So if I'm understanding this correctly this will change

| years               =
 * clubs               =
 * games(goals)        =
 * to

| years1               =
 * clubs1               =
 * games(goals)1        =
 * years2               =
 * clubs2               =
 * games(goals)2        =
 * etc? And the same for the SOO, national, coaching params? And you would then be willing to go through all ~13k transclusions with AWB (or similar) to fix it from the current style to the new one? If yes, then great – I think we've been wanting this for years, since around 2011 when the infoboxes were all merged. But at the time the predominant style was the current one with the breaks and it was considered too difficult to switch over (if I recall correctly, the varying styles had to be merged manually). In any case, I would definitely support a change to the cleaner style used by most other sports infoboxes – as well as the accessibility issues they are also much easier to edit, especially for newer editors. To give an example of specific concerns, I'll use Ron Barassi as an example typical of someone who played for/coached multiple clubs and uses a lot of the parameters (and is laid out typically). You will be able to change

| years = 1953–1964 1965–1969
 * clubs =  Total
 * games(goals) = 204 (295) 50 (35) 254 (330)
 * to

| years1 = 1953–1964
 * clubs1 = (sidenote: if we're doing them individually I suppose it should actually be club1)
 * games(goals)1 = 204 (295)
 * years2 = 1965–1969
 * club2 =
 * gamesgoals2 = 50 (35) (note: could maybe get rid of any and have the template line them up?)
 * This already leaves me with a few possible issues. What should be done with totals? I think the absolute ideal way might be to split games and goals into separate parameters and then have the infobox add them up if there's more than one. But then that might run into problems where the info is missing or represented as "??" Maybe it would be best to have a "| totalgames(goals) =" if my original idea won't fly. The total should always be bolded and at the end of the games(goals) string, so that should be findable with AWB (I hope). Similar story with totals and games/win-loss record with the coaching params. SOO and national should be easier I think, but it's worth noting that the often have blank or missing params.
 * Anyway, that's my initial thoughts. Appreciate you starting this discussion and hopefully we can get somewhere with this. Hopefully other from WP:AFL will weigh in too, this would be a pretty big change for our project. Jenks24 (talk) 04:20, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Unless we split up the games and goals parameters, which I do not recommend (would make the markup very long), we can't automatically calculate totals without using a Lua module or something. Speaking of Lua modules, that's probably how I will convert everything. See Module:Infobox gridiron football person/convert for an idea of how this was done for Infobox gridiron football person a year ago. It's a tad more complicated here, but the principle is basically the same. I'm going to be rewriting that module at Module:Infobox AFL biography/convert and testing it to make sure it's possible to use a Lua module in that way here. ~ RobTalk 04:56, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I admittedly know jack-squat about Austrailian rules football, so I'm not sure who would be a "big name". Could you find me a complicated infobox to use as a testcase for my script? Try to find something with lots of years/teams. ~ RobTalk 05:19, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Australian rules footballers generally play for a lot less teams in their career than in soccer and the major NA sports, so I don't think length of the markup should be a problem (but will defer to you on what you think is the best way to about it, Lua especially is completely beyond me). In terms of big names, at the moment you could look at Lance Franklin or Gary Ablett Jr – not too difficult because players rarely play for more than three teams. Les Hughson, Les Abbott and Dale Kickett are all people who played for five different VFL/AFL teams, which I think is the most for an individual (and most of our bios are for VFL/AFL players). Ron Barassi is about as complicated as it gets when you also take into account the coaching. Others that it might be useful to look at could be Roy Cazaly, Graham Farmer, Leigh Matthews, John Nicholls (footballer), Ian Stewart (Australian rules footballer), Barry Cable – just have a flick through them to see if there's anything that might be difficult. I'm sure I'm forgetting some infoboxes that are notoriously lengthy/difficult – and, any ideas? Jenks24 (talk) 05:48, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I've got the Lua module working like a charm for cases where the teams/years/games(goals) are of the same length. It breaks down a bit when dealing with the totals, which have uneven teams/years/games(goals), though. I think the solution there will be to have an extra parameter. I can use AWB to find the totals stuff and place the proper information within the parameter, so we're looking at kind of a combination AWB/Lua solution. My bot  could then go through, use regex to swap around the totals how we need them, and then invoke and substitute the module to break up the teams/years/games(goals) how we want them. As an aside, it's incredibly annoying to use parameters that have parentheses in them. Does anyone have an objection to me making the split-up parameters of the  variety? In particular, Lua chokes on arguments with parentheses in them. I found a work around involving AWB, but it's still not best practices to have parentheses in argument names. ~ RobTalk 06:11, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * By the way, what would you say is the maximum number needed for clubs/sooteams/nationalteams/coachclubs? Is ten enough? ~ RobTalk 06:14, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Both sound like good solutions to me, I don't think there's any attachment to having parens in the parameter. Ten is enough for clubs and coachclubs, sooteams could be even less (say five) and nationalteams less again (say three), but if there's any use in having it uniform for them all at 10 I don't suppose it matters. While I'm writing another response like I'm an authority, I'll ping a few more people to see if they disagree about anything or can see any holes., , . Jenks24 (talk) 06:35, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I just wrote up the sandbox with 10 for each. It's better to go more than less, since there's no real cost to having a few more parameters beyond a few bytes of server space. ~ RobTalk 06:55, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

See User:BU Rob13/AFL bio test for a testcase of what the AWB/Lua script solution would do using the template code currently in the sandbox. Everything look good? New is on the left. ~ RobTalk 07:05, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * There are also cases like Mark_Williams_(Australian_footballer_born_1958) to contend with. Aspirex (talk) 07:19, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The good thing about the Lua script is that, when it fails, it fails gracefully. In a case like that, the parameters would be returned unchanged and a commented-out error would be included, which I'd later search for and manually fix. How many articles have that type of style? ~ RobTalk 07:22, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * No idea. Aspirex (talk) 07:32, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Very few from what I've seen, it's something that was experimented with but never gained traction. Certainly a small enough number that it would be little hassle changing them manually. Jevansen (talk) 09:30, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason the statsend parameter was removed? It doesn't really matter for retired players, but it's important for current ones. Otherwise it all looks good to me. Jenks24 (talk) 11:17, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Whoops! That's because I fucked up when I updated the template in the sandbox. I forgot to include the new numbered parameters in the #if: statement for . I'll change that now; if you check my sandbox in ~5 minutes, it'll be fixed. The issue was on the template end, not the AWB/Lua end (which is a relief, because that's infinitely easier to fix). ~ RobTalk 16:05, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Looking at your Wayne Carey example, the reading order is a definite improvement, nicely done! But more could be done. JAWS still announces and navigates the whole infobox as a monolithic "table with 3 columns and 23 rows", which isn't ideal. The "personal information", "playing career", "representative team honours", and "international team honours" make more sense as separate elements &mdash; a description list (or maybe a table) for "personal information", three smaller tables with captions for the rest. This is hard to do with infobox3col's '90s-style table layout, but if you're doing a module from scratch, it's an opportunity to break old habits. Splitting the "(goals)" into fourth columns may also be helpful. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 21:08, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure what such a conversion from infobox3cols to something else would even look like. As for splitting out "goals", that depends on whether all the infoboxes are currently formatted properly as "games (goals)". If formatting varies, things get tricky. I'm more concerned with fixing the severe issues of reading order than converting to subtables, but if we can do both, I'm happy to do that as well. ~ RobTalk 22:34, 20 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Probably depends how properly formatted they need to be. Possible issues include question marks instead of numerals, only a games number given, neither a games or goals given for a specific line where there is other information (teams/years). I think pretty every time a goals total is given it will be in brackets, so that's something. I'd estimate 90-95% of articles wouldn't have any of those possible problems, but if they would make it too difficult for the script then 5-10% is still a lot to do manually. Jenks24 (talk) 16:29, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree. Either way, it's not something I would do with Lua. I'd use AWB for something like that, probably, and it would have to be after the Lua script went through. So I think we should go ahead with this improvement. I'm always open to helping out with further improvements down the road, of course! Possibly as a larger conversion away from the Infobox3cols approach to this template. ~ RobTalk 16:49, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me! Jenks24 (talk) 16:57, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm going to start some limited testing of this script, probably by making 50 edits and then reviewing them. I'll make a list of those pages in my userspace and link it here so interested editors can also search for errors. Unfortunately, the diffs will be messy, but at least the output can be examined for errors. ~ RobTalk 17:15, 22 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Alright, I'm working out a few kinks. In the meantime, I've created a tracking category at Category:Infobox AFL biography articles missing expected parameters. All articles in that category are missing expected parameters (i.e. they have nationalteams but not nationalyears or similar). Editors in this topic area may want to go through and manually convert those while also researching to see if we can fill in those empty fields. This is an opportunity to improve content while the conversion is taking place. You don't need to convert any of the fields that aren't missing expected parameters. i.e. If there's 5 clubs there with full information and one national team missing the year, don't worry about the clubs, just the national team. ~ RobTalk 18:15, 22 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Started working through some of these. The PDFs here are handy for WA state footy, but haven't found anything similar for SA/Vic unfortunately. Jenks24 (talk) 15:15, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * How goes things? I'm happy to help out with manually converting these, although I don't know if I'll be as useful with adding years as I do that. ~ Rob 13 Talk 12:46, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I've worked it down from 300-odd to what's there now by filling in blanks that I could find. What's left with blank fields is stuff I couldn't find (mainly years and games/goals for state sides), so they can probably start being switched over to the new format while remaining empty. Jenks24 (talk) 15:10, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 * This fell off my radar for a while, but I'm back on it. I ran AWB through and converted the simple SOO team stuff to the new parameters, simple meaning there weren't any line breaks that had to be converted over as well (which I can't easily do with AWB). The remaining stuff probably needs to be done manually; I might do a quick run through for the national teams in a bit, but I don't expect it to remove many from the category. ~ Rob 13 Talk 18:05, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Redux
This fell entirely off my radar over a hectic summer, but I'm going to try to get to this issue at the end of December. ~ Rob 13 Talk 14:44, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Alright, I've now cleaned the tracking category of articles my Lua module/AWB script combo couldn't handle. Doing some more testing then will file a bot task. ~ Rob 13 Talk 00:38, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Anything you think I should be aware of/that is pending on this, ? ~ Rob 13 Talk 00:39, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi Rob and apologies for the late response. I've just read over the whole discussion and can't think of anything that should preclude a trial run, when you get the time of course. If that means filing a BRFA feel free to ping me on it; I'd like to keep half an eye on it even if the technical stuff mostly flies over my head. Also do you want the tracking cat deleted? Jenks24 (talk) 07:31, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The BRFA was filed and the task was recently approved; see Bots/Requests for approval/BU RoBOT 30. The bot is currently working its way through everything. The tracking category can stay for now. I'll request deletion as per WP:G6 once I'm definitively done with it. ~ Rob 13 Talk 11:28, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hey. The bot run is complete. There were a couple hiccups, but nothing major that I'm aware of. Please look through these search results of articles with "errors" when you have a chance. The errors don't mean that anything bad is on the page, just that the bot couldn't fix some parameter values for some reason. They should be manually changed to numbered parameters, in most cases. Let me know if you run into any trouble or have questions. ~ Rob 13 Talk 23:15, 11 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Great work mate, much appreciated. Made me realise how many Aussie rules bios I have no my watchlist! I'll try and look through the errors soon. Jenks24 (talk) 10:18, 12 February 2017 (UTC)
 * There appears to have been an error that affected a very small percentage of articles (and was therefore undetected in trials) due to odd formatting of the infobox. I've tracked likely cases of these at Category:Infobox AFL biography articles needing cleanup. For those few articles, I recommend reverting to the pre-bot page and then manually splitting parameters. I'm working through these myself, but slowly, as the splitting is time-consuming. ~ Rob 13 Talk 15:58, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

Automatic WikiData Sources
I've been playing around in WikiData, and all 12486 VFL/AFL players, and quite a few non-VFL/AFL players now have AustralianFootball.com and AFL Tables IDs in WikiData. Tonight I added code to AFL Tables and AustralianFootball so that if no parameters are used, then the value from the wikidata property (d:Property:P3547 or d:Property:P3546) is used automatically. I've tested those two templates on Tommy Hughes (Australian footballer). Note that I've used a direct parameter link to the properties, as used in IMDb name rather than a Lua module as in sports-reference or the #invoke term as is used in this template for images, mainly because I don't understand what the difference is, and this seemed simple and works. If this isn't ideal, then please improve - I'm not a coder and just learn by copying and experimenting.

I've tested the code below in the Infobox AFL biography/sandbox and then previewed it in articles (as you need a live wikidata link for it to work, you can't test it in a sandbox). I've not included the option to manually provide a source to override the wikidata one. If people feel that there is a need, then it could be added, but whilst AFL Tables is solely VFL/AFL only, AustralianFootball does cover notable players from other leagues too. And of course, we've lasted this long without any sources in the infobox, having some players without an auto link isn't the end of the world.


 * below     =
 * belowstyle = text-align: right; font-size: smaller

The "below" style is from the Infobox cricketer, which I'll be proposing to add an automatic WikiData driven source link to CricInfo and/or Cricket Archive next... The-Pope (talk) 15:45, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I've given you the template editor right (and also page mover because why not) so that you can make the changes to the template yourself if you want. Seems more sensible than me just copy/pasting the code in with no idea what it's doing. I like the outcome of the changes by the way, I've always thought having sources in the infobox is good idea when I see it in cricket articles and some US sports. Jenks24 (talk) 10:43, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks Jenks. I've implemented it, so if anyone notices if it causes any errors, or incorrect links, please let me know.The-Pope (talk) 11:35, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

embedded module/wikidata/image edit request
Is there a way of suppressing fetching an image from Wikidata if this infobox is embedded into another one?

My example is at Alexander Fraser (Australian politician).

Without none it inserts the same photograph as higher in the infobox from his later political career. With it, I get a red link to the missing. Could somebody better than me at Wikidata and templates please add support for suppressing the automatic image if the infobox is embedded (either implicitly or via none ). Thank you. --Scott Davis Talk 04:10, 13 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Alexander Fraser (Australian politician) fixed.  does the job. Cabayi (talk) 08:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

deprecated params
the category for tracking the deprecate params on this template (Category:Infobox AFL biography articles using deprecated parameters) is empty. I believe it is safe to remove those params now. That being said, I started to try and do it and got a bit overwhelmed. Would you mind assisting? I don't want to break the template... -- Zack mann  (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:40, 11 October 2018 (UTC)
 * , okay. I repurposed the other category. Frietjes (talk) 12:21, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Template:No.
I'm not too familiar with template syntax so would like to know what is the purpose of transcluding Template:No. in the following line: | data9     = Per that template's documentation, it should only be used for comics, so shouldn't really be used here. --Jameboy (talk) 01:05, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Unnecessary line break
Could someone please remove the line break before the   in the debut section? It causes players who debuted with to have an unnecessary line break (see Jack Steele) and not sure what the benefits are of having it there – thanks. 4TheWynne  (talk  •  contribs)  14:42, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks – further to this, could we potentially change the second coded space to a regular space and   to simply  ? If you look at Karl Amon, for example, I think having two coded spaces might inadvertently be tying the two team names together, which could be solved by changing the second one to a regular space (changing the first coded space will remove the space entirely, so that one will have to remain); the   to   is simply for standardisation. Essentially,  .  4TheWynne   (talk  •  contribs)  05:01, 30 April 2023 (UTC)

Relevant WikiProject discussion
A discussion relating to this template is taking place on the main WikiProject talk page. – Teratix ₵ 13:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 October 2023
Hello, I would like to change the bold text in this template that is double bolded/manual bold applied to automatic bold, to not be double bolded, please, which should be avoided as per MOS:B, section "Automatically applied boldface". This issue can be seen on the template at the phrase "Australian rules football career" (see, for example, how it appears on Vance Joy's page in his infobox), and the words "Years" and "Total" (which can be seen on the template page). This is my first time submitting an edit request so I apologize if anything is wrong or improper. Thank you! HeyElliott (talk) 22:26, 4 October 2023 (UTC)


 * If possible please can you edit Template:Infobox AFL biography/sandbox with your proposed changes? I'm not familiar with the concept of "double bolded" so not sure how this would be fixed. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:47, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ I think I got them all. Ping me if I missed anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:48, 5 October 2023 (UTC)