Template talk:Infobox NFL biography/Archive 12

Question
Could the number and team be moved back into the first header? It looks worse the current way. The "currentteam" parameter should also automatically link up to the team, without having to use brackets. The old template was this way, and I don't see why this has to look uglier post-merge. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 00:10, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, this needs fixed to the way it was before. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 00:34, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I have to agree. The "Current position" bar seems strange, especially when position is confused with the actual position played, which is ambiguously a "position" field under "Current position".   I'm going to revert the changes for now.  Can you set up some test cases comparing the output before and after the proposed merge. I think WP:NFL should help review the changes before going live again.—Bagumba (talk) 04:16, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * To be fair, it seems that this was how Template:Infobox NFL coach always showed it. If we are going to merge, I think we should decide which features we want to keep and which we should deprecate.  Personally, I wouldnt want people to start adding a player's record into current_record, which the coach's infobox currently supports.—Bagumba (talk) 04:38, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The template should focus mainly on players since there are nearly 2,000 NFL players currently on a team, but only 100 or so notable active coaches. Coach/executive only parameters should work by having a "yes" type flag, similar to the pastteamsnote parameter that was recently added (the info only appears when set to yes). ~ Dissident93  (talk) 04:45, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see why a coach's current record is even special enough to be in the infobox. I'm sure some fanboy will just start marking the flag so they can put their favorite QBs record. Just delete it, and presumably "Current position" can be universally replaced with "No.  ", where number would be empty for a coach.  Look at Jack Del Rio and Jeff Fisher: they're former players turned coach, and they still used the player infobox. They don't have their current record.—Bagumba (talk) 04:54, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Completely fine with me. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 05:07, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Note: WP:NFL has been notified of this discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 04:47, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Feedback on sandbox test case results
There's an existing set of test cases at Template:Infobox NFL player/testcases and Template:Infobox NFL coach/testcases. (see next comment) I've copied the proposed merge changes to the respective sandboxes. At a minimum, we should use those to get feedback on the differences there.—Bagumba (talk) 07:51, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've consolidated the test cases including all examples for both Infobox NFL player and Infobox NFL coach at Template:Infobox NFL biography/testcases. The point was to simplify the effort by avoiding having to sync changes made in mulitple templates. Going forward, let's just work on Template:Infobox NFL biography/sandbox. I've taken the liberty of striking out a portion of your comment above since these testcases are now consolidated. I hope you're not offended. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 21:40, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

Player feedback

 * 1) "Current position" should be changed back to "No. "—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I question whether it's appropriate/necessary to even present the uniform number for non-active players. Second, if we do choose to present uniform number (whether it be for an active or inactive player), the current "No. XX" convention seems less than ideal, particularly as "No." is a non-obvious (though I admit widely used) abbreviation for "number". It seems like this presentation could be a cause for confusion especially for non-native readers. I would suggest that we change the label to "Uniform number" or perhaps "Uniform #". &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think that if a player who wore alot of numbers in their career, it doesn't need to be listed. But somebody who only wore one, I.E. Barry Sanders, then it's fine to list theirs. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 23:48, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess that approach seems sensible, but I can't think of a way that it could be implemented in the template to enforce that rule. The way it is currently implemented, if the value is omitted nothing is displayed, so that puts that impetus on the editor of each individual article as to whether the information is displayed, which gives us a disparate experience from article to article. If we drew a hard line of simply not showing the number for any inactive player then we could implement enforcement of that rule in the template. This is just something to discuss. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As the capability to do so for non-active players exists even w/o a merge, maybe it's a topic for a separate discussion. As for "No.", it's a pretty standard abbreviation per MOS:NUMBERSIGN.—Bagumba (talk) 21:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Obviously per the MOS "No." is sufficient. I just don't feel it looks particularly good, but maybe that's just a personal pecadillo. As it stands I prefer the old implementation for active players where the uniform number is presented with the team name — this makes it more clear that "No." represents uniform number. The presentation of just the number by itself (particularly for inactive players) seem ambiguous. Unless we have a space concern, I continue to think that presenting it as "Uniform number" or even "Uniform no." would remove any doubt as to what the number represents, but I don't feel strongly enough to go tilting at windmills over it. Either way, I agree that it makes little sense to have a "Current position" section for an inactive player. We should either look into reverting this header back to the way it was (as Bagumba suggested above) or alternately we could change the header to simply "Position" for inactive players (or perhaps for active players as well). &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI, there have been similar proposals which included moving the number (and team) out of the header that have failed for Template:Infobox basketball biography and with Template:Infobox college football player.—Bagumba (talk) 20:13, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's the change I made to address this issue — I made the "Current position" header optional dependent upon the existence of any of the following parameters: currenttitle, current_title, currentteam, current_team, currentnumber. I also moved position to the "Career information" section (as requested by Bagumba as #4 in the notes below) and consolidated number with jersey which is displayed in the "Career information" section as well. If currentnumber exists, these parameters are suppressed. In addition, I took the liberty of changing "No." to "Uniform no." (in the "Current position" section) and "Jersey number" to "Uniform no." (in the "Career information" section) — this label change was done merely to see how it looks, as discussed elsewhere, if others have strong feelings about this label I'm fine with reverting it. Looking at the testcases I'm not sure this all looks exactly right. Please let me know what you think. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 22:54, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Based on the early feedback above at, I don't think there is support to have retain the "Current position" format from Infobox NFL coach. And if the prior basketball and college football discussions that I linked above was any indication, I doubt if there will be support for it.—Bagumba (talk) 23:30, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * position is going to be a problem, because the same parameter is currently used differently in the two infoboxes. For players, it is their current position for active players, or past position for non-active players.  For coaches, it is their position as a player, while current_title is their role today. I don't think the person's current role should be buried in "Career information". So it seems we either need to programmatically determine if this is a coach or player and treat position accordingly, or some changes in the articles need to happen.  If needed, it would be easiest to change coach articles, as there are only 340 transclusions currently.—Bagumba (talk) 23:30, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I was just now playing with an attempt to differentiate this display based on whether the article was related to a player (in which case we would revert to a header similar to the current player infobox with the uniform number and team name) or a coach (in which case we'd use the "Current position" header). I was attempting to use the existence of the current_title parameter to determine the use case, since this parameter should apply exclusively to coaches. I was able to get something to work, but there remained issues, particularly for inactive players. Since I didn't feel like spending time today to try to work out these issues, I reverted my changes. However, this sort of approach might be something we want to consider given the apparent support for the existing look of the player template in regard to these elements. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 18:26, 26 November 2015 (UTC)
 * "No." is correct per MOS:NUMBERSIGN. In fact, all number signs ("#") in our CFB and NFL articles should be replaced outside space-limited tables, e.g., poll rankings, season, schedules, player rosters, etc.  The use of the number sign in sports articles is one of the most abused uses of inappropriate symbols in article text.  The display of the current team in the first subheader should be consistent for players and coaches, but infoboxes for coaches should not display player jersey number(s).  This would be best accomplished with a "toggle" parameter that enables the display certain coach-related parameters for coaches, and disables certain player-related parameters for coaches.  Good infobox design is about making choices, and not cramming every available datapoint into an infobox; coach infoboxes should emphasize coaching data, and should not be over-burdened with optional parameters and trivia related to the often brief playing careers of coaches.  Query: whether the "stats" parameters should be toggled off for coaches?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:10, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've added some logic to Infobox NFL biography/sandbox to address this issue. Please take another look at the testcases and let me know what you think. Thanks! &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:55, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) The Renaldo Nehemiah test case has unneeded section "Team(s) as a player" which duplicates "Career history"—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why these two sections are necessary. Is there a case when it would be appropriate for each to contain relevant information for a single person? Perhaps a player turned coach? Short of some clarity on what information each section is meant to provide, I'm not sure what the "fix" for this issue would be. To me, the entire "Team(s) as a player" section seems superfluous. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, my recommendation is to make sure it is not duplicated.—Bagumba (talk) 21:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * FYI, "Team(s) as a player" is a byproduct of Infobox NFL coach, and the merge result was not tested against existing TCs for the player infobox.—Bagumba (talk) 22:05, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. I would suggest we look at completely removing the "Team(s) as a player" section and instead presenting that information in the "Career history" section. I'll have to take a closer look at how those two sections are implemented (particularly w/r/t the JDR example). &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:52, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Bagumba is exactly right: conform the "team(s) as a player" parameter to the standard formatting of the NFL player's "career history" parameter. If this requires manual editing, so be it.  Has someone captured a list of all 340 instances of Infobox NFL coach?  We will need that list later for post-merge review, manual editing and clean-up.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:21, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've added some logic to fix the duplication of the player history information. Please take a look and let me know how this looks now. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 15:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) The Jack Del Rio TC has "Regular season" missing under "Head coaching record"—Bagumba (talk) 09:56, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This issue was due to a duplicate item number. The coachregrecord row used the same number as the header. I renumbered this row (and all subsequent rows) to fix this. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 21:06, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Coach feedback

 * 1) Color is not working—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * - I fixed this by allowing the NFLPrimaryStyle template to take either "currentteam" or "current_team". My question is whether there is a need to have two parameters so similar. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 20:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * If this was designed from scratch, no. However, we don't know which articles are historically using what, so unless a bot can normalize it, backwards compatibility must be somehow ensured. See  below.—Bagumba (talk) 20:41, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, when "fixing it", how are we ensuring the two sandboxes are in sync? Wouldn't want a fix to get lost. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 20:40, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm coming to this whole effort late and jumped in before reading through all the discussion. As far as keeping things in sync, why are we maintaining two sandboxes? Again, sorry for the ignorant questions. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 21:12, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Legacy test cases already existed for the existing templates, so it seemed logical to reuse them instead of reinventing the wheel. The quick-and-dirty was for me just to copy into the respective sandboxes to get some immediate feedback.  Taking a breath now, I guess one sandbox can just redir to another, but I honestly was doing it as a convenience for Primefac, who I presumed would continue here and do as they saw fit, but maybe not.—Bagumba (talk) 21:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've copied all the changes I've made to BOTH templates for now. I would suggest that perhaps the best solution moving forward would be to simply use Infobox NFL biography as the single point of development moving forward. It should be relatively simple to recreate the testcases there. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 18:36, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Whatever works. The existing test cases are using Testcase table as a harness, which I haven't bothered to look if it is customizable as far as template paths to use. I'm not sure what happened before, as the editor has not come back to comment, but it seems like a reasonable expectation that whoever volunteers to take this live will do the due diligence of testing and getting feedback for this high-risk template.—Bagumba (talk) 19:46, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I am indifferent as to whether the conformed parameter includes the underscore/space following the merge, but for purposes of intuitive parameter names it needs to include the word "current" -- so that newbies and others do not attempt to re-task this parameter after the coach or player retires. Because virtually no pro player or coach spends his entire career with a single team, it is impossible to use team colors for retired personnel.  Hence, the need for the word "current".  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:37, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Deprecate support for "Current record"—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I commented this parameter out for now so that the change reflects in the test cases. Does community support exist for removal of this field? I'm fine with it, but it seems like a change that warrants some discussion (which may already have taken place). &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 19:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Dissident93 expressed support at (above) at 05:07, 24 November 2015.  WP:NFL notification of this merge discussion was already placed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League.—Bagumba (talk) 20:20, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The majority of NFL coaches -- i.e., those that presently use Infobox NFL player -- do not use a "current record" parameter. Do not introduce another unnecessary legacy parameter to the merged template: lose the "current record" parameter.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:40, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've deprecated current_record from the coach infobox after finding out that it was only used in one article (where it was being used to present the exact same information as overall_record) from which I deleted it. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 20:00, 11 December 2015 (UTC)


 * 1) Mike McCarthy test case is not showing "Coaching stats"—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Issue was related to case of "PFRCoach" and "PFR" parameters. Original templates present them as capitalized as shown in previous sentence, but new template had them in all lowercase. Since parameters are case-sensitive this didn't work. Changed merged template to use existing case. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 19:53, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Please see question and comment below about "stats" section. I seriously question whether we should have links for non-official websites -- such as Pro-Football-Reference.com -- linked in the infobox.  Most, if not all, of these links should be moved to the "external links" section of the article.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) In the "All non-empty" TC, "position" should be placed in "Career information", as it is not the same as the current position for coaches.—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Moved position from "Current position" section to "Career information" section. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually, this is contingent on resolution of #1.—Bagumba (talk) 23:42, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) In "All non-empty", high school is not shown—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Added alternate versions of highschool parameter. Ideally we would settle on ONE parameter in all of these cases and undertake a cleanup effort to migrate any non-conforming uses to the single parameter. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Query: whether this is one of the parameters that should be "toggled off" for coaches. High school playing career has some relevance to college and pro players, but virtually none for NFL coaches.  Frankly, I was one of the original advocates for the wide use of the "high school" parameter for NFL players, and I've come to regard my earlier position as a mistake for NFL players, too.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) "Stats" section is missing—Bagumba (talk) 08:14, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I think this should be, but I'm not sure which testcase example you were looking at. Please re-check. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Does "stats" section refer to the individual listing of stats at the bottom of the infobox, or to the external links to outside websites? If the latter, we should seriously consider removing all external links from the resulting merged template.  The strong trend across all sports has been to remove external stats links from athlete/coach bio infoboxes and move them to the "external links" section of the article.  There is a strong argument to be made that including external links in infoboxes was never proper per the infobox design and external links guidelines.  In any event, we should not be introducing another "legacy" design element to the merged template.  The majority of NFL coaches using the present Infobox NFL player demonstrate such external links are unnecessary.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:32, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've stumbled into this process only very recently, so I haven't been involved in any discussion re: the design of the template. My limited involvement vis-a-vis this particular piece of functionality is to get something that is working for the NFL coach template to actually work as designed for the merged template. I rather like the links to external sources in the infoboxes (as a WP reader, not necessarily an editor), but I haven't looked at how other projects treat them nor am I versed on what the overall trends are w/r/t the uses of external links in infoboxes. In as much as these sorts of links are used extensively by both of the templates we are attempting to move, it seems that discussions about their overall propriety may be something that can be discussed outside of this discussion on the merge attempt so as not to sidetrack this effort. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) "Super Bowl wins" not shown for John Harbaugh TC.
 * Added alternate version of Super_Bowls parameter. See note above re: highschools. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 23:34, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This parameter is unnecessary and redundant with the existing architecture of Infobox NFL player. Super Bowl championships -- and other highlights and awards -- are supposed to be listed in the "highlights" section of Infobox NFL player.  We should not introduce unnecessary "legacy" parameters into the surviving template, leading to more inconsistency in the presentation of this data.  Well executed merges simplify and conform the presentation of data to a common standard; merges that introduce inconsistency and multiple data formats for the same data class do not serve the basic function of reducing template maintenance -- the usual reason advanced for template merges.  Bottom line: When we're done, these 340 coach articles should not be inconsistent with the existing 16,000+ player and coach articles in their presentation of Super Bowl championships.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:25, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As with my previous comment, my involvement to this point has been focused on enabling functionality and not so much with overarching design. However, the point you bring up may be something that needs to be discussed as it does seem as though we are likely to have disparate presentations if we go forward with the current approach of maintaining all such elements. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 16:47, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * And this is one of the reasons why the original proponents of this merge never executed it: they were clueless when they realized that any merge was not a simple matter of adding some coach-related parameters to the existing NFL player box, but would actually require some manual editing. The point of a merge is to simplify and conform.  We should not be merging templates for the sake of merging.  The final product should be consistent in terms of parameters and data presentation.  The 340 inconsistent coach articles using the NFL coach box should not introduce even more legacy parameters and further inconsistency in data formatting.  The established consensus data presentation of the NFL player box needs to be preserved.  If that requires manually editing, so be it.  We have several editors such as Wikioriginal-9 who relish such tasks.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * @DeeJayK: "we are likely to have disparate presentations": That already exists today, before a merge. That should not be a reason in itself to not continue. I'd advise incrementally merging and retaining all functionality—inasmuch as possible—first, and then streamlining/deprecating overlapping features based on consensus afterwards.  IMO, trying to do to much at once increases the risk on introducing unintended consequences, or complicates the task to the point that this will remain in the holding cell for years to come.—Bagumba (talk) 20:55, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, that has got to be the least time efficient, most chaotic way to implement a merge. In fact, it's a horrible idea.  Merging the template for a relatively small number of coach articles that use Infobox NFL coach should not be an excuse for complicating Infobox NFL player with redundant and conflicting parameters and different data formats for similar information.  Such a merge as you suggest cannot be justified on any grounds of maintenance efficiency or simplification when all you have done is simply add all of the features of one template, regardless of whether they are redundant or conflicting, to a second template.  That's not a merge, that's a mess, and we would be better served with two coherent templates, rather than one incoherent template.  Recant, good fellow, or I will mock you a second time .  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:09, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I've overseen the merge of millions of lines of code professionally, so the size of this alone is not daunting. That said, merges only work if there is respect and understanding for what used to work. The first attempt did not account for legacy code for alternative parameters, and did not, at a bare minimum, leverage existing test cases which would have identified naming conflicts between the two templates.  Not following those rudimentary steps leads to failed merges, and the negative perception that merges cannot work. No worries: consensus on a manual merge does not require recanting by dissenters.—Bagumba (talk) 22:49, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * From what I've seen so far, DeeJayK is well on his way to accounting for all of the legacy code for alternative parameters, with your substantial input. And that's a very good thing.  Cleaning the code and eliminating redundant parameters is one of the steps that requires technical skill, and once finished it will significantly expedite the remaining tasks.  I hope you enjoyed the Monty Python "taunting" excerpt.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:20, 30 November 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) databaseFootball.com - DatabaseFootball.com has not been actively maintained since at least 2011, and the databaseFootball.com links were removed from Infobox NFL player some time ago pursuant to template talk page discussion.  These links should not be revived as part of the merge of the template for coaches and players.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:27, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
 * As mentioned elsewhere previously, the DatabaseFootball.com links have been excised from both Infobox NFL coach and Infobox NFL biography/sandbox. &mdash; DeeJayK (talk) 15:22, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

General discussion
For the "Super Bowl wins" issues, it looks like the TC uses "SuperBowls", but the merged code only handles "Super_Bowls". Generally, it looks like where the coach template might have supported aliases for some parameter names, the merged code sometime only took one of the names and not the rest. For backwards compatability, it needs to be ensured that all legacy parameter aliases are supported, or some bot or AWB needs to normalize them all beforehand.—Bagumba (talk) 10:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I've been busy with other things over the last several days, so I apologize for being late to this discussion. Before we implement any further changes and certainly before we attempt to go live with any fully merged "Infobox NFL biography" template, I would like to see a full mock-up of the proposed new template for both a typical player and a typical coach, with most of the usual optional parameters invoked.


 * Also, can someone direct me to the current working version of the template, with all proposed changes? I have several comments that I would like to make about what I have seen, and several changes to which I would strongly object, but I have no idea if I'm even commenting on the current working version based on the conversation above.  Please point me to the current sandbox version.  Thanks.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:36, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * See the top of . The TC links in turn have links to the respective sandboxes.  Aditionally, going directly to the template e.g. Infobox NFL player usually provides links to the TCs and sbox in the docs as well.—Bagumba (talk) 19:50, 25 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Team name and jersey no. at top - This is the third time this year (2015) that it has been proposed to remove the team name and jersey number from from the top of the infobox, after having been rejected twice.  I reject it again.  It is one of the distinctive design elements of the box and it should stay.


 * As I catch up on the two days worth of discussion above, I will be making a number of comments tonight regarding the design elements, the parameters (data fields) and the template architecture. There are a number of problematic suggestions that have been made above, especially regarding the proposed architecture of the merged template that need to be discussed.  I would be grateful if you slow down and have a listen to what I have to say before we make some fundamental design errors.  Thanks.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:18, 26 November 2015 (UTC)