Template talk:Infobox NFL biography/Archive 7

Infobox colors
Any reason why the Panthers, Bengals and Raiders infobox colors are now all black and exactly the same? The Raiders one makes sense but you can't even tell what team players from the other two play for.--Yankees10 18:27, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, what is the deal with the dash in between the players number and team? Why is this necessary?--Yankees10 18:36, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * 121,000 soccer biographies seem to manage without alternating header colours. The implementation is a hack, and I'd really rather not keep it. Alakzi (talk) 19:52, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No offense but I don't care what the soccer biographies do. The Bengals need the orange and the Panthers need their blue otherwise there is no point to even having colors. I also have to say it kind of concerns me that you went ahead and made all these changes without any formal discussion (I see above but this all came after you made the changes).--Yankees10 20:19, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * there is no point to even having colors And what point is there in having them? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:27, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Because it would indicate that the player is either retired or a free agent without the color. Plus the MLB and NBA infoboxes use them with zero issue.--Yankees10 20:32, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * How would it? I see no key to that effect. In any case, that sort of information should be conveyed by text, not colour (see MOS:COLOUR). Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:41, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It is common sense. Color means and has meant since i've been here that a player is active. No color means the player is either a free agent or retired. You know, I see your from England, meaning you more than likely don't even visit NFL player pages, therefore i'm not gonna waste my time with this silly little argument that you seem to want to bait me into.--Yankees10 20:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * That's a very - and unnecessarily - hostile response. Your "appeal to common sense" fallacy is meaningless, and what you perceive to be meant by colour is not apparent to our readers; especially first-time visitors. We write the encyclopedia for readers, not for editors. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:22, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The colors are for the readers. Teams are associated with colors making it easy for the reader. And I wouldn't be to quick to criticize "unnecessary hostile" responses considering some of your comments above.--Yankees10 22:39, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Really? Where did I say I would refuse to engage with anybody, based on their perceived nationality or location? Or, for that matter, for any other reason? As for your claim about readers; how is a reader supposed to divine that the lack of a colour is intended to indicate "that the player is either retired or a free agent"? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:15, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No, it didn't come after I made the changes. I made my changes in the sandbox; Andy updated the live version (not that there was anything wrong with that - see WP:BOLD) and was reverted by yours truly. I normalised the header colours after this revert and all of my changes were reviewed before they went live for the second time. Storm in a teacup. Alakzi (talk) 20:35, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Alright I get it now. I apologize for my somewhat harsh response.--Yankees10 20:51, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Label for position
Would anybody be opposed to adding a label for their playing position? Alakzi (talk) 14:12, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * As opposed to what? We have one already: it's called "position".  We're still trying to eliminate other variations that are not needed -- why would we add another?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I said label; not parameter. Alakzi (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah. Now, I understand.  It's cleaner without the label, and self-explanatory to most of our readers, but we do have that pesky WP:ACCESS to deal with.  I suppose we should add the label, as you suggest.  FYI, I thought you were asking about a second parameter to accommodate coaches that use this template, to which I say nyet.  When an ex-player becomes a head coach, the emphasis needs to be on the coaching career, not previous playing career, and the position parameter needs to state "head coach," not player positions.  Simply combining all player and coach data, without prioritizing the data, is how we wind up withe these ridiculously long infoboxes that do not serve their at-a-glance purpose.  Remember this discussion, it will come up again later.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:08, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that people affected by "pesky" sight loss would rather not have to deal with that, too. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Please add one. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:29, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Can we remove this? It is about as necessary as labeling the team name as well. If a reader doesn't know what a "defensive end" is, there's a nifty blue link to take them to that article.  Eagles   24/7  (C)  00:12, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The main reason it is needed is for WP:ACCESS. Per MOS:TABLE, without the label, an automated reader would not be able to identify the position from the table.—Bagumba (talk) 02:33, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Modeling the infobox after Template:Infobox college football player
I'm not entirely caught up on the discussions from both talk pages (so, apologies if this misses the big picture), but from the looks of it, Template:Infobox college football player went through a major redesign to look more like this template (but much, much better), while this template seems to be going in a different direction. Can we do more work on this infobox to look more like the college football one, or has that ship sailed?  Eagles   24/7  (C)  00:32, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It would be trivial to apply the design of Infobox college football player to this infobox. Alakzi (talk) 00:37, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The centering gives me a headache with the new changes to NFL player. Here's what I'm proposing.  Eagles   24/7  (C)  01:24, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We decided against the colons for the college football infobox; I don't suppose we'd wanna keep them here? Alakzi (talk) 01:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Can't imagine why colons would be needed here and not there.—Bagumba (talk) 06:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * @Eagles 24/7: Agreed on need for centering. I went and changed it.—Bagumba (talk) 06:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * @Eagles 24/7: The ship hasn't sailed. One has to ask if all this propagating back and forth is needed, or should these just be merged. The last TfD at Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_December_14 ended in no consensus, basically since the merge logistics in this case are better ironed out at the WikiProject, with the input of users, instead of at a TfD. At the very least, I agree with you that best practices for display should be shared, whether or not these are the same template.—Bagumba (talk) 01:54, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I also note that a merge of Infobox NFL coach into this template is pending. Alakzi (talk) 01:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The completed merge of Infobox NFL coach will make Infobox NFL player even less like Infobox college football player, with something like half of the NFL parameters inapplicable to college players. A merge of Infobox NFL player with Infobox college football player would once again lead to all of the problems of an overly infobox with inappropriately selected optional parameters which we have tried to design out of the template for Infobox college football player.  The idea being a short template, tailored to the specific needs of CFB players, shorn of professional-specific parameters, shorn of coach-specific parameters for which college coaches of all sports use a uniform standard infobox, and shorn of the crufty stats section.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 02:37, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Quickly glancing at Template:Infobox_NFL_coach/doc, I see that all the coaching-specific parameters have a "coach_" prefix. I can see how a certain segment of editors might mistakenly think it applies to players. I don't support stats, but I dont think we should totally discount preliminary feedback given to you at User_talk:Dirtlawyer1/sandbox.—Bagumba (talk) 02:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, the problem with the NFL coach parameters is that they don't apply to college coaches; we use an entirely different uniform template for college coaches for basketball, football, baseball, volleyball and all other sports (Infobox college coach). The college sports WikiProjects have worked goddamn hard to achieve that degree of uniformity across thousands of articles, and no one wants to introduce new coaching parameters, via a merge with Infobox NFL player, into Infobox college football player that will begin to undermine that hard-fought uniformity.  The idea behind the merge of Infobox NFL player and Infobox NFL coach is that the overwhelming majority of NFL coaches had solid NFL playing careers, so a merged box makes sense.  That being said, when someone uses all of the NFL player parameters and player stats options, and then uses all of the coach parameters and coach stats options, and then adds every second-team honor to the highlights, you wind up with a grotesquely long infobox that does not serve its at-a-glance function er WP:IBX.  Infobox college coach avoids that problem by forcing the use of the college coach box for former players who were best known as coaches, thus prioritizing coaching data over player data for college coaches.  It's a much smarter approach.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I can see how a certain segment of editors might mistakenly think it applies to players. I can't. Alakzi (talk) 03:03, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't specify the size of that segment ;-) —Bagumba (talk) 04:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Might we consider a master template that these other three will wrap? Alakzi (talk) 03:03, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Two problems with a "wrap" scenario: (1) the excluded pro parameters begin to be imported into the college template, which is one of the primary reasons for having a separate college template for consensus all-Americans and College Football Hall of Fame members who never played pro ball; and (2) the distinctive graphic designs for college and pro players are lost. Once a wrap is instituted, there's always a template editor to propose a merge that will further exacerbate the problem of inappropriate pro player parameters into college player infoboxes.  Wraps are too often treated as stepping stones to full-on merges.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:27, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "distinctive graphic designs for college and pro players are lost": I know you think that is a bad thing, but I—and I think perhaps earlier—seem to believe we should just apply the the best principles to both.  I guess this is a point for a potential merge discussion, but I believe I already know where you stand on this.—Bagumba (talk) 04:50, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Indeed I do know that you favor such a merge, Bagumba. Of course, there is no Wikipedia policy or guideline that mandates such a merge, especially when the templates serve distinct purposes.  I have no problem incorporating common design elements, such as the interior line justification, especially when it is clearly superior to the typical infobox layout and design of primitive artifacts like Infobox person.  I do have a problem if we simply replace Infobox NFL player with Infobox college football player.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not averse nor threatened to discuss it further, as I stated in my oppose !vote at Templates_for_discussion/Log/2014_December_14.—Bagumba (talk) 06:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I am satisfied with the changes Bagumba has made to the template since my last posting here.  Eagles   24/7  (C)  18:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I am satisfied with the changes Bagumba has made to the template since my last posting here.  Eagles   24/7  (C)  18:34, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Wrap option
Note: This is a breakout of the template wrapper discussion above.

With a wrapper, my understanding is that a top-level template, say for "Infobox college football player", could transparently choose to invoke some/all of its functionality from a base level utility template or module. It could customize which parameters from the shared utilities it chose to expose, and could even customize the names if needed. Are my assumptions correct?—Bagumba (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * And what would be the purpose of such a master template, Bagumba, other than to force both NFL and CFB players to use common graphics, layout and design for the infoboxes used in CFB and NFL articles? If you want a merge of these templates, please properly propose it at TfD instead of back-dooring it through low-traffic template talk page discussions in which few WP:CFB and WP:NFL members are participating.  That's why TfD exists.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:51, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * "back-dooring": Tell us how you really feel.—Bagumba (talk) 06:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, they are correct. Alakzi (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Infobox college football player and Infobox NFL player
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football to help form a consensus on whether Template:Infobox college football player and Template:Infobox NFL player should remain separate or be merged.—Bagumba (talk) 01:39, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal
Propose adding  to header26 check, so in such cases header (Career NFL statistics) doesn't come up. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 03:05, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The section header for non-existent statistics should be suppressed.  Edgar, I would also suggest that all individual statistics whose value is "0" should also be suppressed.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:13, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That won't fix it. We'd have to use Both. Alakzi (talk) 04:25, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes... forgot about both. Made changes in sandbox2. I'm pretty sure it's ok, but didn't want to screw up something. If it's ok, you can copy it to live version. -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 04:37, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Merged. Alakzi (talk) 12:46, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * statleague doesn't work anymore unless there the nfl stats link is there. Tested on John Reaves WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:00, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Big whoops - fixed. Alakzi (talk) 20:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Combining NFL Coach, NFL PlayerCoach and College Coach Infoboxes
I think that Template:College coach infobox should be combined as well as NFL Coach and NFL PlayerCoach. Let's face it, the normal progression is college player to pro player, and a pro player never regresses and becomes a college player again. So, the Template:Infobox NFLactive has that covered.

However, the normal progression for a coach's career is different. He didn't have to play pro football to be a coach, and for that matter, he didn't even have to play college ball. An NFL head coach doesn't have to be an NFL assistant first, he could have been a college coach.

What about a coach that goes pro and then returns to college? Like Lou Holtz, Steve Spurrier, or Nick Saban? These folks are only going to have one page within Wikipedia, so the infobox should be able to accurately summarize their careers. Having an infobox tied to only college or only pro doesn't make sense to me bacause of this. This works great only for coaches who spent their career in one segment of the sport.

What about coaching position? Existing infoboxes--college and pro--want to just list head coaching positions in the resume section. Does that make sense? I don't think so. You have I-AA head coaches who will take a I-A assistant postion as a promotion. You have coaches like Ron Zook who go from assistant in college, to assistant in pros, and then return to college because a top job at a major school can be a promotion over being an assistant in the NFL.

I would like to see a better info box that can handle these situations.

Any ideas or comments? - SCgatorFan 03:40, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree completely! And I have felt this way for a loooong time. It was not until I noticed that Template:Infobox NFL coach and Template:Infobox NFL PlayerCoach were going to be merged. I think we just need an Template:Infobox AmericanFootballCoach and combine the functionality there to accomodate everything you mentioned. Hopefully we can get a consensus and get that project started. I have experience with creating/programming the infobox behavior so I might try to start this if nobody else takes up the task! --otduff t/c 02:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Career achievements
I've been trying to figure out why the "Career achievements" header isn't being properly activated on the pages of NFL coaches. I have stared at the code for a while and still can't figure it out, because it seems exactly the same as the code for the "Stats" and "Team(s) as a coach/administrator". Any ideas what I'm missing? J. Matthew Bailey (talk) 22:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Team Color headers
I'd like to modify this Infobox to display the headers in team colors like the Template:Infobox Gridiron football person does. I'm not sure about how to go about that, but I think I can muddle through. However, before I spend the time, I'd like to know if anyone has any strong opinions as to why this shouldn't be done. I don't want to do a bunch of work only to have someone undo it.--Deejayk (talk) 17:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

UPDATE: Found a rather large discussion of this topic here. Looks like the consensus view by my estimation is that COLOR=GOOD. I'm posting a link to this discussion there.--Deejayk (talk) 18:27, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was move per request. Regarding Zzyzx11's comments, please note that all admins who regularly perform requested moves better know to check redirect page histories and not delete those with non-trivial page histories (without prompting) or they should not be closing WP:RM discussions. There is no need for any cut-and-paste moves (nor any templates) and to do so would be improper. A history swap was performed. You may read about such procedures at WP:RM/CI.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:03, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Template:Infobox NFL player coach → Template:Infobox NFL coach

– See Template:Infobox NHL coach, Template:Infobox tennis coach, Template:Infobox volleyball coach, Template:Infobox WNBA coach--777sms (talk) 04:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Support: Template appears to be used for all NFL coaches, not just player-coaches. –CWenger ( ^ •  @ ) 15:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. This template in its current form was the result of a merge of Template:Infobox NFL coach and Template:Infobox NFL player coach in 2009. Thus, the parallel page histories of both prior to 2009 need to be preserved for attribution purposes. I have edited both pages occasionally before the merge, and I insist on preserving the attribution instead of having an admin do a normal page move that would delete it. If anything, this will require cut-and-paste moves plus several Copied on both talk pages. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

coachingyears/teams sections
I think this template needs a little refining. For coachingyears and coachingteams, we should be able to input each position and its years separately so they match up, rather than resorting to inserting  's, which gets messy. --Muboshgu (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * now possible, see documentation, and updated your example to show the new version. Frietjes (talk) 20:15, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:CONTRAST issue
Hey, could somebody help change the colors to have the style that the roster navboxes do? For example, on RG3's page, his infobox should have the same style as the Redskins's roster navbox and normal roster templates. (Secondary color should outline the primary color) Not only does it look nicer, but the current way apparently violates WP:CONTRAST for some teams. (just look at Ryan Tannehill's) ~ Dissident93  (talk) 03:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * D93, that is one direction that we could go with the NFL player infobox -- using a 2 or 3-point outline of the contrasting team colors around the color bars. I don't see a color-contrast problem with Dolphins colors with white text on the color bars, but I would suggest that it would be better if we uniformly used the lighter team color as the highlight/outline color around the darker team color, with white text for maximum contrast.  BTW, I don't know who added the existing outline for the infobox color bars, but I don't believe that was ever discussed before it was executed.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I actually misunderstood what WP:CONTRAST actually meant, but yes, I agree. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 04:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * User:Alakzi is my go-to guy for template editing and other coding problems. Maybe he can give us a little sandbox time later this week to do a mock-up with the infobox color graphics as you described above.  Cheers.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)=
 * Sure. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 05:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, it is American sports day, so why not? Check the testcases. Alakzi (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks exactly as I how envisioned, thanks. EDIT: It looks slightly better with a pixel border of 2.5. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 19:13, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * 2.5 is rounded down to 2. Alakzi (talk) 21:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Really? There is a difference between this (2px) and this (2.5px). ~ Dissident93  (talk) 21:38, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I see no difference in Firefox and Chrome. Alakzi (talk) 21:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hm, I see what you mean. I have Wikipedia zoomed in about 4 clicks with Firefox, and there is a difference at that scale, but at default 100%, there isn't. Here's an imgur album with both versions from my point of view, the top one being 2.5. Seems like the .5 scales up when the page is set at 200% zoom, but doesn't affect it at 100%. ~ Dissident93  (talk) 21:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, 2.5 times 2 is 5, so ya. Alakzi (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, my bad. I've had Wikipedia at 200% zoom since I created this account, so I just overlooked the fact that it could look different at it's native zoom level. I suppose I also assumed things like pixel borders would scale up automatically. Anyway, I think the sandbox version is complete, unless you have anything else to add or suggest? ~ Dissident93  (talk) 22:10, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Fine with me! Alakzi (talk) 22:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks for the help. Smile.png Now I'm just wondering if every other 2px border size can be automatically scaled up at 200% zoom, without changing every one to 2.5... ~ Dissident93  (talk) 22:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)