Template talk:Infobox basketball biography/Archive 2

Establishing consensus
This was closed on March 31, 2011. Recently there has been several edit conflicts about how the information is presented in the NBA player infobox. Considering that the infobox has been recently improved, I think a new consensus is needed. I know that each editor has their own preference, but I believe an infobox should be consistent, at least for the articles in the same wikiproject.

I know that establishing a consensus would take some time, but it is better to wait and discuss every aspects here rather than constantly editing, reverting and posting lengthy edit summaries which often went unnoticed by other editors. Below, I will list the main issues and some suggestion on how the information should be presented. I'll start the process by giving my opinions on each issue. Please choose and comment on the options that you preferred. After the consensus is reached, I'll update the template documentation and it should became the guide on how to use the infobox. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * To make this consensus more transparent, we should ask an uninvolved admin to close this.— Chris! c / t 23:52, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure that's a good idea. Anyway thanks for those who already made comments, really appreciated. At first I thought this could be a waste of time if only few editors voicing their opinion. This thread hasn't been here for one day and already there is a lot of editors voicing their opinions. I'll add more issues later and please revisit this thread in a few days. Thanks. — MT (talk) 05:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

I am thinking about what date we should close this. I propose March 31 since it is a little of over a week (since this started) and is the end of the month. Of course we can further discuss unresolved issues after that date by starting a new section. If everyone agrees, then I will find an admin willing to close this.— Chris! c / t 21:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've added the closing date since no one opposes.— Chris! c / t 04:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I have now closed all discussions as requested. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:18, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

General discussions
Place your general comments in this section. Feel free to add any further issues, discussion and suggestions. If anyone needs me to add something, post it here and I'll do it for you as soon as I read them. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I will add several more ideas/discussions later as I found them. — MT (talk) 18:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I think we also need to decide how to present college awards on the NBA infobox.— Chris! c / t 18:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, I totally forgot about that, the previous discussion about college awards ended without any results. I'll add them later after I got home. Thanks for the reminder. — MT (talk) 05:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added discussions on the college awards and a few minor stuff that I started to add in several articles. I wanted to know whether these additions are considered useful by other editors. Any other format issues that need to be addressed? — MT (talk) 14:13, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Minor league teams should be listed

 * Support Minor league teams are still part of the player's career history, whether it's only a brief D-League assignment (Shannon Brown) or a lengthy spell at minor leagues before making the jump to the NBA (Jamario Moon). — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong Oppose For someone like Brown, it just looks confusing, he was sent there only briefly and I just don't feel we really need to list them. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It's good to be comprehensive. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

European teams and other overseas teams should be listed

 * Support Overseas teams are still part of the player's career history, whether it's only a brief spell (Steve Francis) or a lengthy spell overseas before making the jump to the NBA (Gary Forbes). — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Suppport —Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support We should eventually have an infobox for all basketball leagues. I haven't found a good reason to be NBA-centric. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Support I agree with LOL that an all-purpose basketball infobox would be a good idea. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support eventual infobox for all leagues, spoken from someone who has recently edited players who played both NBA and overseas. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

How to list non-NBA teams? Should non-NBA teams have their leagues listed?

 * Option 1 More information wouldn't hurt, and it's clearer for readers who are not familiar with overseas basketball teams. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 per above— Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 Would it be too much of a clutter if, instead of writing the name of the country, we use the flag icon? I found this in the Josh Childress article and seemed like an elegant solution, even though I think flagicon can't be used to link anywhere but the country it belongs to and we'd be losing the league link. Anyway, just an idea. Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:MOSFLAG states that flag icons should not be used infoboxes. — MT (talk) 11:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment We should "[a]void adjacent sets of brackets" per WP:MOS. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If this violates the MOS, then we may have to change the way we format this. Flagicon is an option, though we may not be able to per Manual of Style (icons).— Chris! c / t 4:28 pm, Today (UTC−7)
 * Well, the MoS suggests using the form  instead of  . — LOL T/C 00:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: MOS also says to accompany all flags with country name for non non-flag savvy. So no space savings. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support I like Xaviersc's comment.  Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment: I find parentheses messy to look at. Can we get columns like Template:Infobox football biography? Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I support the ideas of having the columns. — MT (talk) 11:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I like the columns idea as well. Then we can show the country and the year without violating the MOS.— Chris! c / t 18:01, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

How to list separate stints at the same team, combined or split chronologically?

 * Option 2 Chronological list is easier to follow. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 Space saving is my preference. I think readers can clearly see it chronologically since the years are there.— Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 I think option 2 adds unnecessary length to the infobox. Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral On the fence about whether compactness or chronological ordering is better. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 2 While it does take up more space, it's much easier to follow, especially if you want to follow a player's career transactions.  Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 2 It's just so much more easier to follow. Option 1 has confused me on more then one occasion. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 2 Least of two evils. Choosing readability over space due to natural tendency to read from top to bottom. Horizontal space is also an issue in rare case a player had three stints with the same team. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree, see Trey Johnson or Othyus Jeffers who had three stints with the Bakersfield Jam and Iowa Energy respectively. Horizontal space is an issue there. — MT (talk) 11:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

How to list a franchise that was moved/renamed
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association for the previous discussion about this.
 * Option 1 Per my comments in the previous discussion. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 per above— Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 per above—Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 per my comment at WT:NBA. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 as per my comments at the previous discussion as well. Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 Zagal e jo^^^ 03:43, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

How to list a D-League assignment
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association for the previous discussion about this.


 * Option 2 In line with my previous suggestion that non-NBA teams should have their league listed. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 2 per above. Though a small note at the bottom may be necessary to explains the arrow.— Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 4 I am changing my vote.— Chris! c / t 23:40, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Option 2 Agree with adding a small notation at the bottom for the arrow, too. Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment We should "[a]void adjacent sets of brackets" per WP:MOS. If we add a note for the arrow, then I recommend having to pass a parameter (e.g.  ) so that infoboxes that don't have any arrows don't display it. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 4 I actually like #4 better because it best resembles an accurate bulleted list (where the NBA team is the first tier item, and the DLeague team is the second tier item which shows it as being a "subset" of the first tier).  Having both the bullet and arrow I think are redundant.  Having just the indentation and arrow best displays the DLeague team as being affiliated with the NBA team.  The arrow itself also stands sort of as a symbol for "assigned to" like in Option #3.  When reading it in your mind, replace the arrow with "assigned to" and it reads very well:  ("Golden State Warriors, assigned to the Reno Bighorns of the DLeague).  Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Coulraphobic123 has a point. But the bullet should be there indented or not, so that it is consistent. See option 5.— Chris! c / t 23:43, 23 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Option 4 with explanation for arrow a must . Bullets to me represents a stint with a team, and an assignment to D-League is part of stint with the parent club and not separate. The indented bullet looks clumsy with an arrow right after it. Also, will top of the infobox have "No. 17 Reno Bighorns (assigned from Golden State Warriors)" or just "No. 17 Reno Bighorns" (from prev discussion, link above) Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 4. At first glance, having the D-League team at the same level of indentation looks like the player left the previous team.  I prefer "D-League" over "assigned" because I don't believe the meaning of the latter term is immediately obvious.  I dislike the large amount of space wasted in Option 5. — LOL T/C 06:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The years should be linked to the season articles

 * Support Easier to navigate, the link could also disambiguate offseason moves (–) from midseason moves (–). — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:28, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Does this link to the team season article or NBA/league season article? I would prefer the team  (if they exist). Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The years should be listed in (small text)

 * Support — Chris! c / t 20:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose I think 88% is small enough. I suspect that many of the older folks will have trouble reading without having to enlarge the font or zoom in. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose Unlike the MLB and NFL infoboxes, which uses 90%, NBA uses 88%, which is small enough. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Even if there wasn't a space issue, I think the slightly smaller font emphasizes the more important fact of who the player played for. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment If you really think about it though, at 88%, the font is already pretty small. We really don't need to make it any smaller. Beast from da East (talk) 18:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The years should be listed in (small text)

 * Oppose The infobox font is already small enough, using small text will make it harder to read. Also, if the years in the Career history section are often listed using standard infobox font, why does the years in here should be using smaller font. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support as initiator I implemented this because of the lack of space on the infobox. While it is a bit hard to see, I think it is necessary to save space. The full size font is too large that most awards of star players (since they won so many times) are split into 2 lines, which I believe is not visually appealing. As a side note, I want to implement this for the Career history section as well.— Chris! c / t 18:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose See my comment in the section directly above. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose – It just is not needed, the font isn't that big to begin with. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I like the slightly smaller font emphasizing the more important fact of what award was won. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

The years should be linked to the season articles

 * Support Easier to navigate. Links to the season articles could be useful in some situations. For example: Kobe Bryant only got an All-NBA Third Team in 1999 and 2005, a reader may started to wonder, what happens in 2005. A simple click to the year 2005 will take the reader to the 2004–05 NBA season and he/she could see that the Lakers' had a losing record and missed playoffs in 2005, which explains why Bryant was only selected to the Third Team. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Most if not all the of time, the link to the award (e.g All-NBA, All-D) already has all the other members for each year. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral Years should be linked no doubt. But for star players infobox, space issue becoming apparent. That is why I normally put in a dash in between years that are consecutive.— Chris! c / t 18:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment For something like Scoring Champion, if the article doesnt list the top 10 scorers for that year, it was not very helpful. And if it does exist, a direct link to the section would be even better. For something like All-Rookie, it might be more helpful to go directly to the year's draft results. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, this is technically hard to do and enforce. Also, the wikicode of the years that link to various article would be extremely messy and less user-friendly. So, my option is to just link to the season.— Chris! c / t 18:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Aren't all of the guidelines we are discussing equally hard to the enforce since its mostly free form text and someone has to eyeball any of these to enforce?  Or do you mean making the template more intelligent so all you list is a year(s) for a scoring champion field and the template will format the rest?  Otherwise it would look like * 2× NBA scoring champion (2010–2010)  Ok, novices will mess it up, esp if there is no standard section name for the scoring leaders. Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, all are hard to enforce. But I think this complicates things ever further. Leaving that aside, user-friendliness should be considered as well. As for modifying the template to fit our needs, I don't know if that is possible. We should ask User:LOL as he is our main template editor.— Chris! c / t 23:34, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support - Navigation is a good thing Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment This should be voted together with Consecutive awards should be listed with a dash (for example: 2001–2003, 2005) rather than listing each year they occurred (for example: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005). Its inconsistent to say navigation is important for specific years, and then take it away by listing ranges which doesn't allow navigation to the middle years. Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The votes can be considered separately. If there is a positive consensus for dashes, it should have higher priority over linking per mos on infobox that says "wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content." Full navigation can be provided through navigation templates if needed —Bagumba (talk) 21:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The years for All-Star Game honors should be linked to the All-Star Games articles

 * Support Easier to navigate. Links to the All-Star Games articles are useful. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — I've done this for Billups, C-Webb and a few others, so it would be nice for it to be official. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

First team, second team and third team honors should be listed separately

 * Support For reader's benefit. They can see that right away.— Chris! c / t 18:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support should not lump all generically together Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

NBA All-Star Weekend events honors (such as Slam Dunk Champion, Shooting Stars Champion, H.O.R.S.E Competition Champion) should be listed

 * Oppose These events are only exhibition games. I suggest only All-Star Game MVP, All-Star selections, Rookie Challenge selections and Rookie Challenge MVP should be listed. — MT (talk) 17:56, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I would vote for Slam Dunk and 3-point, because they have been around and more notable. I can find more article about a player winning those contests years after the fact.  Rookie Challenge I would argue is nothing more than routine coverage that is never written about afterward.  Does anyone mention Jason_Richardson's rookie MVP more than his dunk championships? Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral I agree with Martin tamb. But this is very hard to enforce. Once we start removal, ip and other editors will add them back in for sure.— Chris! c / t 18:45, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, after some thoughts, I am open to include just Slam Dunk, 3-point, All-Star Game MVP, All-Star selections, Rookie Challenge selections and Rookie Challenge MVP. Notability of the honors should be considered as well.— Chris! c / t 20:39, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose I agree with the All-Star game MVP and selections, but not the Rookie Challenge selections and MVP...but either way I agree that they are separate from the legit regular season awards since they're just exhibition. Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose With the exception of All-Star selections and All-Star MVP, none should be in the infobox. Beast from da East (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Awards should be based on notability. Slam Dunk during Dr J era until somewhere around Kobe was notable, as was 3pt contest at one point.  However, the talent pool has been diluted and lost credibility.  I wouldn't think Spud Webb should have his award removed as it is a major part of his notability.  Then there is the point of how notable it is for the player and the maximum size (if any) we want to limit the infobox to.  For example, dunk contest might be notable to Griffin now, but maybe in 10 years its not worth the added size to the infobox.  The same guideline I think should apply to college awards and those high school "Mr Basketball" all-state awards rather than mandating specific awards should always be listed or not listed. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No, no. Based these on notability would be a nightmare. Editors would argue back and forth whether the award is notable, and that is just asking for trouble. So, either include or exclude.— Chris! c / t 18:11, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I didnt think of it from the angle of overzaelous fans cramming any and all honors into their favorite player's box. For the more informed editor, I guess there is nothing stopping them from winning a debate to form a new consensus for a specific page. Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Conditional Support List slam dunk and 3 point contest only. These are notable because years later there is mention of winners of these past events (and not the others). Bagumba (talk) 21:39, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Not exactly scientific, but I was able to find news sources that reference past dunk winners Larry Nance and Jason Richardson and 3 point winners Jason Kapono and article on the best past 3-point winner all from just the last couple of months. I think these are notable and more than recentism as in the other contest, and (weaker argument) most likely already in articles anyways. Bagumba (talk) 00:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Olympics medals (or any other medals from any other competitions) should be listed

 * Oppose not necessary to list them, considering that there is the option of including the medal box in the infobox (see Kevin Garnett).— Chris! c / t 21:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose listing under awards. Place in the Medals box instead. —Bagumba (talk) 21:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. Question here. Should the medal box be included in the infobox for every article, or do we make exceptions such as in Michael Jordan or Carmelo Anthony, where it's placed in the corresponding section that details international competition? Xaviersc (talk) 15:56, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Consecutive awards should be listed with a dash (for example : 2001–2003, 2005) rather than listing each year they occurred (for example : 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005)

 * Support Reduce clutters in the infobox, number of selections are already shown anyway. — MT (talk) 19:47, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 20:02, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Xaviersc (talk) 22:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Each format means the same thing, and since we're dealing with an infobox, the compact form should be used. — LOL T/C 23:11, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —Coulraphobic123 (talk) 23:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment voting this separately from "The years should be linked to the season articles" seems inconsistent. If on the one hand it's important to link to season to allow for ease of navigation, we are taking it away when a player happens to win 3+ consecutive years. Perhaps we should vote whether we should save space (and never have linking), or have navigation to season articles (and never save space omitting years). Or we should just have a rule to list indiv seasons unless it spills over to a second row. Bagumba (talk) 10:17, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, links to an All-Star game are much more specific than links to an entire season. I remember back when people were still bickering over MOS:UNLINKYEARS, "year in field" links were one of the topics, and season links seem similar because a season spans an en entire year. — LOL T/C 14:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Definitely link to the more specific article (e.g. All-Star vs season). The point I was trying to make is I think the vote should be to 1) list each year separately (for ease of navigation) or 2) list ranges of year (to save space).  The two should not be mutually exclusive as they impact each other.  Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * This should be voted together with The years should be linked to the season articles. Its inconsistent to say that we will list ranges but also say that its important to link to individual season articles.  If we list ranges, we will not have links to the middle years. Bagumba (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose missing navigation to individual seasons in the middle of ranges Bagumba (talk) 00:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, both readability and navigation are equally important IMO. I wish we could satisfy both, but that is impossible unfortunately.— Chris! c / t 00:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support (changed vote) Navigation_templates is the answer for full navigation. Infobox can provide navigation where possible, but per MOS pointed out by Chris, more weight must be given to "wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content." Really, I was more striving for consistency in what I thought were inconsistent votes than I am a stickler for wanting a link to every all-star game. —Bagumba (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose I agree with Bagumba, we wouldn't be able to link the All-Star games if this happens and we just agreed on linking them. Beast from da East (talk) 18:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, we could link the All-Star games. What are you talking about?— Chris! c / t 18:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I've included a mockup to the right of what it would look like for Kobe Bryant. If a range is used, we lose navigation to the individual All-Star years.  Therefore, if the range is for three years or more, you will lose navigation to the middle years.  Consequently, the vote should not be whether to use a dash or not, the question should be do we want a dash (to save space but lose navigation), OR do we want navigation (and not worry about saving space).  Dashes and the the vote to link years are intertwined and not separate issues.
 * As you can see for Bryant's All-Defensive selections, even the dashes couldn't keep it all on one line for that case. Since even dashes are not full proof, to me that's even less reason to sacrifice not having navigation to all years. There's really only a very few players like Bryant, Duncan, Howard, etc that ever rack up 6+ times that they win an award where this is going to be an issue.  For those few players, I'd rather suffer spillover than penalize the majority of other player articles where this will never be an issue. —Bagumba (talk) 20:00, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. There seems to be a misunderstanding on the purpose of infobox. Infobox's main purpose is not to facilitate navigation but to provide information. None of the vital info is lost if we use dashes to omit years in between. Navigation is sometimes facilitated by infobox for the sake of convenience, but we should not focus solely on that when we decide how to present info. Like I said, using dashes improves readability and more importantly, no info is lost if we use dashes.— Chris! c / t 20:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Bagumba. Those with 5 or less All-Star appearances would not suffer from Spillover (See Chris Webber). For players like Kobe, Shaq, Iverson, Duncan, etc, of course they will spillover into a second column, but so what? It's all about convenience, people are going to want to click on the All-Star links to get more info on that game, to see who played in it, to see who won, to see who won MVP, to see who was selected but couldn't play. Chris has no right to deny people easy access to important infomation. Beast from da East (talk) 20:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Beast from da East has no right to ignore what the Manual of Style says. Please stop spreading nonsense that I am trying to deny anyone of anything.— Chris! c / t 21:08, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, enough with the personal attacks here. —Bagumba (talk) 21:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

College information

 * I notified WikiProject College Basketball of this discussion.

====College/university should be linked to the basketball article (such as Indiana) instead of to the school's article (such as Indiana)====


 * Support The link is more relevant. — MT (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support And a question. What would be the case when the basketball article doesn't exist? For example, NYU where only the athletics section has its own article, or McNeese State, where it's in a section within the university article. Xaviersc (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Then link to the university or to that specific section. Either is fine with me.


 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support The 1st sentence of the basketball article usually has a link back to the university, whereas it requires a search to go from university to basketball team. Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It's a more relevant link since these are people known for their basketball abilities. Jrcla2 (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

College years should be listed

 * Support I initiated this in few articles (examples: Othyus Jeffers and Trey Johnson) and I want to see whether this addition is useful. Having a player's college years would give readers more information about when and how long he play in college(s). — MT (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I think it's useful, especially in cases where a player switched colleges at some point in time. Xaviersc (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support — Chris! c / t 18:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Support More info always better Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Can we update the template for college field to be consistent with pro teams where  is not needed in between teams? Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Worth considering as of now. Not sure if I am ready support that yet.— Chris! c / t 23:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Considering only small portion of players have multiple college, I don't think this is needed. But a code update could make editing easier without  . — MT (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment What about high schools? For example, Andrew Bynum lists multiple HS. Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose on including HS awards in general, though I think exceptions should be made for notable HS state honors, like Minnesota Mr. Basketball.— Chris! c / t 23:28, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If there is an exception for Mr. Basketball, there should be an exception for Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award — MT (talk) 01:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually my original comment re: HS was on listing multiple ones attended (and I guess the years also), and it got morphed to a discussion on HS awards —Bagumba (talk) 01:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oops, my bad, I just read Chris' comments before adding an additional comment. In reply to your original comment, I guess listing multiple HS should also be listed. But the years would be a little bit hard to find. — MT (talk) 01:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Support It's worth noting since tenures can be short, or staggered, while in college. Jrcla2 (talk) 01:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

College awards in the "Career highlights and awards" section
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association for the previous discussion about this.
 * I don't know how to list the options on this, so let's just made comments on what awards should and should not be listed. — MT (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment National players of the year and conference players of the year awards from Template:College Basketball Awards should be listed in the infobox. Only consensus All-Americans should be listed (example: John Wall article), rather than having something like this: 2010 All-American first-team (AP, FOX, NABC, TSN, Wooden (10-man team), USBWA, YS) from Evan Turner article. — MT (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I agree with MT. And a consensus should be reached for the case when a player won almost all (or every one) of those awards, for example Shane Battier. Sould we put them all, or the most notable ones?  Xaviersc (talk) 16:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Martin tamb as well. Definitely just list the most notable awards like those listed above. Listing all is too much.— Chris! c / t 18:15, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Is the actual concern the size of the honors? If so,  that is what we should actually set a guideline and college awards is a red herring.  For a less accomplished professional like Ed O'Bannon, I think its appropriate to have all-conference team selections included, while putting it in for Michael Jordan seems overkill.  To me it depends if the player was more notable as a pro or a college player, and then how many honors we want to limit the list to. Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Only list the major National Player of the Year awards as listed in the CBB Awards template, as well as conference players of the year. Any specific awards, such as Pomeroy or Lute Olson, should be incorporated into the article's text. Jrcla2 (talk) 01:37, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Draft-day trade should be listed in infobox

 * Support I initiated this in few articles (examples: Ryan Reid and Latavious Williams) and I want to see whether this addition is useful. Sometimes draft-day trades already agreed before the draft begins, so actually some teams might make a selection on behalf of other teams that they already agreed to trade with. — MT (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Neutral However, trades were a player subsequently gets waived (e.g. recent trade of Troy Murphy to Warriors) should also similarly be handled. Its the more generic question of listing a team that had the rights to a player but he never played a game for team. Or is there something more notable about a draft-day trade? Bagumba (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Like I said before, draft-day trade sometimes was agreed before the draft. For example, in 2008 NBA Draft, the Pacers and the Raptors agreed on a trade to send Jermaine O'Neal to the Pacers which involves an exchange of draft picks. The Raptors select Roy Hibbert for the Pacers, while the Pacers select Nathan Jawai for the Raptors. But technically Hibbert was drafted by Raptors and Jawai was drafted by Pacers. — MT (talk) 01:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose (changed vote) in the interest in keeping the infobox compact and more focused on player's legacy. Add to prose. —Bagumba (talk) 23:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose I think these should be covered by the prose. Putting these in the infobox is too much.— Chris! c / t 23:20, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree this is a little bit of a stretch and cluttering the infobox. I've been meaning to get some opinions on this before I started adding this to other players. — MT (talk) 01:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose For once, I actually agree with what Chris said. Beast from da East (talk) 21:01, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

College/HS awards
From what I can gather from the above, it seems like everyone is open to including college awards (HS awards to a lesser extent). The matter now is which awards to include. Obviously, including all is the most ideal, but for space or readability reasons, that is not possible and we must draw a line somewhere. So, I now propose that we should include only the following: Per Bagumba, if a player already has plenty of pro awards, then we need to limit the number of these listed on the infobox. So, my plan is to make all these awards eligible for inclusion but if there are too much awards, then include just 1 and 2. This is my proposal only, so feel free to tweak it or make counter proposal.— Chris! c / t 21:34, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) NCAA champion only. (No runner up, Final Four, Elite Eight ...)
 * 2) All National players of the year on Template:College Basketball Awards only
 * 3) Only consensus All-Americans
 * 4) Only conference players of the year
 * 5) HS awards: Naismith Prep Player of the Year Award / State Mr. Basketball like Minnesota Mr. Basketball
 * What I dont want to do is strip a player who is not and/or never will be a great pro player have all their honors needlessly removed if a big part of their legacy will be as a great college player. I would propose that a player with five (only because it's half of 10 and not 0) or more NBA honors should limit their college awards to any Template:College Basketball Awards, NCAA Basketball Tournament Most Outstanding Player, or any NCAA team championships. I propose no exceptions to the college template to keep the rules simple (I dont think the caveat saves much). I'm tempted to add All-Conference teams but will leave out for now.
 * I would think the worst case is if someone like Christian Laettner was a perennial NBA All-Star, his current infobox would be too bloated and these rules would decently pare it down. Current college stars like Evan Turner or Jimmer Fredette would look OK with these rules.  In the Hall of Famer case, I think what is in Tim Duncan or Michael Jordan is what we are shooting for.
 * Does anyone have an example of other players you have seen that seemed to have too many amateur honors?  —Bagumba (talk) 23:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds sensible to me.— Chris! c / t 23:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * What about NCAA Final Four MOP?
 * Agree. It was in my previous comment too. —Bagumba (talk) 19:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose the "drawing of lines". The drive to standardize things so rigidly with lines and borders is unnecessary and examples of WP:Creep and WP:CRAT. In particular, this discussion doesn't even seem to have been appropriately advertised (e.g. it wasn't listed with the WP:WikiProject College Basketball as far as I can tell). It should be remembered the this infobox is not primarily focused the NBA, otherwise it should be renamed WP:Infobox NBA player as the infoboxes for NFL and MLB players have been. I agree with Chrishmt0423:  common sense should apply.  Some players will be better remembered for the college days or perhaps their days in overseas leagues.  How does an eventual appearances of a player in the NBA impact the appropriateness of listing all-conference selections of an NCAA power league or all-star accomplishment of a d-league or European leagues? One size most certainly does not fit all. This is best handled on a article-by-article basis. It is also not appropriate to draw a firm line here and it should be discussed on an article-by-article basis.  In the very minimum, if accomplishments are removed from the infobox, they should be integrated into the article text if they don't already appear there. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:10, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
 * There was prior notification. At any rate, consensus can always change if there is support. I agree with you that being an NBA player does not automatically lessen the significance of college achievements.  Most players will have more college highlights than pro. To address your very concern, limiting the listing of college awards to "major" ones was proposed to occur only when there was significant number of NBA awards, currently recommended to be >= 5.  Editors can always form a new consensus and use common sense.  However, there is still a need to provide guidance that can generally apply to most cases.—Bagumba (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I generally support the idea, but I think Gatorade Player of the Year is a big high school award too. Also, for some NBA journeymen and scrubs a lot of lesser college awards are relevant.  E.g. a guy like Sherron Collins or even an E'Twaun Moore don't yet need to delete a lot of the lesser awards.  Once a guy has two or three lines of NBA awards we can revert to this supplementary list.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 00:21, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I have no opinion on Gatorade yet. Currently, the recommendation is even more lenient and waits until >= 5 NBA awards before paring the college/HS list.—Bagumba (talk) 04:56, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

Infobox years
Obviously we were able to reach consensus here in March, but there still is one more thing we have to agree on. In the '''How to list non-NBA teams? Should non-NBA teams have their leagues listed?''' section above, the majority rulled in favor of option 1, however Bagumba brought up the idea of columns at the end of the discussion and two others felt it was a good idea, though it was not official. So what's it gonna be? paranthesis or columns? Beast from da East (talk) 00:19, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Option 1 that was voted on had the country in parentheses with a link to the league. This was updated in template docs too. There was discussion on the columns later at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association, but consensus was to go with parens. —Bagumba (talk) 00:32, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I should clarify, columns have already been implemented for the team and years, its only the country that remains with parens. —Bagumba (talk) 01:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

League parameter
There's a discussion about the league parameter here. Zagal e jo^^^ 04:04, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

unnecessary &lt;nowiki> code advised
The documentation says: highlights ... Should follow the format: highlights = * #× Award 1 (year, year) * #× Award 2 (year, year)

I think the &lt;nowiki>&lt;/nowiki> tags are and not needed. I do not know if their function here. Here is an example with and without:

I suggest: let's remove the advice from the documentation. -DePiep (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It's possible the recent upgrade fixed that. It used to be required.—Bagumba (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * ✅ removed from documentation. -DePiep (talk) 09:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Categories for discussion
You might find this discussion interesting, and wish to comment. -- Edgars2007  (Talk/Contributions) 21:45, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * thank you. this is now switched to use what links here for "Template:Infobox_basketball_biography/awards_highlights_undef_empty", so this category will soon be empty and can be speedily deleted. Frietjes (talk) 22:07, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Format of birth_place
There is an inconsistent format of  when using this template. In NBA articles, there is a bias to not list USA, assumingly because most readers/editors are familiar with the US and could recognize the states as being in the US. For example, Kobe Bryant lists "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania", not "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States". On the other hand, Tony Parker lists "Bruges, Belgium", omitting the province of West Flanders, e.g. "Bruges, West Flanders, Beligium". Finally, Oscar Schmidt lists "Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil".

Infobox person advises for birth_place: "Place of birth: city, administrative region, sovereign state. Note: Do not add flag icons to the birthplace. See: Manual of Style (flags)". I propose adopting the same in the documentation for Infobox basketball biography to provide consistency without bias or assumption of a reader's familiarity of any given countries' geography. Finally, I also recommend the wikicoding to link the entire birthplace to a city (when possible), e.g. Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, not Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Note this would also apply to the  parameter as well.—Bagumba (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I support the use of "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States" and "Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil". In most infoboxes for political leaders, the country is not linked, see Barrack Obama and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. — MT (talk) 17:52, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * A large number of basketball players use Infobox NCAA athlete. Are we going to standardize usage there too?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 18:10, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Most NCAA athletes are American, so I wouldn't object if a different consensus exists there. Feel free to notify the related projects if you wish to pursue it.—Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Re MT: What I am trying to avoid is cases like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva where Caetés, Pernambuco is listed with separate links to the city and state.  The city article would have a link to the state for those interested. Thus a single link would suffice. This seems consistent with WP:SPECIFICLINK, and you appear to be in agreement. I would further propose Caetés, Pernambuco, Brazil  as the link really is to Caetés in Pernambuco that is in Brazil, while discouraging people from overlinking Brazil later.  Though not my preference, I could settle for Caetés, Pernambuco, Brazil, with Brazil left dangling.—Bagumba (talk) 18:47, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I do not support the addition of "United States," or any of its abbreviations, following the birthplace of American athletes in the basketball biography infobox. First, as a matter of common sense, it's unnecessary. The lede is supposed to state the player's nationality in the first sentence, and the infobox also includes a field for nationalityhow many different times and how many different ways do we have to bombard the reader with the fact that the subject athlete is American? Second, the NBA is an American league and most NBA athletes are still Americans. Third, this is the English Wikipedia, not the Portuguese Wikipedia. Virtually all American states are well known throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand. When we list the birth place of an English athlete, we don't state "Birmingham, England, United Kingdom," or "Perth, Western Australia, Australia" for an Australian footballer. Likewise, stating "New York, New York, United States" or even "Jackson, Mississippi, United States" for American NBA players is overkill in the context of a space-limited infobox. It doesn't really add any additional information for the reader, and it invariably takes up another line of infobox text.

That having been said, it is entirely appropriate to list the city, province/state, and country (or city and country only) in the birthplace of foreign athletes who were born outside the United States or the rest of the English-speaking world. (Query: Exactly how many English, Scottish and Welsh athletes are there in the NBA, anyway?). Again, this is the English Wikipedia, and we should not assume that anyone is going to recognize the name of a South Korean province or a Brazilian state, but we should apply a little common sense, rather than trying to enforce a forced consistency across different circumstances.

I would also like to mention a pet peeve regarding city/state links. It is neither necessary nor desirable to have double links for city AND state (e.g., Jackson, Mississippi). The principles of link specificity and redundancy apply here. A single link to the city and state (e.g., Jackson, Mississippi) is sufficient and preferred. As a general rule of thumb, two back-to-back links that look like a single link are not desirable, let alone three back-to-back links. Moreover, it has been recently deemed overkill to link "United States" or pipelink "United States|American" per WP:OVERLINK. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:48, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed that in most cases nationality would be the same as birthplaces country. However, there are exceptions.  Tony Parker being born in Belgium but being French is one example.  Perhaps we list the country only when different from nationality?  While states in America may be well known in other countries, I don't believe the same can be said of recognition of foreign states/provinces by Americans. I'd bet a majority wouldn't know Bruges or West Flanders is in Belgium. If the rest of the community is OK with this Yankee-bias convention, I'm OK with leaving the countries out aside from the cases where it differs from nationality.—Bagumba (talk) 21:24, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * For clarity, I believe you are proposing listing of city/state for all bios. For example, would Dirk Nowitzki be Würzburg, Bavaria or Würzburg, West Germany? Note, Americans dont normally list the state/province for foreign cities; they are not familiar with them, and just list the country instead. Classic example would be Darren Bennett (football player): Sydney, New South Wales is listed in his Australian football infobox, but Sydney, Australia is listed in his NFL box.—Bagumba (talk) 21:43, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I actually agree with Dirtlawyer1. For US/UK or any English-speaking countries, the inclusion of country name is unnecessary because most recognize the city/state or city/province. The same can't be said for non English-speaking countries, so country name should be included. Is there a MOS page on this? I would think this issue is important enough to have one.— Chris! c / t 21:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Bagumba, time to check your European atlas. You may have a tough time finding "West Germany" on a map in 2012!  LOL


 * Personally, I think we go with the city/state convention for American NBA players, and a separate city/country convention for non-American athletes, with enough flexibility to deal with some oddity that we didn't contemplate. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:59, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Note that this template is not limited to NBA players only. I assume you would support the same convention for American cities and non-American cities in general for all bios.—Bagumba (talk) 22:27, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Am I missing something obvious here?  I'm thinking out loud, but I believe that the city/state birth place convention works for Americans who play in foreign basketball leagues as long they are clearly identified as American nationals in the lead and infobox.  Likewise, I don't see any problem using the city/country convention for the birth place of foreign nationals who play in foreign leagues.  If, for example, it's an Australian athlete playing in an Australian league, it may make more sense to go with the city/state convention, since the article's primary audience would clearly be Australian.  There's still going to be a little bit of art to this, regardless of the general rules we adopt, and we may want to build the flexibility into the general principles.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:37, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * There are more and more players playing in multiple leagues in multiple countries. Would a player like Andrew Gaze be listed as Melbourne, Australia or Melbourne, Victoria? There will always be new exceptions where it will be an art and a new consensus can be formed. However, we can come up with a consensus based on what we are aware of today.—Bagumba (talk) 23:30, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Link for Dirk Nowitzki and Carlos Boozer's birth place should be West Germany because in 1978 and 1981 unified Germany hasn't existed yet. Anyway, I still think we need to list country names. The globalization of the world (not just NBA) has made plenty of American players born overseas and even some American-born players playing for other national team. Examples of those who born overseas are Kyrie Irving, Reggie Jackson (basketball), Xavier Henry, Donte Greene, Anthony Randolph and they kept increasing every draft. And now players like Chris Kaman, Roy Hibbert, Byron Mullens, Renaldo Balkman are representing non-US national team. Even a lot of foreign players have different birth country and national team, such as Enes Kanter (Switzerland-Turkey), Serge Ibaka (DR Congo-Spain), Nikola Vucevic (Switzerland-Montenegro). IMO, it's just more clear to add United States/USA to the birth place, because in some cases the players' nationality does not make it clear where he was born. Even Barrack Obama's infobox has U.S. even though everyone in the world know he is American president. — MT (talk) 01:19, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

I added a salary field
since NBA salaries are public information, and a lot of people are curious about them (just google any famous NBA player and playername+salary will be one of the most popular autofill choices), I think this should be included in the infobox.

unless a salary changes dramatically, the most recent year should be fine. ex. Salary: $7,500,000 (2012)

JoeyRR (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * We had that before, but the salaries were never kept up to date. We simply don't have enough people to do the work. Zagal e jo^^^ 03:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * I am willing to do the work. Besides, salaries not being kept up to date isn't a MAJOR problem, as long as the salaries are labeled with the corresponding year. It's the same issue with Infobox company which has parameters for revenue and net profit. JoeyRR (talk) 04:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * What is the point of having salary figures in infoboxes if they are not up to date? I think salary info is best handled by the prose. We can mentioned it when players sign the contract.— Chris! c / t 05:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * What's the point of the revenue and net income parameters in the Template:Infobox company template? The vast majority of those aren't kept up to date, either. JoeyRR (talk) 21:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe revenue and net income parameters should not be in the Infobox company. But frankly that is not our concern.— Chris! c / t 22:31, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ideally, they should be kept up to date, but they aren't, because no one cares to do the work. They probably should be removed. It's not a good argument to say, "Well, this stuff isn't kept up to date, either..." Zagal e jo^^^ 04:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can reword things in the past tense, and say, "So and so signed a six-year, $40 million contract... " There are several hundred active players in the NBA; it's a huge project for one person to add and maintain salaries in every infobox. Zagal e jo^^^ 06:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'd rather not have fields in infobox that aren't likely to be in the lead of an article. Caveats like "unless a salary changes dramatically ..." are indicators that this is best discussed in the body.  As it is, salary is mentioned very little in most bios, another indicator for me it is not significant enough  for infobox.  Maintenance is yet another negative.—Bagumba (talk) 03:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You underestimate the amount of public interest in professional athlete salaries. It's NBA offer season and every article out there reports a salary. And then analysts debate whether Player X is worth this salary or not. JoeyRR (talk) 04:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
 * He is not saying salary shouldn't be in articles. He is saying salary shouldn't be in infobox.— Chris! c / t 05:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Most NBA player articles don't have salary info anywhere in their articles. If there's no field asking for it in the infobox, people won't make it a high priority to include the info in the main article. A consistent location across articles also makes it easier to look up. JoeyRR (talk) 21:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that is the case at all. For example, nickname doesn't have a field in the infobox, yet many editors add that kind of info to the article. And if most NBA player articles don't have salary info, then maybe someone should work on adding salary info.— Chris! c / t 22:31, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Reducing it to a single field is misleading. Showing Ray Allen as $3 million would ignore his larger contracts during the prime of his career.  This is better discussed in prose.—Bagumba (talk) 17:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Team parameter
The "team" parameter (subject's current team) renders in a gray background as the first text in the infobox (other than a possible picture caption), which is the same way that the other sections (Personal Information, Career Information, etc.) of the infobox are headed. There seems, at least, to be some consensus to show the league or country after the team name, which would help in Farmar's infobox. In fact, it does show (Turkey) in the Career History section, just not in this first header. —&#91; Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 20:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
 * This seems inconsistent. The header should say something like "Current Team", describing the data below it, and the team name then placed below it. At least, it seems it should be rendered differently than the section headers.
 * When the subject plays for a non-US team, the names of which are unfamiliar to most US readers, it's not clear what the header is supposed to mean. When I saw Anadolu Efes at Jordan Farmar, I thought it might be his birth name. :)
 * For NBA players like Arron Afflalo, it uses the colors of the team. Changes are needed to support the color for non-NBA teams. Would a different color resolve your issue, or is it a more general issue with team names you are not familiar with?—Bagumba (talk) 20:34, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Using the live template as a sandbox
Can we make a policy that the live template should not be used as a sandbox? I would hate to have the template fully protected, but that is what will probably happen if the edit patterns of the past several days continue ... If you are unsure how the template works, then please ask for assistance here, or test your edits in the sandbox first. Frietjes (talk) 23:40, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My bad, sorry to all who saw this as major problem there. Already asked for help several users, but what they answer me (some hasn't answered yet) is that they doesn't know how the code works, the only thing they do is copy/paste... — Preceding unsigned comment added by AirWolf (talk • contribs) 23:52, 17 September 2012‎ (UTC)

Colors for Euroleague teams
per a request on my talk page, I have added support for Euroleague teams to this template. I am not sure if this is the optimal implementation, but the way it works is as follows: To make this work, I added a "type" parameter to the last "#default" line of the switch in. a more elegant solution may be to create a subtemplate of this template which makes all the color choices, but for now, this is how it works. as always, let me know if there are any problems, or issues with this new feature. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 00:04, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * 1) Check to see if  returns "unknown".
 * 2) If it returns unknown, then call  to get the coloring.
 * 3) If it does not return unknown, then call  to get the coloring.

Header color for medal templates section
I think we should just use a neutral gray coloring for the medals section. If you look at LeBron James, you will see that the Miami Heat colors are used for the "Medals" header. However, this section is not related to the Miami Heat, but related to team USA. Any objections to changing the color of this section header to gray? Frietjes (talk) 00:18, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, if the team colours are black and white, then that medal template section looks like death notice or however it is called hehe. AirWolf (talk) 00:23, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
 * okay, I went ahead and made the change. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 23:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

League in infobox
There is a discussion on the use and display of the "league" field in the infobox at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball.—Bagumba (talk) 15:54, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Parameter tracking
It looks like we are currently using the following tracking templates with parameter usage tracked by checking what links to these templates. do we still need all of these? Frietjes (talk) 23:15, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Infobox basketball biography/awards highlights undef empty
 * Infobox basketball biography/league undef empty
 * Infobox basketball biography/league equals both
 * Infobox basketball biography/team parameter linked
 * Infobox basketball biography/team or team link
 * I originally added Infobox basketball biography/awards highlights undef empty and Infobox basketball biography/league equals both; they can both be removed now.—Bagumba (talk) 00:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
 * okay, I probably added the others, and will check to see if they can be removed now. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 01:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Bad cut-and-paste on my part, I meant I added Infobox basketball biography/league undef empty—which can also be removed—and not Infobox basketball biography/awards highlights undef empty.—Bagumba (talk) 01:51, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
 * no problem, the other one was even older, and we can always add it back if anyone complains. the last two were added by me, and I will remove them in the next couple days, after I check all the links. Frietjes (talk) 17:59, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Coaching record field for basketball coaches?
My question is about the articles about Bobby Dye (which I created) and Erik Spoelstra, both of whom were career coaches who never played in a pro league. Is Template:infobox college coach or the basketball biography template more appropriate for someone like Dye, who spent most of his career coaching at the college and HS level. As for Spoelstra, his article uses the basketball biography template, but that template doesn't include a spot to put his coaching record in. Arbor to SJ (talk) 04:26, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This is the right one for NBA. See Gregg Popovich as an example.  I suppose stat1label can be used for wins, stat2label for losses, and stat3label for win %. However, I havent seen where anybody does that for NBA coaches so far.  I'll ping WT:NBA also.  This would need to be enhanced for stats for player/coaches.—Bagumba (talk) 05:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * The coaching record tables that are already in the articles are not maintained on a regular basis. I can't really encourage an infobox field that's going to be out of date most of the time. Zagal e jo^^^ 22:43, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Right. this is redundant to the coaching record in the articles.— Chris! c / t 00:19, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I dont intend to update the coaching stats, so I dont care either way. However, player stats in infobox are equally redundant too. IMO, outside of baseball, most people dont have any context for interpreting raw career stats.—Bagumba (talk) 00:44, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * For players, it is not really redundant. The player stat in the info box only shows total points, rebounds and assists, but the stat table shows other stats such as PPG, shooting %, total game started. For coaches, the only relevant stats are W and L, which are shown in the tables already.— Chris! c / t 02:09, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, infoboxes summarize key info in the article, so by their nature they are redundant. In any event, I still don't care either way.—Bagumba (talk) 02:45, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I guess they are if that is how you put it. At any rate, I also don't care either way.— Chris! c / t 02:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

My recent edit
I made this change to prevent cases where the infobox automatically says something like "1952-present" because the career start/end fields aren't filled in when there is a draft year. If I screwed something up, feel free to revert. Zagal e jo^^^ 21:13, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Question

 * How do I give the player's infobox the same color as the infobox of the team he plays for? I can't figure it out. --Harryhurry (talk) 09:39, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * the player must be currently playing in either the NBA, NBL, Euroleague, or PBA, and the team name must match one of those listed in the respective coloring template. Frietjes (talk) 15:48, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Will other leagues be added? --Harryhurry (talk) 15:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * if you want to create one for a particular league, we can try to integrate it. an example of a colouring template pair is Euroleague color/Euroleague color cell.  Frietjes (talk) 15:50, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, can you explain me how to create a color template, I don't understand the Euroleague templates because when I try edit source there is nothing. --Harryhurry (talk) 18:47, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I can help you create the color template, if you can provide a list of team names with primary and secondary colors (e.g., the values needed to fill in the table you see in the documentation for Euroleague color). the color cell template just renders the values specified by the color template, so the only real unique content is what is in the main color template. Frietjes (talk) 15:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it ok to add European national leagues? Maybe it's a good idea to make one template for multiple European national leagues? --Harryhurry (talk) 11:25, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Without knowing how much work I am suggesting, in an ideal world I love the idea of eventually having every top level league's colors added. Is there a limit to how many different sets of colors the template can handle? Rikster2 (talk) 12:02, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't be that much work because you only have to put in team names and colors. If it gets updated from time to time, at one point all leagues should be included. --Harryhurry (talk) 12:15, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Birth/death fields
Any chance someone can edit so that these fields can appear after one another, as they do in most other bio infoboxes? – Connormah (talk) 22:37, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
 * updated. Frietjes (talk) 14:39, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Historical profiles have moved
They're all in stats.nba.com/playerProfile.html?PlayerID=

For instance: Michael Jordan's historical profile is at http://stats.nba.com/playerProfile.html?PlayerID=893

Can someone update the nba_historical_profile field to reflect this new URL format? Arbor to SJ (talk) 02:09, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Template:Basketballstats would need similar changes too.—Bagumba (talk) 14:12, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The big obstacle is that Jordan's profile used to look like http://www.nba.com/historical/playerfile/index.html?player=michael_jordan. His name now needs to be converted to a numerical ID. Perhaps someone can figure out how the "Find a player" search at http://stats.nba.com/players.html#historic-players works, and convert the existing links into a new search query. Not sure if telling NBA.com that they broke everyone's static links (esp a big site like Wikipedia) would help (you'd think they'd have known).—Bagumba (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've removed the code to generate the NBA.com link for historical players, since it's not working.—Bagumba (talk) 09:14, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Height parameter
This template's height parameter makes no provision for centimetres, which is the usual way to express human height when using the metric system.1 This needs to be fixed.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 01:03, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * use 195 cm or 6 ft Frietjes (talk) 01:14, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Perhaps this option should be mentioned at Template:Infobox_basketball_biography.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 01:17, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Consider starting a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball to see if "height_m" should be deprecated for a cm setting.—Bagumba (talk) 01:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with this, just not for the Americans you changed. American players, even Australian NBL imports, should still use ft and in. I want to change back the parameters to this in imports such as Jarrid Frye and Brian Conklin. DaHuzyBru (talk) 04:45, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The main point is that metres need to be abolished. They're just not used to measure human height.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 04:55, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Agreed. But do you agree with changing back examples such as American imports in the NBL? DaHuzyBru (talk) 05:04, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Back to metres? No.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 05:05, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * No. To height_ft and height_in as all NBA players use in "Infobox basketball biography" or "Infobox NBA biography" ? DaHuzyBru (talk) 05:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That produces metres, as can be seen here.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 05:12, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * True, but that is the conventional way with American players due to the United States using imperial measurement system... DaHuzyBru (talk) 05:29, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the second option mentioned above by Frietjes is the one you want.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 05:34, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Since there are no objections, I added height_cm and made the default conversion 'to cm' for heights specified in feet/inches. Frietjes (talk) 14:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Whoa! 12 hrs of discussion among 4 people is a bit hasty for my taste for a massive genre change.  More talking points below.—Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to understand the argument for when cm is preferred over m. Is it always the case, or does it vary by country? Euroleague is the highest level in Europe, but its website lists heights in meters, not centimeters. It seems like the issues are:
 * 1) Should metric measurements always be displayed in m? cm?  configurable m/cm?
 * 2) When the primary height is in ft-in for American subjects, what units should the secondary height in the metric system be in: always m, always cm, configurable m/cm—Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: I've also left notices at WT:Basketball and WT:NBA regarding this discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 16:58, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * one advantage of preferring centimeters is that it circumvents the 'decimal point' issue. for example, see what happens if someone specifies 2,11 instead of 2.11 in the infobox. Frietjes (talk) 19:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Relevant points being made at Template_talk:Height.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 20:08, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * @Frietjes Using decimal points over commas seems to be an en.wikipedia bias even at Template:Convert. How data is allowed to be entered (decimal points or commas) should be treated independently of whether centimeters or meters are displayed.—Bagumba (talk) 20:42, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a language thing. In the English-speaking world commas in the place of decimal points are an oddity and should be left out of the English Wikipedia.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 20:48, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yup. And it's stated as such at MOS:DECIMAL.—Bagumba (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * of course we should follow MOS:DECIMAL, but as you well know editors from other countries frequently don't follow it, and obtain strange results when using 2,11 m = 2,11 m. using cm circumvents the issue.  a check to the input and a tracking category could help find problems, since there should never be a comma in the height_m field. Frietjes (talk) 21:57, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sure we'd get just as many problems with people that don't x100 to convert the m into cm. If the comma was a big enough problem, why not just programmatically replace it in the template with a period before converting.—Bagumba (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I am indifferent between using cm or m in metric countries - I have seen both. We need to be consistent, though. I do think format (feet/inches or metric) should be driven by the league a person is playing in as opposed to their nationality. In other words, an American playing in Greece should use metric values and an Australian playing in the US should use feet/inches. Because that is how they are listed. Rikster2 (talk) 23:26, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess that is what Steve Nash has, but I don't know if that was a conscious decision. It's funny we have WP:ENGVAR, and Nash's article is written using Canadian English conventions, but we use American measurement units (ft/lb) in his article.  I would think if we follow ENGVAR, then the measurement should follow a format consistent with the English variant choice (i.e. m/kg)—Bagumba (talk) 23:47, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * but it is "listed height" and "listed weight." Nash is listed using feet, inches and pounds by the Lakers.  Why would NBA players display differently from each other?  Rikster2 (talk) 23:56, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess I wouldn't treat "listed" that literally, and allow for WP:CALC. Anyways, Nash not being in American English seems equally weird, but there's bigger things to take care of.  I'll leave it to others with stronger opinion on whether ft/m should be tied to a players nationality or league.  At worst, its just a matter of one measurement being enclosed n parens or not.—Bagumba (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:CALC is only a "thing" because WP editors thought it was the way to go once upon a time. I think we need to look at what makes sense and if necessary adjust that guideline.  What makes sense to me is listing weight/height in the format that their current bio uses (since that is the "system of record" if there are different measures in different sources available.  Otherwise you are asking for fans of various leagues to switch formats around to "fix" it.  If somebody is listed at 201 cm, that should be how they are listed here IMO. Rikster2 (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

The only problem was that editors were locked into using metres, when centimetres is the usual measure for human height when using the metric system (See Talk:Human_height). But it's been fixed now anyway. Cheers.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 07:32, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, we get that you had a very specific agenda here. Now that it is fulfilled, please run along so those of us who actually care about the template can discuss what we need to discuss. Rikster2 (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What's to "discuss"? As per policy, go with WP:SOURCEs and if they conflict give weight to the better quality ones. You're clearly not as smart as you'd like to think you are.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 11:14, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll leave it to others more familiar with heights for specific leagues/countries and use WP:CONSENSUS.—Bagumba (talk) 08:08, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

The FIBA archive uses cm and ft/in. The Eurobasket website (not organized by the people behind the Euroleague) website uses meters (there's no unit, but it's almost certainly meters). The FIBA Americas Championship uses meters. – H T  D  18:22, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As I commented before (see above 16:51, 15 January 2014), the change to convert ft-in to cm instead of m was done prematurely (only 12 hr of discussion). After being involved in discussions at Template_talk:Height and Template_talk:Infobox_NFL_player, I am now weighing in that there does not seem to be consensus to show cm as the converted measurement for ft-in.  No problem for cm as the primary measurement for any cases where there is consensus that a player's national ties (citizenship or playing country) prefers cm. I will change back to previous consensus of m for ft-in conversions.—Bagumba (talk) 07:23, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Using the overwhelming consensus in favour of cm seen at Template Talk:Height as justification for returning to m here seems very strange (even disruptive?) to me, Bagumba.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 08:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Template:Height doesn't convert ft-in to cm, as you acknowledged at Template_talk:Height and admitted at Template_talk:Height that you added erroneous documentation that it was supported.—Bagumba (talk) 08:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * And that's in spite of reliable sources and the aforementioned consensus (and consensus at human height, and elsewhere), not because of it.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 09:09, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Reasons for using metres instead of centimetres remain as scarce as ever |tab=roster.--Gibson Flying V (talk) 07:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

National Team in career history
National team experience should be listed underneath the regular professional team, similar to Template:Infobox football biography. Probably just nationalyears and nationalteam would suffice. BigIdiot66 (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Practice to date for basketball players has been to only list medals using the parameter "medal_templates".—Bagumba (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is the way it is now. But I agree that it is a good idea to include national teams along with years played for. It would put all the teams a players has played for in his career in the infobox. Now you have to scroll down to a section "national team" to check if a player represented his home country.--H-Hurry (talk) 18:57, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is at all necessary and IMO confuses the simplicity of the infobox club history. Rikster2 (talk) 19:12, 3 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Rather than National years should it be National Team appeareances? A player can be not called for some years to the National Team and then called back again... Does that mean he was "active" for the national team? --Maku17 (talk) 15:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox basketball biography/style
please propose changes to Template:Infobox basketball biography/style here before making the changes. I have had to fix a few misguided attempts to change the template, which broke about 7000 or so articles. thank you! Frietjes (talk) 23:03, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 13 August 2014
Please rename parameter label "Pro playing career" to "Pro career". Overly long field label is having a distortionary effect on the infobox contents as displayed, including unnecessary line-wrapping and increased width of the infobox as displayed.

Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * shortened. Frietjes (talk) 14:43, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

+"Correct as of" idea

 * I suggest it is a good idea to add a "Clubs correct as of 3 September 2014.", in a small font, like in Template:Infobox football player. It would serve people who just take a quick look at the infobox. A lot of basketball players' articles are not updated in a long time. --H-Hurry (talk) 18:53, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit request
Can we increase the number of possible club entries for coaches (fields "cyearX" and "cteamX")? I have found cases of coaches who have coached more than 20 teams and the most recent are being cut off. Increasing to 30 should solve the issue. Thanks. Rikster2 (talk) 13:06, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * done. Frietjes (talk) 14:58, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

TemplateData
The documentation for TemplateData at Template:Infobox_basketball_biography/doc, which is used by VisualEditor, needs some fixes. Apparently, each entry should have only one parameter, not multiple ones like "years1,team1". This was flagged for the NFL infobox at this discussion. Refer there for details on fixing the issues.—Bagumba (talk) 19:26, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Multiple drafts
What if a player was involved in two or more drafts? e.g., Wayne Chapman. Could support be added for that? Thanks for your consideration. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 01:01, 24 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Stevie, given the length of the infobox, and the fact that Chapman played four season in the ABA, shouldn't his ABA Draft information be listed and not his NBA Draft info? Infoboxes are about choosing the most relevant and important information, not trying to duplicate the main body text in bullet points.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I have no idea. I was only updating this article because params were used twice.  I don't know enough about this subject to decide what should go in the infobox.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 02:31, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * If a player was selected in the NBA draft, it seems like that should display. If you've ever gone looking for ABA draft info, it is more scarce than you think it should be. There is nothing stopping one from using the ABA draft though if you think it's best (no guideline that is), just use the "draft_league" parameter.  There is no way to display multiple drafts and I think for the sake of efficiency we shouldn't seek to add this in my opinion.  The dual draft situation can be addressed in the prose. Rikster2 (talk) 16:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your thoughts. I think this is a case where I'll leave it to other editors to futz with if they choose.  As I said, I don't know enough about the subject to be able to weigh an ABA versus an NBA career.  For now, I have commented out the duplicate/ignored parameters so they don't trigger addition to a cleanup category.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 18:08, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Current team in Infobox basketball biography
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basketball regarding the basketball person's current team at the top of Template:Infobox basketball biography.—Bagumba (talk) 06:04, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

GM/Executive tenure
How come this template doesn't support perameters to delineate tenure as a GM or executive? p b  p  19:51, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
 * There was no consensus to add executive stints previously at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball/Archive4—Bagumba (talk) 07:40, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Flags for national team
Also, for a sorta related request, can the medal template be edited to remove the flag? Flags aren't supposed to be used infoboxes unless there's a good reason. – H T  D  14:53, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * "A good reason" for flag icons, HTD? Like membership on a national team in international competition?  FYI, MOS:INFOBOXFLAG was recently changed to specifically permit flag icons for athletes in international competition.  That said, Template:Medal, Template:Country and Template:Competition, which are used to create the infobox medals table, are not tied to flag icons.  The flags may be omitted -- if that's the consensus of the particular WikiProject.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I could live with the flag to the left- (or right-)aligned, but now it flows together with the text, which WP:ICON disallows. If we're ever be going to use flags, it shouldn't be at the middle of the text as it is right now:


 * We could either go with


 * Or


 * Or even


 * – H T  D  15:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I never understood the fixation for flags. I'm resigned that they somehow provide a coolness factor, presumably like seeing your own navbox on an article.—Bagumba (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I kinda like flags to be honest but the way it is presented right now is a violation of WP:ICON. Either no flag, or put it on either (or BOTH? LOL) end/s of the header. I realize this is a separate template(?) though so I dunno if we could do something about it. – H T  D  16:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Looking at Kobe Bryant, that article is encoded as .  Unfortunately, the flag/text is passed into the template, meaning it would need to be changed on every article, not just one change in MedalCountry.—Bagumba (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I snooped around elsewhere and that was the case too. Well that sucks. Either way if we're going to make any edits to this template we should force people to use templates that won't display flags unless it's necessary. – H T  D  16:40, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

. . . . or, which yields

Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * That works but you'd have to change every article and it's not worth it. :P This template is either badly constructed or was made before the flagicon templates came out. – H T  D  16:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)


 * HTD, please read MOS:ICON again:


 * "Do not use icons in general article prose
 * "Icons should not be used in the article body, as in, ". . . and after her novel was published, Jackson moved to Bristol, 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, in April 2004." This breaks up the continuity of the text . . . ."


 * Please note the use of the words "article prose," "article body" and "text." It does not apply to phrases used in tables and infoboxes.  In such circumstances, it is generally understood that presenting the flag icon with the country name is the proper and accepted way of using flag icons.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You got me at "Text". It breaks up the continuity of "Competitor for the 🇺🇸" The flag is in the middle of the text in the infobox. It should be at either edge of table. It's like having


 * Nobody does that, right? That's what's happening right now. Putting it in the middle of a sentence violates MOS:ICON. I'm willing to bet that, if this happened at the MOS talk pages, this use of flagicons is not allowed. – H T  D  17:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * HTD, no one does what you have shown in your birth place example for a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that two side-by-side links for city and state are deprecated (e.g., Los Angeles, California vs. Los Angeles, California), and we are not supposed to use flag icons for purely geographic locations, including birth places and places of death. When using flag icons, there is always supposed to be an element of "representation," e.g., an athlete representing his country at the Olympics; a warship, military unit or commander of a particular country; an article where the country is the primary subject; etc.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Specific example aside, I think HTD is just saying that a flag in middle of text feels klugey. Given the work involved, I doubt anyone is inclined to pursue it, but I don't see a reason to object if someone is willing and able.—Bagumba (talk) 17:42, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Template:MedalCountry is in use on over 41,000 articles, most of which are bios of national team athletes who have won medals in major international competitions like the Olympics. Its format has been fairly well standardized for years (predates my six years on-wiki, and then some). If HTD wants to invent something better for the medals table for Infobox basketball biography, I'm game, but we're not going to re-do 41,000 existing medals tables because of a mis-reading of the quoted provision of MOS:ICON. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Like I demonstrated, it's on the positioning on the text, not on what it supposedly stands for. I would've used flags for many things on the infobox if it weren't for MOS:ICON. – H T  D  17:47, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You can always try at WP:BOTREQ to see if someone can write a bot to detect and perform the changes.—Bagumba (talk) 17:54, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * HTD, again, please re-read the quoted portion of MOS:ICON; it has a bolded section header labeled "Do not use icons in general article prose". The text of the MOS:ICON specifically refers to the "article body," and the example provided is a prose sentence from article main body text.  By its own terms, the MOS:ICON prohibition on icons in text applies to main body text of articles, not phrases used in tables, etc.  You are inventing a restriction that does not exist by mis-reading MOS-ICON.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:08, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * (EC): I won't be bothered on asking someone to make a bot to change 40k articles on upholding what the MOS says. I suggested this because I thought all we need is a simple edit on one place. I'm not one of those guys who won the "dash wars" who have nothing else better to do. With that said, you said it's a misreading, and I say it's a violation. If I misread it, I could perfectly add random flags such as in infoboxes such as "TV in the 🇺🇸" in Template:Infobox Super Bowl. Now I don't care either way, but if you insist on whether I "misread" it, you could ask the people at WT:MOS. – H T  D  18:29, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * HTD, I've been involved in FLAG discussions for 5+ years -- I know what MOS:ICON permits and prohibits, where it is internally inconsistent, and I can discuss the history of MOS:ICON changes including some of the sneaky shit that was pulled in 2008–09 to get the original infobox prohibition adopted without notice, how it has been a contentious bit of warfare ever since, culminating in recent MOS:ICON changes that explicitly permit the use of flag icons for athletes in international competition. The current exception permits flag icons as a representation of the "sporting nationality" of athletes, but we still don't use flags for NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL and NCAA athletes because they are not members of national teams and they don't generally compete in international championships.  Various sports projects have made limited provision, however, to incorporate such icons into the infobox medals tables for those small minority of NBA players (and other athletes) who have been medalists as members of their national teams.  Nothing requires the use of flag icons in the medals table of Infobox basketball biography; if WP:BASKETBALL or WP:NBA decided today to remove the flag icons from the medals tables of all basketball player infoboxes, that's within the formatting discretion of those WikiProjects.  If you want to create a replacement of Template:MedalCountry for Infobox basketball biography, that either omits the flag or re-arranges the text around the flag icon to your liking, you can do that too, assuming that's the consensus of those WikiProjects.  Where we part company is your misreading of the quoted provision of MOS:ICON: it does not say what you think it says.  Again the quoted provision applies to the use of flag icons in main body prose of articles, not tables, infoboxes, etc.  There are other provisions of MOS:ICON, however, that are understood to prohibit or strongly discourage the use of flag icons for purely geographic locations, including birthplaces, places of death, tournament locations, etc., as well ethnicity and non-representative nationality.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Look, I'm not in the process of making 40k edits. TBH I'm on the fence on flags. All I'm saying is that the icon shouldn't be in the middle of two words. It should either appear first or last. That's it. – H T  D  19:21, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Howard, bringing this discussion full circle, I am completely open to a better solution for the medals table for Infobox basketball biography. If you can address the flag-in-the-middle-of-text issue in a way that improves on the existing Template:MedalCountry, I'll be the first to back you in a template talk page discussion that advocates applying your formatting change for basketball players to how Template:MedalCountry is coded and/or used.  If it's a clear improvement, it's an improvement, regardless of what MOS:ICON says.  Feel free to play with the existing word-icon order and ping me if you come up with something you like.  Don't worry about the coding (there are multiple options for flag icons and associated displayed links); focus on getting the phrasing and word-icon order where you want it.  Cheers.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Presumably the easy way out is to put the flag either on the leftmost or rightmost part of the row. I'd also want the template to use the flag templates so that we won't have to use templates such as USA. But it's 41k transclusions and I dunno how to deal with other than bots... – H T  D  17:52, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Purely devil's advocate: just because it aint an MOS already don't mean its not worth doin.  At any rate, not on my bucket list.—Bagumba (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I wish you luck with that. Having been a part of MOS:ICON discussions over the last five years, I can say with some authority that it's a hornets nest of irrational extremes -- MOS warriors who hate flag icons and want to ban them everywhere, on one hand, and equally extreme editors who think it's entirely appropriate to slap U.S. state flags on NCAA tournament locations and national flags on the geographic locations of dinosaur fossil-bearing rock formations, on the other.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * No luck needed. I obviously didn't emphasize the "Purely devil's advocate" part enough apparently :-)—Bagumba (talk) 19:23, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Request: National team players parameter
Could national team parameters be added like what is being done at the soccer player infobox? In theory there are three (previously four) national "teams" a player could participate: There are also instances when a player changed his national team affiliation. In most cases this is due to a country being dissolved (see former Soviet and Yugoslavian players. There might be a handful who switched teams due to naturalization; the most famous of which is Hakeem Olajuwon. (In most cases, naturalized players are Americans who aren't good enough to crack the US team so they don't count here.)
 * Under-16 to 17 (Youth)
 * Under-18 to 19 (Junior)
 * Under 21 (Cadet, now restricted to Europe)
 * No age limits (Senior)

For coaches we could list them at one of the cteam fields. I noticed these have separate "international" sections too. – H T  D  15:02, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
 * There was a similar proposal before with no consensus. I'm not convinced for basketball anything more than medals are significant enough for the infobox. At least in English American sources, there just isn't much mention in independent sources of those youth tourneys.—Bagumba (talk) 03:02, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Participation on a youth tourney "national team" is not worthy of inclusion in a major professional basketball player's space-limited infobox; including reference to a player's participation on a senior national team that represented their country in the Olympics or FIBA World Cup deserves to be referenced. It should go without saying that an Olympic or FIBA medal should be included in the infobox medals table.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:36, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The thing is there are many players who haven't won medals, but were good enough to play for their national teams; in that case, you wouldn't know that they had played for the national team until you've read the article. There also instances of players having medal templates for junior national team appearances. Players like Nikola Mirotić and Tyus Jones list their junior national team medals, without telling the reader first that they even played for the national teams earlier in the infobox. That's like saying Kobe won all of those Finals MVP awards without the sight of the word "Lakers" on his infobox. I don't think people would move to remove these junior national team medal templates.
 * Americans may be ambivalent to such tournaments but it's a big deal elsewhere. You won't even know that the greatest Indian woman to play hoops, Geethu Anna Jose, even played for their national team if you read her infobox, until you realize that "International" means national team duty. A typical current player's biography always contains a section on an "International career". Adding a separate section in the infobox for such corresponds to fields in the infobox for sections on high school, college and professional teams. If coaches can list the national teams that they had coached, players deserve to have their national team duty added too. Jason Kidd played 59 games for California, but you didn't know that he played 46 games for team USA when the infobox shows you the medal out of nowhere. – H T  D  09:33, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think people would move to remove these junior national team medal templates. Its weight is overblown for US players. About the only place I'll see mention is on niche subscription site like rivals.com or on bios on university websites.—Bagumba (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Examples of widespread independent coverage of national teams might sway me that it's a big enough deal outside of the U.S. to consider somehow incorporating it. That being said, not everything that is true needs to be in the infobox, e.g. AAU teams, records, etc.  In the meantime, I'll wait to see others' take on this as well.—Bagumba (talk) 16:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems most basketball biographies don't have a separate section for AAU tournaments, much less mention them at length. For some younger players there's an extensive discussion on high school(!) seasons, and seeing high schools, colleges and pro teams are listed at the infobox, and have separate sections on the main body of the article, it makes sense that we list national team appearances as well, since we have "International" sections and medals on the infobox as well. – H T  D  16:32, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Examples of NBA players who don't have their senior national team listed in the infobox are Goran Dragić and Sasha Vujačić. They both have medal templates for junior competitions so I dunno if that counts as a "mention". – H T  D  14:53, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Is there any hope for this request? I just updated Chang Tsung-hsien's teams in his infobox, and he apparently played for the Taiwanese Chinese Taipei national team. Since TPE is stuck in a place where it's hard to win medals (East Asia has always been dominated by and ), there's no way for the infobox to say that he had played for the TPE national team before. This is very unfortunate. I could imagine there could be several more instances of articles like this dude's, like Joji Takeuchi, Kosuke Takeuchi, heck, even players like Desmond Oh and Mario Wuysang. – H T  D  16:36, 5 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's what WP:HOCKEY and WP:SWIMMING do for national teams:


 * Wayne Gretsky;


 * Dara Torres.

Use of the flag icons is restricted to national teams, and not used for nationality. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

WNBA Player Link
The link to the player pages on wnba.com is incorrect and needs to be changed. --Pink Fae (talk) 01:04, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * NBA.com is notorious for changing URL formats without redirecting old urls, so it appears WNBA.com is no different.  It appears an old URL like http://www.wnba.com/playerfile/tiffany_jackson-jones is now changed to http://www.wnba.com/player/tiffany-jackson-jones/. The changes include:
 * "playerfile" -> "player"
 * "_" -> "-"
 * I've tweaked to have the old format coverted to the new format.—Bagumba (talk) 21:07, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Brittney Griner now works. It may take a while for the fix to automatically transclude. If you want to force a specific page to update, you can manually purge it.—Bagumba (talk) 21:11, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Problem with the team field of the template
Hello, I've already noticed a couple of times that this template is giving issues with respect to disambiguation pages. Take Šarūnas Jasikevičius as an example. At the top of the team box, it says he plays for Zalgiris Kaunas, which is another name for the BC Zalgiris basketball team. That team name, at the top of the infobox, is not wikilinked. However, when looking at the links pointing to the Zalgiris Kaunas disambiguation page, the article Jasikevičius shows up. So it is being seen by the system as a wikilinked name.

Since articles shouldn't point to dab pages, and in this case, the link should be pointing to BC Zalgiris, is there a way of fixing this? I've tried by simply wikilinking the team name, but then the infobox loses some of its formatting, and it is being discouraged in the template documentation.

Also, please note the fix should go further than just replacing Zalgiris Kaunas by BC Zalgiris. I also know of similar cases where the articles to be disambiguated have identical names, and they only differ in the fact that they have a disambiguator between parentheses. So the solution should come from either removing that perceived wikilink from the infobox template, or having a way to make it point to the correct article instead. --Midas02 (talk) 04:06, 2 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Midas02, fixed. Frietjes (talk) 15:55, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Colors
Why does this template only use colors 1 and 2 from Module:Basketball color/data? It should also use colors 3 and 4. Joeykai (talk) 14:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Could you be more specific? How should the other two colours be used? Alakzi (talk) 14:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Personal information and career history could be 3 and 4 and the other headings use 1 and 2 so that it alternates. Joeykai (talk) 15:06, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not a big fan of alternating colors like in baseball (e.g. Mike Trout). Something like recent change at Template:Infobox NFL player to add borders with the additional colors would be an alternative (see Richard Sherman (American football)).—Bagumba (talk) 17:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I would be fine with either of those, I just think that only having two colors is a bad idea. Joeykai (talk) 18:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Joey, I am not a big fan of alternating solid color blocks for the subheaders of sports bio infoboxes. I would also suggest that the darker of the two team colors should be used as the base color for the subheader colors blocks with the lighter team color used as the accent/highlight.  If you use the darker team color as the base, then white text will provide the best color-contrast ratio 95 times out of 100.  Nobody asked me, but I think the WP:MLB guys made a big mistake with the alternating color blocks, because it often requires different color text to achieve a satisfactory color-contrast ratio.  A satisfactory contrast ratio is not really achievable with certain mid-density colors like medium (true) orange, light to medium blue, or medium to dark yellow, where neither black, white, nor other color text provides a truly satsifactory contrast.  Even when the alternating solid color blocks provide satisfactory contrast with the text, the alternating solid color blocks are not a particularly professional graphics look.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:CONTRAST: text color and borders
Some editors have been changing colors at Module:Basketball color/data to address WP:CONTRAST issues. As a side effect of changing text to white, some infoboxes are no longer distinguishing because many teams use the same base color. As was done at Template_talk:Infobox_NFL_player, can we have a border added to this infobox that uses a secondary team color?

I'll leave the implementation open ended, but we also need a way to detect basketball colors whose contrast need to be improved. Some examples I've seen are the implementation at Template_talk:Infobox_television_season, or a table that shows contrast ratios like at Module:College color/data.—Bagumba (talk) 01:54, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * yes, I am planning to expand the table in Module:Basketball color/data to match the table in Module:College color/data, but probably won't get to it until this weekend. Frietjes (talk) 13:48, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I implemented a border at Template:Infobox basketball biography/style for pro teams, but it still needs to be done for college teams. I wasn't ambitious enough to try modifying Module:College color.—Bagumba (talk) 23:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)