Template talk:Infobox college sports team season/Archive 2

pipe solution for "team" parameter
-Sorry, third ping in a week.

Washington football was a redirect, but recently became a DAB. So the auto-generated link atop the infobox of pre-nickname teams like 1889 Washington football team now points to the DAB, rather than the expected article (Washington Huskies football).

Previously this wasn't an issue as Washington football redirected to Washington Huskies football.

This looks like the first instance, but at some point other state/pre-nickname team articles will be in the same DAB boat:
 * Arizona football (UA, Cardinals)
 * Buffalo football (UB, Bills)
 * California football (Cal, CIF, etc)
 * Cincinnati football (UC, Bengals)
 * Florida football (UF, FHSAA, etc)
 * Houston football (UH, Texans)
 * Miami football (UM, Dolphins)
 * Tennessee football (UT, Titans)
 * etc

Can we support a pipe override of "team" in the template?

Ala, if "team = &#91;&#91;LINK|NAME&#93;&#93;, then render that link, else do existing auto-generation rules" or such. UW Dawgs (talk) 16:19, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * UW Dawgs, okay, you can now add Washington Huskies to override the link at the top. in addition, when the team changes names you can use prev_team and next_team for the years before and after the name change to get the link to the correct page (rather than using the redirect). Frietjes (talk) 14:18, 8 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That solution worked great, thank you. UW Dawgs (talk) 14:30, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Multiple conference memberships
Similar to the preceding talk section here opened by, I propose that we add fields to properly service teams who belonged to two different conferences in a single season. Examples include 1920 Ohio State Buckeyes football team, 1932 Butler Bulldogs football team, 1934 Millsaps Majors football team, 1934 Southwestern Lynx football team, and 1927 Ohio Bobcats football team. We need to add the following fields for a second conference:



For some reason this template was set up such that the  field isn't entered with wikilinks, and   is used in cases where disambiguation or piping to a historical name is needed. I think it would make sense to combine these two fields and handle the wikilinking as we do in other fields. ,, , , , , thoughts here? Jweiss11 (talk) 02:37, 10 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Adding support for a second conferences seems reasonable. About linking; can you clarify what would happen for existing implementations of the template, for  entries both with and without any   specified? Would they need to be updated en masse, or ? Dmoore5556 (talk) 03:04, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the merge of  and   would need a mass update, which I hope we could accomplish with a bot.  thoughts on that? Jweiss11 (talk) 03:09, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * yes, we should abolish autolinking wherever we can. it's non-intuitive, causes all kinds of problems, and requires hacks like .  unfortunately, we will need to change all the transclusions if we do so. Frietjes (talk) 16:17, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It's solvable. I don't necessarily agree with Frietjes that all existing transclusions will need updating; if we convert this template to use #ifexist we can auto-link the conferences where they're input as plaintext, meaning we only have to convert those pages using conference_link. Also means that going forward it will accept linked and unlinked conference values. Primefac (talk) 16:24, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

, : how are you both? Following up here on this thread from a few months back. Can we add those second conference fields I prosed above and then, perhaps, address the cleanup of the existing conference fields? Jweiss11 (talk) 20:39, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think we want the record line of the infobox to read like this: "1934 record 7–1–2 (2–1–1 Dixie, 4–0–2 SIAA)", using 1934 Millsaps Majors football team as an example. Jweiss11 (talk) 20:45, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Jweiss11, should generally work now. we can adjust spacing/punctuation as needed. Frietjes (talk) 15:23, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Frietjes, thanks for jumping on this. Doesn't look like this is working as intended as it's now displaying empty variable names on thousands of articles, e.g. 2020 Morehead State Eagles football team. These second conference fields are only going to be applicable in a small number of instances. Also, it looks like you copied in the code from the primary conference fields, which has theatseparate conference_link field, which we want to do away with. Can we have conference2 simply accept a hyperlink like the most other fields in the template? Jweiss11 (talk) 15:45, 10 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Jweiss11, the bug should be fixed. both conference and conference2 will accept a simple hyperlink via the #ifexist: as suggested above. Frietjes (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Bug with prev and next fields
there seems to be a bug with the prev and next fields. Take a look at 1902 TCU football team. The prev field is turning the hypen in "1901 Add-Ran Christian football team" into an endash and breaking the proper link to 1901 Add-Ran Christian football team. Can you take a look? Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 00:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * My guess is that the dash is being converted to an endash because it is more likely that a date range will appear in the title as opposed to something like "Add-Ran" which should just be using a dash. I have created a redirect to fix the issue on that particular page. Primefac (talk) 10:23, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Jweiss11 and Primefac, I changed the replacement to only happen when the dash is preceded by a number, which should fix the problem without breaking the conversion of year spans. Frietjes (talk) 14:57, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Figured you'd work out a long-term solution (mine was just a bandage). Primefac (talk) 14:58, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Frietjes, thanks for taking care of this. Jweiss11 (talk) 03:43, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

Sagarin Ratings
Will the Sagarin Ratings (http://sagarin.com/) be added for NCAA football and basketball? They work across divisions in many cases. 24.220.61.241 (talk) 02:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It's not significant enough. Per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE: The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance.—Bagumba (talk) 07:25, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Multiple head coaches
There's a proliferation of interim head coaches, in football anyway. Right now this is handled by shoving all the details into the head_coach field, such as at 2020 Southern Miss Golden Eagles football team. I propose adding some fields so that this can be done cleanly. I've implemented it in the sandbox and you can see a working example at Template:Infobox college sports team season/testcases. Mackensen (talk) 21:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This definitely a good idea. You should probably post at WT:CFB and WT:CBB to elicit more feedback. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Seems to be a good idea; test case output looked fine, with input format easier to understand. Dmoore5556 (talk) 02:57, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks folks, done and documented. I also created a tracking category for any uses of head_coach with a br tag. Mackensen (talk) 12:27, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it make more sense (from a coding perspective) to just use ubl? It would require seven fewer #if statements (the template ignores blanks), no need for the ParamCount, and allow for easier expansion if needed in the future. Primefac (talk) 12:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , yes, yes it would. Check my implementation in the sandbox? Mackensen (talk) 12:57, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks good, implemented. Primefac (talk) 13:07, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I ran into a special case a 2018 Maryland Terrapins football team where the coach was suspended after a player died before the season started, and officially fired half way into the season. Do you like the way I handled it, or should we consider using dates instead of games for the field name in all cases? Hoof Hearted (talk) 14:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Year in front of "record"
It seems excessive for the label for the team's record to be " record " instead of just plain "Record". The year is presumably already in the page's title, as well as in the header of the infobox. What other year would it be? I propose removing it.—Bagumba (talk) 07:57, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I've removed it.—Bagumba (talk) 05:02, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

prev_link and next_link functionality removed?
Hey there!

Is there no way to get the infobox to link to the previous or next year if the team name changed? I tried making an edit on another page with the next_link parameter, and saw in the preview that it was unknown. Did that functionality get moved elsewhere, or was it just flat-out removed?

Thanks! -fuzzy510 (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I think the documentation is out of date. See 1997 Miami RedHawks football team for a live example of how to accomplish this. Mackensen (talk) 02:13, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Perfect. Thanks! fuzzy510 (talk) 18:51, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Tourney and tourney_result clarification
For basketball, the guidance here is to use  as the last round played by the team in the NCAA or NIT tournament and   as the result of the last game played by the team in the tournament. The examples given are: Firstly, this is vague as it doesn't specify Sweet 16 of NCAA, NIT, or any other post-season tournament - especially without a link. Secondly, most applications of these parameters that I've spot checked seem to be using these parameters as: I prefer this latter case and think we should change the documentation for this template to correspond. But does anyone else feel the opponent and score of the final tournament game are important enough to keep in the infobox? Perhaps by creating new template parameters? Hoof Hearted (talk) 15:07, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * and
 * and
 * (linking to the final game article for champ and runner-up)


 * Hoof Hearted, you are correct that in practice basketball inboxes are typically set up the second way, e.g. 2021–22 Duke Blue Devils men's basketball team. Note that prescribed and common practice for football is to note score and opponent for bowl game or final playoff game, e.g. 2022 Michigan Wolverines football team, 2022 North Dakota State Bison football team. You may want to open a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College Basketball to see if opponent and score should be included for basketball. But in the meantime, template documentation should probably be updated to reflect common usage. Jweiss11 (talk) 22:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks JW. I've asked the WP:CHOOPS folks for feedback here. Hoof Hearted (talk) 00:25, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to deviate from the current common practice for basketball. Opponent and score of a team's last tournament game are usually not considered very important, save for some exceptions for teams that play in title games. IMO, there's no reason to rework the template to preserve that info for the fringe cases where it might matter. fuzzy510 (talk) 20:39, 5 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you all. Documentation has been updated. Hoof Hearted (talk) 22:03, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Conference and conf_record
Omitting unknown conference information from the parameters displays the following to the infobox:


 * See: 1936 Westminster Titans football team (permalink)

PK-WIKI (talk) 06:45, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm... I thought this would be a quick/easy fix, but there seems to be enough coding here that I think there might have been some sort of consensus about its layout...
 * At present, we have (in pseudocode) . Shouldn't the second part of the statement just be  ? The extra step to exclude a record only if there is a declared independent seems problematic to me. Primefac (talk) 08:40, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Similarly, adding a record + non-independent conference but without setting a conference record results in:
 * See: Draft:1936 West Virginia Wesleyan Bobcats football team
 * PK-WIKI (talk) 06:10, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Ugh. Given there haven't been any other replies recently (not surprising, with only 41 watchers) I'll see about revamping the code to be a bit more forgiving. Primefac (talk) 07:26, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems like that code isn't robust if the param is not specified. If no conf info is specified, just don't show anything.—Bagumba (talk) 08:06, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest adding these to Template:Infobox college sports team season/testcases so if they are fixed, they don't get broken again.—Bagumba (talk) 08:09, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest adding these to Template:Infobox college sports team season/testcases so if they are fixed, they don't get broken again.—Bagumba (talk) 08:09, 21 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Irrespective of the coding issue here, I think it's best practice to include parameters that could be populated with more research. Just leave the field value blank if unknown. See my edit at 1936 West Virginia Wesleyan Bobcats football team. Jweiss11 (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The issue here is not known vs unknown, it's having parameters show up that shouldn't even be there in the first place. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not seeing this problem when an infobox is set up properly. The Westminster example was missing its conference set to "Independent". The West Virginia Wesleyan example was missing fields that could in principle be populated. I understand there's an underlying coding issue, but it only manifests when best practices aren't followed—that was my point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jweiss11 (talk • contribs) 14:07, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Inserting a blank field as you did in Special:Diff/1161244249 is not "best practice", because it shouldn't need to have conf_record set to a blank value to make the infobox work properly. That was more my point. Primefac (talk) 14:11, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is best practice because it supports consistency of form between articles and helps to alert any editor that more research is needed on that central piece of information. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:32, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * From a coding perspective, empty vs not defined should ideally have the same behavior. Basically, expect the unexpected. —Bagumba (talk) 15:03, 21 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, I agree with you about the coding. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:15, 21 June 2023 (UTC)