Template talk:Infobox snooker player

Image size
The image size setting was broken. I just changed it to 'width' as 1) it works and 2) it's standardised across templates. I did a quick scan of transclusions and it looks like nothing else has been effected. See Allison Fisher for usage example - Alison&#9997; 07:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Someone else replaced it with new code in which the image and width are given on the image line:
 * |image=[[Image:Name of image.ext|170px]]
 * and updated some of the infoboxes to use this. Meanwhile, I have gone through all of them, and removed the |image size= and |width= parameters, so that the new version will work everywhere. &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 01:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Image caption
Why isn't that integrated with the rest of the image code? Wiki image markup already deals with captions. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 23:17, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Nevermind. I see that most other infoboxes do this too. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 04:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Nationality in infobox

 * [This topic was moved here form WT:SNOOKER.]

Yet again I've had to revert an edit that changed nationality from "Northern Irish" to "British" on the Alex Higgins article:. Referring to this field as 'nationality' is a constant source of confusion for editors who are not familiar with snooker, since they confuse the term with legal citizenship. I've suggested before we simply change Nationality to Country to remove the confusion since "Country" carries no legal connotation and will make it distinct from legal nationality. Since Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England are all legally countries then there can be no dispute with using the national divisions for which the players represent. Does anyone else have strong views either for or against this suggestion? Betty Logan (talk) 02:04, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support basic idea, but "country" doesn't work since that grammatically requires "Northern Ireland", not "Northern Irish", which would require changing every single snooker player infobox to use noun instead of adjective. However, I advocate that change anyway, since it is more appropriate to ID the sporting nationality with reference to the country as a country, not with reference to the person as being somehow indelibly "of" that country, on a personal level (which may or may not be the case for any given person). —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 07:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I did wonder about the grammatical implications, but even if the change went ahead it would still be clear what it meant and I think it's the sort of thing that would naturally correct itself anyway. We could even make the correction ourselves whenever we update the articles.  We could do with a couple more opinions though.  An anonymous editor is persisting with making Alex Higgins British, so it would be good if we could neutralise this once and for all. Betty Logan (talk) 04:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In the interim, I've changed the field to make its purpose clearer. The way I did this causes the parameter name to line-wrap, which may not be ideal. The link to the FIFA country list was the main idea. Honestly, I would not want to go around changing all of these things article by article unless we were going to overhaul the entire thing, to use standard infobox code, lower-case parameter names like every other i'box on the system, and other cleanup, and do it entirely programmatically, with a bot or a "will not stop until I'm done" AWB spree (the later of which would be very tedious and take many, many borning hours).


 * Maybe an alternative soultion would be to add a citizenship field into the infobox. That way the Northern Ireland players could be given British citizenship but still keep the Northern Ireland nationality for snooker purposes.  It might be a sufficient compromise, and would mean we only have to make changes on articles where there are problems. Betty Logan (talk) 05:11, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I missed this comment last time around. I would see what Template:Infobox person is doing and check out the issue on the talk page there. The idea of "citizenship", "nationality", etc., as infobox fields has been exceedingly controversial in the past.  If there's consensus at Template talk:Infobox person, then by all means we should do what they're doing, since that i'box will eventually subsume all of the bio infoboxes, including this one.  All that said, we still probably need to have this sport country field, since it is relevant to the subjects as sportspeople, even if it isn't important as a vital statistic about them simply as people.  If anything, it's more important than vital stats. —  SMcCandlish    Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 10:35, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Update: Actually, I've just implemented this (a change to a sport country field instead of nationality) in code and updated the template's documentation. The original Nationality will still work, but is no longer mentioned, in favor of Sport country. If people don't like it they can futz with it or revert it. As far as I can tell, the only three active editors on snooker any longer are you, mean and Armbrust (who is online right now and has also been edting that template but did not seem to object to that change, so far, though he did object to something else, so he's clearly paying attention). All that said, I still think the entire thing needs to be replaced by a more standard-coded and standard-behaving infobox. —  SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 06:01, 17 January 2010 (UTC)


 * We'll wait and see if our Alex Higgins editor comes back and reverts to "British". I don't know how much of it is vandalism and how much of it is misunderstanding snooker - some editors that make the changes have legitimate editing histories.  I don't have an idealistic view on this, anything that works I'll take.  We clearly can't just drop the field because the regional divisions are an important identifier in the game. Betty Logan (talk) 11:10, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

If we've got problems with nationality, especially with flags, then why emphasise it at all? Nationality matters a lot less in snooker than it does in team sports like football. It's very strange that the link for "sporting nationality" goes to list of FIFA country codes as well; those aren't universal to all sports. I'd rather that flags were removed from snooker bios and any reference to "sporting nationality" purged. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

This (and other biographical templates) should fall in line with Infobox person in this regard; and any changes be debated there and applied consistently across all such infoboxes. There's no good reason to treat snooker players' nationality differently to cricketers', or film stars' or scientists' or whomsoever's. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 11:49, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I would be ok with flags being removed from the bios (and I have suggested that myself on the project page) but it's important to retain the nationality of the players since a big deal is often made out of it in the coverage of the game. The BBC and the press for instance always note the player's country when they cover an event, so it is a notable aspect of the sport. A film star's highest break isn't important either but it is particular relevant to a snooker player sothat's why we have our own Infobox.  Betty Logan (talk) 11:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Nobody proposes adding highest break to infoboxes for film stars; nor doing away with teh snooker-player infobox. Please avoid such straw-man arguments. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:05, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Stick to the issue then, and don't bring in irrelevant comparisons. Betty Logan (talk) 12:07, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The issue, which I stuck to, is the use of nationality in infoboxes, and my suggestion for a solution - which was not a mere comparison - was entirely relevant. Please moderate your tone accordingly. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:12, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * "Sport Country" is not the same as legal nationality (which is why this particular terminology was adopted to distinguish it from nationality). A player's country is notable information which is given extensive coverage within the sport (i.e. ).  It is snooker relevant information in the same way his high break is, or his title count is.  Snooker specific information is of no concern beyond the snooker project. It's not the fault of the snooker project if you don't understand the distinction, but your rules on 'nationality' are as relevant to "sport country" as they to "high break".  Betty Logan (talk) 12:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Noting someone's nationality is not the same as it being an important sporting distinction. In particular in snooker it has little bearing in what one can and cannot do in the sport, unlike in team sports. Furthermore, I've yet to see evidence that "sporting country" and "nationality" are actually different things in snooker: are there any players whose sporting country differs from their nationality, outside of the home nations situation? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I believe that when Andy said "fall in line with" he meant "adopt the conventions used by said infoboxes" rather than "just use infobox person". Andy, please try to take a less confrontational attitude when raising points of concern; this looks to have been a simple misunderstanding and nobody needs to get defensive. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:25, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * My stance was entirely non-confrontational. Perhaps you meant to address your comment to the person who misguidedly told me to "Stick to the issue then" and falsely accused me of "bringing in irrelevant comparisons". Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 13:06, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Website parameter
For players with their own website, I've added website - see, for example, Ronnie O'Sullivan. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:24, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

"Century breaks" parameter?
I think we should add a "century breaks" parameter to the infobox. It's an important statistic, and we already have "high break". It would also hopefully put an end to the trend of sticking century counts in the leads of articles. This is not notable information about the individual (which the lead should be limited too) but an important statistic only within the sport. So my view is take this stat out of the article leads (except for Hendry who holds the world record) and put it in the infobox. Any takers? Betty Logan (talk) 04:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Well it's certainly a good idea. BTW it can only be removed from the lead, if it is mentioned somewhere other in the article, as the infobox shouldn't contain references. Armbrust  Talk to me  Contribs  11:05, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Recent changes
I've added a role parameter, defaulting to "snooker player", because this infobox doesn't actually tell readers what the person is known for. I also added a discrete gender indicator, because, again, the infobox doesn't state that key aspect of the subject's being. My edits have been reverted with an edit summary of (effectively) "I don't like it" (what was meant by "that" was not specified (role, or gender?)) - that is not a good reason to revert. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:22, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The role parameter doesn't have any valid use in the infobox. Also the gender isn't a "key aspect of the subject's being". IMO it also looks ugly. Armbrust The Homunculus 21:27, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "valid use"? What, apart from informing the reader that the subject is a snooker player? That's not valid how? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:32, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * There is no reason, why this should be in the infobox. This should be already in the first sentence on every page, which use this template. Armbrust The Homunculus 21:38, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The infobox is designed to repeat information which is in the lede, or elsewhere in the article (e.g. the subject's name, DoB, etc). There are good reasons to include the role in the infobox: it informs readers who are familiar with neither the subject nor the sport; and it is machine readable, and so tells computers which spider or parse our pages what the subject is known for. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:42, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think this information needs to be repeated in the infobox. Also the SHORT DESCRIPTION parameter of Persondata is machine readable, which makes this redundant. Armbrust The Homunculus 21:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Perosndata does not make this redundant; I address the issues why in this essay, but in short, it's proprietary to Wikipedia, not a generic and widely-used standard so not read by generic tools unlike our microformats. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Excellent addition. Thank you Andy. Spc 21 (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it isn't. It has no valid use, and that's essay is just your opinion. Armbrust The Homunculus 08:13, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's disappointing to see you edit warring over this. The valid uses (plural) have already been pointed out. The page I referenced is more than my opinion; it lists a number of facts about the way metadata is used. I wrote that page to save me repeating them individual discussions, but I'd be prepared to do so here if you wish to debate them; I note you have said nothing so far which even attempts to do so. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:41, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's just your opinion, that these reasons are valid. I disagree with that. IMO it's not relevant enough to be in the infobox. Armbrust The Homunculus 17:23, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Rather than making false claims that the facts I have pointed out:


 * this infobox [with out the recent addition] doesn't actually tell readers what the person is known for
 * the infobox doesn't state that key aspect of the subject's being
 * the infobox is designed to repeat information which is in the lede, or elsewhere in the article
 * [the added role subheading] is machine readable, and so tells computers which spider or parse our pages what the subject is known for
 * Perosndata is proprietary to Wikipedia
 * microformats are not proprietary to Wikipedia

are only my opinion, would you care to try to refute them? Would you care to supply some evidence for your assertion that the fact that the subject is a snooker player is "not relevant enough to be in the infobox" - or is that just your opinion? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:43, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay lets see:
 * Most infoboxes don't tell, what subject of the article is known for. And for a good reason.
 * The infoboxes are designed that way, but that doesn't mean every information should be placed in them.
 * Persondate is also machine readable. That it's proprietary doesn't mean, that the data in it can't be readen out by others.
 * It's just my opinion, but you didn't supply any evidence either that it's relevant enough to be included in the infobox. Armbrust The Homunculus 17:55, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In my opinion it's not necessary at all to have this in the infobox as you can read in the first sentence for what the person is known. Also it looks ugly in my eyes the way it is now. And it seems not to be common to have such information in an infobox. --BlueFire10 Let's talk about my edits?  18:19, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Surely no addition can be as ridiculous as "sport country".Spc 21 (talk) 23:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Armbrust: You have not been able to refute a single one of the facts I stated, and which you dismissed as opinion. You assert a "good reason" why this change has not yet been made to other infoboxes (but note occupation and {{para|known_for}] in infobox person. What is that reason? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:27, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Infobox person doesn't lists this information between the name and the image of the person, but much lower. I wouldn't mind if it would be placed somewhere similar in the template. However I still think that the gender parameter isn't needed, and this not in Infobox person either. Armbrust The Homunculus 20:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I asked you to justify your "good reason " assertion. Please do. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:02, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * It's completely out of line how Infobox person handles the same information. Armbrust The Homunculus 10:25, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I seem to be having trouble understanding you. To be clear: am I right to conclude that you're saying most biographical infoboxes don't say what their subject is known for, and the reason for that is that infobox person does do so? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:54, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I'm saying that Infobox person displays this information at a completely different place than what you propose for this template. See this for comparison. Armbrust The Homunculus 13:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Full protected for a week after request on WP:RFPP. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:54, 21 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment I think we should drop these alterations. Even though these boxes are used overwhelmingly on snooker players, they are also used on billiard articles, such as Walter Lindrum. In fact, Lindrum was a vocal opponent of snooker and will be turning in his grave right now! Snooker players are often multi-discipline professionals, such as Joe Davis who was a billiards world champion (many of the early snooker players considered themselves billiard pros because that was where the money was); someone like Mark Selby recently won a pool world championship too. Also, the professional tour is gender neutral i.e. the WSA doesn't make a distinction between male and female players (apart from the 70s when it banned women). There is the Ladies Tour where it might be relevant, but that is an amateur tour and we don't cover the events; in fact we only tend to cover the ladies that have either joined the professional tour or have become professional pool players. As an aside, Spc 21 makes a valid point about "sport country"; no-one uses this phrasing besides us. We changed this due to the controversy caused by "nationality", but I think we should change it to "National organization": a player has to belong their national organization (i.e England/Wales/China/Hong Kong etc) to join the professional tour, and if they play at "country" level it is these affiliations which decide who the player plays for. Betty Logan (talk) 19:21, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * so, how about making it so "role" doesn't appear unless "role" is specified? this would avoid the issue with the default being inappropriate. Frietjes (talk) 19:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That's possible, but it would be better not to, unless there are many exceptions. In that case, we'd need to consider a bot to populate the field, from categories. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * How many billiards player is this used for? Can that role not be programmatically determined? Are you aware that the parameter can be set manually (that has been done for your three examples). Gender is not related to the sport, but to the person; like, for example, age or date and place of birth. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:24, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Not many I imagine, but I've seen it used on some of the pool articles too, especially in the case of ex-snooker pros. The more common problem is that many players are inter-disciplinary i.e. billiards/snooker or snooker/pool, so if we have to have this parameter its default state should be set to "off". I think a better approach would be to have a "tour" parameter listed alongside the current parameters, so we can explicitly list the tour(s) a player plays on. That way, the organization, discipline and gender criteria (if applicable) can be provided. For example, the Women's Professional Billiard Association for Allison Fisher, or the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association for Ronnie O'Sullivan. That way a player's occupation would be defined through the tours they play on. Betty Logan (talk) 20:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * But that would not give the clear, readily-accessible indicator of the person's notability that the current subheading does. It would not provide for ready comparison with a person who is a doctor or astronaut. Consider a reader who is new to Wikipedia, new to the sport, and has never heard of the tours you mention. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:00, 21 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason the addition isn't being kept is Armbrust's bizarre habit to need the last edit on any snooker tournament/template page. Pick a totally random snooker tournament and look at the revision history..... You guys can debate the merits all you want but when you've got an editor like that who spends the majority of his time on here there's little point in it. Spc 21 (talk) 02:02, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You do a lot of good work on the snooker articles, so it's a shame that you can't just focus on that rather than having to score points off Armbrust all the time. That aside, if it were just Armbrust who had reservations then this discussion would be done and dusted by now. Ultimately no matter how much he disagrees with something he still has to abide by the consensus. Betty Logan (talk) 09:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree there should be some clear indication in the infobox of what the person does, I am just unsure of your approach. However, if the same format is utilised on articles about tennis players, golf players, footballers, racing car drivers then I don't mind being consistent with that. I was thinking something along the lines of what they do at Jenson Button, or are you intending on changing that box too? Betty Logan (talk) 09:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I would like to see this adopted across all our biographical infoboxes, unless there are sensible reasons for an exception. On the Button infobox, do you mean the subheader that reads "Formula One World Championship career"? There are a couple of issue with that; it's below the image, so not readily apparent. And its not his role; it doesn't tell you, if you're not familiar with the sport, that he was a driver. It could be about someone who had a career as a mechanic, designer, team manager or (someone more familiar with rallying might think) a navigator.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:31, 22 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't do as much work on snooker articles these days, so it's a shame your friendship with Armbrust blinkers your view on things. Just a couple of examples for you.... Totally random pages..... 2008 Bahrain Championship, 2008 UK Championship (snooker). Pages go untouched for weeks and as soon as anyone makes an edit our favourite Hungarian is in to make minor changes or "fixes". Even when bots make edits. Take a look at Ronnie O'Sullivan's page to see how odd it gets. Now as I said above he spends most days of his life on here doing this so have fun discussing. As soon as the page is unprotected it will be reverted or a minor fix will be made. Am I the only one who sees this?! Spc 21 (talk) 12:23, 22 August 2013 (UTC)


 * What if we added an "occupation" parameter like at James Herbert? It seems like a fairly unobtrusive way to handle it. Would there be some way of just activating it for players in the snooker player catgeory? Betty Logan (talk) 18:12, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

'known for' parm
Looks like there was consensus for 'known for' parm but it was never implemented. Is that true? Ahwiv (talk) 16:41, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

"birth_name" parameter
Can a "birth_name" parameter be added? It would be particularly useful for female players who originally played under their maiden names. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 01:32, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Citing current ranking
Hi! I think this isn't all that hard to do, but I'm currently on mobile and don't want to break the template - can we add a reference in the infobox to the world rankings page on wst.tv for if a player has a current ranking.

It's something we won't update anywhere else in the article, so we should cite it in the infobox. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:43, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Parameter label confusion on Google
When you search for a player's name on Google, the result page automatically generate an infobox-like section based on the Wikipedia page. And the ranking win is simply called "ranking", which can be confusing. If you Google Gary Wilson, it will make you think he's ranked No. 1! So I edited the parameter label from "Ranking" to "Ranking wins". AmethystZhou (talk) 22:10, 12 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I do not agree with changing the infobox format just because Google does not render it properly. Changes to templates that affect a huge number of articles should always be discussed first. The edit resulted in excessive redundancy and made the infobox look messy (by splitting the minor-wins parameter over two two line on my screen). Betty Logan (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2023 (UTC)