Template talk:Infobox swimmer/Archive 1

Added (first) prototype infobox
I just added a proposed infobox, which still needs some work including:


 * a proper placement (and possibly renaming) of Stroke(s),
 * a possible addition of clubs the swimmer once was and/or is a part of,
 * a possible restructuring and reorganization of Career highlights, and
 * a new color if the general consensus disagrees with the current one.

I'm open for any suggestions. --I Are Scientists 03:05, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

My thoughts
Wow! Thank you! This is great! Here are my thoughts:
 * I would opt not to add clubs (s)he belongs to, or did belong to, whereas we don't have many articles pertaining to the clubs. So, unless we are not going to link them, it will result in a lot of red ink.
 * I added (s) to nickname.
 * I like the color, reminds me of water.
 * Changes might be needed for career highlights, but I'm not sure where they belong right now.
 * I would move strokes up twards the top.

Once again, thank you! This is a great help! --wpktsfs 03:52, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I took your advice and moved strokes above the personal information section as it seemed out of place, and now the infobox flows a little better. As for the career highlights, I was thinking about somehow incorporating the template for medal records into the infobox; but I'm still not sure whether it would be practical, or even feasible. --I Are Scientists 04:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Strokes is now too high. When I meet swimmers that I don't know at meets, I ask their name first, then I ask what club they are (in this case, nationality) and then what stroke they swim. Therefore, I think the order should go name, nickname, nationality, stroke. Stroke is a more vital topic than birth and death, but less vital than name and nationality. Keep it up! --wpktsfs 19:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Good job
I like it! Strokes should be after Full Name, though --Lemonflash 21:24, 27 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Maybe you should add Club, for swimming club. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Lemonflash (talk • contribs) 23:38, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

added birthcountry and deathcountry
I've added birthcountry and deathcountry. And then I wonder if weight is really needed in this infobox? // S MARTSKAFT | &iquest; 12:01, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I've noticed on most other infoboxes related to sports (such as the NBA player infobox and Cyclist infobox) information like height and weight are included. --I Are Scientists 20:48, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Start
I am going to start using this template. --wpktsfs 22:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Questions and thoughts
I have done some work on this template which means that when fields are not used, they don't create whitespace at the top of the article. I did notice, however, that nearly none of the fields are compulsory. Usually a few are made compulsory - such as birth date, nationality or (in this case) strokes. There is a comment above about height and weight. Adding this kind of information depends upon how recent the information is available. Some projects decide not to include some such information (particularly weight) as it is not updated by the club regularly enough. You may also want to consider if the three fields at the bottom (Awards, Medals and Records) are too much. Medals will almost certainly be covered by a medal table already. Awards and Records could just get silly for some people. That's not to say there shouldn't be something to highlight notability. Overall it's a nice little infobox - is there a reason why it isn't used? Regards, SeveroTC 15:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Update documentation
It would be good if someone who knew a bit more about the template could update the usage and fields sections to match the medaltemplates bit. -- Cowplopmorris TalkContribs 18:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Auto-hide the medals section
The medals section can take up a lot of room on the right-side of the page for swimmers with a lot of medals. Would anyone mind if I auto-hid that section? For an example of how that looks, see Template:Infobox Gymnast in usage on pages like Nastia Liukin. Kolindigo (talk) 18:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It's been over a week and there's been no objection, so I've made the change. Kolindigo (talk) 00:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It is possible to have an option to un-autohide it on certain individuals? If a person won one gold medal, it seems like we're hiding it out of embarrassment.  Obviously there are individuals with a ton of them. --Bobak (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The template already provides for this. Just add the parameter "show-medals=yes" to the infobox, and the medal table will be displayed as the default. I've updated the documentation to reflect this option. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 09:21, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the head's up :-) --Bobak (talk) 13:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ordering in "Strokes" and "Nicknames"
In the "Strokes" and "Nicknames" sections, it says to order them alphabetically. It is probably better to list them by the individual's ability (when known) and then by swimming order (at least on the strokes). Otherwise, someone like Stephanie Rice, who holds both World Records in the IM, could have "Freestyle" listed first--she did set the Australian Record in the 200 Free at the Olympics.... Hooperswim (talk) 03:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Medals
At several pages it's not possible to view/show which medals a swimmer has won, because the show/hide button is gone. --StevenZorn (talk) 23:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Could you give some examples. Also, is this issue browser dependant? Yboy83 (talk) 23:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Brian Johns, Robin van Aggele and Hannah Miley. --StevenZorn (talk) 08:15, 28 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Works fine in Firefox, Chrome and IE.
 * What doesn't work however is the "showmedals = yes" bit of the infobox to force the show/hide section to be unhidden as default. Furthermore when "showmedals = yes" is defined, the issue you talk about is only apparent in IE. Yboy83 (talk) 09:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Citizenship vs. nationality vs. national team
I recently added citizenship to this and it was removed with the comment "Do not believe this is relevant to one's swimming-related information". I'd like to comment that Infobox person (which infobox swimmer is created from) has the capability of a citizenship parameter. I would also like to add that infobox person contains that parameter. When we write an article on a swimmer, that article should contain a biography of the swimmer, not just the swimming-related information. The infobox should do the same. Note that the section of the infobox it is in is titled "Personal information". As a final note, this was related to a discussion at Talk:Missy Franklin about how to treat dual citizenship. Ryan Vesey 05:16, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Update 2015: This "citizenship" parameter was removed in 2012, after discussion at the Missy Franklin article talk page. Infobox sportsperson -- the parent infobox of Infobox swimmer -- does not suffer from a lack of parameters to identify the nationality, sporting nationality, citizenship, residence, country, etc., of a given athlete.  Quite the opposite, in fact -- Infobox sportsperson has a multiplicity of parameters to describe the "nationality" of an athlete which are sometimes overlapping and sometimes contradictory.  As we have seen from the "dual citizenship" arguments over Missy Franklin and several athletes, some folks just want to argue.  The idea behind describing "nationality" in this infobox was to identify the country for whom an elite swimmer competes.  In order to clarify what was always intended, we have added a new parameter, "national team," to the template.  It should be self-explanatory: the national team of the country for which the swimmer has competed internationally -- citizenship, dual citizenship, residence, nationality have nothing to do with it.  For a handful of swimmers who have competed for two teams/countries internationally, the parameter should include both national teams/countries, with the representative flag icon of the country.  For that small number of notable swimmers who never competed internationally, they should continue to use the "nationality" parameter -- but with no flag icon.  When the "national team" parameter is invoked, the "nationality" parameter is excluded; they cannot be used at the same time.  If complex situations of dual citizenship or multi-nationality need to be described, please do so in the article text.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:22, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Flag icons
The infomation given at WP:MOSFLAGICON appears to have been misinterpreted at this template - where it says (re: The sportsperson's nationality: 'Do not use a flag template such as or  here: see "Manual of Style (icons)".' WP:FLAGBIO says 'The use of flag icons in the birth and death information in a biographical article's introduction and/or infobox is forbidden, ...' This does not relate to the sportsperson's nationality. It relates to the sportsperson's place of birth and/or death'. The fact that it has been misinterpreted is shown by the fact that three out of the four swimming featured articles (Kevin O'Halloran; Sandra Morgan; and Faith Leech) use flag icons to indicate the sportsperson's nationality in the infobox. The instruction should be removed from the Infobox swimmer template. Daicaregos (talk) 07:31, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I am under the impression that the "Nationality" field in the Infobox is actually the individual's sport nationality, as the infobox is a sport infobox; and the use of the flagicon has been to display the sport-country the individual swims for, in compliance with the MOS "Use of flags for sportspeople". Regarding dual/sub-nationalities, I do feel it better to also list the sub-nation but following the main international one (this seems to crop up in swimming with the British swimmers and their Commonwealth affiliations: e.g. Christopher Cook as GBR & ENG). Hooperswim (talk) 03:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to agree that it has been misinterpreted. I'll remove the instruction from the template. That same MOS says 'Subnational flags (e.g., England rather than UK) are traditionally used in some sports, and should not be changed to the national flag without consensus.' I understand that to mean that for the UK the Eng, Sco or Wal flags can be used, as appropriate, instead of the Union Flag (as there is no flag of NI it would be best not to have one at all, rather than use the Union Flag). Cheers, Daicaregos (talk) 06:52, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Should the word to describe a nationality be a demonym - i.e. "French" instead of "France"; "Australian" instead of "Australia"? There appears to be no consensus throughout the articles using this template - perhaps whilst the guidance is in the process of being updated, this should also be made clear. Yboy83 (talk) 07:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What about WP:INFOBOXFLAG and Template:Infobox sportsperson country parameter instructions violated here with the instruction of redering flags, as this infobox is based in that one? --Osplace 23:29, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Spouse
Most bio infoboxes support the parameter  but not this one. Is that deliberate?  Schwede 66  19:45, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Added.  Schwede 66  18:39, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

World records
Should there be a spot to have world records held, or formerly held? I'm not for sure how to go about laying that out if it is decided this should be added. Gooseneck41 (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

University logos in the infobox?
Hi. Per this edit another editor has re-added the university team logos into the infobox after I'd removed them. They cite that another sport does this, so why not swimming? I can't find anything in the infobox template guidance, so I've brought it here for more input. Thanks.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 17:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking such use is considered to contravene the non-free content criterion #8. Non-free content is placed on pages for which it is directly significant, and not on pages that are one or more steps removed from it. isaacl (talk) 17:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you Isaccl.  Lugnuts  Fire Walk with Me 16:42, 19 April 2021 (UTC)