Template talk:Major League Baseball/Archive 1

Expos franchise
Since the article on the Expos franchise is still at Montreal Expos, shouldn't we keep the link to that, rather than to the nascent Washington team? john k 05:01, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * How about we leave it with a note about expos through 2004, until something more official comes of the Washington article. &mdash; siro  &chi;  o  10:10, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Divisions?
Should the teams be sorted by divisions instead of alphabetic order? --KHill-LTown 17:11, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Reversion without discussion
reverted the most recent changes to the template, declaring the previous version "easier to read"; instead of reverting that reversion, I thought I'd do what s/he should have done, which is get a sense of what the community thinks.

Here's version 1, the one that Linnwood prefers current template:

Here's version 2, the version Linnwood reverted purposed change:

Which is better? IMHO version 2 has three advantages: IMHO these three advantages, particularly the first one, outweigh the one advantage that version one has, which is that the AL and NL divisions form a nice grid.
 * it's two-thirds the size of the old version, without sacrificing any information;
 * the phrases at the boom (e.g. "World Series") are larger and therefore more legible; and
 * the links for Championship Series and Division Series are next to the leagues they apply to instead of at the bottom in the form of TLAs FLABs such as NLCS.

I'm interested in hearing what others (including Linwood) think. Thanks. 66.167.139.143 08:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC).


 * IMO, I prefer version 1. It may be a tad bit larger, but it also appears to be a much cleaner looking template with the organization within it being a little more defined. Gateman1997 15:30, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I prefer version 2 as well as any future attempt to make this smaller. --Locarno 18:31, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * First off, our anonymous editor is the one who made major changes to a widely used template with out getting "a sense of what the community thinks." Reversion without discussion is what happened, and why I reverted it. What is posted now on the Talk page is what should have been done to start with. Don't make this personal, as you are doing right now by stating "Linnwood this" and "Linnwood that." Now as to the Template redesign, I find that version 1 is much easier to read. There no need to make it smaller. It contains quite a bit of information, and the column make it very easy to look through the divisions to find a team. The tiny amount of space saved vs. much more cluttered to me is not a good trade off. Please keep version 1 &mdash; Linnwood 19:41, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
 * I prefer "version 1" as it is easier to read and more organized in appearance. Yadin twelve 06:02, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
 * While it is larger than I'd like, version 1 is much more flexible with regard to window width: it looks much better in very narrow and very wide windows. I do suggest trimming the number of links below the teams, though – in that one area, I version two is nicer. ×Meegs 18:31, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if there's a better option. I agree that version 2 loses any advantage in a narrower window. What about decreasing the amount of text--you can click on the team locations to get the name of the team, etc. Here's Version 3. Locarno 19:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

New version
I hate the new template and want to revert it back to the old one, was this discussed anywhere or can it be reverted?--70.253.176.29 20:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, what happened here? I don't check up for a few days and things start changing like crazy.  Who did this, and where's the discussion?  Someone just swept in and changed it.  Lets just change it back, and they can discuss the change on here. Silent Wind of Doom 01:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Here are the two versions:

Current Version: New Version: I happen to like the new version, but I was also surprised to see the change. However, I applaud whoever took the time to do it for being bold. I like the new version because it is easier to read, much smaller, and doesn't lose any information compared to the current version. I do agree that the lack of symmetry is somewhat annoying and that the west division is much larger than the other divisions. I have to imagine it would be possible to fix this by using fixed widths for the columns tho. I really like the coloring as well. Paul C/T+ 01:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example of the new version with a larger width (80% of the width of the page) and equal columns... Good compromise? I also condensed the three bottom rows into two. Paul C/T+ 01:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The coloring is too foo-foo (frankly), can we keep the coloring more neutral? And maybe remove the white lines between the teams (but keep them elsewhere) so as not to bring attention to the diff #s of teams in ea. div.?  Should we keep the word "Division" after each E/C/W heading? Should AL/NL be spelled out (maybe veritaclly)?  (I personally believe the NL should be listed on top of the AL, but that's neither here nor there.)  Can the defunct leagues (AA/UA/FL) be added at the bottom?  And is the Girls League significant enough to be included?--70.253.176.29 19:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I made some changes in the new section. The colors and spacing style is similar to other sports templates and should probably be kept uniform. I'm not sure what you mean by the defunct leagues, but I think the girls league is certainly more appropriate than them. Paul C/T+ 06:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Reason for change
The reasoning behind my changes to this template were simple: It's way too big. Wlmaltby3 – talk/contribs 03:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, as far as I'm concerned, though it isn't my place to dictate what's correct and what's wrong, but there's far too much negative space (empty space) in this template. Templates are meant to be small, concise. This is just as big as some smaller articles. Wlmaltby3 – talk/contribs 03:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Here is another version with more slight changes: Paul C/T+ 06:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that looks really nice. It balances out.  Wlmaltby3 – talk/contribs 19:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If noone objects I'll update the template to the above version. Paul C/T+ 03:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't object to the version above, but I do have a couple points I would like to make.


 * 1) Is it possible to edit the column length so that each division takes up the same space?
 * 2) Is it possible to make the "East", "Central", "West" even more center-aligned?
 * 3) Is it possible to make the American League teams on the top and NL on bottom?
 * 4) Is it possible to make the Angels of the AL West listed as "Los Angeles Angels"


 * #3) Everywhere I can remember seeing, including ESPN.com, I've seen the American League standings listed first and NL second, in the order of "AL East," "AL Central," "AL West," "NL East," "NL Central," and "NL West."
 * #4) This doesn't take up the space that "of Anaheim" does, but we could still link them to "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim", Also, being an Angels fan and So-Cal native, I've heard on television broadcasts and from baseball fans "Los Angeles Angels" used a lot more than any other variation of the name, including their official name. Granted, as I am just a primary source, I can't find a secondary source to support this.  But shortening it to simply "Los Angeles Angels" in my opinion makes the template look better.
 * --Ksy92003 12:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I made some changes and put the new version on the actual template. I lightened the colors in the empty boxes a bit so it doesn't look as "empty" as it did before. I don't think it is possible to make the divisions all the same length. I toyed with the idea of removing the NL and AL columns so the whole template is centered better, but then there wouldn't be a hard link to American League or National League on the template. Regarding the Angels, I think an acceptable compromise would be shortening Los Angeles to L.A. (for the Dodgers as well), but that is a change that should be discussed further before we implement it. Any other suggestions? Paul C/T+ 23:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm sad that I missed this whole discussion. Now, one of my original gripes, and one of the issues still present is the great discrepancy in the column widths.  Now, the compromised verion above, which took up 80% of the page, that, as mentioned, is more than fair compromise.  You said it was too big.  What difference does width make?  It's just going to be plain, empty, white space on either side, and the difference is a bit jarring next to the area sports templates, which take up the entire page, and the other templates which are mostly at a ratio of the width being greater than the depth.  I think we should go with the compromised version. - Silent Wind of Doom 07:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, no one seems to be looking at this anymore, so I'm going to do it. The varying column widths look sloppy, and so I'm fixing them, instating the "compromise" plan which had uniform column widths to bring a more respectable look to the template.  Discuss the change here if you so wish. - Silent Wind of Doom 07:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

small edit
I switched the east and west to make in more geographically correct.


 * I disagree, I think it should read, from left to right, East, Central, West since that's the order your normally see them referred to in. X96lee15 18:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Headings more obvious
Tried making the headings more obvious by changing their background colour as to me (as someone that doesn't follow baseball that closely) it was far from obvious - the bold doesn't seem to work well. Please feel free to revert although I would be interested in your reasons. Dpmuk (talk) 12:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

White space when collapsed
Is there any way to get rid of the white space that shows up when the template is collapsed? Please see this.--Rockfang (talk) 01:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any whitespace... —Borgardetalk 07:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)