Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 December 14



Template:Infobox college football player

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was no actionable consensus. This TfD shows consensus that
 * The situation pertaining infoboxes for people involved in gridiron football is suboptimal, due to too many templates with overlapping concerns (per Jweiss11, Bagumba, PC-XT, Ejgreen77, Montanabw). TfD is in theory the natural place to discuss that situation and find a solution with project-wide input, but due to bad blood, adversarial attitudes and canvassing in this specific discussion this would take too much time and space for editors to find their common ground in the best interest of the project to fit neatly in the current format and practice of TfD. It might be difficult to find a place that is perfectly suitable for the task, that would centralise discussion for all editors involved with gridiron football issues, as well as technical template editors; the only WikiProject that concerns itself with all gridiron football players I could find is the wide umbrella project WP:WikiProject Sports.
 * Infobox gridiron football person is ill-loved as visually unappealing. This template is, despite its more general name, primarily used for Canadian football players.

Neither of those conclusions are actionable as a TfD closure. The discussion at this point shows little promise broader consensus may be found within a space and time span reasonable for a TfD discussion if we were to relist this discussion.

There is explicitly no consensus to perform a merge between these specific templates, as it is felt that the union of all college gridiron football players and all Canadian football biographies is a bad fit. There is no consensus not to involve these two templates in some wider refactoring of the gridiron football biographies infoboxes either.

It has to be remarked that it is of the utmost importance that infoboxes are useful and easy to use for the people that actually use them, and also that a local consensus at WikiProject American football can't override a broader consensus if a broader consensus on this specific issue would emerge. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:10, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Infobox college football player (514 transclusions)
 * Infobox gridiron football person (7,591 transclusions)

Propose merging Template:Infobox college football player with Template:Infobox gridiron football person.

[Posted per request on my talk page]

Most gridiron footballers played in college; the GFP template includes college-related parameters. We should not need to swap templates if someone is promoted from a college to a mainstream team. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Note to closing admin: Please see the extremely partisan breach of WP:CANVASS at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football/Archive 14; starting ; then ; and weigh subsequent comments accordingly. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note to Andy: Your entire approach to this TfD is "partisan," and we have seen your approach to sports template merges in the past. I'm sorry to have to say it, but many if not most sports editors simply do not trust one-size-fits-all editors who have a history of proposing merges of templates they don't use.  Perhaps you should rethink your own adversarial approach to attempting to force such merges on the actual users of such templates, and start next time by asking for input instead of trying to tell other editors what they should do based on your own predilections for merging templates whenever you can get a simple majority of TfD participants to agree.  Frankly, I think the consumers of such templates deserve a blunt statement of what is being attempted.  Your mileage may vary.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It is entirely permissible to be partisan in a TfD; partisan canvassing is expressly deprecated. And your comments are an ad hominem logical fallacy. TfD is a request for input. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Andy, we've covered this many times in other TfDs, and I am not the first to tell you this: TfD is not a "request" for input; it's a demand for action subject to the !votes of a small number of participating editors who may or may not have any working knowledge of the uses and purposes of the templates involved. If you want input and a friendly give-and-take, ask the editors who use them on a regular basis, i.e., the "stakeholders."  If you don't want friendly give-and-take, keep doing what you're doing, but don't be surprised when you're embarrassed to discover that you are proposing the illogical merge of the infobox for American college football players and the infobox for Canadian professional football players.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:07, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There is precedent for calling a TfD a "request," as well, though I don't really see how this relates to this discussion, specifically. —PC-XT+ 08:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - While I appreciate the sentiment, this proposal betrays a lack of understanding of the sport of American/Canadian football, the differences between American and Canadian professional football, and the differences between college and professional football, as well as the purposes for which these two infobox templates are actually used. Template:Infobox NFL player is used for professional players of American football, and should be the exclusive infobox used for current and retired NFL players.  Template:Infobox college football player is presently used overwhelmingly for currently active American college football players.  The surviving template for this proposed merge, Template:Infobox gridiron football person, is used primarily for professional players of Canadian football (i.e., the CFL), but it has been imperfectly used for other purposes, including some old-time NFL players and recent Arena football players, whose infoboxes should have already been replaced with "Infobox NFL player."  Not understanding what infoboxes are supposed to be used under what circumstances has also led to some editors improperly using "Infobox gridiron football player" for old-time college players.


 * We do not need to merge the infobox for American college football players with the infobox for Canadian professional football players. That is folly.  What is needed is to rework "Infobox college football player" so that it includes specific parameters for current college players (i.e., college year, academic major, university, college team, other sports, bowl games, high school attended, etc.) and former college players (i.e., degree awarded, graduation year, subsequent degree(s), post-college career, etc.) who never played professional football and never became college or professional coaches.  What we need is an "Infobox college football player" that is tailored to the core data points of current college players, but is versatile enough to be used for notable former college football players who never played professional football.  We do not need a one-size-fits-all infobox that merges a template for American college football players with a template for Canadian professional football players.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 23:34, 14 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment WP:WikiProject College Basketball had agreed to migrate from a college specific template to the basketball-generic Template:Infobox basketball biography at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_College_Basketball/Archive_4. It seems logical for something similar to happen for college football.  While the players are student athletes, their notability has little to do with their major. If they do not play professionally, their notability I'd imagine would be with their collegiate playing career, not their non-sporting career. However, unlike basketball which only has the one non-college template, football is complicated by having both Template:Infobox NFL player and Template:Infobox gridiron football person. Not sure if those two can be merged as well, but this is the type of discussion that might be better held outside of TFD and among WikiProjects.—Bagumba (talk) 06:21, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, what is needed is template that works for the hundreds of notable college football players who never played a down of professional football. Combining the infobox for American college football players with the already sub-optimal infobox for Canadian football players is not a particularly good idea.  The college football player infobox needs to be retooled and tailored for its intended purpose, with enough versatility built into it so it can be used for the hundreds of notable college players who never played pro football of any kind.  Most of those notable old-time CFB players were college graduates, never played pro ball, many were All-Americans, and then had significant non-sports careers after college.  Trying to cram them into the poorly designed, graphically primitive "Infobox gridiron football player" is not a good idea.  Trying to create a generic one-size-fits-all solution is not always a good idea.  Sometimes a single-purpose tailored solution is better.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are also professional players who become notable for things besides their career too e.g. Billy Hunter (American football). I think a generic template could conceivably handle this for both former college and former pro players.—Bagumba (talk) 21:57, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * You can still use Infobox college football player for people who never turned pro. Example WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 16:07, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Speaking of Template:Infobox NFL player, the 2012 closed discussion to merge that with Template:Infobox NFL coach to create Template:Infobox NFL biography still remains the oldest item in the TFD Holding cell. Something needs to be done with that issue too. Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:03, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No one has touched the Infobox NFL player merge because the TfD nominator failed to adhere to required TfD procedures by placing notices on either template, and the closing administrator flatly refused to address the procedural concerns after the fact. No one wants to implement the merge because it's a tainted close with no input from the editors who actually use the templates.  That merge should have solicited the input of WP:NFL; instead it was a decision made by a small handful with no working knowledge of the templates involved.  Not TfD's finest moment.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That's not so, as . The most recent discussion I can find is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 11, which certainly does not make a case for ignoring the closure decision of the TfD (which is BTW off-topic here). Your claim that "no one wants to implement the merge" is also false, as can be seen at the earlier discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 10. In fact, it appears that the only person who does not want to do so is you. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but you're ignoring the obvious, Andy: there was no proposed merge notice ever placed on Template:Infobox NFL player (please review the edit history), nor was the original creator of Template:Infobox NFL player notified, nor were the major contributors to the template notified. Care to argue the point further?  Why are you determined to impose a unified template on WP:NFL when the editors of that WikiProject have consciously chosen not to have a unified template?  It's also equally obvious that WP:CFL and WP:NFL do not want to use the same templates.  I'm not sure what you believe the role of TfD is, but I'm pretty sure that it is not to impose uniform templates on editors who don't want uniform templates.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:42, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Your claim was that neither template was tagged; I have demonstrated unequivocally that that was false. It's also the case that the merger proposal was flagged on the project pages; that another editor invited you to relist (reopen) the discussion, but you did not do so; that the uninvolved closing admin noted that subsequent discussion on the project talk page was in favour of merging; that a proposal (now in archive 10) to proceed with the merger was endorsed by every commenter except you; that you failed to respond to questions put to you in the discussion (now in Archive 11) in September 2013; and (as I pointed out above) yours is the only dissenting voice. Like I said, this is off-topic here; please find a more appropriate venue if you wish to discuss this further. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:45, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Andy, I will readily concede the point that the template with 375 transclusions (Infobox NFL coach) was tagged, but I would hope that you would likewise concede the template with over 14,000 transclusions (Infobox NFL player) was not. You also continue to ignore the fact that absolutely ZERO effort was made to notify the template creators, major contributors, or the affected and very active WikiProject, in breach of TfD procedures.  It was and remains a tainted close.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That point was refuted in the discussion cited, where it was noted that the proposal (which would have had nil effect on the articles transcluding Infobox NFL player) was flagged on the project page. There was also subsequent discussion, also cited by me above, where yours was the only dissenting voice. It's time for you to drop the stick. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:57, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment There's also Template:Infobox pro football player. Seem that would be ripest for a merge with Template:Infobox gridiron football person. Jweiss11 (talk) 02:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * JW, virtually all of the 570 present uses of "Infobox pro football player" should be converted to "Infobox NFL player." It appears that most of these 570 players played in both the NFL and AFL (1960-68); when AFL Draft options were added to the "Infobox NFL player" several years ago, the primary reason for the existence of "Infobox pro football player" ceased.  No merge is necessary; present uses should simply be replaced with "Infobox NFL player," but most of the work will have to be done by hand. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:01, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Wow. As an editor of American football, I had no idea there were this many different flavors of football templates. Mentioned above are Template:Infobox gridiron football person, Template:Infobox pro football player, Template:Infobox college football player, Template:Infobox NFL player, Template:Infobox NFL coach, Template:Infobox NFL biography . Any non-football editor would naturally guess that there has to be opportunities for consolidation here. At the same time, it's conceivable that maybe a lot of these are not used in new articles anymore, and any merging would just be creating busy work and opening up a window for merge errors. I have no opinion yet, so any insight from others would help decide on a plan here.—Bagumba (talk) 06:33, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Upon further review, "Infobox NFL biography" is merely a redirect to "Template:Infobox NFL player". Striking from my above comment.—Bagumba (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge, as templates have semantics in parameters, rather than in the name like categories, so if one template is able to handle all parameters in each variation, or can be made to do so relatively easily, it would most likely be better in the long run than having several similar templates. —PC-XT+ 12:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would also support using stuff from the NFL infobox, which may not require it being listed, here. That would basically be forking it to both NFL biography and this template, though. —PC-XT+ 02:19, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * PC-XT, ignoring, of course, that the three primary WikiProjects involved -- those for American professional football, American college football, Canadian professional football -- and the primary users of these templates have consciously chosen to differentiate their player articles graphically and otherwise from each other? Templates are not designed for the convenience of the maintainers of templates or the whims of TfD participants.  They are designed with the purposes of article creators in mind, and to further the commonality in content and graphics among articles that share the same topic areas.  Here, they have chosen to graphically distinguish between Canadian professional, American professional, and American college football players, and TfD participants should respect those choices and not attempt to impose their own personal preferences on the content creators who actually created and maintain these articles.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:56, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have a different perspective. In a nutshell, templates are designed for article creators, Wikipedia readers, and template editors. Wikipedia is here primarily for its readers to get information. While templates exist to provide writers a convenient way to present information, they also serve to ensure a uniform experience for its readers. Otherwise, writers would constantly reinvent the wheel to present the same information in different articles, and readers would get an inconsistent experience. Different templates are not needed, and presentation should not necessarily be drastically divergent, simply because one football league has a  CFL All-Star Game (Canadian) and another calls it a Pro Bowl (American all-star game), or one league has a Canadian College Draft and the other a National Football League draft.  Moreover, templates should also be designed for template editors. Backlog for template editors could be alleviated if normal editors could reuse an existing template for a similar purpose, or a template editor could incrementally expand an existing template as necessary.  Again, think not reinventing the wheel for Football Flavor X and avoiding tribal not invented here mentality. Also, this would prevent future improvements from having to be methodically replicated piecemeal across multiple templates. No need to design job security into templates here, right?—Bagumba (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * WikiProjects sometimes prefer tailored templates that they maintain, themselves. If they come here and say they want them separate, the closing admin will respect their voices. However, as Bagumba points out, merging templates can be beneficial, up to a point. Using wrappers or template modules is sometimes better, especially with Lua module backends. It seems like there is little discussion of the templates, with all of this discussion about why we are having this discussion, so all I can say is that these seem appropriate for merging in some form. I would support merging leaving wrappers, first, so we could deal with project-specific concerns separately, if desired. —PC-XT+ 08:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose What would the merged template look like? Also, since the reason for this proposed merge is not wanting to switch templates when they turn pro, then you should actually be looking to merge with Template:Infobox NFL player. The Template:Infobox gridiron football person is only used for CFL players (and old college players who never played pro, though you can still use infobox:college player for that Example Note:I think the only reason Infobox:NFL players isn't used for college players who never played pro is because of the "debut" parameteers that you cannot remove and if you wanted to list college stats in the infobox it would still say "NFL statistics", you can list CFL and Arena stats in the NFL infobox though) and most college people who turn pro are going to use NFL player. Any college player who is notable enough to have their own article is not going to start their careers in the CFL. You are still going to have to change the infobox to NFL player. If you want to merge something, you might as well merge all of the gridiron football infoboxes into one. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 16:05, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the merge request but it would be hard to fit all of the various gridiron football parameters into one neat infobox. If someone experimented and found an infobox that that would easily fit all of the information, then we could only have one infobox. All of the parameters that would be needed for a merged infobox may confuse editors. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 17:15, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It would look like whatever this discussion decides. All of the issues you describe can be addressed in the template code. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the arguments made above by Dirtlawyer1 and WikiOriginal-9. This appears to be an opportunity for anything but a clean merge.  A clean strategy for how such a merge would be executed, one that maintains all the existing relevant info where needed, needs to be drawn up before we can green light this. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The purpose of this discussion is to do exactly that. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:48, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose Professional Canadian football and college American football have enough differences for a merge to make no sense. Even the templates don't look similar. And no one is complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro. Additionally, players in the CIS football ranks currently use the Template:Infobox gridiron football person as opposed to a college variant like the Americans have. Cmm3 (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That the templates "don't look similar" is another reason we should merge them; there's absolutely no need for infoboxes to vary in visual layout like this. I am complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro; it puts up an unnecessary cognitive burden which is a barer to editing. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:06, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If you were primarily complaining about the need to swap templates once someone goes pro; then, like I said before, you would want to merge NFL player with college football player. Also, it is not a lot of work anyway (here is an example of me changing "college football player" to "NFL player". They are very similar already. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Add that to the fact that the graphics of "Infobox gridiron football person" are horribly primitive. Why would we want to use it?  Graphically, it's hideous and its design is inconsistent -- years and year spans follow honors, awards; years and tenures precede team names.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * We wouldn't; when merging two templates, we use the best design. Another reason why the merge should be carried out. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "We" who, Andy? You?  You're not a template editor, nor are you a regular editor of American or Canadian football articles.  If you were, and you understood the tangential relationships between Canadian pro football and American college football, you would not have proposed this mismatched merge.  The three WikiProjects want their own distinct graphics, Andy, that's why you have never been able to combine the infoboxes for the CFL and NFL players into "Infobox football biography" -- because no one wants it except a handful of regular TfD participants like yourself.  Do you understand that?  The users of these infobox templates consciously designed them to be graphically distinct so that readers could quickly distinguish between CFL, NFL and CFB players.  You seem to be the only one in this discussion who cannot absorb that, or the fact that an attempt to merge the infoboxes for American college football players and Canadian professional football players is a goofy mismatch that only someone who doesn't edit these articles would ever propose.  Get it?  These infoboxes are graphically distinct because that's what the contributing editors want.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:00, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "We" being Wikipedia. And yes, I am a template editor. Any other mud you'd like to throw? Your claim about the reasons why these templates are " graphically distinct" seems to be an invention; do you have any evidence to support it? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:54, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If there was a conscious effort to make the infoboxes distinct, I do think its fair to re-examine the original rationale and make sure that consensus has not changed. In some instances, "not invented here" has been the driving reason, which could result in depriving one subset of articles if another similar template later has useful and applicable improvements that are not replicated across templates.—Bagumba (talk) 18:07, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "We" being you, Andy. If you had done some due diligence on the NFL, CFL and CFB player infobox templates, including the talk page and edit history for Infobox gridiron football person and the other two infoboxes, you would know that WP:NFL editors created Infobox NFL player in 2007, intending to consolidate and replace several pre-existing templates that were then in use, including Infobox gridiron football person.  WP:NFL ceased to use Infobox NFL gridiron football by conscious decision in 2007, but WP:CFL continues to use it and maintain the template to this day.  The same editors who created Infobox NFL player in July 2007 were responsible for the creation of Infobox college football player in December; although their graphics were similar, they were also distinctly different.  For your benefit, here's the timeline:
 * 1. Template:Infobox gridiron football person was created in December 2005, abandoned by WP:NFL in mid-2007, but continues to be maintained and used by WP:CFL for all active and retired CFL players;
 * 2. Template:Infobox NFL player was created in July 2007, and thereafter WP:NFL ceased using Infobox gridiron person for all active and retired NFL players; subsequent to its creation, at least three different other infoboxes were merged and replaced by Infobox NFL player; and
 * 3. Template:Infobox college football player was created in December 2007, and thereafter WP:CFB ceased using Infobox gridiron person for all current college football players.
 * So, yes, Andy, WP:NFL and WP:CFB consciously and deliberately stopped using Infobox gridiron football in 2007. Did you know any of this before you proposed this merge?  Would you like to continue to advocate forcing WP:CFB to use Infobox gridiron football, a template they deliberately and intentionally rejected?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:50, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "We" being Wikipedia. Didn't I already tell you that? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:17, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * So, instead of acknowledging the template history that WP:NFL and WP:CFB consciously and deliberately stopped using Infobox gridiron football person, your only response is a sassy reply? Are you unable to acknowledge the valid points of other editors?  For the record, I will repeat my point above: the infoboxes for American college football players (i.e. Template:Infobox college football), American professional football players (i.e. Template:Infobox NFL player), and Canadian professional football players (i.e. Infobox gridiron football person) are graphically and visually different because they were designed to be distinct one from another.  It's not an accident, but differentiation by design.  And there's nothing wring with that.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:24, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The template history is irrelevant. Your claim about the reasons why these templates are " graphically distinct" seems to be an invention; you have offered no evidence to support it. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Andy, like so much of what you write above and below, you obviously lack a fundamental understanding of the basic facts and history, and you're either dismissing valid points or you lack the reading comprehension to absorb what is being said. I'm not going to re-read the history of these templates for your benefit; you should have done that BEFORE you submitted this merge TfD.  You have demanded the illogical merge of two templates for subjects that are tangentially related, but distinctly different, obviously without any basic understanding of the distinctions between these subjects.  You were obviously unaware and are now dismissive of the edit history and the fact that Infobox college football player was created two years after Infobox gridiron football person, and WP:CFB stopped using the older template when the newer one was created.  All of this is extremely relevant, and everyone else who is reading this understands that -- even if you don't understand, or as seems more likely, you simply refuse to acknowledge its relevance.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * @Andy Mabbett, @Dirtlawyer1: I think you both mean well. May I suggest we divert and concentrate on the infobox requirements of each project as they stand today, and determine what (if any) changes or new templates are needed to address those present day requirements.—Bagumba (talk) 23:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It's a concern, but it's not the primary one. And if the templates are so similar, that again points to the redundancy of having more than one of them. (Your link isn't a diff, BTW.) Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:04, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Most American college football players who go on to a professional football career, play in the NFL, not the CFL. To the extent "Infobox college football player" and "Infobox NFL player" share common data (e.g., name, weight, height, birth date, birth place, number, position, college, highlights, etc.), the field names should be standardized to facilitate easy conversion.  That does not require a merge of "Infobox NFL player" and "Infobox college football player," and certainly does not argue for a merge of the standard infobox for American college football players and the standard infobox for Canadian professional football players.  Only someone who does not edit American/Canadian football articles could argue in favor of the latter.  That idea is goofy.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Convenience break 1

 * Oppose for now On paper there seems to be commonality, but the devil is in the details. Judging by the opposes above, a successful merge proposal will need a comprehensive analysis that accounts for all the related templates: Template:Infobox gridiron football person, Template:Infobox pro football player, Template:Infobox college football player, Template:Infobox NFL player, Template:Infobox NFL coach, Template:Infobox NFL biography . They probably didn't all need to be created, but they were, and editors are justifiably concerned about how a merged infobox will both look to a reader, and whether it is intuitive and usable for editors. Also, the proposal should seek input from the affected WikiProjects: WikiProject National Football League, WikiProject Canadian football, WikiProject American football, WikiProject College football, and WikiProject Arena Football League. This will require collaboration from both a skilled template editor and a knowledgeable football editor(s). The fact that the target template in the nomination is incorrect is a likely indicator this has not happened. The scope of this seems too large to continue discussing in a TfD.—Bagumba (talk) 04:33, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * "the target template in the nomination is incorrect" How do you feel it is "incorrect"? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:53, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think Bagumba's referring to where I brought up that merging NFL player and college football player would be more appropriate concerning not having to change the infobox when they turn pro. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 15:06, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Correct observation by WikiOriginal-9. I had also raised the concern of Template:Infobox NFL player as a target in my comment above at 06:21, 15 December 2014. Andy: I have no doubt your intentions are sincere. I would just recommend getting more support from project stakeholders before the next TfD.  All the best.—Bagumba (talk) 16:42, 17 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Just for clarification, I don't think Template:Infobox pro football player has any value, it is only on old articles, no one uses it anymore. Also, you could throw Template:Infobox college coach into the discussion as well. It is used on other sports but is another infobox that is used on gridiron people. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If there is consensus on these points, tagging the respective templates with Template:Deprecated template would help manage the situation. Unknowing editors would not be tempted to use it, and it would be a candidate for a future merge, or for an editor or bot to replace with a more preferable template. In any event, these templates need to be accounted for in any comprehensive merge proposal of Template:Infobox college football player.—Bagumba (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, as discussed above, I have place a "deprecated template" notice on "Template:Infobox pro football player"; it should be replaced in all instances with "Infobox NFL player." Because of differences between the two templates, it is probably going to have to be replaced manually.  Once this TfD is concluded, I will see if I can recruit some volunteers from WP:NFL and WP:CFB to help.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:46, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Yikes, it gets even messier if you throw Template:Infobox college coach into the mix because then you draw in bio articles for people who were entirely or primarily involved in an array of sports other than gridiron football.  I think the first step in sorting through all of this is to eliminate Template:Infobox pro football player. Jweiss11 (talk) 06:23, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've explained this in some detail on Bagumba's talk page: "Infobox college coach" is the uniform infobox for all American college coaches, including American football, baseball, basketball, field hockey, golf, lacrosse, swimming, track, volleyball, and all others. Any proposal to merge it -- with football player infoboxes or anything else -- is based on a misunderstanding of its purpose and its uniform implementation on over 6500 articles across all American college sports.  These are the sort of basics that should be understood before initiating a TfD.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:31, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * It might be more of a "lack of awareness" than a "misunderstanding" of "its purpose and its uniform implementation on over 6500 articles across all American college sports." We have to appreciate that there might be a similar desire to have all bios related to a particular sport be uniform as well. However, both requirements would need to resolve that some have coached multiple sports, or some may have coached at both the collegiate and professional level.—Bagumba (talk) 17:56, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Upon further review, "Infobox NFL biography" is merely a redirect to "Template:Infobox NFL player". Striking from my above comment.—Bagumba (talk) 21:48, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Bagumba, the obvious opportunities for consolidation are the following:
 * 1. Complete the "merge" of Infobox NFL coach into Infobox NFL player on terms acceptable to WP:NFL.  This is really not so much a "merge" as a replacement of Infobox NFL coach with Infobox player, with some minor tweaks to the surviving template.  This can be handled by WP:NFL editors, just as past merges involving Infobox NFL player have.
 * 2. Complete the replacement of Infobox pro football player with Infobox NFL player.  This should have been completed several years ago, but for reasons unknown 550+ uses of Infobox pro football player still remain.  This will require careful manual editing to preserve the accuracy of pre-existing infobox data.
 * 3. Careful review of the current uses of Infobox gridiron football person: my initial survey reveals that perhaps as many as half of the current uses should be replaced with Infobox NFL player because the article subjects are "pure" NFL personnel -- players, coaches, owners, administrators who never played, coached or worked in any league other than the NFL.
 * Following completion of those tasks, WP:CFB, WP:NFL and WP:CFL should be permitted the latitude to maintain their own visually distinctive player infoboxes. There is no real reason to attempt a further consolidation of these templates -- within reason, their design should remain subject to the consensus of these three very active WikiProjects who are the actual users of the templates and their primary "stakeholders" (to borrow your phrase).  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:37, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I would support 1, 2, and 3. The customized variation could be allowed during the merge, with wrappers or template modules. If we wanted to make a Lua module, instead, the templates could simply be merged into lua, with few changes to actual transclusions. —PC-XT+ 08:03, 20 December 2014 (UTC) 08:07, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Here is a conversion from pro football player to NFL player. The only difference is that the NFL draft is listed first and it says NFL statistics instead of just Statistics. There are also three TSN All-AFL listings on the second row instead of two. I also added like 7× before the awards. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 15:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I've included a before and after look below for those interested.—Bagumba (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox pro football player

Template:Infobox NFL player


 * Chad Johnson is a current CFL player who was a former NFL player. Below is a comparison of the use of "Infobox NFL player" as it appeared in his article on 17 April 2014 compared to the current use of "Infobox gridiron football person" (redirected Template:Infobox CFL player). They are mostly similiar aside from a field "CFL status" listing the American player as "International" in the Canadian league.—Bagumba (talk) 23:42, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox NFL player

Template:Infobox gridiron football person


 * Support merge to college football player: "football person" has got to be the most ridiculous name for an infobox.  One infobox for college and one for NFL would work fine and cover most bases. If there is a need to rename to add "gridiron" to the new title, no reason not to.  Frankly, I see no reason not to also combine USA and Canada - gridiron football is gridiron football.  We don't need a bunch of bBalkanized infoboxes. And really, where we have one editor who has commented almost 20 times and has insulted the nominator in the process, that alone suggests that the idea proposed happens to be an excellent one that is well worth doing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Montanabw (talk • contribs) 00:09, 19 December 2014‎ (UTC)
 * Uh, Montanabw, with all due respect, you got that exactly backwards. Andy Mabbett's proposal is to merge the infobox for American college football (i.e. Template:Infobox college football) into the infobox for Canadian professional football (i.e. Template:Infobox gridiron football person), not the other way around.  As I took pains to point out above, WikiProject College Football specifically rejected Infobox gridiron football person and created their own infobox for college football players in December 2007, after WikiProject National Football League did the same thing in July 2007.  The sports of Canadian football and American football are similar, but different, and American professional football and American college football are two different levels of the same sport with entirely different players, coaches and fanbases.  It's not nearly as simple as your comment suggests, and we are dealing with thousands of examples of each template.  There is no Wikipedia policy or guideline that suggests why these distinctly different versions of the sport should not have visually distinctive infoboxes for their athletes.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:01, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The proposal is "merge with", not "merge into"; the resultant template would need a new name, the existing names remaining as redirects. The number of instances of each template is yet another red herring. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:40, 20 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment Jadeveon Clowney is a current NFL player who was in college until he was drafted earlier this year. Below is a comparison of the use of "Infobox college football player" as it appeared in his article on 9 May 2014 compared to the current use of "Infobox NFL player". The college template provides a means to display his college major and class.—Bagumba (talk) 00:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I will also note that college player lists his college years in the career history. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 00:09, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That encoding is done editors e.g. " pastschools=*University of South Carolina (2011–2013) ". No additional template functionality was needed for that.—Bagumba (talk) 00:17, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Two comments regarding the examples shown: (1) there are two separate fields for university (e.g. University of South Carolina) and college football team history (e.g. South Carolina Gamecocks); and (2) there is also a separate field for bowl games that is not invoked in this example. There are other differences, as noted, that include class year, academic major, and those are pertinent data points for a college player.
 * Finally, I will bang the drum one more time: there is no Wikipedia policy or guideline that requires that related, but distinguishable subjects use the same infobox. As I took pains to demonstrate above, WP:NFL and WP:CFB consciously and deliberately chose to stop using Infobox gridiron football person in 2007, and created visually distinctive infoboxes for American professional football player and American college football players.  The idea that a handful of TfD participants could impose upon WP:NFL, WP:CFB and WP:CFL to use a single consolidated infobox that they intentionally rejected is obnoxious beyond comprehension.  When the various basketball projects adopted a uniform infobox, they did so by consensus, not at metaphorical gunpoint.  And for basketball, it kinda sorta made sense: basketball has become an international sport, with American athletes and others playing all over the world.  Football (as distinct from association football/soccer) is a North American phenomenon, and it is not widely played anywhere else (yes, there are amateur and semi-pro leagues in Britain, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, but they have a minuscule fanbase).  Moreover, American professional football, American college football, and Canadian professional football are distinct one from the other.  Given the thousands of athlete bios involved, there is ZERO reason why these related sports should not have three visually distinctive infboxes, as was intended by their creators.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:43, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Template:Infobox college football player

Template:Infobox NFL player


 * Not that it matters but just for the record there is also Template:Infobox Arena Football player, no one ever really used it though and it is not used on any articles. All Arena/indoor players use NFL player now. The history shows it being moved from other incarnations like, Arena football player (active), etc. There were also called AFLretired and NFL retired, but had no purpose. See also: List of infoboxes/Person WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 00:31, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That is not historically accurate, WO-9. The separate infoboxes for retired NFL and AFL players were once widely used, but were merged into/replaced by Infobox NFL player.  I know; I personally replaced several hundred of them when the decision was made that all  active and retired NFL and AFL players could be rolled into the same infobox, as its creators intended in 2007.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:58, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I guess I meant they had no purpose once NFL player was made. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 01:06, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Convenience break 2

 * Comment on refactoring attempt I am formally objecting to attempts to WP:REFACTOR this discussion. For reference, here was the version before I reverted the refactoring attempt. In my opinion, the "other templates" threads that were collapsed are pertinent to this discussion, as it illustrates the relationship of all the football templates, and discusses the deficiency in the original proposal of limiting the discussion to two templates. I realize this TfD is regretably large and unwieldy, but it illustrates the need to continue this discussion outside of a TfD where all dependencies can be thoroughly analyzed among all WikiProjects to formulate the most optimal plan moving forward. Unfortunately, it is this complicated.—Bagumba (talk) 11:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I have re-collapsed the sections, at least for now. This is a proposal to merge two templates. Lengthy discussion of other templates hinders that discussion, making it hard to find relevant comments. Such discussion, especially those in which the nominated templates are not discussed, needs to be clearly delineated. I have tried two different methods of doing so; if you have a better way to do this, please suggest it on the talk page. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:33, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * @Andy Mabbett: I have no desire to get into a edit war with you over your recent revert to restore your preferred refactoring. Please note that per WP:REFACTOR, "If another editor objects to refactoring then the changes should be reverted." I kindly ask you to self-revert, discuss your concerns, and leave it to another party if they see fit to refactor as you prefer. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 11:42, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Procedural oppose per Dirtlawyer1. As noted above, Template:Infobox gridiron football person is a terrible navbox, so any attempt to merge anything into that mess should be shot down on sight. As far as the idea of creating one master navbox for all gridiron football players, with options that could be turned on/off for college football players, NFL players, CFL players, AFL players, etc., I think it's certainly an intriguing idea, but I would have to see mock-ups and examples of exactly how it would work presented before I would feel comfortable expressing an opinion one way or the other on that. Ejgreen77 (talk) 15:33, 20 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose Too often a utility can try to do all things and then ends up doing nothing because it's too clumsy to understand. I think that's the case here at this time.--Paul McDonald (talk) 17:09, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:MissGrandInternationalCountries

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete per nom Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * MissGrandInternationalCountries

Reason#3: The template is not used and has no likelihood of being used. Miss Grand International 2014 has been deleted multiple times and is now salted. Geniac (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete as unused. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:18, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete as unused per nom —PC-XT+ 03:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator....William 02:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.