Template talk:2016–17 in English men's football

Rename ?

I find the title is misleading, as there are no Women's leagues in the list, so should the name change to 2016-17 in English men's Football to match the Template:2016–17 in English women's football or the display name could be amended as in Football in England being displayed as Men's football in England ? Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 12:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to merge them? I wasn't aware there was a separate women's one. Number 57 12:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It sounds to me like they should be merged. If you look at the category, Category:Years in English football navigational boxes, they were in the same template until 2014–15 season. Not sure why they were split then. Qed237 (talk) 13:04, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

You can look at Template:Rugby union in England to see the effect of a merger. It is certainly an alternative possibility. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 13:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

A merger wouldn't be great - very cluttered. If necessary, rename this on as the men's. There is also a separate women's template here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2017–18_in_English_women%27s_football Kivo (talk) 13:11, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

We should be able to declutter this one to make room – for instance removing all the links to individual divisions for the non-League leagues – this would remove far more than adding the women's leagues would add. Number 57 14:17, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

If you want to remove the non leagues, then create a new template just for the non leagues. Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 14:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't want to remove them, I want to remove the link to the individual divisions of the leagues, which are cluttering IMO. Number 57 14:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I remember removing the individual divisions like you suggested but someone reverted it as they said it was useful to them. I will have a go at creating a merged template later but I think it will be too cluttered - I think maintaining separate templates for men's and women's is the way to go Kivo (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Kivo: See below, I've already had a go. Number 57 17:47, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Ânes-pur-sàng, Qed237, and Kivo: I've done a proposed merger (permalink here in case it's reverted). It's 1–2 lines of text longer, but I don't think it's too cluttered compared with the existing one. Perhaps worth noting I didn't copy across the two women's club seasons as I don't think they pass WP:NSEASONS. Number 57 14:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't look TOO bad, though a few things stand out -

1. National team info for women needs moving across too
2. If the links to individual divisions are to be removed, shouldn't the EFL divisions be too?
3. Youth competitions needs to be referred to as men's (though I'm not sure season articles for youth competitions are notable anyway - that's a matter of a different day though)

I've tinkered it to my , which again leaves out individual division links (though I can see why some would want them to remain), and has main groups for men's and women's info. I still think we should have separate templates for men's and women's, with the men's being named as such - but then you still have the men's club seasons at the bottom. Obviously consensus needs to be reached. Kivo (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

First of all, I'd like to point out that I was the one who added the links back in to the individual divisions. They were initially in the template, in the same way as previous seasons, but were then removed. From experience of using these templates over the years, I must say that it is a complete pain to sift through the league links. It is a far nicer experience to use the division links. This is because while clubs may be under the umbrella of the same league, in reality a club in the Southern Football League Premier Division has nothing to do with a club in the Southern Football League Division One South and West. Trust me, it is annoying to go back to a different article after finishing looking at one division, only to try and find the next division on the same page. Navigational templates are supposed to make navigation easier. It's fine to only have league links if people are only interested in the leagues, but who said that that was the case? There needs to be the division links for people interested in navigating the divisions.

Obviously there are one or two editors who feel the other way to me about this. I can only hope to convince them about it. I don't know how often they use the template to navigate through the competitions, but I do use it, and I hope that I've made my feelings clear.

I would just point out that there are links to the individual English Football League divisions in the updated template. Obviously there are individual articles for those divisions, but it does rather fly in the face of the idea that the overarching leagues are more important for navigational purposes than the individual divisions.

The main argument for removing the division links is to remove clutter. While I of course do not want the template to be cluttered, I do think that the navigational properties of the template need to trump the desire for it not to be cluttered. In my opinion, on first glance, the updated template looks just as cluttered as the previous version.

Maybe we can reach some sort of compromise? I'm open to different ideas. How about we restore the individual division links, but remove the whole 'Levels 9–10' section? The truth is that the football pyramid extends far beyond the tenth tier, so who decides that we should have the cut-off point for this template at that point? To me, it would seem to be a much more natural level to have the cut-off point above those two tiers. Besides, with the new updates, it seems peculiar that the men's football section should go so much further down the tiers than the women's football template.

This brings me on to the second point that I'd like to make, and it relates to the naming of the template, and in particular, what it means about men and women. Hopefully on this point I will appear more informative than adversarial.

Basically, what seems to be the case is that on Wikipedia the term 'football' refers to men's football, and the term 'women's football' refers to women's football.

I don't like this at all, and I wish that it would be changed.

However, the consensus seems to be that that should be the case for football, as well as other sports. For example, Wikipedia has the article 'England cricket team' and the article 'England women's cricket team'. There will only be a case allowed for renaming the men's articles if the media start referring to the men's team as a men's team, such as the 'England men's national hockey team' or the 'United States men's national soccer team'.

I did have a bit of a discussion about this on the talk page for 'List of England international footballers' which unfortunately did not lead to anything.

I suppose that the argument is that it makes sense for it to be the way that it is in order to match the names of the competitions run by the sporting institutions, such as the 'FA Cup' and the 'FA Women's Cup'.

Anyway, I need to get back to how all this relates to this template. In essence, because this template relates to 'football', it may be reasoned that it should relate to men's football. RedvBlue 18:05, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Just noticed that there are separate men's and women's seasons templates covering European football -

1. Men's - Template:2016–17 in European football (UEFA)
2. Women's - Template:2016–17 in European women's football (UEFA)

I have reverted the changes to the English season templates so we can keep two separate templates in line with the ones covering the continent. Kivo (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Wouldn't it make sense to also merge the continental ones (which are much smaller than this) rather than demerge here? I would say it's better for the reader not to keep men's and women's football in separate silos, as we do at present. Number 57 14:12, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I personally would rather see separate templates/articles etc... but that's my personal preference. Kivo (talk) 19:20, 7 April 2017 (UTC)