Template talk:Infobox NFL biography/Archive 3

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currentposition, currentpositionplain, and position

we currently have three different ways to specify the position, which is perfectly fine, but the issue is that all three could be used at the same time, which is not what is intended. I propose to make this change, which will merge the three fields making it only possible to use one of the three at a time. I would also add a tracking category to find any articles using more than one at a time, and fix those articles. let me know if there are any objections. thank you. Frietjes (talk) 16:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Makes sense. I had always wondered why those were split into three different lines. Thanks! Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 01:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

okay, I made the change. tracking with Category:NFL player with multiple defined positions. Frietjes (talk) 19:08, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Gentlemen, please consult with the WP:NFL editors who actually use this template on a regular basis before making any further changes. While it may make sense to combine all three "position" parameters, like everything else involving this template, it has complications because it is so damn complex and there are numerous implications for the display of data already entered into the template used in actual article space. The "currentposition" parameter is a dynamic field that automatically links to Wikipedia articles regarding the position entered without having to use the double "[" bracket coding. This, however, was problematic because the dynamic field cannot automatically account for the entry of either players who play multiple positions, nor for linked position articles that include a disambiguation parenthetical (e.g., "Safety (American and Canadian football position)"). This led to the inclusion of "currentpositionplain," which is not a dynamic field, and permits the entry of piped links and multiple positions. The parameter "position," as best I can tell performs exactly the same function as "currentpositionplain" and has the relative merit of using 12 fewer characters in an infobox template that is already is too large.

Yes, these fields should be combined, but doing so without advanced planning will only screw up the current display of numerous current uses of the infobox on either hundreds or several thousand pages. If you eliminate the dynamic field parameter, you will be delinking literally thousands of position articles. If you eliminate the currentpositionplain and position parameters, you will be screwing up the piped-linked article text or multiple linked positions included in that field. In order to combine these fields. the logical thing to do is to eliminate the dynamic parameter "currentposition," and combine the three fields into a single "position" parameter. Doing that, however, will require someone to manually edit most of the nearly 11,000 articles that current transclude this template in order to restore the position links.

So, yes, these three fields should be combined in principle, but hopefully you now understand why no one has been in any rush to do so given the manual editing clean-up work that will be required. Curing this template's problems, and potentially merging new coaching parameters into it, are going to require a working knowledge of how the template is actually being used, rather than simply the technical coding knowledge to alter it. Like everything else involving this template, I suggest you obtain a consensus among the people who actually use it and input data into it on a regular basis at WP:NFL. There is absolute zero need to do a hurry-up, slap-dash editing job on this template that creates work for other editors without getting them to buy into your proposed changes in advance. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:36, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

FYI, Frietjes, virtually all of the handful of instances where two of these three fields are used on the same template involve an editor re-tasking on of the fields to include a current coaching position. This is yet another of numerous issues to be worked out in advance of any proposed merge of the coach infobox and player infobox. These fields were never intended to be used that way, but some clever editor found a quirk in the coding that permitted the display of both a player position and a coaching title using this method. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I also just did a quick count for articles that are linked to one of the American football position articles whose titles include a disambiguation parenthetical and whose use in the template requires the use of either the plain-text parameters ("position" or "currentpositionplain") or additional manual coding to create a piped link in the dynamic parameter ("currentposition"). There are ten of these football position articles whose title includes a disambiguation parenthetical, and these position articles are linked to over 3,000 other articles. Of course, not all of the linked articles are player bio articles that use Infobox NFL player, but at least half or more appear to be.

Short of manually reviewing all of the nearly 11,000 articles that currently transclude Infobox NFL player, there is no way of determining an approximate number that have two or more positions entered in the same template field. My personal experience, however, leads me to believe that it is a much smaller minority. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Category:NFL player with multiple defined positions has been clear for quite some time now (over three months). I even recently tweaked it to make it even more aggressive in searching for multiple blank position parameters. so, it's now the case that this change will have zero impact on current transclusions. we can now safely make the change and update the documentation to indicate that only one of these three parameters should be used at a time. I would also support deprecating all but |position=, since |currentposition= is problematic due to automatic linking (e.g., links to redirects and dab pages). Frietjes (talk) 17:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

College naming convention

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Football_League#College_names_in_athletes.27_infoboxes. —Bagumba (talk) 17:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Short term contract for the purpose of retirement?

Sometimes a player at the end of his career will sign a one-day or short-term contract with a former team and then quickly retire, so that he can say he retired as a member of his favorite team. For example, Scott Fujita just did this with the Saints; Joe Horn did the same thing with the Saints in 2010. So now we have some back-and-forth editing over whether that last one-day Saints contract should show up in the infobox.[1][2] I'd assume that such a contract, made with no intention that the player actually play, should not be included in the infobox (although it should be mentioned in the part of the text that discusses the player's retirement). But I didn't find anything so stating in the documentation for this template. Is there some statement to this effect, or, if not, am I correctly stating the consensus?--Arxiloxos (talk) 16:39, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Arxiloxos, you would be correct in assuming that. By past majority practice and a loose-knit consensus, most regular WP:NFL editors have deleted such one-day "honorary" retirement contracts from the infobox primarily because it inaccurately represents the final season of the player's career, when in fact the player did not play a down in a preseason or regular season game during the tenure of such contracts. To my knowledge, however, there has never been a formal determination of such consensus, but I would welcome comments from other regular CFB and NFL editors so that we could formalize such understanding in writing and make it official WP:NFL policy with an appropriate notation on the instructions for Template:Infobox NFL player. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:54, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Debut/final team (again)

Since every NFL team on Wikipedia is separate articles for each season, could we replace Debuted in {{{debutyear}}} for the [[{{{debutteam}}}]] with Debuted in {{{debutyear}}} for the [[{{{debutyear}}} {{{debutteam}}} season|{{{debutteam}}}]] please? --bender235 (talk) 11:32, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

sure, or could add a "#ifexist" and have old version the fallback. Frietjes (talk) 15:35, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Request

Can somebody please remove the internal links to teams in the "Debuted in" and "Last played in" sections? It's overlinking since there is already links in the "Career history" section.--Yankees10 21:12, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

All links to external sites should go off template

I think all links to external sites should go off template to the external links section. What do you think about it? Frietjes? Andy? -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:24, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see a problem with such links in the infobox; but current guidelines says we should only link to the subject's official website; the rest should be in the 'External links" section Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:31, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

I think everything is covered by WP:ELMINOFFICIAL. The links should be moved to the external links section. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:37, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

except, of course, when these links are being used as citations/sources for the data in the infobox (e.g., the example seen on this page). Frietjes (talk) 15:02, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Offseason and/or practice squad member only

This whole "Offseason and/or practice squad member only" section needs to be removed from the infoboxes. If we don't have this for NHL, MLB, MLS or NBA boxes, then why should NFL be any different. Sure Jerry Rice was signed by the Broncos, but if you look at the all-time roster, Rice is not there because he never played an official game, only a few preseason games, or Zach Thomas who was signed by the Chiefs but he never even played a preseason game, so why should this be in the infobox if he never played for them. Examples of this is Jose Canseco, he played some spring training games with the Expos in 2002 and then Dodgers in 2004, but those teams are not in his infobox because he never played a regular season game with either team, or Keith Gretzky who played a few preseason games with the Sabres but never played an official game, or Steve Francis who was briefly a member of the Blazers before getting released, and why are those teams not in their infobox? Because they never officially played with those teams. So why are the NFL infoboxes different?Beast from da East (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

They NFL infobox is different because it's a better way. It creates a timeline that instantly gives you a much better sense of how this guy's career went than if that info was not present.

What if a guy played for a team in 2002, then spent 2003 to 2006 on practice squads or offseason rosters only but never played, then played for a team finally in 2007. In the infobox it would have Team 1 (2002) and then Team 2 (2007) below it. If you saw that in an infobox, you'd have no idea if that guy was selling insurance for a living during that time or if he was actually under contract with many pro teams and just didn't make the cut for whatever reason.

The simple fact is that it does zero harm to an article, but it can certainly be argued that it does quite a bit of good.►Chris Nelson^Holla! 01:47, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

What if a guy plays for a team for several years then gets cut the following training camp. For example, David Carr played for the Giants from 2011-12 and was cut in the 2013 pre season. Should his stat box say 2011-2012;2013*?--Elijahadmire (talk) 03:50, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Long Term Free Agency

I have noticed that some players who haven't played in years but is still listed as a free agent, but there is no report of them retiring. So what is the fine line between free agent and retired if there is nothing indicating if they have not "officially" retired?--Elijahadmire (talk) 03:55, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

• Elijah, there's no firm rule, but I usually give it one full season without the "free agent" having been a member of any team, on a preseason, practice or active roster, and then I close out the free agent aspects of the infobox and lead paragraph. Very, very few players come back from more than 12 months out of the game. Waiting a year, I think you're about 99% safe making the changes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:19, 21 July 2014 (UTC)