Template talk:Infobox WRC driver

Too many compulsory parameters?

I'm in the middle of creating a page for a former British Rally championship winning driver and wanted to use the WRC infobox. However, I notice a couple of wee problems. First, shouldn't it be at {{Infobox WRC driver}} instead of just {{WRC driver}}. Second, do we really need the parameters Championships, Wins, Podium finishes, Stage wins, and Points to be forced to appear? Lots of drivers only competed sporadically, or in their home events, and so never really competed in championships (the guy I'm doing was in 30 WRC events over his 20 year career). Similarly, if they were only competing in 1-2 WRC races per year they were never accumulating many career points. This might work for the regulars like Loeb, Sainz, etc, but lower down the order I think it's not so effective. How would others feel about having these fields not appear if left blank? --DeLarge 16:13, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at improving and expanding this template considerably as part of a motorsport infobox improvement drive. Partly, I want to address the recent merger proposal (which is over zealous). I will probably open a new discussion at WT:MOTOR shortly, and I would appreciate input from editors such as yourself with regard to what fields you would like to see and how they should be configured. Adrian M. H. 11:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Addition of parameter

In the case of Colin McRae we have the situation where people are edit warring over the issue of his nationality. There seem to be the following arguements 1) he associated himself with Scotland therefore he should be scottish 2) the FIA can't define nationality 3) Scotland isn't a country therefore he was British 4) He represented Britain.

To resolve this I suggest using two paramaters, one for the country they represent (which would remain as now, for backwards compatability, but possibly with the label renamed to stop arguments), and a new one for the country/region they are from. This would hopefully be a compromise which would solve all those problems. John Hayes^talk 09:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

How do you define "the country/region they are from"? Where they were born? Where they live now? Where they lived most of their life? The359 10:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a very good question, to a large extent this situation will never occur, and in this case it is pretty obvious. I just don't see how else to provide a solution which is acceptable to both sides. John Hayes^talk 10:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Can we do your proposal for Belgium's two halves as well? And Spain's regions? And Germany's regions? What about the USA's states? And Australia's states? And Brazil's states? Bohemia and Moravia? Can we add a European flag to Bertrand Gachot? You see where I'm getting at? Why does the UK need to get a special dispensation? --Pc13 11:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not really about the UK, but about anywhere were a driver associates with one country, but drives for another. My personal belief is that Scotland is not a country, and therefore the whole discussion is pointless, but that's my POV, and the consensus seems to have decided that it is, and Nationality seems to suggest nationality is not all about citizenship. How else do you suggest this sort of case is handled. In your examples I can't think of a driver who associates with say Wallonia, Bavaria, Basque country etc, but if they did it may apply to them too. John Hayes^talk 12:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not see how it is POV. The consensus on WP:MOTOR was that nationality is based on a driver's racing license. Since Scotland does not issue racing licenses, a driver can only be lised as from the United Kingdom. This is hardly a POV. The Colin McRae article clearly states in the text that the driver is from Scotland, which is true. This is no different from stating that someone is from Pennsylvania. However the WRC infobox is also true in stating his nationality as British, since that is the country he represents in motorsport.

I should also point out that the United Nations does not list Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland as seperate countries, nor the European Union. The359 20:55, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Fine. no change then. John Hayes^talk 22:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There are quite a few of us who agree with your point of view, John. We tried, but failed, to get a style guideline accepted. Had it gone through, it would or might have helped to reduce these disputes and revert wars, but it was crushed under a weight of nationalistic fervour and bad faith. Pity. Having two fields is far from ideal; it may help editors, but it will be bad for the readers of Wikipedia. Adrian M. H. 12:49, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

(deindent) Why don't you list BOTH flags? You could do this for U.S. states and other situations where multiple flags could be applicable. You could use 3 flags if they are part of the E.U. Royalbroil 13:42, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, I'm not sure about that. Flagcruft, anyone? There is currently a discussion about this at Use of flags in articles. I like to see a flag included, not for any patriotic reasons (I'm apathetic about that) but for illustrative and decorative advantages. However, a number of editors want to see their use reduced or even cut out completely (except for geographical articles). Adrian M. H. 14:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, and for pointing out the discussion. It's about time that this problem gets addressed. Sometimes having 2 flags is better than edit warring over one, but I like no flag best. Royalbroil 15:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Another suggestion for nationality

I have had another idea which might solve the Colin McRae issue. This problem seems to be rooted in the discussion of whether this template only represents the driver, or the person as a whole. While it should probably only be the driver, to the reader it is more likely to be seen as their life as a whole, hence the large amount of people wanting to change his Nationality parameter to Scottish. To solve this, it needs to be made clear to the reader that it refers to their represented nationality when racing, not their actual background. Hence I would suggest changing the text (not the variable itself) to "Represented Nationality", or just "Represented". John Hayes^talk 16:40, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

That might provide a solution, apart from those who will insist that McRae or whoever represents Scotland, Wales or Transnistria. However, it would be a very big change because we can't really do that to just one or two templates when there will be many other sports (and other bio) templates that do it differently. Put that in front of the wider community and most editors will ask "why do it differently? It looks odd" and I know from experience that proposing changes like this one, even if it is an improvement, is often not well received. So you either end up with inconsistency or you end up not making any change. If you could get consensus to support this for sports infoboxes in general, and evidence that it would have the desired effect, then it would be worth pursuing. Adrian M. H. 21:47, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Dates

This template contains a lot of data which can get stale very quickly. Note e.g. Henning Solberg, which hasn't been updated in some months but he's been active in rallying in that time (and secured a podium in Japan I believe). Either somebody needs to take responsibility for keeping the data up to date for all WRC drivers, or a "Last updated" field needs to be added. --kingboyk 10:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more about the need to update records. I think that editors have some responsibility to check and update any articles in which they have a vested interest (created or substantially rewritten, for example). The "last updated" field quite often gets missed by editors, but at least it serves to show that the data may be out of date. Adrian M. H. 12:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

New infobox

I think WRC drivers need a new infobox, so I made one to Template:Infobox WRC driver/sandbox. What do you think? Pelmeen10 (talk) 22:29, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Some of the fields you added were discussed a bit here. I still don't like the idea of lengthening the infobox with the non-WRC information that is easily visible to the reader from the article's first sentence. The number of fields is just too high now and it makes the infobox look very bloated. Less can be more, as noted on WP:IBX. This will also leave more room for other content such as images. "Nickname" seems unnecessary and a bit unencyclopedic. Of the new WRC-related fields, "current team" works well in the F1 infobox but drivers' participation in the WRC is much more sporadic, so a similar separate field may not work well here. "Co-driver" is a bit problematic because listing the current co-driver does not summarize a driver's WRC career and listing all the notable ones would be too much. I think the new look is an improvement, and this template is now stylistically in line with the F1 infobox again. The exception to this is the width, which is no longer consistent with the F1 and Le Mans boxes (see Sébastien Loeb and Kimi Räikkönen). Prolog (talk) 04:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with some of your points. Nickname and residence are pointless. Current team is not too useful. But I think birth date (age) is useful. Anyway, I point out that all parameters are optional, so in some cases they can be left empty. But those who only compete in WRC, it doesn't really matter if the infobox is a bit longer. The "teams" parameter wants rallyteam, not the car, right, cuz in some places there's car? Actually I'd like to see the co-driver thing (do you know some driver who has had rally many co-drivers). But "medaltemplates" and "updated" are necessary, right? I think all this kind of infoboxes should have "updated" field. Should I remove "fullname"? Pelmeen10 (talk) 20:52, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Birth date has been added to the F1 box, so I guess it's fine here as well. Place of birth is a bit redundant with nationality already mentioned, or the other way around, except in rare cases. Place of death seems trivial to me. While it definitely should be in the article, I don't see the importance of having it in the infobox. Full name starts the biography in bolded letters, and we already have first and last names on top of the box, so I don't see the need to have that one either. The idea with the "teams" field is to list all the notable teams in chronological order. Cars indeed don't belong there. About the co-driver field: For example, Petter Solberg's best-known co-driver is Phil Mills, but his current one is Chris Patterson. I just think it would be odd to list Patterson since all of Solberg's wins and almost all podiums are from the period of long partnership with Mills. But you are right that the parameters are optional. Or did you mean you would like to see all notable co-drivers mentioned? I'd definitely oppose that as drivers used to change their co-drivers more often than their socks back in the old days. "Updated" field is worth a try. The stats are chronically out-of-date and anons often do partial updates or update from our wrong figures instead of up-to-date ones on juwra.com. We could add it and see how it works on a few articles. I'm not sure what you intend the medal record to be like. Driver's top-three final placings overall and/or in the support categories? Prolog (talk) 09:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Medal record (medal templates) is for championship gold, silver and bronze (rally drivers get silver and bronze, right?). For example Loeb would have 7 gold. I'm not sure if we need them (only if silver and bronze are listed too), but they are in many sportperson's infoboxes. See for example Ronaldo. Maybe the co-driver would be in rally drivers who don't change them like socks? Other racecar driver's infoboxes should made into "normal" (like this and F1) also. Oh, and I don't know about the width. Pelmeen10 (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I think the top three are awarded trophies in the FIA gala and they do count as world championship gold/silver/bronze. Medal records are indeed very useful and common, but I haven't seen one on a motorsport infobox. I like this idea, but maybe this should be discussed further on WT:MOTOR. Prolog (talk) 13:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

So it's considered. Co-driver seems OK to me, see for example Ott Tänak. Pelmeen10 (talk) 18:42, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

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