Template talk:Infobox Olympic games

Parameters

In our enthusiasm for all things infoboxed I think we went overboard in this case. I would suggest the following parameters are truly trivial and should be dropped from the template:

• Officially opened by
• Athlete's Oath
• Judge's Oath
• Olympic Torch

Who was chosen to be the final torch bearer can be more than trivial in some cases, but I would think those cases are best served with a paragraph in the article itself, explaining the significance of the choice.

Missing from the infobox, and significant enough to warrant inclusion, is how much it cost to host the Olympics. 66.167.139.210 20:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC).

Slogan

I was wondering if there's a good reason why the infobox doesn't include a slogan. -Solid Reign (talk) 14:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Because when this template was created in 2005, none of the Olympics articles mentioned any of their respective slogans. And the 2006 Winter Olympics never had one listed in the text either. I myself would only be willing to add it to the template if and only if you can add the other slogans to the other olympics articles. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be a reasonable addition to the template. Jared (t)  16:19, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Opening date, venue and hCalendar microformat

Unresolved

I just added the hCalendar microformat (to make the event's date parsable by computers, including specialist search engines and time-line compilers), but have temporarily disabled it (by removing the class "vevent" from the template wrapping table). The only way for an hCalendar microformat to work is for the start date (the opening ceremony, in this case) to use {{start date}}. This renders as, for example, August 26, 2008 (2008-08-26). I have two questions: are people happy for the year to be displayed; and, if so, how can the date sub-template be modified accordingly?

I'd also like to change the venue details, so that, instead of [[Athens]], [[Greece]], the output is <span class="locality">[[Athens]]</span>, <span class="country-name">[[Greece]]</span>. How can that be done? Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 11:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Done the one related to include microformat to location, but I have no idea how to include {{start date}} without showing the year. Locos epraix ~ Beastepraix 16:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Perhaps someone else can help with the date? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 16:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This is still an issue. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 19:30, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

...still. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Start dates and End dates

It seems that the template defaults its date formats for opening and closing ceremonies to mdy. However, I cannot see from whence the data is obtained, for it isn't in the template proper. As the article is in dmy format, the date in the infobox also needs to be changed to dmy to comply with WP:MOSNUM. Can someone help, please? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 05:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Some of the data is generated by subtemplates, which I believe was implemented to curb excessive vandalism on the Olympic articles. Looks like you already found the one listing Host city. There is also Opening ceremony and Closing ceremony. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:39, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your pointers. I just stumbled upon host city by accident. none of these transclusions are transparent, and the docs make no mention of it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:56, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

This isn't good at all. We don't combat vandalism by making it near impossible for editors to make bona fide changes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Rather late to the party, but I agree with Andy. If I wanted to edit the host city (finding "London, England, United Kingdom" a truly appalling formulation) well fine, maybe I shouldn't just go in and hack it but right now I can't even see where I could discuss it! :( DBaK (talk) 23:55, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Make all parameters customizable

Host city, Events, Opening ceremony and Closing ceremony display a default value from subtemplates. There is some discussion above that this was done to curb vandalism, but this is not how we combat vandalism. They should be customizable in the article where they are used.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 20:08, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

the only reason that I see for keeping this information in subtemplates is for consistency when the data is used in more than one article. I agree that this information should be moved to the articles if this is not the case. Frietjes (talk) 16:21, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

From WhatLinksHere it doesn't look like the data is used more than once.--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

I added |host_city=, |events=, |opening_ceremony=, |closing_ceremony=, and |stadium=. Frietjes (talk) 14:37, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Closed by

Unless I am confused, it appears that the parameter "officially closed by" was added to the documentation subpage in this November 2014 edit, but not included in the coding of the template itself. If this is so, the discrepancy needs resolving. I could remove it from the documentation, if that were the consensus, but I wouldn't feel brave enough to code the template (though presumably it would be similar to the "officially opened by"). I'm also a little confused by the syntax for the latter in that the documentation seems to talk of a lower case "o" for "officially", but at least some places where the template is used have an upper case "Officially". I thought that parameter names were case sensitive? --David Biddulph (talk) 08:57, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Odd situation - thanks for doing the research to discover the discrepancy David Biddulph. As the field does not currently exist in the infobox it should be removed from the documentation to avoid confusion. However, if a consensus is reached to add it to the infobox then I would think a capital "O" would be proper. MarnetteD|Talk 14:24, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposed changes, August 2018

Recently, I made some broad design changes to this template in order to bring it up to speed with the state of {{Infobox}} usage today. This included shorter parameter names, shaving off unneeded alternative parameters, and completely redesigning the succession links to achieve the same rendered output with a lesser amount of parameters that are more intelligible, among other things. Template:Infobox Olympic games/doc has also finally been updated to resolve issues of confusion and lack of information that the previous documentation page had. These changes were made with the midset that they wouldn't be controversial, as they vastly improved how the template is used, making it more efficient and easier to understand. However, there are three more major changes that believe would be somewhat controversial if they were implemented without consensus, and those are what I want to bring up here. Please indicate your support/opposition to these changes under each proposal. Pinging recently active users in WikiProject Olympics: Frietjes, Pelmeen10, Jonel, Lugnuts, Rodney Baggins, Schwede66, and Sportsfan 1234. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Removing {{#switch:}} templates for infobox data cells

Currently in the infobox data cells, there are five {{#switch:}} templates that automatically dictate what inputs go into those cells based on the input of the 1 and 2 parameter. These are {{Infobox Olympic games/host city}} for the "Host city" parameter, {{Infobox Olympic games/events}} for "Events", {{Infobox Olympic games/opening ceremony}} for "Opening", {{Infobox Olympic games/closing ceremony}} for "Closing", and {{Infobox Olympic games/stadium}} for "Stadium". Both DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered and Pigsonthewing raised an issue with this setup years ago that these fixed parameters for what is otherwise simple, basic information, cannot be reasonably accessed by editors to make bona fide changes. This issue seems to have not been dealt with since then, and I am now proposing that we retire these five templates and replace them with everyday customisable parameters exactly like the rest of the infobox, such as the case is currently for parameters such as "Athletes" and "Nations". The templates would then be put up for deletion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I like the fact that the templates effectively hide the information so it cannot be inadvertantly edited. This fixed information should not need to be edited, unless an error is identified at a later date, in which case a knowledgable editor would know where to look to find it. I would therefore support including more templates, not fewer, for example the 'nations' and 'athletes' parameters are fixed values that never need to be changed (other than for future olympics where there might need to be a mechanism for editing them on the hoof). Even the 'image' parameter is pretty much fixed. So I would actually propose creating additional templates: {{Infobox Olympic games/nations}}, {{Infobox Olympic games/athletes}} and {{Infobox Olympic games/image}}. This would further simplify the infobox data. Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:13, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Hiding information so it can't be edited is kind of the opposite of what we're going for here, isn't it? -- Jonel (Speak to me) 13:52, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rodney Baggins: I concur with Jonel here. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:13, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

This issue was raised seven years ago - it should have been fixed then; there is certainly no good reason not to do so now. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:02, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Removing oaths parameters

All three of the people who read the Olympic Oaths at each games have their own parameters in the infobox. I don't see why this is, as they are hardly notable enough to occupy three cells in the infobox, which is an expensive amount in the context of making the infobox as short as reasonably possible. The reading of the oathes may be important for the person(s) involved, but at the end of the day are they a) memorable parts of the games? and b) really that important to the games overall? They, in my opinion, are nowhere near as notable as the people who have lit the Olympic cauldron, a class of people that have their own article, and the people who have opened the games, who are almost always people of notability in many scopes, usually international politics (Adolf Hitler and Leonid Brezhnev, anyone?). I am proposing that the parameters athlete's_oath, judge's_oath and coach's_oath be removed entirely. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support I agree there's no reason to give these such prominence, but it would be a shame to lose the information altogether, so I would suggest it should be retained in the articles, under the Ceremonies section (where such a section exists), or worked in elsewhere as appropriate. Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:14, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Converting the infobox for use for the Youth Olympics and Paralympics

{{Infobox games}} is currently used on articles for the Youth Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. However, I believe the articles would benefit greatly from the automated parameters, automatic wikilinks of certain data headers, truncated and simplified parameter names and the much more efficient and easy-to-understand succession links system currently present in {{Infobox Olympic games}}. I am proposing to change the scope of the template to be used for articles on not only the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics, but also the Summer Youth Olympics, Winter Youth Olympics, Summer Paralympics, and Winter Paralympics. This would be mostly enabled by minor changes to certain {{#ifexist:}} parser functions that currently exist in the template and the introduction of a 3 parameter that will accept an input of either Olympics, Youth Olympics, or Paralympics. For reference, an entire working version of this proposed template currently exists at Template:Infobox Olympic games/sandbox, with tests currently active on the 2000 Summer Paralympics and 2010 Summer Youth Olympics articles. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 09:59, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support Nice work, and thanks for looking into these issues. I don't see any obvious issues with making these changes (certainly the second one), so unless anyone with more technical know-how on templates has any concerns, these should be good to implement. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 11:07, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support I am okay with all changes. Sportsfan 1234 (talk) 13:37, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support Those all seem fine to me. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 09:12, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support I strongly agree with this. The Paralympic Games in particular tend to get overlooked far too often. Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:15, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

alt parameter

Infoboxes that use an image parameter generally allow an alt parameter to be defined as a summary of the image's appearance for those who cannot see the image. Does this need to be mentioned somewhere? In the Header and image section of the documentation, it states that there are three parameters used in the {{Infobox}} syntax in this template (image, image_size, caption). Should we not say there are four parameters and also include alt? Rodney Baggins (talk) 11:40, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that would be good. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 13:53, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

@Rodney Baggins and Jonel: Indeed, there is an alt parameter, I simply forgot about it when writing up the documentation. Sorry about that! I'll add it in right away! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:14, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Website parameter

A recent edit by Pelmeen10 introduced a website parameter to {{Infobox Olympic games}}. However, this doesn't seem necessary. The purpose of an infobox is to summarize key facts in an article. A link to an external site does not help serve this purpose at all, especially as it would only appear once in an "External links" section and doesn't illustrate anything in the article. Pelmeen10's rationale for this change was that the website parameter was a common feature of most infoboxes. This is an "other stuff exists" argument that doesn't attempt to rationalise how useful the parameter would be in this specific infobox. It should be noted that a recent overhaul of {{Infobox Olympic games}} was made not too long ago that cut down on parameters such as these that unnecessarily bloat the infobox while failing to add much value to the infobox as a summary of key information. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:34, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

@PhilipTerryGraham: every parameter is optional, which means they don't have to be included. I added this parameter to be included in Youth Olympics articles. Pelmeen10 (talk) 11:16, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

@Pelmeen10: How will its use on Youth Olympics articles differ from Olympics and Paralympics articles? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 02:44, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Unexplained change to "title" parameter

Hey there, Ianblair23. You recently made a change that you simply described as "fix". Can you explain what was the fix here, so that I and other editors can take note? – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 07:50, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Hi there PhilipTerryGraham, these edits which I made to this template fixed the roman numeral count for the Winter Paralympics. Previously the count was off because it didn't account for the change in the four year cycle in 1994. – Ianblair23 (talk) 09:34, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

@Ianblair23: I see. Thanks for clarifying! – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews)

Adding links to concurrent Olympic/Paralympic Games

I've made an edit in the sandbox that will add a link to the concurrent Olympic or Paralympic Games (starting in 1960 for Summer Games, and 1992 for Winter Games). Any thoughts on the changes, and should the winter linking start in 1976, when the Paralympics started, or 1992, when they were first collocated with the Olympics. Danski454 (talk) 02:31, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and boldly made the changes. Danski454 (talk) 19:28, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Change stadium to place of celebration

This year we have the problem that, in the "stadium" section, we have standing "Seine" and "Jardins du Trocadéro". But those are obviously no stadiums. To remove this problem we should change "stadium" to "place of celebration" or something similar. Gilliebillie🤡 (talk) 12:39, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

If a change is needed, it should probably be to |venue=. Gonnym (talk) 18:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Then |stadium= may be kept as an alias, i.e. change {{{stadium|}}} to {{{venue|}}}{{{stadium|}}}. Then we don't need to mass-change the template calls. Wikiwerner (talk) 20:24, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

|venue= is probably a good option. Primefac (talk) 13:47, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I was BOLD and added it in, but I'm willing to reverse that if someone takes issue. Primefac (talk) 13:54, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Cauldron parameter

Regarding |cauldron=, is it really a significant enough piece of information to be due for inclusion in the lead (via the infobox)? The cauldron lighters aren't even mentioned anywhere in the body in the current version of the 2024 Games, and the bio page of one of the lighters for 2022 was a redirect until a few days ago. Sdkb ^talk 04:58, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a fair point, in my opinion. I personally believe the purpose of an infobox is "to summarize, but not supplant, the key facts that appear in an article." If both the person or people who lit the cauldron and the person that opened the games are only passively mentioned once in the entire article, that seems to suggest that they are not so fundamentally important to the subject of the article to warrant an entire row in the infobox. — AFC Vixen 🦊 20:54, 15 August 2024 (UTC)