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Infobox cleanup[edit]

At the moment we are merging ((Infobox UK school)) into ((Infobox school)) (see #talk above). In this process, we meet some other possible improvements (like: deprecate a parameter). Because such a change is not part of the merge process, and because making unrelated changes needlessly complicates the process, these are postponed. They can be discussed and executed later. -DePiep (talk) 10:32, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This is good, I was planning to start a discussion on consolidating the proliferation of aliases/synonyms that are currently present which are definitely not needed and will help maintain consistency, will be listing them here. Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:01, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone please add the merger information in a conventional hatnote above on this talkpage for background information? PPEMES (talk) 18:01, 11 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The Merge and Other subsections of Infobox cleanup have been moved to a new Infobox cleanup continued section in order to simplify this section, for further discussion to take place and to allow for the remaining subsections to be expedited first. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:15, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

These two subsections have been moved back here as the Merge subsection is complete and the Other subsection will require further discussion and consensus on what should and shouldn't be done, as it is just for other ideas and issues which can be restarted after the Infobox cleanup is finished. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Rename and delete

Parameters to be renamed and deleted from template code.

I mentioned about consolidating the proliferation of aliases/synonyms that are currently present which are unnecessary, will help maintain consistency and reduce the clutter in the code. Here is the list and there are also some propositions/info on a proposed deletion for one (or more) of the parameters entirely: "delete" means to remove from template code - the difference being the "entirely" one(s) should discussion agree meaning deletion from articles too. The parameters at the end are the main parameters that are currently present and used. This task would be better handled by a bot and Primefac would be my ideal candidate who has an excellent bot for this task and per the previous bot runs we did for Infobox school (some of these were done, but the difference with this one is that it will require going through the entire 30-35,000+ transclusions, should Primefac be up to it) or whoever would be up for doing this with a bot Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

|free_1, free_label_1= (For set 1–5): deprecate & softly remove one spelling set. -DePiep (talk) 23:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So keep spelling parameters |free_text1= etc (?, weird long name), that is. Large usage number in both spellings (says TDmer). -DePiep (talk) 23:11, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the Infobox school ones which are |free_label1= and |free_text1=, looks a bit more clearer with text and |free_1= looks weird to me haha. What you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 23:37, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That is: "What param name do we prefer?" right. I defer for now. Glad to know we agree this is after-merge. -DePiep (talk) 23:44, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If there's anything I've missed, feel free to add (please maintain styling) and I'll check again too. Thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Previous "Time to consolidate and simplify" section discussion: N/A. Resolved, whole section revamped
Some of this is a duplicate of the "after-merge" section above. Let's discuss after the Infobox UK school merger is done. We only have a couple of parameters left to figure out.
IMHO, the sections for discussing the Infobox UK school merger were much too chaotic to really understand what was going on. This section is another example, in that it duplicates some of the discussion in the after-merge section. Even though it might seem like overkill, I would prefer to have a single subsection for each parameter change/merge proposal. That way, each section could be marked with a status (e.g. "done" or "consensus to merge") so that it would be easier to track where discussion was still needed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:09, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I listed this as a subsection under after-merge but yeah we'll sort all this out after-merge, I just wanted to get these parameters listed. Regarding the sections for discussing the Infobox UK school merger, I see, although I can understand everything that's going on - the main area we need to focus on is the Current, Rename, Delete and Discuss subsections under Overview which is the list of all the parameters in the UK one with discussions about that parameter underneath it. The icons next to it aid in what's being done with that parameter, such as green tick meaning its already present, cross meaning to delete etc. (what each icon means is there below overview). This part isn't chaotic right? Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:55, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be helpful to restructure this talk page to bring things together- some serious cut and pasting. I, too, am finding it difficult to navigate. I just get the feeling that this is not a merger, but an attempt to eliminate fields that were placed in the UK Infobox for very good reasons. Another way would be to tabulate the old UK Infobox fields- with a brief discussion on the decisions made on each one- when consensus was reached and further thoughts. ClemRutter (talk) 08:41, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This section is for changes to be made after the Infobox UK school merger is complete. It is a placeholder for now. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The whole section has now been revamped with new subsections. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Delete completely

Parameters to be deleted completely – template code and transclusions.
|box_style= should be deleted completely, I don't think we need CSS styling for the infobox but after checking the monthly error report, the parameter is not being used at all. |box_width= currently has 22 uses but I don't think there is any need to manually adjust the width of the infobox, the default width is perfect and also because of low-use. But if you have a look at some of the articles that are using this parameter, it looks terrible. What you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved the uses above to alumni, this can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 23:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have moved the uses above to head and head_label, this can be safely deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:35, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The need for the athletics parameter which can also be applied to the sports parameter was raised by another editor in 2014, who deemed it as "somewhat unnecessary". Steven (Editor) (talk) 21:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Schools have feeder schools and feed to other schools — some will have many. These are better kept in the body of article, it is too much clutter to mention them all in the infobox. Having checked the parameter usage report, they are either linked to schools or plain text only. Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:28, 30 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete completely comments

Hi gadfium, I see what you mean, but grades is not for academic achievement but for the years the school offers. The US does not use this parameter for A–F, instead grades is used for K–12 or 9–12 for example (please see these pages). So that’s why years is redundant as you can use grades_label. Hope this clears things up, Steven (Editor) (talk) 09:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that's what it's for, but it's a confusing term for those of us who have a different meaning of "grades". Why not allow a synonym? Also, by allowing "years" there should be no need to specify "grades_label=Years". I think WP:ENGVAR applies here. We allow "principal", "headmaster", "headmistress", "rector" etc, although each of these could be replaced by "head" and "head_label".-gadfium 17:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
gadfium, I'm British and we use years here, I don't find this confusing, but then again it's different for everyone. Grades is used on 21,000+ with grades_label being used on 2,000+ which includes 664 for years. Whereas, the individual years parameter is being used on 337. Do you still think we should keep years? We do need to simplify and consolidate parameters, there are far too many head position parameters in the infobox — principal and head has to be kept, this is used on a whopping 20,000+ and 6,000+ respectively. It's the others we need to consolidate on, for example there are 4 additional principal parameters each with labels. I don't understand why we have this many, only the top position should be mentioned in the infobox such as principal/headteacher/president/director. Chairman and chairperson which both have labels is redundant to the chair and chair_label. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

Parameters to be merged with another parameter.
There is also |language=, which is documented as having the same function as |medium=. These two parameters should probably be merged into one. Also, "medium of language" does not make sense to me; is it standard in British English? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:26, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
|medium=, |mediums= and |medium of language= should be renamed to |medium_of_language= and deleted. A small discussion was bought up on the naming of this parameter with it being called "Medium of language"; see here. Note that Wikipedia has a dedicated article titled "Medium of instruction". Perhaps we opt for changing the display title to simply "Medium" or "Medium of instruction" (possibly linked to its dedicated article) and change all the respective parameters to |medium= or a new parameter, |medium_of_instruction=? The |language= parameter should be merged with it and deleted. Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC) –Updated, Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Currently used in ((Infobox school)): |colors, colors, colours= and |school_colors, schoolcolors, school_colors, school_colours, schoolcolours= (check me)
Also, we could consider making plural 'colors' default, and add option |color= etc for singular (exceptional, right?). labeltext should be plural by default. Deprecate all "school"-prefixes: this is infobox school alteasy, duh.
Preferred result: prefered params are |color, colour= (sing) and |colors, colours= (plu, default) -DePiep (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think all variations/unnecessary aliases for the colors/colours should be removed leaving only current interchangeable |colors/colours= which has high use and no need for singular ones because these are already displayed in the infobox as "Color(s)" / "Colour(s)", which should suffice right? Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:18, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one (interchangeable color/colours). Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
|roll= should be merged with the |enrolment=/|enrollment=/|students=/|pupils= variation parameters (as suggested above by Jonesey95 but using |roll= (already an alias/synonym and displayed as "School roll" in the infobox) instead of |school_roll= as this will fit in liaison with the naming convention of the enrolment variation parameters. An equivalent |roll_as_of= should also be added (the majority of the schools using this parameter have the year, but with the use of brackets added manually which does not follow with current formatting of the other enrolment parameters) Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:37, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
These parameters have been merged and resulted in duplicate parameters — I have sorted them all. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be better if |homepage= and |url= is renamed to |website= and then deleted? There could be a problem for this however as some articles have either two or three of these, but homepage and url should be deprecated in favour of website. There is an issue, if two or three of these are used, the template does not produce a warning with "Using more than one of the following parameters and only one is displayed. So merging the parameters would solve this. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:26, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
These parameters have already been merged, and the overall aim is to remove the aliases and have only one (website). Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Also, established displays with the Established label, but opened and founded date are floating with no label. Is this a mistake? MB 01:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The change was requested by Steven (Editor), and based on previous requests I assumed this was uncontroversial. Should I revert? In the meantime I've fixed the #if statement for founded and opened, had too many pipes. Primefac (talk) 01:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Primefac, This is minor, let's wait for S(E) to respond. MB 02:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
They mean the same thing and for some reason were not aliases of each other. Where in the documentation does it say that's how these parameters work? I've come across many where the same date was being used. Here's a discussion back in 2017. Steven (Editor) (talk) 05:24, 16 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Can I hook on the problem of refactoring which occurs when a UK school changes from one Multi-academy trust to another, or indeed from an LEA to a MAT. In the Harris Federation there are 28 All-through and Secondary Schools- but only maybe five are new schools, the rest have refactored voluntarily, or forced to whwn being failed by Ofsted. Refactoring usually means mass staff resignations, and all the certainties about the school being ripped up. Mostly editors enter the date that Ofsted says the school was founded (the date of refactoring) and all previous history is lost. Against the trend, Stationers' Crown Woods Academy took on its new name (refactored ) in 2014 which is not in the infobox, while the date of establishment is retained. |Refactored= is not a common word so the caption may also need to be overwritten |Refactored_label=- on that I have no strong views.ClemRutter (talk) 09:56, 17 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Merge comments

Other

Other ideas and issues.
My suggestion is to add this option. Yes indeed exact parameter name is open. -DePiep (talk) 20:46, 4 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not formally opposing but I do object when we use an child care facility for the obscenely privileged as an example. We have two example schools- we should stick firstly to those. Then we could look at St John Fisher Catholic Voluntary Academy (taken at random) as a more representative institution. (Within the Catholic sector- yes we do have one a more needy field is diocese! ) Why is a nickname seen as infobox material? Have a look as NUAST- the infobox there is awful. That is a school- what are you going to call the alumni (apart from Survivors (POV) )?ClemRutter (talk) 18:20, 5 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If you're referring to the name of the school's alumni, there is an alumni parameter which would suffice and some schools are already using it for this purpose, including Eton College. There is also alumni_name but I've suggested for this to be deleted completely (see delete completely section above). Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Add |LAESTAB= as an alias of |dfeno=? See discussion above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed as there is |trust= and |executive_headteacher=. A possible UID parameter to identify the trust was mentioned but to be discussed. Steven (Editor) (talk) 04:36, 8 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Reading Carlton le Willows Academy, which is about to go GAC, you will see that Specialism refers to Specialist schools programme. There are residual effects of this programme, but whether we need a field is dubious. Carlton le Willows Academy is a useful article that traces recent history, and is well linked. The Judd School (FA) is non typical, being in Kent, remaining a VA school and selective, and having avoided initiatives designed to form academies, specialist schools and trusts. SSAT (The Schools Network) is useful too --ClemRutter (talk) 00:51, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hi PPEMES, are you suggesting for alumni to be interchangeable with Old boy network or for it to link to that article? The addition of an alumni_label would be the best option to do this, which will allow for any other custom names and linking. Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:03, 14 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Religious head[edit]

I occasionally run AWB to clean up bits and bobs in school infoboxes. I often come across the r_head field being used incorrectly (i.e. for vice/deputy positions), certainly more so than for its correct use. This suggests that editors don't know what the field is for, and r_head as a label isn't self-explanatory. Is there a reason we abbreviate "religious" here, but don't for the religious_affiliation field? Would religious_head avoid ambiguity and misuse of the field? MIDI (talk) 15:38, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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