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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

Template:Infobox pro football player has been deprecated for nearly a year and a half, but there's still around 328 instances of it in player articles. We should try to eliminate this infobox in favor of the current Template:Infobox NFL biography. Lizard (talk) 15:12, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, indeed! Jweiss11 (talk) 21:55, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on it. The holding cell is depressing enough that I've been avoiding it lately. ~ Rob^Talk 21:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are a bunch of parameters that need to be collapsed into "highlights", which is a bit too complicated to make an easy wrapper. These will need manual conversion, which I'll work on. ~ Rob^Talk 23:18, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, that'd be why no one has gotten to them yet. You lazy bums. Lizard (talk) 23:30, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not a lazy bum - I just have an endurance deficiency! :) - BilCat (talk) 23:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I did like 10 and nearly lost the will to live, so I'll circle back to it when I feel like I need to repent for something. ~ Rob^Talk 23:41, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, systematic editing is known to cause heimerdingers. It's been an uphill battle trying to standardize the highlights section. Lizard (talk) 02:30, 17 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In an attempt to make this a little less time-consuming, I created an AWB script that does most of the work for you. I say most because it definitely doesn't do everything. For instance, it will convert the list of teams and years that include line breaks into a bulleted list that's easier to work with, but you still have to manually match years to teams. It will also convert most of the various parameters that need to be consolidated into "highlights" and I think I've got it working to throw them all into one parameter, but it requires a once-over to clean them up (there might be an extra bullet point, etc. based on how past editors formatted the infobox). If anyone cares to take a stab at it, feel free to email me at Special:EmailUser and I'll send back the file as an attachment.

If you've never used AWB before, all you have to do is download the program, open the file I send you, and then click Start. There will be an edit box in the lower right corner where you can manually edit the article to clean-up whatever my program misses, and then you hit Save. Easy stuff, and it makes this go a lot faster. ~ Rob^Talk 08:06, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Down to 170ish, I believe. ~ Rob^Talk 05:07, 3 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

•  Done and redirected. ~ Rob^Talk 16:16, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent work comrade. Now we just need to knock out all the NFL players using Template:infobox gridiron football person. Lizard (talk) 16:38, 18 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User:Manning954 insists that David Carr's lead should be as follows:

David Duke Carr (born July 21, 1979) is a former American football quarterback. He was drafted by the Houston Texans first overall in the 2002 NFL Draft. He played college football at Fresno State. Carr has also played professionally for the Carolina Panthers, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. Carr is considered to be one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.^[1][2][3] He was ranked the 10th worst No. 1 overall pick in NFL Draft history by Foxsports.com.^[4] NESN ranked Carr as the 8th worst No. 1 overall pick in NFL Draft history.^[5]

Not only is "bust" subjective, but Ryan Leaf's lead commits only one sentence to him being a "bust" and the lead of JaMarcus Russell doesn't mention him being a "bust" at all. These QBs were both also No. 1 overall, and are both much more frequently brought up when talking about draft busts. Let's ignore the stats, however tempting it may be to point out that Carr had one season that nearly equaled Russell's career, and just look at the cited sources. On Sporting News he's not even listed in the top 10. He's an "honorable mention" bust. The NY Daily News has him 6th worst, in 2011. USA Today has him tied at 21st worst in 2011. And then as the article says, Fox Sports puts him 10th worst and NESN at 8th worst. So if we go by the worst rating of him (NYDN), there should be at least five other players in whose lead it would be appropriate to mention their bustitude. Does the (at worst) sixth biggest draft bust deserve to have half their lead dedicated to it? I don't think so. It shouldn't be mentioned at all. Lizard (talk) 22:27, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They shouldn't mention being bust at all. Now, in the Draft sub-section of their professional career section, sure talk about it all you want. But not in the lead. CrashUnderride 22:54, 22 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can we get some more input here please? The editor continues to re-add this to the page. At the very least it's undue in a lead of just a couple sentences. Lizard (talk) 21:15, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of it being mentioned or not, dedicating three sentences to it is probably too much. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 21:23, 15 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've been encountering resistance when cleaning up current players' infoboxes and it got me wondering two things: (1) Do we need to have a standard for highlights in the infobox and (2) if so, can it be done? My rationale for the current one was to follow suit with the other leagues: Wikipedia:WikiProject National Basketball Association/Style advice and Wikipedia:WikiProject Baseball/Player style advice. But awards in the NFL and football in general are not so cut-and-dried. It isn't as simple as saying "let's include this and exclude this." The NBA and MLB has an MVP award chosen by an official selector. In the NFL, there's about 10 different MVP awards. Same with All-Pros; the All-NBA teams are chosen by a single selector, while there's several All-Pro teams. And then there's the multitude of other named awards that are given out like candy that we've always just slapped in the infobox. So, the simple solution would be to just let highlights be fair game. Otherwise, we could take a look at each award/achievement individually and decide if they're worth including. I can come up with a list we can deliberate on, like what was done at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball/Archive 32, but we'd need input from multiple editors to give it any credence. One of the problems I'm facing now is the lack of a reference for support of the current guideline, except for the suggestion I made here a few months ago that got exactly one approval. Lizard (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Lizard the Wizard: Hmm. I'd support standardization generally, based mostly on what you linked, but only if we adjust the ordering and make some tweaks. Highlights should be in order of significance, not in chronological order. See, for instance, the basketball style advice. It makes little sense to put a Pro Bowl appearance over a Super Bowl championship (or even Super Bowl MVP) as is done at Tom Brady currently. Further, we should break out what is/isn't acceptable in the highlights section further. I'd like to see the following:

1. A list of highlights that should always be included. These would probably include everything you have in the "Highlights to include" section as of now, with the exception of "Notable sports-related awards" (too broad if we're just going by the award passing WP:GNG), "Seasons leading league in any of the following major statistical categories", and "College highlights".
2. A list of highlights that should never be included, which would be almost everything you have in "What NOT to include" right now. The only exception I see would be "Franchise records".
3. A list of highlights that might be included, which would include everything I just listed as exceptions above. Whether they should be included would mainly depend on the length of the infobox. If you have 20 highlights in the "always included" category, maybe leave out that one season where they led in rushing yards or some of the college highlights that they aren't known for (like, say, second-team all-American). On the other hand, if you have one highlight, maybe a franchise record makes sense.

Thoughts? ~ Rob^Talk 21:34, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Lizard: AP is currently the most recognized selector for All-Pro. Are there others that get significant coverage that are also worth mentioning? It probably differs by era. Which article(s) did you encounter resistance at, and is there an existing discussion with those editor(s).—Bagumba (talk) 21:37, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13: I don't necessarily agree with the chronological order either, but it's in the instructions at Template:Infobox NFL player so I just went along with that. Bagumba, my talk page is decorated with some recent conflicts with editors. Also, All-Pros have been chosen since the league was founded in 1920, but none of the current selectors were around before the 1940s. Lizard (talk) 22:05, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be best not to water down All-Pro by listing just any selector. What are the major ones you would want to include?—Bagumba (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, per the lead of 2015 All-Pro Team, "Any player selected to the first-team of any of the teams can be described as an "All-Pro."" That's what I've been following. It's also how we do it for All-Americans. So if that criteria is to be believed, technically any selector is fair game. Although again I don't necessarily agree with this way. Lizard (talk) 23:55, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:CIRCULAR, we don't use WP as a source. On the other hand, All-Pro mentions that AP is currently the most recognized with citations. I'm not implying that AP should be the only ones mentioned, but due weight needs to be applied for any others that are to be considered for the infobox. Remember, all the other selectors can be mentioned in the body.—Bagumba (talk) 00:18, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was just pointing that out since it seemed to be our own guideline on the matter. And see, I'd be fine with giving the AP the nod and excluding the others. I don't think there's any doubt that as of now the AP is the most recognized. My only question then would be what to do with the pre-AP (pre-1940) All-Pros. And if we do go the AP route, should we list as "AP All-Pro" or continue listing as just "All-Pro"? Lizard (talk) 00:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From 1931–42, the NFL made it's own official All-Pro selections, so we could use those and then AP thereafter. Alternatively, Pro-Football-Reference.com uses UPI from 1931–39 and AP after.[1]—Bagumba (talk) 01:34, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, the Pro Football Hall of Fame says Junior Seau was an All-Pro from 1991–1996,[2] but only NEA named him an All-Pro in 1991.[3] Maybe we limit it to selectors that PFR lists, list just "All-Pro" in the infobox, and leave the details to a detailed list in the body.—Bagumba (talk) 06:39, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd rather not get into the nitty-gritty on this. Why not just throw AP All-Pro in the "always" section and other All-Pros in the "maybe" section? We also have to consider instruction creep on this. If omitting every potential highlight results in no highlights in an article for a significant player, that's not great. Consistency is good, but we should allow some room for editorial judgement. ~ Rob^Talk 23:23, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I'd be in favor of a "maybe" section. If we're gonna have a maybe section then there's no point in having a guideline. If a player is "significant" then he ought to have at least one highlight. Lizard (talk) 23:55, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you're not implying that we should list high school awards in the infobox for players with no higher honor.—Bagumba (talk) 00:18, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I worded that weirdly. I'm actually implying the opposite. What I mean is a player who doesn't have an award listed in the "always include" section wouldn't normally be considered "significant." Lizard (talk) 00:31, 8 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our notability standards for football are quite low, though. A single game played in the NFL makes one notable, and those players obviously won't have any highlights. I'm more concerned with the players somewhere in the middle who are significant in one small burst (i.e. one amazing game or amazing month, but little other activity). I wouldn't think the one game/month should be a highlight, but the proposed guidelines don't allow that editorial judgement. As for IAR, you're correct in theory, but in practice, guidelines like these are cited to back up one particular version. My opinion on IAR is basically that you should only ignore rules when doing so is unambiguously in the best interests of the project, and that will never be the case when making a layout decision like what to include in an infobox. It's all a matter of judgement and judgement varies. You can't cite IAR over the dissent of other editors citing a guideline blindly. On the other hand, if the guideline specifically says "this is an area for editor discretion", then a more worthwhile discussion is likely. ~ Rob^Talk 06:59, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's always wiggle room for "editorial judgement" per WP:IAR. So that shouldn't preclude having a general recommendation.—Bagumba (talk) 23:31, 7 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's the question of what to do about MVPs; Offensive, Defensive, and Comeback POY; and Rookie and Coach OTY. I think we can use the existence of NFL Honors as rationale that the AP has been the "official" selector of all of these (with the exception of Pepsi ROTY) since 2011. Prior to that, it gets complicated the further back in time you go. See Y. A. Tittle. His PFHOF profile states he won "MVP/Player of the Year" in '61, '62, and '63. His "official site" says he won MVP in '61 and '63. This article and this SB Nation blog counts all 4 of his MVPs. He won the AP MVP only once, in '63 (in addition to the NEA MVP). Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find even a modern source stating he was only a 1-time MVP. Again, at some point the AP became the most recognized MVP selector. Most likely it happened gradually over time, so pinpointing a cutoff year might be impossible. I'm really not sure what we should do, but I think these are our most viable options:

1. Treat each selector as a separate award. This method would cause a lot of clutter for players like Tittle or Jim Brown, taking up 4 or more lines in the infobox.
2. List the years separately with selectors listed after each, e.g. on Steve Young. This would also cause clutter for the same reason as the above method.
3. List only the "most recognized" selector. This would probably be the simplest to enforce, but most difficult to determine. And I wouldn't be comfortable with us retroactively declaring that a certain selector was more recognized than another in a given year.
4. List as "NFL MVP" without specifying selector, e.g. on Jim Brown and Peyton Manning. I'd say use the ones on PFR.

Again, none of these seem like good options to me. I just can't think of any better ways. Lizard (talk) 04:10, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd hate to see an alphabet soup of selectors clutter up the infobox. I'd suggest #4 (listing the award in the infobox w/o the selector) and leave the details for a list in the body.—Bagumba (talk) 06:42, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's the one I've been favoring as well. Of course, it would end up with multiple players being listed as MVP for certain years. But like you said we can leave the splaining for the article. Lizard (talk) 16:19, 9 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have articles on these selectors (with relation to the awards, not just Associated Press)? If so, we could include those as a wikilink and avoid the alphabet soup problem. If not, too bad. ~ Rob^Talk 07:01, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, National Football League Most Valuable Player Award has the whole kit and caboodle, not just AP.—Bagumba (talk) 08:13, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although that page has a clear bias toward the AP award, what with having a list of players who've won the most MVPs, etc. Most likely a result of recentism. Lizard (talk) 14:20, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At the very least, "of the week" and "of the month" awards need to go. We had a discussion about them a few months ago and the consensus seemed to be that they shouldn't be in the infobox. Even if they're the only awards a player has. If we allow them in "some" cases it'll only be a matter of time before they creep back into infoboxes of more successful players, and we end up with stuff like this. Lizard (talk) 23:45, 10 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also NFC/AFC champions, which are redundant in cases where the player won the Super Bowl (which was Yankees10's rationale), and a runner-up award in cases where they lost. That'd be like "NL pennant" for MLB players and "Eastern Conference Finals champion" for NBA players, neither of which are included in infoboxes. Lizard (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it was a joke when I saw someone mention it, but no, Template:Current NFL long snappers is an actual thing we have. Does anyone know the rationale behind it? Lizard (talk) 01:14, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I don't see the harm in it, but I wouldn't care if it got removed either (I'm the only one who maintains it really.) ~ Dissident93 (talk) 03:29, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's harm enough if you ask me. We should be using our limited manpower for more important tasks. Lizard (talk) 03:43, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's now at TfD. ~ Rob^Talk 03:57, 17 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's a discussion at Talk:New Orleans Saints#"Aints" as a nickname on whether or not "Aints" is a legitimate nickname to include in the infobox for the Saints. Lizard (talk) 00:54, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, ((Infobox NFL player)) is the only main infobox template for NFL players. ((Infobox NFL biography)) redirects there. But Template talk:Infobox NFL player redirects to Template talk:Infobox NFL biography and the documentation subpage is similarly redirected from player to biography. On the other hand, both pages have sandboxes and testcases, and there's currently a template on ((Infobox NFL player)) saying it's being merged with ((Infobox NFL biography)). The original TfD discussion concluded that the final name for the template should be Template:Infobox NFL biography, if I recall correctly, although I'm now struggling to find that discussion because no-one put ((Old TfD)) on the talk page.

And all that leads me to this question ... what on earth is going on with the infobox? Are we ready to move everything over to Template:Infobox NFL biography? ~ Rob^Talk 01:15, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I guess, Dirtlawyer was going to check them or something. See: User talk:WikiOriginal-9#Infobox NFL biography. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 01:20, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that was part Dirtlawyer's master plan for an infobox overhaul, but since his disappearance it's been put on an indefinite standby. Efforts to contact DL have been fruitless, so it's difficult to say whether we should scrap the plan or not. Lizard (talk) 01:22, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: if we are going to declare DL dead in absentia, I'd be in favor of reworking his method of listing coaching positions. See Mike Heimerdinger. That infobox is way longer than it needs to be. Certainly there's a better way. Lizard (talk) 01:30, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This merge couldn't finish soon enough. On November 23, 2015, "Infobox NFL player" was redirected to "Infobox NFL biography". [4]. However, there were initial issues, which you can see starting at Template talk:Infobox NFL biography/Archive 12. DL didn't agree with a template merge, and when he got the mergers to bow out, he led an effort to do a manual replacement instead. I can't say I followed it much at that point. Looks like he redirected Template:NFL Coach to NFL Biography on Feb 27, 2016.[5] He removed the entry at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell on February 9.[6] Looking at those holding cell instructions, the consensus was for the final template to be "Infobox NFL biography".—Bagumba (talk) 01:53, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I was one of the editors (I think?) who merged the coaches into the players infobox, and DL was right to want the final merge to wait until we were sure that was done. One merge at a time is a good rule to prevent headaches. Right now, everything's located at ((Infobox NFL player)) and that template's working fine. I'd recommend deleting ((Infobox NFL biography)) and moving ((Infobox NFL player)) there to complete the rename that was agreed upon ages ago. We should also redirect all subpages of Infobox NFL player instead of deleting to preserve attribution; I'm fairly certain the sandbox, for instance, contains attribution information that we need to retain. Anyone against this plan? ~ Rob^Talk 02:30, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd be wary of deleting Infobox NFL biography, as it already has an edit history and content on it's talk page. Just copy the code over and provide attribution per WP:ATTREQ.—Bagumba (talk) 02:41, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Bagumba: It's currently just a redirect and its only content was merging from ((Infobox NFL player)) twice (which was reverted). ~ Rob^Talk 02:53, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Template talk:Infobox NFL biography has content and is not a redirect, and Template talk:Infobox NFL player already redirects to it. It just makes it more confusing if we delete the template, but not its talk page. Looking at how convoluted this thread already is, I don't recommend deleting the template only but having the talk page stay. It just makes it even more confusing if someone happens to need to look back months from now.—Bagumba (talk) 04:48, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • The template page should either be moved or the talk page should be moved back – they are actually for the same page (i.e. the talk page at Template talk:Infobox NFL biography actually belongs with the content atTemplate:Infobox NFL player), but were split up in this mess. Jenks24 (talk) 05:39, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If only DL were here... Quick, someone put Template:University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame up for deletion and see if he takes the bait. Lizard (talk) 07:00, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Template talk:Infobox NFL biography was originally Template talk:Infobox NFL player; it was moved prematurely to the new location but the template remained behind. So if we delete just Template:Infobox NFL biography and move Template:Infobox NFL player there, we're actually correcting the separation of template and talk page, not creating new problems. This whole thing is a bit of a mess. ~ Rob^Talk 19:55, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. This shouldn't cause any problems or objections I don't think, but just in case I will be around for the next 8-10 hours and can reverse things if necessary. I'm sure DL would be OK with this. Jenks24 (talk) 06:31, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is that merge notice at the top of Template:Infobox NFL biography still relevant, or is this merge finally completed after 4 years?—Bagumba (talk) 07:31, 25 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been any consensus on the notability of a player who only was part of an NFL's team's practice squad or off-season roster and never played in a preseason, regular season or postseason game? I have run into a few of these types of players and the ones who did not have a notable college career seem to be lacking the type of "significant coverage" needed to meet WP:NOTABILITY. The only sources seem to be press releases from the team that they were added/cut or brief mentions in articles about team moves during the season or offseason. Just curious if this has been discussed before, or if there is a consensus on this? Thanks « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:23, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A player's status as a member of an NFL practice squad member does not confer automatic notability. In such situations, notability needs to be demonstrated under WP:GNG (significant coverage in multiple independent sources) or WP:NCOLLATH (major award, Hall of Fame, or national media attention as an individual). Cbl62 (talk) 19:32, 24 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

His article is deserving of a listing as a "recent death" on the main page by WP:ITN, but the article contains too much puffery to be posted at present. Please help improve the article. I don't have the time to focus on it. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:57, 28 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's numerous awards given out in football, probably more than any other American sport. It can be difficult to know the notability of some of them, compounded by how poorly many of our articles on them are sourced. If you notice, most NBA and MLB awards are heavily sourced to clearly establish notability and many of them are GA/FA. See Wikipedia:Featured topics/Major League Baseball awards & Wikipedia:Featured topics/National Basketball Association awards. Hell, even the articles listing the awards are featured. Now look at some NFL award pages:

• Bert Bell Award: 2 non-independent references for Aaron Rodgers winning the 2011 award and an external link to official website
• FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Week: 1 external link to official website
• Kansas City Committee of 101 awards: 1 non-independent reference and 2 external links
• National Football League Coach of the Year Award: 3 references (1 dead)
• NFL Teacher of the Year: well sourced for an article of its size but grossly incomplete
• Pro Football Writers Association NFL Defensive Player of the Year: 1 reference to official website
• UPI AFL-AFC Player of the Year: 1 pay-to-view reference
• Byron "Whizzer" White NFL Man of the Year Award: 2 non-independent references
• NFL Alumni awards: 2 non-independent references and 1 external link to official site
• Sporting News NFL Player of the Year Award: 1 non-independent reference and 1 (dead) reference to Adrian Peterson winning 2012 award
• Football Digest awards: 1 vague reference and 1 external link to official site... of Baseball Digest
• AP NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award: zero links
• Washington D.C. Touchdown Club awards: good luck figuring that one out

By "non-independent" I mean first party, and so unsuitable to establish notability. I'm obviously cherry picking the worst ones, but there should't be this many that are sourced this poorly. Which of these are notable, legitimate awards? Going by our article on it, if I didn't already know the AP Offensive POY award was a real award, I could just assume it was completely fabricated by some schmuck in his mom's basement. Note all of these are NFL awards; I haven't looked that much into the college awards but I'm not optimistic they're much better. Lizard (talk) 02:07, 4 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the bright side, USA Today All-Joe Team doesn't exist anymore.—Bagumba (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all! As some of you may know, I have been working for a while on restarting the Green Bay Packers WikiProject, a subproject of this project. After doing a lot of administrative work, such as cleaning up and reorganizing the project's main page and tagging and assessing all Green Bay Packers-related articles, I think the project is ready for some collaborative work. Over the next few days I will be contacting specific users who were on the project's old member list or who regularly edit Packers articles to see if they are interested in becoming an active member. I wanted to leave a note here to let anyone know who is interested that they can come check out the project and add their username to the active member list. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thanks! « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 03:59, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I need a little help disambiguating Mike Sullivan (American football) from Mike Sullivan (offensive lineman). If you have an opinion on the matter, I've opened an RM at Talk:Mike Sullivan (American football). Thanks, -- Tavix ^(talk) 14:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How about on Mike Sullivan (American football) have it say something like "For the offensive lineman see Mike Sullivan (offensive lineman). It's really not complicated. (Not trying to sound condescending. CrashUnderride 15:52, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do we include team records in the highlights section of infoboxes or not? There's been some discussion in the past on this, and I know a few editors have strong feeling one way or another. Let's get some actual consensus and uniformity on this issue. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:18, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion in infoboxes

Removal from infoboxes

1. Support removal. Most team records aren't defining characteristics of a person's career, and many of the reported "records" can be very arbitrary (first Seattle Seahawk to play ## consecutive games, etc). They're usually only reported once when a record is reached and then never mentioned again. Including team records in infoboxes inflates them to unrealistic sizes in many cases. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 05:18, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
2. Remove League awards are more notable, and it can get pretty unwieldy as to which team records to include. I'd even favor removing most league records. Per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance."—Bagumba (talk) 05:37, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
3. Remove. Unless they're the 2007 New England Patriots or the 1972 Miami Dolphins, regular season records aren't notable enough to be in the box. CrashUnderride 05:41, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

   Just to be clear, by "team records", I mean records of an individual player that are the most/fastest/best on a single team. I would consider your example to be league records (i.e. a team with the most regular season wins).

   Ah, well yeah, then delete that crap. lol. CrashUnderride 05:48, 9 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

4. Remove. To support I'll link my favorite all-purpose poster child for infobox clutter. Lizard (talk) 18:45, 10 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if anyone is interested in expanding this. I tagged it and proposed for deletion, as its current state isn't good enough for the article namespace. Leaving a message here to notify the project. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:02, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone have an opinion on this article? Seems like an obscure topic that may not justify one large comprehensive list. Not sure if it is notable enough to be a standalone list... « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 21:05, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was gonna point out how it was well sourced, then I noticed most of the references were to Wikipedia. Lizard (talk) 21:31, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It does have a lot of sources, I am just not sure that there are any that talk about this group as a whole. There are probably sources for each league, but I feel like the leagues aren't usually grouped together. I.e. a list for MLB, NFL, NBA, etc may be justified, but one huge list with all of the leagues? Not sure. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 22:01, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, maybe if it was titled "major North American professional sports". Those are the big four according to the Major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada article. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 22:09, 13 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Since we're removing NFC and AFC championships from player infoboxes, it seems a little odd to leave in college conference championships. Since the player infobox is for individual accomplishments, team accomplishments should be limited to the national level. It gets silly when players from Florida State have "3× ACC champion". It screams WP:CRUFT, and recently a user was going around adding college division championships. Lizard (talk) 17:46, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep conference championships in player infobox

• Not dogmatic about this. I can be convinced otherwise. Still, it makes sense to me with people like e. g. Buck Flowers or Bo McMillin, but divisions are too much, and am skeptical of conference championships for more contemporary players. For past years when the sport is "regional", however, it only makes sense. Cake (talk) 19:52, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• I don't really know why you are eliminating the NFC/AFC championships from the infoboxes but (despite my work on college football, of which I am a serious fan of I HATE pro-football) so I'll leave that to y'all. But College championships should be kept IMO. They are an accomplishment that a player took part in. And are an accomplishment that is noteworthy for players such as Jason White who never played pro-football, (eliminate non-major bowl victories though).UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We're removing AFC/NFC championships because they're runner-up awards for the loser and redundant for the winner, and neither the NBA nor MLB includes their equivalent (NL/AL pennant & Western/Eastern Conference finals). Lizard (talk) 21:01, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the fact that Jason White's infobox currently doesn't even include his BCS national championship, much less the conference championship, doesn't help your point. Lizard (talk) 21:11, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Stating "2x Super Bowl champion" or "3x Grey Cup champion" within the Infobox is an entirely non-controversial representation about a player's professional career. Stating "2x ACC champion" is an equivalent representation of that phase of the player's collegiate career, especially in historical context to eras without bowl games, non-confernce games being somewhat equivalent to a preseason, obscure bowl selection procedures of actual champions vs the conference's designated bowl representative, exclusion of smaller schools from bowls, and player bowl stats and bowl results not being counting -all of which meant the conference championship meant everything. And continuing to support the existing content does not require it for any given player. Please re-read the first sentence of the rationale presented in this proposal, as there is a huge logical gap in comparing the AFC/NFC CG ("semi-finals") to actual college conference championships. UW Dawgs (talk) 18:05, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What I'm saying is that the NFL and college are not equal competition. Most high school accolades aren't included because they're obviously not in the same realm of competition as college and pros. The NFL is the highest level. The ACC is 12 schools out of ~128 in the country. And I agree with your historical context point, but the majority of these only starting popping up in infoboxes when more conferences started adopting championship games about 5 years ago. Lizard (talk) 18:38, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Remove conference championships from player infobox

• Remove per reasons above. Lizard (talk) 17:46, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Remove I tend to think that items that would generally not be mentioned in a lead if the article were to become an FA should not be in the infobox, which is often a dumping ground for facts which editors don't get around to writing more appropriate prose. Bio leads are mostly about individual achievements and grand team milestones—conference championships do not fir that class.—Bagumba (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On the fence

• I had to create a new section just for my own "special snowflake" position here. I can see both sides. On one hand, a conference championship is the highest level of success for many teams. On the other hand, if that team were better, they might be in national championship contention, which is more comparable to the Super Bowl which we're leaving in. It's tricky because of how the NCAA structures their "national championship". A not-usually-great team could field the best college football team the world has ever seen, but they wouldn't get an invite to the national championship if they weren't scheduled against top teams. I could go either way here. Divisions should be removed with prejudice. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 20:10, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Remember this is about the player infobox. A conference championship may very well be highest level of success for a team, but the player is just one of usually over a hundred on that team. What if a player went to Florida State and rode the bench for their 3 ACC Championships? Lizard (talk) 20:58, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What does one expect but a conference championship in the infobox of say a member of Sewanee's iron men? Perhaps there should be some cutoff, e. g. WW2, or the AFL/NFL merger. Cake (talk) 21:10, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've honestly been staying out of your domain because the sport and accolades were so much different back then. It's unlikely that someone will see a player's infobox from the 1920s and say "hey, his infobox includes this, so why doesn't [insert name of player from the 1990s or 2000s]'s infobox include it too?" Lizard (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a fair point. For purposes of standardization, it seems to support that there should be some cut off. I can understand saying Ingle Martin's infobox needn't mention the 2004 SoCon championship, but then what else to put in Phil Connell's infobox but his conference championship? Cake (talk) 21:26, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can we all agree to eliminate the division championships without prejudice

Just making this one clear, per Rob.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I don't even like those on the team pages. Cake (talk) 21:10, 14 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, this is extremely uncontroversial. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:04, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Remove UW Dawgs (talk) 18:06, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen a bunch of highlights sections that have things like "NFC season leader in interceptions (2008)" recently. I can fully get behind putting in season leaders for the whole league for major statistics, but do we want to keep in season leaders for conferences or divisions? ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep in infobox

Remove from infobox

• Personally, I don't think this is necessary, although I'm open to being convinced. I'm more interested in getting a solid consensus on this one way or the other as part of the ongoing process of standardizing the infoboxes. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 03:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Scratch them. NFL-wide leaders are enough. Unlike the AL and NL in MLB, which have historical, traditional, and rules differences, there's little to no difference between the AFC and NFC. Thus the half-split is arbitrary. Passing yards, passing touchdowns, rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, sacks, and interceptions. Also the "All-NFC" and "All-AFC" selections have very little recognition these days; they were more recognized shortly after the AFL-NFL merger. I'd scratch those as well. Lizard (talk) 03:21, 17 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Only of importance to fantasy league players who limit drafts to a single conference.—Bagumba (talk) 17:20, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is that a thing? I've never done fantasy football, despite being a huge stats nerd. Not big on the whole gambling thing. Lizard (talk) 17:40, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't played in years. It was among a group of friends, before these daily leagues, and any $ was only a token amount for bragging rights.—Bagumba (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Remove UW Dawgs (talk) 18:11, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated the 13 Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame navigational boxes for deletion. Please see the discussion here. Thanks, Jweiss11 (talk) 16:40, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good golly Miss Molly. Lizard (talk) 03:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've encountered this a few times. My view is if a player has notable accolades in multiple sports their page should have separate infoboxes for each. See Bo Jackson, Jim Thorpe, James Jett. The issue is when a player earns an accolade that normally wouldn't be placed in the respective infobox, but is thrown into the NFL player infobox since our "highlights" standards are lax compared to other sports, to say the least. An editor insists on this revision of Artie Burns. Note, those are high school track and field All-America selections. So, should we limit the NFL player infobox to football achievements? Lizard (talk) 18:02, 1 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, there is a discussion on inclusion of player jersey numbers with team-season navboxes in which you may be interested.

Please see: Category talk:NCAA Division I FBS championship team navigational boxes#inclusion of player numbers in NCAA/NFL player navboxes

Cheers, UW Dawgs (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an accepted list of highlights that are approprite for the NFL player infobox? I noticed Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/Player pages format#Infobox exists, but I couldn't find any discussion on it and it appears to have been created/edited by a single user. aqwfyj ^Talk/_Contribs 11:53, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aqwfyj: If you look above, you'll see numerous discussions on what should and shouldn't belong in the infobox. Several items on the player pages format page also include notes that link to the discussions that were had. The original guideline was proposed on this page here nearly 4 months ago, with the only input being in support. Every change to it since then has been reached by consensus. Lizard (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I obviously have strong objections to many of the things that have been left off your list, which is why I'm hoping there was more significant discussion than the one you linked.aqwfyj ^Talk/_Contribs

Well then you should consider joining the WikiProject and contributing to the discussions. This infobox overhaul is something that's been going on for quite a few months now, with the aim of limiting highlights to the most notable. So it's pretty widespread at this point. Lizard (talk) 21:03, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What does everyone here think about this article? Seems awfully WP:CRYSTAL-ey to me. Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:25, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, looks like it's covered in multiple reliable sources. It's not really predicting anything, just discussing the possibilities that have been covered in the sources. Could probably use a renaming to something like National Football League in London, like National Football League in Toronto. And then a slight rework. Lizard (talk) 03:23, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was referring specifically to statements like "The NFL is aiming to establish a London franchise by around 2021." The entire article is filled with statements like that, and the whole thing just comes across as a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors. Keep in mind that the NFL's current game series in London is already covered under the NFL International Series article. At the very least, I think we should change the title to "Possible London NFL franchise" or "Proposed London NFL franchise." The bottom line is that there is no London NFL franchise, and, in spite of the best attempts of lazy, click-batey sports "journalism" headlines to convince us otherwise, it is very unlikely that there will ever be one. And, that's where I think WP:CRYSTAL truly ought to come into play. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:01, 5 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any lists for annual and career reception leaders?—Bagumba (talk) 06:49, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nah broski. Lizard (talk) 07:42, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not. "Whoo whoo whoo, You know it...bro...ski". CrashUnderride 07:45, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You should go ahead and create those articles so we have one more thing people can toss into the infobox. Lizard (talk) 07:48, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, do YAC leaders first.—Bagumba (talk) 07:51, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rught now I'm busy with List of NFL players with the most rushing yards on third down on Thanksgiving Day so I'm a little tied up. Lizard (talk) 07:54, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bring back List of NFL on Thanksgiving Day broadcasters too.—Bagumba (talk) 08:24, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion started here. CrashUnderride 14:45, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I just did a crap ton of work on the Seth DeValve article. I need someone to go and assess and rate it for me. CrashUnderride 09:20, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Additionally, I created articles for William Carr and Andre Purvis that needs assessment by a third party. CrashUnderride 16:33, 9 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At 2016 Minnesota Vikings season, we have a table listing the team's additions during this season. One of the columns in this table is "Previous team". As you may notice, Terrance Plummer left the Vikings in April and was re-signed by the team in August without signing for another team in between. Should the "Previous team" column therefore read "Minnesota Vikings", or should it say something else? – PeeJay 16:10, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, in this case, it would say Minnesota Vikings or n/a. CrashUnderride 16:21, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should stick with Minnesota Vikings then. "n/a" would almost imply he'd never actually left, whereas he did leave, but then re-signed in the same contract year. – PeeJay 18:04, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of unrelated, but I've never noticed these tables since I don't often deal with current teams. But, shouldn't the "Contract terms" be listed $$$$ / year(s)? So it would read, say, "16 million dollars over 4 years". Right now it reads "4 years over 16 million dollars". Maybe I'm just being petty. Or if that's how it is in sources then whatever. Lizard (talk) 16:31, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the slash is supposed to indicate division here, it's just a separator between the amount of money and the duration of the contract. But if we could stick to the current question, that'd be great... – PeeJay 18:04, 11 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WP:NFL. I was looking at 2016 Chicago Bears season#Preseason as was wondering why it is necessary to embed external links to NFL.com and Gameday into the result tables. Generally, external links are not allowed to be embedded into article content like this as explained in WP:CS#Avoid embedded links and WP:ELLIST. These links seem to be being used more as embedded citations than external links per se, and embedding citations is something that has been deprecated and no longer recommended. Is there a policy/guideline reason these cannot simply be converted to the more standard inline citations being used throughout the rest of the article. The same citation style could be used per WP:CITEVAR. This would help with any link rot if the webpages are eventually overwritten or archived because it allow more inforamtion to be provided about the source per WP:CITEHOW. I noticed that this style is pretty standard for similar team season articles, so just wondering why. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:38, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Marchjuly: I'm almost positive there's no specific reason. This WikiProject has very few (if any) actual policies, so stuff like that is most likely a result of rogue editing that may or may not be fixed eventually. Lizard (talk) 23:03, 12 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ive noticed there seems to be no uniform style of creating player articles. It seems everyone has their own style.--Church ^Talk 03:16, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I made an attempt at standardization a few months ago, which can be seen at Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/Player pages format. But it received so little feedback that I kind of got disheartened and gave up on it. It may be too little too late I guess. All we can do is improve the articles that are there so they can be used as a model for the future. Lizard (talk) 03:44, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for all the replies. The embedding of links seems to be common in results tables for various sports. Not sure why since it seem contrary to WP:CS and WP:EL, but perhaps it was just done that way back in the day and others just copied over the years because nobody offered another alternative. Converting the links to inline citations seems to be nothing more than a formatting fix and tweaking of the tables (moving the references to the "Result" column and deleting the "Game Book" and "NFL recap" columns. Personally, there seems to be some close to WP:NOTSTATS issues when it comes to season pages like this. It seems that the citations used in the game summaries and perhaps one citation each for the "Preseason", "Regular" and "Postseason" tables showing all the results are more than adequate for sourcing purposes. -- Marchjuly (talk) 08:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If ya'll could take a look at Chigbo Anunoby and see the reason it was deleted, and then look here and see what I did in recreating the article, better solving the problem of why the article was PRODed in the first place. I need to know if ya'll think he would qualify for an article and if so, let me know and I'll post that into the article space. CrashUnderride 06:51, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@BU Rob13: just thought I'd get your attention. lol CrashUnderride 07:39, 13 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]