Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Basketball

Merging Template:Infobox WNBA player into Template:Infobox basketball biography

Per this discussion, there was agreement to merge the WNBA template into the broader, more encompassing "basketball biography" player/coach template. When an admin went to do it, he/she found issues with merging due to differences in how the two templates display information. I'd like to recommend some changes to the template to allow for this change. I will sign up to do a lot of the conversions (as I have with merging the Australian, Philippine and college infoboxes previously) if we can reach agreement. Here are my recommendations:

1. Create fields for the WNBA draft similar to the PBA draft for Filipino players (e.g. "wnba_draft_year," "wnba_draft_team," etc.). There should be four fields for year, round, pick and team and should display in the same way that NBA draft does for male players.
2. One issue with the WNBA is that it is purely a Summer League, creating some strange club history chronologies (eg - a player could compete for ten years with the New York Liberty in the Summer and with Fenerbahçe in the Summer, making for 20 repetitive entries in the current usage). My suggestion is that we create a set of club years that display as "WNBA teams" above the standard set of clubs. Not sure if the template could be coded so that the "standard" fields (eg - "years1," "team1," etc) would display the header "Non-WNBA teams" if the "WNBA" fields were in use. This would be similar to how "as player" displays before the standard fields when the "coach" fields (eg "cyears1," "cteam1," etc) are used and "as coach displays before the coach teams. This could be an issue if a player is a WNBA player, also plays in Europe and goes on to coach. I'm not smart enough to figure this one out, but I figure somebody out there can help solve it.
3. Create a Hall of Fame flag for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame like the current Naismith (field name "HOF_player"), FIBA HOF ("FIBA_HOF_player"), and College basketball HOF ("CBBASKHOF_year").
4. Create coding to link a WNBA profile (if possible)

I believe that the rest of the template would not need to be changed. There are some differences with how the WNBA template chose to show info (like adding "WNBA's" before the team name at the top), but I do not believe that the info for WNBA players is substantially different beyond what I have proposed and can match what exists for "basketball biography." I believe it is very important that we get these merged, as we are seeing more movement between men's and women's leagues (examples - Joe Bryant, Michael Cooper and most recently Becky Hammon. It looks AWFUL to have two infoboxes on an article, and in these cases is unnecessary. Thoughts? Rikster2 (talk) 00:07, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

The Becky Hammon example is a great one as to why these need to be merged. You can't add her current assistant role with the Spurs to the WNBA box because the Spurs colors won't display. You can't add her playing career to basketball biography because she had significant WNBA and overseas careers, which that box can't accommodate. But the is 99% overlap in the other info in the 2 boxes. Rikster2 (talk) 00:41, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Re: WNBA draft -- Quite a few leagues elsewhere are doing drafts lately (such as the Korean Basketball League). Perhaps making a generic draft parameter should work.

Re: Summer league -- I don't think we'd need a separate area for WNBA teams. Let's just treat their spells in a WNBA team as one "spell", then the team from elsewhere as one "spell". If they change a team, list it after whichever of the two the player was later signed. For example:

• CSKA Moscow (2006-11)
• Phoenix Mercury (2007-10)
• Connecticut Sun (2010-present)
• Galatasaray (2011-present)

–HTD 11:26, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I find that structure very confusing as in 99% of club histories are a chronology, but can go along with whatever the consensus determines. Rikster2 (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

TBH I dunno how a separate section for WNBA teams would work when a reader realizes that the years of service overlap. I'd probably settle on a note. A WNBA contract doesn't usually rescind a player's contract from another team. –HTD 13:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I've been following this conversation and merge process for a while. While I endorse most of Rikster's comments above, I also recognize the problem regarding overlapping WNBA and overseas team tenures. A high percentage of second-tier and even some of the first-tier WNBA talent plays overseas during the WNBA off-season. To my way of thinking, I don't see the justification for creating a separate WNBA career history; the only practical solution is to accept overlapping team tenures in the career history section. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:07, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

But the whole Summer season/Winter season thing is what the WNBA editors would be giving up in merging templates - I don't see why we shouldn't accommodate this difference. I would argue most WNBA players play somewhere else in the traditional basketball season. If Candace Parker and Brittney Griner do it, most do. Unless someone can come up with a good note or format then I think we need to create something that works for this league. Rikster2 (talk) 15:56, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Rikster, but "accommodate this difference" how? I agree completely with your description of the issue and the prevalence of WNBA players who also play for non-WNBA teams, but question the solution. What is the harm in having a single career history with overlapping tenures for WNBA and foreign teams? This would seem to be the simplest, if not the most elegant, resolution. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:13, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Right now the basketball infobox has a clear chronology of teams (which can contain duplicates for multiple tenures with the same team) that can be followed down the list very easily. Introducing overlapping tenures to this makes it very difficult to follow. I wasn't around when the WNBA box was created, but it was created with this league difference in mind and is clear and easy to follow. Much like we added the "pba_draft" fields to accommodate merging the Philippine Basketball Association box, I think we need to consider carefully how to make this work or consider not merging the templates. We could just as easily make some tweaks to the WNBA box that enables better flow between the leagues but maintains separate boxes. Not saying that is what we should strive for, but it is still an option. Rikster2 (talk) 16:18, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Rikster, I don't want to be hypocritical, because I have advocated separate player infoboxes for different levels of the same sport or very similar sports when I believed the circumstances warranted separate templates (e.g., college football vs. NFL vs. CFL). Perhaps what we need to see are mock-ups of the various career history solutions for WNBA players who have also played abroad. If we cannot make WNBA/foreign career history work in the framework of the merged Infobox basketball biography, then let's say so: we can make two separate infobox templates with nearly identical appearance, and very similar coding, but for the career history -- if that is necessary. This may be an example where separate templates work better for the WNBA and most other leagues, but let's see if we can create the mock-ups and make an informed decision based on something more than opinion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 21:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I know little about women's basketball, but are the overseas leagues of WNBA players significant to their notability? A good number of MLB players play in winter leagues, but they are not added to their infobox. (As an aside, the more I see all the D-League entries for someone like Malcolm Thomas, the more I think that might be clutter also)—Bagumba (talk) 08:02, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

@Bagumba: - Short answer, yes it is significant to their notability. I think it is a mistake to use baseball and football as the model for player movement for basketball. Those sports are dominated by MLB and the NFL (and by North America in general). Basketball is more similar to soccer in the way players move teams because the sport is more of a global game. I will reiterate that the WNBA infobox was constructed differently because player movement for women is different (the WNBA was structured by its NBA parent to be a Summer League so it wouldn't compete with the men's league and players actually derive the bulk of their income in other countries) – I think it is a mistake to just say that isn't important so it fits more neatly into an infobox created solely with the men's game in mind. Last, while I disagree with you on the D-League issue, how about we hold that discussion for another day and instead concentrate on running this WNBA infobox issue, which has been outstanding for over a year, to the ground? Rikster2 (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

AFAIK, women's basketball players are paid more in Europe (and Australia?) than in the WNBA. The situation is actually unique since a player could have contracts for separate teams, something that can't be done on other sports. –HTD 14:09, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Career history options

• Okay, I think we all have a grasp of the issues presented: WNBA is a summer league, and many if not most WNBA players also play in Europe or elsewhere during the WNBA off-season (the traditional basketball fall-winter-spring schedule played by most leagues). Thus, WNBA players are often under contract with a WNBA team and another non-WNBA team at the same time. The template issue is how best to present these overlapping team affiliations and career history in the player's infobox. As I understand it, there are basically three options:

1. Continuous, non-overlapping year spans for team tenures, for example:

2001           Atlanta Dream

2001–2002 Galatasaray S.K.

2002           Atlanta Dream

2002–2003 CSKA Moscow

2003           Atlanta Dream

2003–2004 CSKA Moscow

2004           Atlanta Dream

2004–2005 CSKA Moscow

2005           New York Liberty

2. Overlapping year spans for team tenures, for example:

2001–2004 Atlanta Dream

2001–2002 Galatasaray S.K.

2002–2005 CSKA Moscow

2005           New York Liberty

3. Separate career histories for WNBA and non-WNBA teams, for example:

WNBA

2001–2004 Atlanta Dream

2005           New York Liberty

Non-WNBA

2001–2002 Galatasaray S.K.

2002–2005 CSKA Moscow

Anyone should feel free to expand these examples with additional team tenures, if you think that would be helpful to illustrate the issues or potential solutions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:04, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I think those are the right structure options (though the WNBA single seasons would display as "2002" vs. "2002–2002"). Although option #1 is consistent with how men's infoboxes display, I think it looks terrible for this case. To me, it comes down to option #2 or #3. Personally, I like #3 but could be convinced for #2 if we found a good way to have it flow smoothly. Rikster2 (talk) 15:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Option three is how it currently is, ex. Sue Bird. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 15:57, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's definitely how the WNBA player infobox displays club history. What we are trying to determine is what it should look like if these articles were migrated to the more generic basketball biography infobox, as has been suggested. Is #3 your preference? Do you think any of the other options would work? Rikster2 (talk) 16:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Option 2 with a footnote. If we're preventing confusion, Option 3 is not better if the reader figures out that the playing years overlap. Option 1 implies successive one year contracts from multiple teams and this isn't almost usually the case. Adding a footnote would solve the problem, such as "WNBA seasons are held in the summer, when other women's basketball leagues are in the offseason." –HTD 16:50, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
• Comment Rikster2 seemed to imply above (11:58, 7 January comment) that the WNBA does not dominate women's hoops at the global level. If that is the case, it seems undue to generically have a "WNBA teams" section followed by "Non-WNBA teams". And the ultimate design should accommodate players that didn't play in the WNBA. Ann Meyers played before the WNBA existed, so should not have a "Non-WNBA teams" header for her playing career. I assume the year-around league phenomena can apply to men's too? Ed O'Bannon played in Argentina and Greece leagues with overlapping tenures as well.—Bagumba (talk) 21:18, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
  • So one example. There are a few others (Australian NBL used to run in the Summer too). It does happen rarely in the men's world and can be handled on an exception basis. It is the norm for WNBA teams. What is your preference for how this is displayed, Bagumba, or did you just post to complain? (by the way, I doubt O'Bannon had overlapping tenures - more likely the start/end dates for the two teams were not known by whomever put them in so they just displayed the full season. I have to do that with CBA teams sometimes) Rikster2 (talk) 21:42, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm still getting familiar with women's basketball, so it's premature for me to just !vote. Here's some points that remain unclear to me:

1. Why is "WNBA" and "non-WNBA" the proposed grouping? Is it because it is the most notable league for English readers, or because it is considered the top league world-wide? Other?
2. If we are tailoring this for English readers, or the WNBA is the pre-eminent league, I'd lean towards not listing overlapping leagues, or list them in footnotes in the infobox. They can be fully discussed in the body. Perhaps include a visual display there of the timeline of their teams, similar to Timeline of the National Basketball Association.
3. Template:Infobox basketball biography currently has one "Career history" section, with "As player:" and "As coach:" encoded in that section. Will that continue, or will there be dedicated playing and coaching career sections as with Template:Infobox WNBA biography? I don't think having "As player:" then "WNBA teams:" under a generic "Career history" will look good.
4. Overlapping tenures might be a general problem for other leagues besides the WNBA. What about players from the American Basketball League, that started about the same time as the WNBA? I'm not saying don't allow two lists of teams like in Option 3, but let's design this so the section names are customizable e.g. "{{{primary league}}} teams" and "Non-{{{primary league}}} teams"
5. WNBA coaches who played in leagues other than the WNBA should not have "Non-WNBA teams" for their playing career. This would be a problem with sticking with existing WNBA bio template.

Apologies if anyone finds this to be "complaining" as opposed to helping to find a solution for all (women's) basketball people.—Bagumba (talk) 22:44, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

No, that is furthering discussion not complaining. Thank you. On point #2 I am very much opposed to not showing the non-WNBA teams at all. If that's the direction just to make it work, just leave them separate, add the WNBA color palate to basketball biography for male players who become WNBA coaches and be done with it. Rikster2 (talk) 23:45, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

#2 for me was dependent on answers to #1. Keep it if we all agree that the non-WNBA teams that overlap are significant to their notability, not merely because it's a fact that they played on those teams.—Bagumba (talk) 00:30, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Not including teams that don't directly drive to the person's notability is not the way we currently treat basketball biography for men and I think if we have to treat women's players differently in order for them to "fit," then that probably means the two boxes shouldn't be merged. If you'd like to see a change in how we look at basketball biography globally (and your Malcolm Thomas comments tell me that you do), then we should stop this discussion and get consensus on how we want to use that infobox instead of trying to shoehorn that question here. But, yes, it is significant to Candace Parker's career that she has played for the last five years for a Russian team (and has in fact won a Euroleague championship with that club). This is a key part of her career history. Rikster2 (talk) 02:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't exclude solely to make it fit. However, looking at your example of Candace Parker convinces me that some (if not all) non-WNBA are notable enough to be listed.—Bagumba (talk) 10:27, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment, There are a lot of non-WNBA women's players who use the basketball bio', see Category:Australian women's basketball players mostly (WNBL). Most of them have their career histories blank (maybe because there are overlapping careers and don't know how to list them or just don't feel like it) and some just use infobox sportsperson. There isn't really anything different about the WNBA and basketball infoboxes besides the WNBA and Non-WNBA careers. Quick comparison For different header options, it might be a good idea to be able to change the WNBA-career to a different league. Also, some footballers have like four headers, see Fabio Capello. It might also be a good idea to have a footnote or asterisk for overlapping teams. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 01:47, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
• Option 2 It's hard to see chronological order between WNBA and non-WNBA team in this case with Erin Phillips with Option 3. With Option 2, it's hard to see which teams overlap. As Option 3 isn't much of an improvement with its own set of issues, I think for editors it'd be more straight forward to just have one option, Option 2. Not sure how we would footnote if we were to follow HTD's suggestion.—Bagumba (talk) 10:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Option 3 listing teams with Template:Infobox WNBA biography Option 2 using Template:Infobox basketball biography

Erin Phillips

No. 31 – Phoenix Mercury
Position	Guard
League	WNBA
Personal information
Born	(1985-05-19) 19 May 1985 Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Nationality	Australian
Listed height	5 ft 8 in (1.73 m)
Listed weight	165 lb (75 kg)
Career information
NBA draft	2005: 21st overall
Selected by the Connecticut Sun
Playing career	2006–present
Career history
2002–2008	Adelaide Lightning
2006, 2008–2009	Connecticut Sun
2008–2009	Electra Ramat Hasharon
2009–2010	Lotos Gdynia
2010–2013	TS Wisła Can-Pack Kraków
2011–2013	Indiana Fever
2014–present	Phoenix Mercury
Career highlights and awards
2× WNBA Champion (2012, 2014)
Medals Women's basketball Representing Australia Olympic Games 2008 Beijing Team World Championship 2006 Brazil Team 2014 Turkey Team

I never understood how Option 3 solves things, if overlapping playing years is a problem. People would still find out that playing years overlap. Option 1 further misrepresents things. Option 2 with a footnote is the way to go. It still is a chronological (if you define it as when a player started) list of teams a player had played for. Perhaps a link to an explanation on an article (women's basketball?) would help. –HTD 18:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, I can get on board with option 2 (though it isn't perfect by any means). Can somebody play around with how this would look for a more complex case like Penny Taylor, though? I am having trouble envisiniong which teams would go first, etc. Also, can we get agreement that my suggestions #1 (draft fields) and #3 (Women's basketball HOF flag) should be added? The WNBA profile would be nice, but not necessarily a need to have day 1 in my opinion. Rikster2 (talk) 15:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess everyone agrees on having the draft fields, HOF flags and WNBA profiles. I dunno what'll be the problem in adding the WNBA profile right now instead of later. As for Penny Taylor, it'll go like this:

• Dandenong Rangers (1998-2002)
• Cleveland Rockers (2001-03)
• Termocarispe La Spezia (2002-03)
• Famila Schio (2003-07)
• Phoenix Mercury (2004-07)
• UMMC Ekaterinburg (2007-09)
• Phoenix Mercury (2009-11)
• Fenerbahçe Istanbul (2009-13)
• Phoenix Mercury (2013-present)

Also I'd say to keep separate spells on one team as separate appearances in the infobox, just as what they do for soccer players. –HTD 18:06, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Template updates for WNBA

The following parameters have been added to Template:Infobox basketball player:

• draft_league
• wnba_profile
• womensHOF

Documentation has been updated. The only thing that hasn't been done are integrating the WNBA team colors. For that, Template:WNBA color needs to be integrated into Module:Basketball color. Don't know when I'll get to playing around with that. If someone else wants to take a stab, or perhaps User:Frietjes can help out. In the meantime, try the new params out on some retired WNBA players, where the colors aren't needed.—Bagumba (talk) 01:09, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

• WNBA colors are now in Module:Basketball color. Frietjes (talk) 15:01, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Nationality in infobox

Steve Nash is a dual citizen. You are invited to help form a consensus on how his nationality should be presented in the bio's infobox. Please comment at Talk:Steve_Nash#Nationality_in_infobox. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

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Harej (talk) 16:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

247sports.com for recruiting

I've noticed an increasing number of edits adding 247sports recruiting information (and in some cases deleting Scout.com). Anyone know why this is? And for some (like this edit to Damian Lillard), the recruiting rankings are being listed for years prior to what the main 247Sports.com article says is its founding date of 2010. I am a little worried there may be a spamming ad campaign going on here. Anyone have more insight into this site? My experience has been that Scout and Rivals (and later ESPN) were the most prominent recruiting rankings, but also know that 247Sports is more recently affiliated with CBSSports.com so I am guessing it at least is becoming legit. But should Wikipedia be "leading" that rise to respectability or following once it is established? Comments? Rikster2 (talk) 21:38, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

247Sports is legitimate. I think it's surpassed ESPN recruiting and now is on par with and arguably better than Rivals and Scout. 247Sports should be included in the recruiting rankings tables in addition to the other three. -AllisonFoley (talk) 23:24, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Due weight should be the guiding principle. Are independent sources mentioning 247? If so, is it enough to warrant mention with the other major ones?—Bagumba (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

This ESPN article mentions rating for all four agencies, including 247. USA Today called 247 one of the " four major recruiting services".[1] I'm satisfied.—Bagumba (talk) 00:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

What about the rankings prior to 2010 when the site was launched (like Damian Lillard and Trevor Booker)? Where do those ratings even come from? That's actually my bigger issue - Scout and rivals info is being replaced. I know Scout and Rivals were operating pre-2010. Rikster2 (talk) 02:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Not sure. If you question it, you can removed it as unreliable for anything before 2010 launch, and leave link to this discussion in the edit summary.—Bagumba (talk) 01:57, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Countries and infoboxes

I propose that, in case someone adds a country next to the team a certain player has played in the past, one adds the words "2nd", "3rd", "4th" et. al. right next to the team's country, of course with a link to said league. F.E.:
Player X played last year for, let's say CB Prat. This is a team from the Spanish LEB Oro, the second tier of the Spanish basketball league system, so, his infobox would go something like this:

• CB Peñas Huesca (Spain 2nd)
  

Of course, only if the league is on a second or lower tier. If that guy, say, went to Baloncesto Málaga, a team from the Liga ACB, the Spaniard first tier level, it wouldn't be necessary to add "1st", it would be like this.

• Baloncesto Málaga (Spain)
  

The reason for this would be that teams in several FIBA leagues, specially at Europe, tend to play on promotion/relegation systems and this way the reader not only would have an idea of where that player has been playing, but also, of what kind of basketball kind of level has he been playing, which is, in my opinion, useful information. I know some of you might think that most wouldn't know what it is referring to, but I believe most readers could infer without much difficulty that it means levels or tiers and with the link there, they would be a little more encouraged to investigate, to inform themselves more about the subject. I've actually been told that it might overload the infobox, but, being quite honest, save for very few cases, three or four extra characters don't make that much of a difference and it they did, we could substitute "2nd" "3rd" "4th" for just "2" "3" "4" What would you guys think of this, what would you propose? Intruder007 (talk) 03:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we should follow WP:IBX re: infoboxes: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." I'm wary of adding information that won't generally be verifiable in a bio. The info at best will be in the team article, but I find little with citations in a lot of those articles. I don't think it's intuitive if the 1st, 2nd, etc is in relation to the country, or some sort of world rankings. There is no key, and doubt there is room to add a labeled column. Finally, there was an earlier concern that even a lot of the leagues were often not linked correctly from the country.—Bagumba (talk) 04:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

2nd-3rd-4th, I don't think it is as vague, specially if just put our minds into writing the right link, and most of the league articles say in the first or second paragraph which level on said country's pyramid it is, so it wouldn't be that hard for the reader to confirm that info and about the leagues not being linked correctly, that would be more of the editors' fault (it's one of the reasons I dislike redirects). To help that, we could, for example, open a thread in one of the wiki talk pages listing the different leagues with their proper levels and the correct leagues. I know it might sound a bit ambitious, but it can be done and wold be quite helpful. Intruder007 (talk) 05:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, only basketball athletes lists the country of the league in the infobox; other sports don't. While I like this feature, having another field for it's level on the pyramid might be a tad too much. Also, some countries don't have proper "pyramids" so if we'll be doing this for those countries, it would be made up. –HTD 16:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

In the case of countries with no pyramids, I guess it would depend. If it only has a single league, that would be no problem, it just wouldn't have a number and if it were countries with different leagues that are not arranged like that, we could just write the initials of the league, for example Japan has the bj league and the NBL, but both leagues are alternate, no promotion or relegation, akin to the NFL and AFL on the 60's. To fix that, we could have two options.

• Levanga Hokkaido (NBL); Akita Northern Happinets (BJL)
• Levanga Hokkaido (Japan NBL); Akita Northern Happinets (Japan BJL)

And in case we had any sort of doubt, we could use this template as a basis: Template:Professional Basketball Leagues. Intruder007 (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's where I am on this: I think adding the league or country is trying to cram a lot into a relatively small space and I don't add this info when I create articles on contemporary players today. That said, I am not that hard over on it so I usually just leave whatever formatting already exists on existing articles I edit. I think the information is somewhat useful, but once you get into the nuances of how to display (for example, what link do you use to "Spain" if a played was with a club through 2-3 relegation/promotion actions?) it is "more trouble than it's worth." Tenure and team seems sufficient, especially if the team has a Wikipedia article that a reader could click to if they weren't familiar with the league (and the stint should be in the article with more exposition anyway). Like I said, I am pretty ambivalent about which way to go. However, I am not ever in favor of adding "NBA" after NBA teams. It is the top league in the world, and the only one I know of that has a worldwide TV contract. Rikster2 (talk) 14:09, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose adding anything to these already lengthy infoboxes that will potentially add another line of text to them. At present, virtually all team names and tenures can be stated on a single line of text within the infobox. With the addition of leagues and countries, team tenures are often going to require two lines of infobox text -- and this is an unnecessary extravagance. Infoboxes are not supposed to include every factoid (and more) included in the main body text; they are not a bullet-point restatement of the article in every detail. League and countries can easily be stated in the text; squeezing them into an already lengthy and cramped infobox ignores the primary purpose of what infoboxes are supposed to do: focus on the core, at-a-glance data, not regurgitate the entire article minus verbs and adjectives. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:35, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
  • FWIW, the existing consensus both in practice and via past discussion is to list the country if non-US (yes, it's American-centric). WP:CCC, but unless there is agreement to remove it and people change them en masse, you'll get the no-win situation of other-stuff editors thinking it's missing and wanting to put it back in.—Bagumba (talk) 17:54, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
    • I have to say that's a pretty old discussion and I think actual usage is split on the topic. But I know that in Wikipedia-land it doesn't matter that the editor mix has changed drastically in 5 years. Rikster2 (talk) 18:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
      • There wasn't much interest to overturn consensus at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association/Archive_21#Noting_professional_leagues.2Fcountries_in_infobox or Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Basketball/Archive4#Propose_eliminating_the_.22country.22_after_team_names_in_Infobox:_Basketball_Biography. Frankly, there wasn't much input period, so status quo remained. Personally, I always hated the parentheses, but was ok with leaving it if people thought it was helpful.—Bagumba (talk) 19:07, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
        • True. But worth noting that Intruder007 probably started this discussion based on the near edit war over this issue at Miroslav Raduljica. The issue may be coming to a head. Rikster2 (talk) 19:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
          • I'd be in favor of adding a league if it's a U.S. league that's not the NBA or D-League, or has exclusively played in the D-League. –HTD 19:30, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

To be crystal clear, I oppose adding league and/or country parentheticals to the teams listed in the career history section of player infoboxes. As I said above, the player infobox is already too damn long, and adding another line of text for each team entry in the career history section is going to make them even longer. If clarification of the league and country is required, this should be done in the text; if users can't be bothered to add another sentence (or even a half sentence) to the article text, they don't need to be creating infoboxes that are longer than the actual article. Seriously, folks, the priority is writing coherent article text, not creating ever-longer infoboxes. Is there anyone who wants to argue this point?

As for the existing "consensus," I see two linked discussions above in which virtually no one participated. I would suggest this issue remains wide open for discussion and determination for present consensus. If needed, start an RfC on point and start pinging WikiProject members on their talk pages to participate. It's time. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Note: Notification of this discussion was left at WT:NBA.—Bagumba (talk) 19:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Though I've posted links to discussions on past consensus, I'm generally neutral on whether or not the country is listed. This includes listing "D-League" or "ABA", when it is a US, non-NBA league. If someone wants to be bold, a simple test might be to take a sample of popular NBA articles where a team's league/country is listed, remove it, and see if anyone objects. Candidates are Hassan Whiteside, Dennis Rodman, J. R. Smith, Allen Iverson, Roy Tarpley, Pau Gasol, Yao Ming, and Jeremy Lin.—Bagumba (talk) 18:57, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Dirtlawyer - I don't disagree that it is not preferable to have infoboxes longer than articles. However, I see the answer to be expanding stubs/short articles, not removing information that we'd want included in an infobox to compensate for a short article. Tom Brady's infobox is incredibly long - even though he's only played for one team in his career. But his article is also long so it doesn't look out of place (in basketball, that is true of the Tim Duncans and LeBron James as well). I'd be all for eliminating the league, as I have stated. I'd also be up for a sensible discussion of limiting awards (or even - radical idea ahead - eliminating awards from navboxes altogether. I'm not going to devote a lot of time removing countries right now, though. I'd rather write articles and convert the 400+ WNBA navboxes first. Rikster2 (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The awards conversation should probably take place at WT:NBA, with a notification here. FWIW, current consensus is at Wikipedia:WikiProject_National_Basketball_Association/Article_guidelines#NBA_highlights. And WP:CCC.—Bagumba (talk) 21:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

@Rikster2: I do agree that infobox shouldn't be shortened merely to compensate for a short article.—Bagumba (talk) 21:35, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Lithuanian book on basketball?

I stumbled upon Basketbolo žaidimas (krepšiasvydis) ir Lietuvos sporto lygos oficialės basketbolo taisyklės 1926-27 metams. First of all, shouldn't book titles be by main title only, not sub-title included? Secondly, what is the main title? Jrcla2 (talk) 17:12, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

• I believe this is the main title. Even though it is that long. The first part says "Basketball game" and the second one (written in the same size font) says "Lithuanian sports league official basketball rules for 1926-27 years". Essential thing of this book is that it is the first book in which basketball rules were introduced for Lithuanians. -- Pofka (talk) 10:19, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Elie Stephan

Dear basketball experts: This article has a link to a player profile, but the names don't match. Can someone who knows about basketball please fix this? Presuming, of course, that this is a notable player; the stats section isn't filled in. —Anne Delong (talk) 14:09, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I fixed the link. Didn't really check if he was notable or not.—Bagumba (talk) 21:15, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Rusmir Halilovic

This recently created article could use some attention from an experienced basketball editor to resolve the listed issues and apply some further polishing. I know (next to) nothing about basketball, just stumbled over this new article by pure chance (aka "Random article" surfing). GermanJoe (talk) 15:29, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

McDonald's All-American Boys Game draft articles

If anyone is interested in completing all the McDonald's All-American Boys Games at Template:McDonald's All-American Boys Games, I added Draft:2002 McDonald's All-American Boys Game and Draft:2002 McDonald's All-American Boys Game as drafts for this project. It just requires someone to fill out the rosters, box scores, etc. We now have 2004-2015 even though it goes back to 1978. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Ricky81682, if you could add a WP:IC or two to serve as WP:RSs, you could move it into main ariticle space.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:51, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

scoutbasketball.com

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_February_20#Template:Scoutbasketball regarding this website.—Bagumba (talk) 20:34, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Standings templates

If anyone's noticed, football pages have begun using the new version of their ranking tables. These are now universally used from domestic leagues to international tournaments. Perhaps we could do the same for basketball? We have some templates already such as {{Bs cl2 header navbar}}. We could make some more options here such as removing "Points" (reportedly the Euroleague doesn't use them), and adding PCT, aside from having the qualification columns and colors. Also there are some season articles that have hardcoded results tables, so there's already something to work on.

Of course we need someone who knows to write templates, which would make it so much easier for the rest of us. –HTD 16:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Qed237: and myself have worked to create this module. @Asturkian: has implemented Module:Sports table on a variety of European basketball pages. Module:Sports table/WL has some functionality already, including removing points, having win percentage and even implementing games behind. Colo(u)rs can be omitted without problem. @Howard the Duck: If you need any help implementing them, or if you want to see an example, then let me know. CRwikiCA talk 15:04, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: If you want to look how do they work, I implemented them in several European men's national leagues of this season with all kind of features like percentages, points per win or not, averages or point ratios (see Template:European Basketball Season 2014–15). Asturkian (talk) 15:14, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

This is great. Ultimately, the vision, at least for basketball, is to make this universal. That means all basketball competitions at all levels will use these templates, from FIBA sanctioned tournaments to the NBA and US NCAA. If that's ever to be done, additional columns such as Home, road, divisional and conference records would have to be added (see {{NBA team standings}}).

As for colors, I would've wanted the use of green for wins instead of aqua (as what is currently being used now). Seeing 2014–15 ACB season, it looks weird to see greens for playoff teams and wins for "Positions by round" while it's aqua for results. Also, if possible, perhaps new shades for wins and losses via overtime and forfeits should be added (for example on how this is being done, see 2014 PBA Commissioner's Cup). An additional problem for forfeits is that for competitions that use the "points" system, it's worth 0 points (and not 1) and the current {{Bs cl2 header navbar}} template has a clunky way of dealing with this.

If these could be done, we would be using this for this summer's Olympic qualifiers, and for the next basketball season for all competitions. –HTD 16:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: You note road and home W/L for the NBA, yet the table only displays W/L itself, so why the distinction? Is your colour comment is with regard to the results table, rather than the standings? In that case, MOS:COLOR discourages using colours for that. CRwikiCA talk 16:47, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Re: Home and road W/L: It seems American sports add information for home and road records. AFAIK this doesn't matter on how teams are ranked, but I guess this would be needed if ever universality would be met.

If MOS:COLOR discourages it for results tables, why is it allowed at standings tables? Would it have to be discouraged for both instances? –HTD 16:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The module allows for the introduction of "new styles" and makes it relatively straightforward to have alternative column design while maintaining overall functionality. The relevant part of that is "Do not use color alone", so the standings tables include the line what happens for that position in addition to the colour. A legend is different in that sense, because you need to be able to recognize the colours. Having different shades would make it hard to see what is going on, I would use letters to indicate over time etc when needed.
Does a forfeit typically count as a loss for the team, in that case points can be subtracted (besides how often are games forfeited on this level. Do you have a link for the Olympic qualifier article as it is now? CRwikiCA talk 17:33, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I see. However, as there are no draws in basketball, one could deduce that the gray color that's used for the standings table must stand for a win. Also, I'd recommend on still having a legend either at the bottom or top of the results tables just to further reinforce the point.

As for shades, again, we're using this for football standings templates (green1/green2, yellow1/yellow2) already. Either way, I've been denoting overtime games with asterisks (the number of asterisks correspond to the number of OT periods) on results tables I've set up, so I guess this should solve the OT issue.

Forfeits, which happen if a team doesn't show up, or prevents the game from being held (most of the time, this means a team walks out of the game) are quite rare. A forfeit loss is a loss. But unlike an ordinary loss where a team still gets one point, they get nothing and a 0–20 scoreline. See 2012 FIBA Asia Under-18 Championship#Group C for an example. The current template already allows you subtract points but this method could be seen as unwieldy. Either way, I'm OK with this method by now. –HTD 18:00, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

In addition, several basketball teams have their own season articles, with standings tables transcluded. If possible, I'd like to retain the functionality of having the subject team highlighted (see 2013–14 Los Angeles Clippers season). As we're using colors now, perhaps using other types of visual cues such as arrows (←→) could be used. –HTD 18:00, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Let's leave the results tables out of this for now, that is a different discussion I think. Okay, if deduction points work for you, then we don't need to change that. All functionality would carry over. Teams are highlighted by bolding their entire row, which works well in my opinion, because it quickly draws the eye, without introducing unknown symbols. CRwikiCA talk 19:25, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd be okay with bold, dunno I can't speak for others. –HTD 19:37, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you still interested in implementing this, and if so, which article(s) would you want to start with? CRwikiCA talk 15:40, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm still interested. What articles did you try this out on? We could have a pilot test with that/those first. –HTD 16:45, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I have not tried it on basketball articles, but on a range of articles in other sports. CRwikiCA talk 17:54, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you could try it out first somewhere? –HTD 18:08, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

If you have a particular article you frequently update, I can convert that table and post it in this thread as an example. CRwikiCA talk 18:53, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone updates this, but could you try it out at 1954 FIBA World Championship#Preliminary round? I was going to suggest 1950 FIBA World Championship, but teams advanced to the final group round on a knockout format (a reversal of what's usually done). –HTD 19:58, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: These tables would look as follows CRwikiCA talk 15:59, 24 March 2015 (UTC):

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Brazil	2	2	0	160	114	+46	4	Qualification to final round
2	Philippines	2	1	1	126	151	−25	3
3	Paraguay	2	0	2	104	125	−21	2

Source:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	United States	2	2	0	132	88	+44	4	Qualification to final round
2	Canada	2	1	1	105	117	−12	3
3	Peru	2	0	2	109	141	−32	2

Source:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Uruguay	2	2	0	113	98	+15	4	Qualification to final round
2	France	2	1	1	113	118	−5	3
3	Yugoslavia	2	0	2	112	122	−10	2

Source:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts	Qualification
1	Formosa	2	1	1	115	113	+2	3	Qualification to final round
2	Israel	2	1	1	100	98	+2	3
3	Chile	2	1	1	117	121	−4	3

Source:

Thanks. This is great. Now I'd be interested on how you'd apply these to the final round, where there aren't any further knockout rounds to determine the winner? –HTD 16:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

This table can be formatted as follows:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	L	PF	PA	PD	Pts
	United States (C)	7	7	0	482	300	+182	14
	Brazil	7	6	1	418	341	+77	13
	Philippines	7	5	2	438	406	+32	12
4	France	7	3	4	371	392	−21	10
5	Formosa	7	2	5	345	405	−60	9
6	Uruguay	7	2	5	422	446	−24	9
7	Canada	7	2	5	433	498	−65	9
8	Israel	7	1	6	330	451	−121	8

Source:
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) head-to-head record; 3) head-to-head goal ratio.
(C) Champions
Notes:

You could highlight gold/silver/bronze if wanted, but that wasn't done in the original table, also |use_goal_ratio=yes would use point ratio/average rather than differential (if that is to be preferred). CRwikiCA talk 17:17, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I personally dislike highlighting gold-silver-bronze for a table that has more than 3 columns. I'd rather go with . Also, goal ratio used isn't actually overall goal ratio, but only the goal ratio amongst teams tied (ergo it has to be manually computed). Also, the first tiebreaker used is actually head-to-head results. In that tournament they went to goal ratio since the head-to-head records were also tied. Can that be incorporated too? –HTD 17:30, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I made the suggested changes to the table, I don't know whether those medals should be used, or just use regular 1, 2 and 3. CRwikiCA talk 17:48, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I guess the icons is an alert to the reader that the teams won the said medals. Regular 1-2-3 doesn't convey that. Colored rows do that too but could be ugly. I guess the job is to make sure these medal icons are to be used appropriately. –HTD 18:15, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

1950 FIFA World Cup#Final round uses the colored rows method and I don't think it looks great. Also, I don't think it passes WP:COLOR. –HTD 18:18, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the 1950 version does not look good with those colours. If this solution works, then feel free to implement it. CRwikiCA talk 19:21, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Is "(C)" supposed to be added or is that only for active tournaments? –HTD 19:38, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

You are right, the C should probably used, and I added it. (The medal positions might then be superfluous.) CRwikiCA talk 20:32, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it can be kept. There's no signal to the reader for the 2nd and 3rd place teams that they've won medals. –HTD 11:48, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Shouldn't gf_X and ga_Xbe pf_X/pf_X? As there are basketball points not soccer goals (although confusingly, FIBA has the "goal average" tiebreaker). –HTD 17:18, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: You are right, I made the change. The tables can list goal ratio(/average) instead of difference if that is the tiebreaker. CRwikiCA talk 18:54, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

TfD: Template:United Basketball League proposed for deletion

There is a pending TfD deletion discussion regarding Template:United Basketball League at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 March 9#Template:United Basketball League. You are invited to provide your opinions in the discussion. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Template:Infobox national basketball team

Hello, I have recently tried improving this template to make it similar to the football one. I included new headers: "First international", "Biggest win", "Biggest loss", but there is some kind of problem with it, which I'm unable to sort out. The problem is that when you add another data, the previous one is not shown in the template. Could anyone more experienced check it out? I'm currently editing Lithuania national basketball team and already added information about these games. -- Pofka (talk) 09:20, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

National team navboxes

I was under the impression that navboxes were limited to teams that medal. However, I see that Category:2012 Summer Olympics basketball squad navigational boxes and Category:2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup squad templates has perhaps a navbox for every participating country. Is this considered trivial or template creep for non-medal teams, or is any national team that notable? I'd hate to see this for US men's team, though they typically medal, but not sure how people feel about other countries.—Bagumba (talk) 07:37, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

• Navbox creep. Delete. Most of these non-medalist national team navboxes will also not have a season- or year-specific team article to support them, either, contrary to one of the basic criteria of WP:NAVBOX. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 08:44, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
  • It'll suck so bad for Lithuania's fans which have all of the FIBA World Cup navboxes to remove 2014 because they blinked in the free throw shooting contest that was the 3rd place playoff. If FIFA World Cup has them, I don't see why basketball should be restricted to just the teams with medals. This is once in 4 year and not every national team gets in. That's hardly navbox overkill. –HTD 09:43, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
    • Personally I think it should just be for medalists, but this isn't something that keeps me up at night. But the fact that WP:FOOTY does it isn't a good reason IMO. God help us if we start assuming automatic notability for minor league players as they do or if we ever start doing "Milwaukee Bucks starting point guard" navboxes along the lines of the American football QB navboxes. Rikster2 (talk) 12:03, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
      • I'd guess there's something more important on national team player participating in a World Cup (or Olympics) vs a minor league player, or the starting center of a club team such as the Charlotte Bobcats. Either way, you could try out a test TFD on {{United States Squad 2002 FIBA World Championship}}. –HTD 16:49, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
        • Like I said, it's not keeping me up at night. There are just lots of navboxes out there on sports articles of all stripes. Rikster2 (talk) 17:43, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
          • There's always "Links to related articles" to hide those navboxes away. TBH, national team navboxes are standard fare on other sports articles. What I'd rather delete are those minor awards navboxes (should be limited to MVP). I'm on the fence on "championship" navboxes, leaning on keeping those. –HTD 18:11, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I've nominated the U.S. 6th place finish template for TfD at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_March_24#Template:United_States_Squad_2002_FIBA_World_Championship.—Bagumba (talk) 07:19, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

User:Underbelly 50 using Category:African-American basketball players

Underbelly 50 has been using Category:African-American basketball players for all the players with dark enough skin for him to feel that they belong in the category. I have dropped him a note at User_talk:Underbelly_50#Category:African-American_basketball_players. If anyone wants to follow up on this issue, that would be great if he decides to ignore my advice.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:13, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

As Underbelly 50 hasn't even commented nor edited since your post to their talk page, I'm not sure why we are taking about about advice being ignored. I'd suggest identifying some specific edits that you are contesting, and having UB50 discuss those and their general selection criteria.—Bagumba (talk) 06:52, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted the edits at the pages that I am the main editor for: Caris LeVert, Tyus Jones, Cliff Alexander as specific examples.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:20, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Bagumba, Now that Underbelly 50 had attemped to revert and blank the related discussions and ignored the message, what should we do?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Follow Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. Have there been further edits that are not verifiable?—Bagumba (talk) 05:53, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

I will not add this category to anyones page from now on. I haven't in the past few days. Didn't mean to ignore. Hope everyone is well.User:Underbelly 50

@Underbelly 50: It's OK to add if it's verifiable. Happy editing.—Bagumba (talk) 23:20, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Image feedback

The surprising results of recent image feedback requests, has helped me to become a better photographer for wikipedia. Honestly, I have been surprised at how much people prefer frontal views to the peak of the action. I don't know if I will learn anymore from more feedback, but I request your image feedback on the latest images from this weekend at Talk:Jalen_Brunson#Post_IHSA_main_image_candidates.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 14:48, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

We could use more action shots as pictures for basketball concepts (like Four-point play or defensive formations like Box-and-one defense for example), so that little of your efforts would be wasted. –HTD 15:05, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Allonzo Trier

The newly created Allonzo Trier article seems to be quite deficient. It is absent any sources and full of grammatical errors. I don't think we should put it up for deletion, because the article can sourced. However, the article is in terrible shape. It will soon fall under WP:CBBALL, but does yet fall under that project. I will drop them a note, but am not sure where to get help for this article. I don't have time to get involved and know that WP:PROD and WP:AFD are inappropriate. What else can be done to get this article cleaned up?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:35, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it was a blatant copyvio, so there was no option but to delete it. If he meets GNG, anyone can create a non-copyvio version.—Bagumba (talk) 06:22, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

"draft_league" field in basketball infobox

This field was added to accommodate the WNBA draft (see discussion above on this page) as well as possibly drafts in other countries (such as Korea). It is now starting to be applied for the CBA (see Kelvin Upshaw), NBDL (see Chane Behanan), etc. I'd like to suggest that we amend the documentation to only be used for top-level professional leagues (which in the US would mean the NBA or ABA). First, a number of players are selected in both the NBA draft and a minor-league draft and there is a risk that editors will choose the one that makes a person looks better (ie - a player is a second-round NBA draft pick but the number 2 overall NBDL pick). I also think for NBA players it is more notable that a guy went undrafted than he was drafted by a minor league. Last, I'm not so sure that minor-league drafts even get enough coverage to meet GNG - good luck finding a CBA draft for any year for instance. There is also the risk that people will start to use third and fourth tier leagues (like the current ABA) if no clarity is provided. What do others think? Rikster2 (talk) 17:21, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

How about use the current team he's playing for? Or maybe that's a bad idea. I dunno. Also, from what I know, non-Koreans playing in the Korean league would have to be drafted. So that means those who were drafted in NBA (if ever) would be drafted anew in the Korean league. How would you deal with that? –HTD 17:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Dunno. The field was actually created just to be able to convert from the WNBA infobox that had a WNBA-specific draft field. But the suggestion was that the field could be used in countries that also has a draft (like Korea). Can we run down the "top-level vs minor league" question first then tackle this issue about being drafted in two top-level leagues? Rikster2 (talk) 18:01, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

We could add more draft entires if it makes sense, but I vaguely remember we didn't want to overload the infobox with too much draft info. Maybe we should only list a league the player has played in if there is an existing general article on that league's draft, otherwise list the NBA. Can decide on a per-case basis players that are drafted in multiple leagues and actually play in each of those league. My guess it'll be a subjective decision on which is most notable.—Bagumba (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

However, I'm not sure if it's more notable to mention which year they were undrafted in the NBA, versus info about a D-League draft. A player that was undrafted by the NBA but plays in the NBA should presumably list that the year they were undrafted in the NBA.—Bagumba (talk) 18:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

"draft_league" is also used for PBA; there were some PBA-specific parameters before, which still work, but just not documented anymore to simplify things.—Bagumba (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Is it even notable that someone was drafted in the D-League draft? I don't know, I kind of think not. Seems to me a hard line rule is the way to go where possible. PBA uses the fields a lot, no issues there at all (and very little overlap with other drafts), plus it is a top-level league. Rikster2 (talk) 19:30, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

If some never plays in the NBA, I probably don't care if D-League is there or not. You could always say there is WP:NOCONSENSUS yet if you want to remove it, which defaults to past convention to not have it. For Kelvin Upshaw, who played in NBA, I'd say it's more notable to mention he was undrafted in NBA.—Bagumba (talk) 19:47, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

About the PBA, after being drafted 1st (with a rather interesting aftermath), Japeth Aguilar tried his luck out at the NBA draft but was undrafted, then was later drafted 109th in the NBA D-League draft, but didn't make the cut. The thing is, his infobox says he was "picked in the 7th round" in the NBA draft when he clearly wasn't, and that the drafts are in the wrong chronological order (the "NBA draft" is shown first despite it being the second draft of Aguilar's career).

Perhaps in cases such as this making the draft parameters on the teams section (such as "2002-03 New York Knicks (drafted 5th in 2002)") might do the trick, but it could word wrap text into two or more lines and could be unsightly for some. We could also make contingency plans for undrafted players that made the cut and drafted players that didn't. For a great of majority of NBA players, this could be a major adjustment on how the infobox looks, but it could help for other Americans playing elsewhere that joined leagues that had drafts, and had to be drafted multiple times in different leagues. –HTD 02:00, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Aguilar was using the old PBA draft params, which are no longer documented, but still work. Based on the new documentation, only one draft entry is possible. For the few people that are drafted in multiple leagues, I'm almost thinking it's not worth the effort to support multiple drafts in the infobox. Leave it to prose?—Bagumba (talk) 03:00, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Very, very few American NBA players would ever get to be drafted multiple times (even if you discount the D-League draft), but it could get handy for some players who play elsewhere who have to encounter such regulations. The basketball bio infobox supports up to 40 professional teams; I'd guess there'd be more players that'll be drafted more than once than play for 40 spells in different teams. –HTD 03:58, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I would vote that the template support just one draft and we figure out what the criteria is (examples could be - top level league only, home country league takes priority, NBA always takes priority, or similar). The 40 club thing is just ensuring there is space to cover a players' entire career in a long-standing section of the infobox. It doesn't really matter what's more likely in my opinion. We've had 60s/70s players who were drafted by both the NBA and ABA for years. We just used the NBA draft as the default. Rikster2 (talk) 10:20, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd submit to whatever's agreed upon, but having multiple draft parameters would be great help for the players that find themselves in that situation. Heck we could even add ABA Drafts too. That saves us the trouble of formulating any criteria that would be arbitrary in the end. –HTD 12:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Most if not all Wikipedia infobox guidelines are arbitrary. I would say most WP policies that aren't based on some universally accepted set of rules are arbitrary. Rikster2 (talk) 13:21, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

We're pretty much not discriminatory when it comes to "teams played", for example. Although I'd agree that things such as awards have to be trimmed down in infoboxes. Drafts are a different thing, because it's rare for a player to be drafted multiple times in the post-merger era. That usually means he isn't good enough for the NBA and has to play elsewhere. This is a rare instance so, as what I've said, I'd go with anything that you guys come up with, but I'll agree for the listing of multiple drafts, or even a "Draft history" section at the infobox if it's more than one. –HTD 13:37, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

A well-crafted infobox requires that the editor make choices. A well-crafted infobox by its very nature is selective; it does not include every fact about the article subject. The infobox should include the most important facts, and avoid trivia. The most relevant draft information for a professional basketball player is the draft information for the first league in which he plays. If a given player first played in the old ABA, include his ABA Draft information. If he first played in the NBA, as most NBA-drafted players do, then include the NBA Draft information. Likewise, if he first played in a foreign league, include the draft information for that league. Other draft information should be included in the article text. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:44, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Basketball World Series

Looking for coverage of the 1955 NBA Finals as a/its/the "world championship series", I found this ("//" represents paragraph break):

• "Basketball World Series opens Mar. 27", Baltimore Afro-American, March 19, 1955

"The Harlem Globetrotters will wind up their regular season in Pittsburgh next Saturday, March 26. // Then the next day Abe Saberstein's quintet appears at Madison Square Garden for the first game of the 1955 World Series of Basketball against the College All-Americans. // The Globetrotters and All Americans will clash in the sixth annual World Series, battling in 21 cities from coast to coast. [... // ...] Almost two million fans have turned out during the past five years. [1955 schedule follows]

--P64 (talk) 02:23, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Infobox and accessibility

FYI

There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Accessibility#Accessibility_with_infoboxes that is related to Template:Infobox basketball biography having data inside a header, such as the current placement of the player's number and team.—Bagumba (talk) 00:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Current team in Infobox basketball biography

Resolved

 – Link to team removed from header in infobox, no other format changes—Bagumba (talk) 05:11, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

A recent discussion for college football brought up the issue of links in infobox headers that are not obvious. Template:Infobox basketball biography has this issue with the current team in the top header e.g. "Chicago Bulls" in No. 1 below is white, like non-linked text. College football currently has left the team in the header, but unlinked it. Do we want to go that direction, and have user hunt to the bottom of the career history? Alternatively, it can be moved out of the colored header, but still in the top section. Please !vote below.—Bagumba (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Examples for Pau Gasol article

1. Current {{Infobox basketball biography}}

2. Modified with team link in top section

Pau Gasol No. 16 – Chicago Bulls Position Power forward / Center League NBA Personal information Born (1980-07-06) July 6, 1980 Barcelona, Spain Nationality Spanish Listed height 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) Listed weight 250 lb (113 kg) Career information NBA draft 2001: 1st round, 3rd overall pick Selected by the Atlanta Hawks Playing career 1998–present Career history 1998–2001 FC Barcelona (Spain) 2001–2008 Memphis Grizzlies 2008–2014 Los Angeles Lakers 2014–present Chicago Bulls

Pau Gasol Team information Team Chicago Bulls League NBA No. 16 Position Power forward / Center Personal information Born (1980-07-06) July 6, 1980 Barcelona, Spain Nationality Spanish Listed height 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) Listed weight 250 lb (113 kg) Career information NBA draft 2001 / Round: 1 / Pick: 3rd overall Selected by the Atlanta Hawks Pro career 1998–present Career history 1998–2001 FC Barcelona (Spain) 2001–2008 Memphis Grizzlies 2008–2014 Los Angeles Lakers 2014–present Chicago Bulls

Option 1: Remove team link from colored header; no other changes

1. The current team is linked in the club history and the lead, it doesn't need to be linked at the top of the infobox. Option 2 looks horrible to me. having the number and team at the top in team colors looks sharp. Rikster2 (talk) 09:57, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Concur with Rikster: delete hidden team link in first section header per MOS:LINK and WP:COLOR. Current team name and jersey no. in first section header is standard practice for all baseball, CFB, NFL, CFL and all basketball bio articles. It is space-efficient, and avoids repetitive links to current team in infobox. It also looks better, and the "Current Team Name – No. 12" first section header also functions as a sub-header for the player's name immediately above. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:03, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
3. Agree with Option 1. Per Rikster2, the club history has the link, and presumably the lead should too. It isn't much of an inconvenience for the reader to find a link to the player's current squad. Jrcla2 (talk) 15:10, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
4. This one per my comments at WT:Accessibility. --Izno (talk) 15:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
5. It is the most simple solution after all. And simplicity is good. Dodoïste (talk) 18:45, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Option 2: Modified with team link in top section

Note: Additional prototypes will be !voted on if Option 1 is not the consensus.

1. If the team is important enough to be on top, have it linkable. Don't make users have to hunt down to the bottom for it.—Bagumba (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
2. Imitate the soccer infobox. Have the team link on top, remove the league. –HTD 16:59, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Title color in navboxes

Similar to the link issue above at #Current team in Infobox basketball biography, the titles of colored navboxes are also not obviously links. For example, Template:Alaska Aces 2003 PBA Invitational Cup Champions or many/most of the navboxes at Category:Basketball rosters navigational boxes don't have title that are noticeably linked. Options are to remove the custom coloring, using a white background with team colors are borders only, or repeating the title as a link somewhere else in the navbox.—Bagumba (talk) 06:21, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

What about underlining the link? Example below (The red on black needs to be fixed too). ~ Richmond96 T • C 06:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps, but the underlining is hard to see though. MOS:BADEMPHASIS does say: "Generally, do not underline text or it may be confused with links on a web page." I guess this could work for wikilinks?—Bagumba (talk) 07:30, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Relisted TfD for Template:United States Squad 2002 FIBA World Championship

The TfD for Template:United States Squad 2002 FIBA World Championship has been relisted at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_3#Template:United_States_Squad_2002_FIBA_World_Championship. Regardless of your position, it would be good to get more participation to close this one way or another. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 18:57, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Format for Finals and notable games?

As in football games there is an specific format for the finals (like for example here), in basketball tournaments there is not a rule for this kind of games. We have several options:

• No format for details at NBA Finals (2014)
• A format created by H-Hurry for the Euroleague Final Four (2014 Euroleague Final Four#Final and past seasons) and improved by adding stats for the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup Final by Howard the Duck
• A format that I personally dislike for the 2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup, using a big table for stats and separating it from the rosters.

Is there any possibility to create a template for this kind of games? Asturkian (talk) 21:54, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

We could. I really liked the 2014 Euroleague Final Four presentation, although I'd think it'll only work for final(s) of a maximum of three possible games (one among these: one-off final, two-legged tie or best-of-3 series). If it's four or more possible games, I'd rather have a series stats at the end rather than a per game list.

If one likes a boatload of stats there's already a template for that. Check out 2013 FIBA Asia Championship Final. –HTD 13:21, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

• Are you requesting that all individual basketball games use the same format. I think the format at both 2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup and 2014 NBA Finals is quite good. Both present full rosters in a very formal way. One summarizes the box score and the other gives complete detail. Note that 2004 McDonald's All-American Boys Game just puts the box score in a regular table. These articles might very well pass WP:GAN. Note that not all important individual games include rosters. Look at 2013 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Game, which does not even include rosters. I am not convinced that a complete box score is required for an individual game although at WP:FAC it might be required.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TonyTheTiger (talk • contribs) 13:42, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I think a full blown box score may have the WP:NOTSTATS people grab their pitchforks. A simplified box score would be OK enough, and that it has the added benefit of presenting the entire roster. –HTD 17:01, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
    • I'd be OK for a full box score for a single championship game. I wouldn't recommend it for something like the NBA which is not single-elimination and is a best-of-7 series.—Bagumba (talk) 22:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
      • For a best of 5 series or more, I'd recommend a stats summary at the end like what's being done for the NBA PLayoffs articles, plus perhaps a full stats summary for every player on the roster. If the series has a maximum of three games, maybe a summarized box score would work, while a full box score could work in a single game final. With what P64 says below, full box scores can take up two "screens" or more, as opposed to a box score of only points, rebounds and assists, plus a team summary, that can compress the information into one screen. –HTD 02:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Our article 2014 NBA Finals covers 13 screens for me now, of which the 12th and 13th comprise the WP:FOOTER. Among them, the 4th screen is a tabular presentation of the complete 2013–14 season standings. The 10th and 11th screens --completing the body of the article-- are navbox presentations of the complete 2013–14 San Antonio and Miami rosters that are silent regarding who played in the final series or who was eligible. I dislike those features a lot. Too much space that pertains to the series too weakly.

BTW, complete season standings pertain better to the related article 2014 NBA Playoffs, but are not necessary and do not appear there. --P64 (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Agree that the 2013–14 standings are overkill; at least remove the teams not even in the playoffs, if nothing else (though that requires some work as it's currently a transclusion of regular season templates). I think full rosters are OK for background information. I think you are asking to additionally have a stats summary for each player in the series, which is probably more a matter of effort as opposed to a consensus not to include it.—Bagumba (talk) 22:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd rather put in there "xth place in <division>", xth place in <conference>". I dunno if you could keep the rosters if there's a stats summary too as that may be redundant. –HTD 02:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes and no. The "statistic" that should have priority, in my opinion, is simply who played in contrast to who sat on the bench and who was a member of the team earlier during the season. That might be deemed background information rather than statistical summary. Perhaps that much can be incorporated in the regular season template by some distinguishing mark, face, or font for the playoff roster.

I should have added that this problem, as I see it, is not general to the entire NBA Finals series of articles. On the contrary: so recently as 1970, for instance, no part of the season standings are duplicated in 1970 NBA Finals and 1970 NBA Finals#Team rosters may be too short rather than too long.

Concerning another matter raised in this section, I agree that no single game in a final series is so notable as a single championship game such as the Olympics, FIBA World Championships, and US collegiate championships provide. It's plausible to me, altho not obviously right, that a single championship game deserves a box score and a series does not. --P64 (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Stray whitespace atop some NBA Finals articles

Perhaps another set of eyes, or three, will see why some of the NBA Finals series such as 1953 NBA Finals and 1970 NBA Finals display several lines of whitespace at the top of the page. 1952, 1954, 1969, and 1971 all display normally, as I expect. --P64 (talk) 00:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

1953 is fixed now, but you can still see the error in the 70er article. Looks like it has to do with "radio announcer" (clearing the parameter removes the additional whitespace), but I don't see the problem in the code as well. GermanJoe (talk) 01:08, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. FYI that stray lead whitespace now appears at 1970 NBA Finals, 1972 NBA Finals, and 1973 NBA Finals, alone among articles in this series from 1947 to 1986--where my scan ends, leaving the last 30 years to others.

Note to self: lead text reads YYYY NBA World Championship Series except 1960–64 and 1970. --P64 (talk) 01:49, 11 April 2015 (UTC) Lead sentences from 1955 to 1985 and no others now use "YYYY NBA World Championship Series". For more about that rather than stray whitespace, see Talk:NBA Finals#NBA World Championship Series. --P64 (talk) 21:26, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

There was a formatting problem in the template when referees_1 was not specified. I fixed it. —Bagumba (talk) 00:21, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. That fixes 1970 and 1972, not yet 1973 NBA Finals. --P64 (talk) 15:26, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. What a mess. It's somewhat surprising the thing ever worked.—Bagumba (talk) 19:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

2015 McDonald's All-American Boys Game image selection

As you may have noticed, I added images that I took to the 2013 McDonald's All-American Boys Game and 2014 McDonald's All-American Boys Game articles for each player. This year I again took hundreds (over 1800) of pictures at the 2015 McDonald's All-American Boys Game. I have uploaded 160 of them at Commons:Category:2015 McDonald's All-American Boys Game. I am looking for feedback on which images to add to the article at Talk:2015_McDonald's_All-American_Boys_Game#Image_voting. Keep in mind that the image that we choose is very likely to appear in three articles (here, the team season recruiting section and the player bio). Please give me some feedback.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 20:18, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Recent changes to the graphics for Template: Medal

There is a template talk page discussion regarding the graphics used for medalists in infobox medals tables occurring at Template talk:Medal#‎Changing from gold/silver/bronze to 1/2/3. As this discussion is within the scope of WP:Basketball, you are invited to make your comments on the recent graphics changes there. Cheers. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:03, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

u-X national teams

Does anyone recommend a naming convention for under-X national teams? There are currently three types of teams:

• Under-16 (Youth teams; competes in Under-17 the next year)
• Under-18 (Junior teams; competes in Under-19 the next year)
• Under-20 (Europe only)

Previously there were under-22 ("Young men/women") teams but I don't think people would start making articles for those. So who should they be named? There are currently two conventions:

• Turkey men's national under-16 and under-17 basketball team
• Spain national under-17 basketball team

There are several options.

• Since U16 and U17 are basically the same team, you could group them into one article. Same for U18 and U19. Either you go with the Turkish example, the Spanish example (naming it after the U17 team) or maybe even calling it "Germany national youth basketball team". Do you guys have any suggestions? –HTD 17:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
  • I honestly don't read much in this area, but if U19 for example, is how it is commonly referred to, then it should be OK per WP:COMMONNAME without requiring "under".—Bagumba (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
  • FWIW, there is USA Women's U16 and U17 teams and USA Women's U18 and U19 teams.—Bagumba (talk) 18:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
    • Mmmm. There's not even a USA U17 men's team (see 2014 FIBA Under-17 World Championship#Final standings). Other countries have it linked to the senior national teams. Pretty much elsewhere, the naming standard is "<country> <men>/<women>'s national under-<age> <sport> team". Of course we could go with a completely different naming convention (hence "Germany national youth basketball team"). I'm asking for guidance on how they would be titled because I'm planning to create categories and they're a pain in the ass to rename/move/change, aside from standardization, of course. –HTD 18:49, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
      • Looking at Category:Youth sport, the categories names are of the format "Under-<xx> sport‎". If you didn't want to rock the boat, see if there's any commonality under those cats (which you might have already done).—Bagumba (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
        • It's pretty much split between the Turkish and Spanish example above, although I think the Spanish example has more... "adherents". –HTD 19:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
          • If it's just going to be a list of results like the above examples, I'd advise to follow WP:AVOIDSPLIT. Just add it to the general national team article, and split if off if it ever actually gets too big. In the meantime, a redirect can be created to the general article with whatever U-XX flavor readers might enter.—Bagumba (talk) 20:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
            • FWIW a lot of seniors men's and women's national teams are just a crapload of lists... –HTD 20:13, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Disambiguation guideline for Tony Parker

There is Tony Parker, the French player in the NBA, as well as Tony Parker (college basketball), the American player currently in college which used to be at Tony Parker (basketball, born 1993). You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Tony Parker (college basketball)#Page move to discuss the conventions for disambiguation of basketball players.—Bagumba (talk) 22:55, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

While I prefer the eventual result of "(basketball, born 1993)", I would've preferred the natural disambiguator "(basketball player)" instead of "(basketball)" which I would prefer to actual famous basketballs and basketball concepts. –HTD 09:43, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

"draft_league" field in Infobox:basketball biography

If there are no objections, I am going to add direction to the template that this field should only be used for top-level leagues. Using it for the CBA and D-League is kind of silly. In the case of the CBA it is hard to verify and there aren't any yearly draft articles to link to. There are also a ton of cases where players were drafted in both a minor and a major league draft. At the end of the day, being drafted into a minor league doesn't seem like it's notable enough for the infobox. Rikster2 (talk) 15:16, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Couple of WP:RM

See Talk:FIBA EuroBasket and Talk:FIBA Africa Championship. –HTD 09:41, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Standard format for Euroleague and domestic league statistics

Another user (AirWolf) has repeatly re-edited Euroleague player statistics and deleted domestic league player statistics I have posted citing a "standard" format as explanation for the first and that domestic (and Eurocup) statistics were not supported for the second, for an example see Aaron Jackson's page history. Having seen no such support to prevent domestic league stastistics from being added I assume there is no guideline against their use. It would help for me if it was clarified that it is admissible to add domestic league stastistics to player articles if they come from a reliable and regularly updated source, if not I'd like to hear the arguments against their inclusion. There is also a supposed consensus towards adopting the "NBA style" presentation of stastistics for the Euroleague ie 29.0% field goal accuracy is written as .290, I have yet to encounter a single league in Europe that presents its stastistics in that way. European stastistics, including the ones from the "Euroleague" all present them with the 29.0 format, I don't see why they should be presented differently in Wikipedia and for me the formatting standard for stastistics logically has to mirror the source.

I am not trying to settle a personal score here, I have discussed with the user and explained my reasonning but it has unabled a consensus, other disagreements between us can be resolved elsewhere but this one concerns a guideline that concerns the whole WikiProject in my opinion. ArmstrongJuliantalk

Firstly, a response to ArmstrongJulian's "charges": I (also a creator and someone who made Euroleague statistics in more than 350 articles - around 80% of all of them) have just modified the Euroleague statistics to make them correct. Your career stat column was totally incorrect. Carefully insert them as they go live and may give reader a wrong presentation of the player's stats. While you have done your maths homework and now correctly input mpg parameter, you keep the less common format of the FGP and 3FGP. I'm not saying that it is incorrect, it is just very rare. The one I support more is widely accepted (meaning all the other Euroleague and NBA related player articles have them) that we write .311 (.000–1.000) instead of 31.1 (0-100) and any exceptions would lead into wrong direction. The accusation that I've deleted your domestic league stats LAST time in the named page is just a huge BS (article's history proves it).

My opinion: The current statistics (NBA, Euroleague) should stay in this format. Every parameter. The argument that Wikipedia should reflect source's format may be OK, but not in this case. 438 Euroleague articles should be re-written, and more than 1000 NBA stats-related pages. And why? Because someone like it more? It is the same. Even the field goal percentage articles simply describes this: "Instead of using scales of 0 to 100%, the scale .000 to 1.000 is commonly used."
Also, I am strongly against the domestic league coverage, Eurocup and other minor competitions. Only 1-st tier Continental (NBA, Euroleague) for the NA/EUR region supported as it is now in vast majority of the articles. Not only that there are only few contributors ready to create and maintain them, but it would be complex for the readers to keep track of all the leagues, as most of them know for Euroleague and eventually few extra domestic leagues in Europe and NBA. Nt to mention that the Euroleague is the most representative and toughest European league. Even NBA D-League stats are very rare as second most popular league in NA region. What is the biggest question here, is it wise enough to insert Euroleague tables for all the players ever played it, as in the last 3 years since creation we have only ONE major contributor (we never know am I going to quit it now or then), and few (3-4) minor who edit only up to 20 players (even that mostly incorrectly)!? I don't know if you see it, but you are putting even more pressure on me. I don't mean to threaten the Community, but is it your interest to lose the coverage for the Eurolague as widely recognized 2nd-best league in the world. The current tables are there, but will there be someone to maintain them correctly?
What is my suggestion for ArmstrongJulian is, apart from this discussion, make your edits "more factual and concise, with more references". We value your edits, but you must understand that you don't own articles. None of us do. Also, external links are not article's references, but the "natural addition" of information presented to the reader.--AirWolf ^talk 13:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, I did not say AirWolf deleted domestic stats in the Aaron Jackson the "LAST" time, I said he had done so beforehand and on a number of other articles. Again I admit his math skills are superior to mine and have changed the tables accordingly after he pointed out mistakes, if they are more I'm more than willing to listen and ammend them.

However this is not a content or editor behaviour discussion but a guideline one. In that sense I need to stress that I do NOT wish to change the format for NBA stats ie the ones that use this format Template:NBA player statistics start and are used for NBA player pages, that format is widely used in the U.S. and it makes sense reflecting that in wikipedia. But I do feel that the format that has been used for Euroleague stats ie the ones that use this format Template:Euroleague player statistics start and are used for Euroleague player pages does not make sense in the European basketball context. Contrarily to what's been stated above, this format is not "rare" but is the default format used in nearly the whole world outside of North America, from "FIBA" to, again, the "Euroleague". The argument that is it used in the majority of Euroleague articles does not hold, AirWolf himself stated he has inserted around 80% of them, hence it reflects mostly his own usage. I am not saying everything needs to be changed instantly, there is no deadline on wikipedia and the stats remain the same, only presented differently, a change when updating the stats would be viable, and in all cases we're talking about moving the commas on 3 sets of stats, not a herculean task.

As for the second point about domestic league stastistics I still have not understood the objection raised against their use, if they are not updated regularly and/or each player article doesn't have them should not constitute a reason to not include them, at least per my understanding of wikipedia rules, they are correct when they are posted, I don't see how time would change that. Yes the Euroleague is the top competition in Europe, it can only loosely be defined as a league though and there are lots of wikipedia notable players that have not played in it, adding domestic stats to their articles helps flesh them out and serve as an information support, it's correct and relevant information and should be used.

I really do not understand why the "major contribution" paragraph is included in the argumentation, no one owns the Euroleague section as I do not own the articles I've contributed to, it would dishonest not to recognise that AirWolf has contributed vastly to this WikiProject but I am not asking him to leave, or trying to "take over" a section, just trying to establish consensus about these issues, I would very much appreciate other users' contributions to this debate. ArmstrongJuliantalk — Preceding undated comment added 14:55, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I won't go in further argument with you, just want to mention one thing. Field goal percentage clearly says and it is really a fact that such format is more common, especially within the wiki's boundaries. Template:NBA player statistics start use such format. End of discussion. Is such format valid? It is. Do NBA.com, euroleague.net, fiba.com etc. use 0–100% format? They do. I don't see the constant push for it, other than personal preference. But, however, if you go and change f.e. 5 articles in the format you prefer, it will be an exception from the general use, which is, in my opinion, not OK. If you go and edit all the 438 such stats, I would say it is disruptive editing, if previously not gained consensus. Other arguments already given up there. Like you've said, let's now, with nearly all raw arguments given, try to make a consensus.--AirWolf ^talk 15:17, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I'd give primacy to local sources. I've been reverted when I changed, say 14–30 in field goal shooting, to 14/30 because apparently Americans use – instead of / in separating shots made and attempted. Even winning percentage is labeled (PCT, Pct. Win%, etc.) and displayed (.450, 45%, 45.0, etc.) differently. It could be confusing for a someone who's used to another country's system but people shouldn't be confused when another country's system is used for their own country. –HTD 15:13, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

What about, for example American player, who has played in the leagues of UK, Australia, Spain, Russia, China, nearly all with different systems? We need universal standards and not specific.--AirWolf ^talk 15:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Use the standards the league is using. I don't think Americans would know how awesome the NBA rejects are at the Euroleague, but Euroleague fans checking out their favorite (American) player's stats would be dumbfounded on how to parse things. Remember, we follow what reliable sources say. –HTD 15:29, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. I just don't know if you get that even NBA.com use 44.5 instead of 0.445 format? You were writing like you wasn't aware of this.--AirWolf ^talk 15:38, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Please go read my statement again. I didn't say anything about how field goal percentages are denoted. Now, as for that, NBA.com may not use the percent symbol, but several leagues do, such as the ACB, for example. –HTD 15:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The article about Field goal percentage (a stat used more often in North America by the way, internationally 2FG is more common) has one source, that does not even state what's in the article, funny how you nitpick through everything I write but that doesn't bother you, the stament "Instead of using scales of 0 to 100%, the scale .000 to 1.000 is commonly used", beyond being grammatically incorect (it should state "is MORE commonly used") does not specify where or by who.

Again if you agree that we should "Use the standards the league is using" as H stated, and I do agree with this, then we should use the format the Euroleague uses hence using 61.3 over 0.613. I did not know the NBA also used that format, I do not follow the NBA much and this is not the WikiProject NBA, they can set the formating standards they feel are the best, those standards (including height and weight in inches and lbs) are not suited to International basketball that has clearly accepted another common standard, as proved by it's use in the immense majority of non-North American leagues. You say we need an universal standard, that is exactly what I'm pushing for, besides the NBA (a league of it's own) and it's derivatives, every international basketball stastistic should be formatted the same to aid comprehension for the reader, this is the reason why I started this discussion, as a European I find the "American" style harder to read. ArmstrongJuliantalk — Preceding undated comment added 18:53, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I, as a European, don't find it hard to read. My final statement is that we should leave such format in the Euroleague statistics, because of the named reasons. I am also against domestic leagues as I don't see any willingness from other contributors to maintain such tables. And because of other named reasons. I really don't see any good enough reason to support such additions to the articles. For example, the current format of domestic leagues (created few days ago, currently implemented in total of 4 articles) is completely confusing to me. Please, let other contributors express their thoughts, because if different we can't reach consensus and it would be just a waste of time. If not reached, it will stay as it is, unfortunately or not.--AirWolf ^talk 19:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't see why domestic statistics should be removed if it's there already. It means somebody worked (and might be working) on it. Wikipedia is never complete; we could have the stats date stamped "as of xxx" so if it's quite a long time already since the last update, the reader would be notified. NBA player stats are supposedly updated after every season so perhaps other editors are doing that for other leagues. –HTD 15:14, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem is, realistically speaking, there are no such editors, other than for the NBA and the Euroleague (NA, EUR region leagues).--AirWolf ^talk 15:20, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

If someone took the effort to add them, the best that we could do is to wait until the season is over and see if someone would update it. Wikipedia doesn't usually removed outdated info, it just tags them. –HTD 15:25, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

I haven't read the whole discussion, but I really wish Wikipedia would move away from the practice of having so many detailed sports statistics, since other websites are always going to handle that data in a much more effective manner. Manually updating these sections is ridiculous when you can just link to basketball-reference.com (or whatever). There were a couple years when I personally updated the majority of NBA player stat tables at the end of the season. I wish I had those hours back. Zagalejo^^^ 04:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I can see your point and to be totally honest in the case of Euroleague and NBA stats, which are easy to find and well organised/presented, it might make sense. It's more complicated for domestic stats, logically they are hosted at different areas (no sites have thorough and precise stats from different leagues, including basketball-reference), not in english and formatted in a different way (for example the Spanish league presents rebounds as totals not averages, the Italian league has games started on a separate page from games played...). As for using stats at all, I think if it's done reasonably (ie league/playoffs of 1st divisions only) then it serves a purpose, statistics are much more viable as a performance indicator in basketball than in other sports, of course my preference is to have good article text over stats but both are possible (if time-consuming indeed, but then that's wikipedia). --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 15:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Gary Williams listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for Gary Williams to be moved to Gary Williams (basketball). This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:31, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

FIBA Africa Championship listed at Requested moves

A requested move discussion has been initiated for FIBA Africa Championship to be moved to AfroBasket. This page is of interest to this WikiProject and interested members may want to participate in the discussion here. —RMCD bot 22:47, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Misuse of Category:African-American basketball players

2601:7:2103:2B6E:253F:C98E:1B5F:D6C0, seems to be adding Category:African-American basketball players to dozens of dark-skinned players regardless of supporting content in the articles. Judging by his contribution history, this is a WP:SPA for this purpose.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:41, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

• FYI 2601:7:2103:2B6E:C4ED:A7DF:EE70:9BD0 is the same person under a slightly different IP, for this SPA. Jrcla2 (talk) 14:17, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
• I wonder about the viability of this category. For the average modern NBA player, you probably won't find a source that explicitly says "[So-and-so] is African-American." And as a navigational tool, the category is mostly useless. Zagalejo^^^ 04:16, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
• Ditto Zagalejo, I find this category not only useless but also borderline unpolitically correct, I really don't see the added value of racial categorisation, national origin is already a strech when so many Americans have close to 0 relation with their ancestors country (see Italian Americans). Furthermore it invites anarchy, you could easily argue the vast majority of dark-skinned basketball players could be described as such. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 17:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Well our guy is back as 2601:7:2103:2b6e:d5ae:5220:8d7c:b2cc with more insertions.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:27, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Please discuss infobox suggestions for Christian Laettner

at Talk:Christian Laettner#Infobox. Major changes are being introduced, seemingly just for this article. Rikster2 (talk) 04:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Medals in infobox of bio

If a player wins a medal in the Olympics or the World Cup, does it make sense to then remove other lesser events e.g. regional FIBA events like FIBA Americas Championship, Pan American Games or youth events like FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship. Those other events can be handle in the prose. This seems in the spirit of MOS:INFOBOX: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." Again, I am only proposing these changes if they have already medaled in Olympics or World Cup.

This is a general alternative to collapsing the information in the infobox, which was recently done at Christian Laettner, presumably to shorten the infobox. IMO, if we are going to hide something in the infobox, implying it is not important to the bio's summary, why even have the information there at all; leave it for the prose. However, Olympics and World Cup are major accomplishments that seem notable for the infobox, and should remain unhidden if they are to stay at all.—Bagumba (talk) 17:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• Medals for the Olympics, FIBA world championships, Pan American Games and other major regional championships should be included. Medals for junior/youth championships should not. The senior championship medals are special and relatively rare accolades, and deserve to be included in the infobox in the same manner that we do for gymnasts, hockey players, soccer players, swimmers, tennis players, etc. Winning a Pan Am Games gold medal is a hell of a lot more significant than being a McDonald's or Parade high school All-American. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
  • • Dirtlawyer1, I am not so sure what the relevance or truth of this statement is. Pan Am games are not that important or prestigious compared to the MCDAAG, IMO, but that is entirely off-topic here. I have seen a lot of colleges and coaches list former players by MCDAAG recognition, but not PAG recognition.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 11:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
      • Tony, I'm striking my comment regarding the Pan American Games. Apparently I'm an old fuddy-duddy stuck in time. A quick review of the U.S. national basketball teams in the Pan Am Games shows that there has been a slow de-emphasis of the Pan Am Games basketball tournament by American basketball players since the 1980s. Before that, the U.S. Pan Am team was typically a college all-star team, including most of the top college players on its roster. The 1983 team may have been the last truly great U.S. Pan Am Games team; in any event, that is clearly no longer the case, weakening the argument regarding the significance of Pan Am medals in basketball. I still maintain, however, that high school honors, including McDonald's and Parade All-Americans, should be dropped from the infobox honors of major stars like Michael Jordan in deference to the far more significant college and pro honors earned and championships won. We really need to get past the idea that every honor ever received needs to be included in the infobox -- it should only include the most significant 10 or 12, at most. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:18, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
        • "McDonald's and Parade All-Americans, should be dropped from the infobox honors of major stars like Michael Jordan": They are not in Jordan's article, nor in recent stars like Anthony Davis (basketball), Kyrie Irving, Blake Griffin, or Kevin Love. I don't think those specific honors are generally an issue.—Bagumba (talk) 16:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
          • I think High school National Player of the year may be a high school honor that survives superstardom. All-American probably does not.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
  • For a case like Laettner, are you proposing to leave his medals intact, and continue to collapse it?—Bagumba (talk) 17:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, pretty much, although I'm a little iffy on whether the Goodwill Games should be included. At least the GWG wasn't a youth tournament. And, yes, I think the default template setting should be to collapse the infobox medals table. Infobox basketball biography is already pushing the limits of what is reasonable for length. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
• I would personally be fine limiting to Olympics or World Cup, but I would bet there will be a lot of opposition to this. It seems like these have been spreading in recent years (adding continental qualifiers, youth teams, etc). Rikster2 (talk) 17:32, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• There are a couple of editors who work primarily on track & field bios who have have been aggressively adding "South Asia Youth Games" medals and the like to infobox medal tables. Personally, I think medals from junior/youth championships are trivia for athletes who are playing professionally and/or have won medals at the Olympics, FIBA championships and other senior championships. The junior/youth stuff needs to be pushed to the text. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

• At what point in his career are you saying to remove the junior gold medals from pages like Jahlil Okafor?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 02:49, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I was intentionally limiting the discussion to handling players who have medaled in the Olympics or World Cup, and avoiding a open-ended discussion on all international competitions. Again, all this info can and should be in prose, regardless of what is done in the infobox.—Bagumba (talk) 03:05, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd rather remove all medals and just list the years a player played for his/her national team, including junior tournaments. That'll be three lines max, two lines min. We could just list continental and world level medals in the achievements section. –HTD 03:03, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

For those that don't stray past the infobox, that would have the awful effect of rendering Mason Plumlee's (WC gold) national team record look on par with David Wear (U18 silver).—Bagumba (talk) 03:14, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I think people may have an issue on discerning the difference between a college conference MVP award, an NBA All-Star Game award, the NBA (regular season) MVP award and the NBA Finals award. At least gold and silver, and unqualified "WC" (which means senior NTs) and U19 (junior) are quite universally understood. "MVP" and the different competitions isn't. –HTD 03:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd venture to guess that the average NBA reader, who typically doesn't follow football/soccer, has more problem understanding the age-specific competitions than the NBA/college awards.—Bagumba (talk) 03:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Age-specific competitions are actually quite easy to get. Unlike soccer's U-23 tournaments there's no BS "3 players could be overaged" rule. It's clean and simple under-X, quite like the ice hockey age-specific competitions.

I'd rather be more worried on things such as the difference between the FIBA Americas Championship and basketball at the Pan-American Games, for example. But I guess American NBA fans won't have to deal with those frequently. –HTD 04:06, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

If you'd remove medals, and say put them in an "Achievements" section (which is truly their rightful place), we could even place more restrictions, like "gold medals" only (we don't add "second place in MVP voting", right?). We could have a separate section for awards that include silvers, bronzes and things such as all-tournament team awards in relevant levels of basketball. –HTD 04:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

HTD, how do you distinguish between "career highlights" that are listed in the infobox, and "achievements" which would be listed in a separate section of the text? Arguably, winning an Olympic gold medal as a member of the U.S. national team is as significant as winning an NBA championship, and far more significant than winning an NCAA tournament title. I think there is a perfectly valid reason why Olympic and world championship medals are included in the infobox: they are something very special, having been won on a world stage, playing against the best competition the world has to offer.

As for the "achievements" section, I think every honor other than the 10 or 12 most significant for a given player should be pushed out of the infobox and into the text and/or an "achievements" section. We often overload the infobox "career highlights" section with less important trivia to the point where the infobox is overwhelmed. That's a rookie mistake that veteran editors should not make. BTW, my personal rule of thumb is "if it's not important enough to mention in the text with a footnote, it's not important enough to include in the infobox." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:29, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I dunno, but I'd guess more American NBA fans would put into a premium on NBA titles than gold medals won in the "Greatest of All Time" discussion. MVP titles aren't really in the mix unless they're used as "tiebreakers", much less so for Olympic gold medals. –HTD 15:41, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Howard, I have no idea how old you are, or what your depth of knowledge regarding American college and pro basketball is, but the "Dream Team" was a pretty damn big deal for NBA fans and American sports fans generally. The NBA-staffed Olympic teams in 1996 and 2008 were pretty big deals, too. The controversial 1972 Olympic Men's Basketball Final is still remembered by American sports fans as one of those Olympic clusterfuck moments where the U.S. team got screwed by bad, arguably biased officiating. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Howard was referring to arguments for the greatest player of all time (GOAT), which I agree that Olympic gold is but a small factor in NBA discussions. I don't think he was generally implying that Olympics are not a big deal. At any rate, GOAT is tangential to the original thread topic.—Bagumba (talk) 18:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Either way, in the open era, the best players usually play in these Dream Teams, so I guess that's why gold medals aren't really used as barometers. There are only twelve American players every 2 years or so, and since they win medals almost all the time these "achievements" only show up for the very few best players sporadically. –HTD 05:03, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

@Dirtlawyer1: For NBA WP, there is Wikipedia:WikiProject National Basketball Association/Style advice which limits the highlights. Megastars like Jordan need common sense, but items will inevitably be added back by drive-by editors for "consistency". (Of course, there is always the hockey model to just not have highlights).—Bagumba (talk) 16:51, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Good. I will link to it in the future when I'm purging lesser honors from infoboxes in the future. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

It could use some guidance on college honors, if people are interested in collaborating on it.—Bagumba (talk) 18:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

TBH, WP:CBB and WP:NBA should use the same format. College and pro coaches have different formats for things such as per season records. These things should be the synchronized. –HTD 05:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: You don't mean WP:CBB --S Philbrick(Talk) 14:09, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Apparently it's WP:CBBALL :P –HTD 15:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I second limiting it to mayor international tournaments but would include continental FIBA competitions as well as the Olympic Games and the World Cup. Though some NBA players skip them (as the World Cup on occasion) competitions like the EuroBasket and FIBA Americas Championship are of a high playing level and are widely considered prestigious. AfroBasket, the FIBA Asia Championship and the FIBA Oceania Championshipprobably less so but for most of those who win a medal there it would constitute their career achievement and for the sake of fairness should probably be included. Youth tournaments would be stretching it and could be limited to achievements, I would like to be able to format that section a bit more than just lines of text, just to help readibility but that's a personal preference and not on point here. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 15:40, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Persondata has been officially deprecated

Persondata has been deprecated and the template and input data are subject to removal from all bio articles in the near future. For those editors who entered accurate data into the persondata templates of basketball players and other bio subjects, you are advised to manually transfer that data to Wikidata before the impending mass deletion occurs. Here are two examples of Wikidata for basketball players: Joakim Noah and Michael Jordan. If you have any questions about the persondata removal, Wikidata, etc., please ping me. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:42, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Draft:SportVU

Draft:SportVU's topic appears notable enough and seems to be within this WikiProject's sphere of interest. The author works for the company, however, and it shows. There were also referencing issues. Sources include: [2][3][4]. Improvement of the draft by subject-matter experts would be appreciated. Huon (talk) 22:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Category:Illawarra Hawks players naming convention

There is a discussion on how to handle naming Category:Illawarra Hawks players as the team has recently announced a transition back to its old name from "Woolongong Hawks." Please join the discussion at Category talk:Illawarra Hawks players. Thanks Rikster2 (talk) 21:29, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Adding Hall of Fame players to NBA team articles

Was there a consensus to add Hall of Fame players just on the day of enshrinement? I'm asking this, because about 1 or maybe 2 years ago I made an edit where I added HoF player before enshrinement and it got reverted. However, today on some articles people keep re-adding players of 2015 class and it's turning into an edit war... Any suggestions? – Sabbatino (talk) 19:41, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

My three cents. There is no reason why the number or names of Hall of Famers who played/coached/marketed for a particular team needs update more than annually in the team article. Instead, write in a way that is timeless, with a phrase such as "through the 2015 cycle" that works both before and after induction, and remains true after the 2016 class is announced. (The same is broadly true of retired uniform numbers, but I would add not text to the infobox, no more than a superscript link to footnote.)

Coverage of the Hall of Fame in player biographies should be updated more than once a year, at least at the announcement and induction of each annual class. No need to write timelessly there. Indeed, editors should attend to what a person says at the time of announcement and the time of induction; either may be worth coverage for some new HOF members some years.

The main article National Basketball Hall of Fame certainly should prominently and d succinctly describe the annual cycle with a lead statement such as "Recently the annual class of new Hall of Fame members is announced in June and inducted in August. Six inductions on August 8, 2014, increased the number of honorees to 345." (That would need update only annually. And it's only an example to make the general point, in ignorance whether June is correct or whether we do say members, honorees, or something else.)

--P64 (talk) 20:26, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Copyright Violation Detection - EranBot Project

A new copy-paste detection bot is now in general use on English Wikipedia. Come check it out at the EranBot reporting page. This bot utilizes the Turnitin software (ithenticate), unlike User:CorenSearchBot that relies on a web search API from Yahoo. It checks individual edits rather than just new articles. Please take 15 seconds to visit the EranBot reporting page and check a few of the flagged concerns. Comments welcome regarding potential improvements. These likely copyright violations can be searched by WikiProject categories. Use "control-f" to jump to your area of interest (if such a copyvio is present).--Lucas559 (talk) 15:55, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Requested move (Baloncesto Málaga → Unicaja CB)

Further information: Talk:Baloncesto Málaga

Hi, I requested the move of this article due to several reasons: it is its official denomination, the name of the club since its foundation was always Unicaja and, as in the case of Lietuvos rytas, the sponsor is the owner of the club. I wait for your opinions. Asturkian (talk) 06:43, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Nav boxes for national teams

I notice that Template:United States Men Basketball Squad 2015 Pan American Games was created by TempleM. At Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_April_3#Template:United_States_Squad_2002_FIBA_World_Championship, the consensus was that for U.S. teams, navboxes were not warranted for non-medal squads. The 2015 Pan-Am games are not started yet. However, the broader questions for basketball, regardless of country, are

1. Which events warrant navboxes for squads? Should they be limited to major ones like the Olympics or World Cup, or ones like U18, Pan-Am, Goodwill, regional events also apply?
2. Should they only be limited to medal winners?

—Bagumba (talk) 22:01, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Considering NBA players had rarely (never?) played in the Pan-Ams, it's quite hard to justify a navbox if we're going with the "did they care enough" reasoning. At least the FIBA Basketball World Cup, FIBA Americas Championship and Olympics (almost) always had NBA players since the open era. –HTD 22:09, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Do we apply this across all countries, or just U.S.?—Bagumba (talk) 22:13, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

@Howard the Duck: Several NBA players are on USA's roster at the 2015 Pan-Am Games, including current player Ryan Hollins and ex-NBAers such as Bobby Brown, Anthony Randolph, and Keith Langford. Several notable or elite college players are also playing for USA. Notable players are also on several other countries' rosters, like Venezuela's Greivis Vásquez, Brazil's Raulzinho Neto, Argentina's Facundo Campazzo, Canada's Anthony Bennett, Dominican Republic's Francisco García, and Puerto Rico's J. J. Barea (lack of NBA experience doesn't make a player insignificant). Throughout history, stars such as Christian Laettner have taken part in this event as well. TempleM (talk) 00:55, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Should've been more clear: no current NBA players in the USA team, except for Ryan Hollins. Generally, these navboxes are only used if the country's players from the best league are sent in... for the US it surely looks it's not the case, and it's a partial "yes" for the other teams. Looking further, the other non-US team sends in better players at the FIBA Americas Championship. Even the woeful 2002 FIBA World Championship squads#USA, which got deleted at TFD, were all playing in the NBA at that time. –HTD 21:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about other countries, but USA basketball doesn't consider the PanAm team the "senior national team." That only applies to the teams for the Olympics, a World Cup and qualifying events for those two events. Rikster2 (talk) 01:47, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

TBH the only senior national team is the one that they send to the Olympics. The best players usually never sign up for other tournaments, like the FIBA Americas Championship, or even the FIBA Basketball World Cup. –HTD 21:33, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, USA Basketball lists Olympics, FIBA Americas, World Cup, and Goodwill Games participants as part of their all-time roster.[5]—Bagumba (talk) 22:58, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Teams participating in the senior: Olympic Games, World Cup, Regional FIBA tournaments (EuroBasket, AfroBasket... but not sub-regional such as Caribean or South Asian) should be allowed to have a squad template in my opinon, even if they haven't won any medals. Participation in these tournaments is notable in its own right, as those squads comprise the best basketball players of that country. Apart from the US, most squads usually have a good part of their strongest players, including most of their NBA based players (see France's and Italy's squad at EuroBasket 2015 with only Noah defecting). --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 00:04, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't presume that a given countries' national team in a particular year is automatically notable. Does that year's team even meet GNG? It makes sense that WP:NAVBOX No. 4. suggests that "There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template"—in this case, that year's team. If such an article could not be created, we should not add to the endless navbox factory. Readers know how to navigate from a link in the article's prose to get to this information, without needing a navbox for everything.—Bagumba (talk) 00:36, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

Whilst I think they should be implemented more strongly, the sentence you cite is a guideline not a rule, it's not really viable to have an article for everything (just look at the number of college teams that have season articles but whose main article is bare). That said, if you wanted to, I'm pretty sure you could easily create articles for nearly all national teams participating in these major events (maybe an exception for AfroBasket/FIBA Asia championship - bar the Philippines - but I'm not even sure), technically these events already have a squads page anyway. I think its a useful tool for navigating between players and in some lower profile national teams is perfect to draw interest into more than one player (for example Germany with Nowinski). That's my vote anyway, used well, navboxes can be a value, not a problem, for me it's all the navboxes for various awards that are cluttering pages for nothing. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 21:58, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

edit: Just reread and realised I wasn't very clear. When I said you could create articles for nearly all national teams at these events I meant that they would have enough notability and sources to do so. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 22:00, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's that easy to meet notability. I lived in Buenos Aires for a month, and saw no noticeable coverage of basketball in the newspapers, or on TV. I only spotted one person wearing a Manu Ginóbili jersey in public the whole time. I was in Germany when Dirk Nowitzki and Dallas were playing in the NBA Finals. No noticeable print coverage in mainstream papers, nor highlights on broadcast TV. I don't automatically fall for the NBA's marketing that basketball is a mainstream global sport yet. I'd be more convinced if someone expanded a few of the article with something besides stats.—Bagumba (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we're in that stage where we could create articles for team participation in individual FIBA World Cup/continental championship. You could try participation articles in the entire tournament, though. The FIFA World Cup already does this, even for countries that didn't make it. –HTD 14:19, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we're in that stage where we could create articles for team participation: Can you elaborate on the reason you believe this? Is this due to lack of editor interest to date, lack of significant coverage from independent sources to meet WP:GNG, other?—Bagumba (talk) 06:15, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

More like lack of English sources. When making articles for the 2014 FIBA World Cup, for example, it was quite hard to get references, even with US media in tow. In theory, we could emulate what is being done on other <Country> at <year> <sport> World Cup articles but it would be quite bare and could be flagged by someone. –HTD 20:35, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Discussion on final image selection tweaks at Jahlil Okafor

After several discussions regarding warring over which images to include in Jahlil Okafor, we are holding what may be the concluding discussions regarding the possible reinsertion of 3 specific images and the removal of another. Join the discussion at Talk:Jahlil_Okafor#Now_relocated_discussion_on_images.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:09, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

AfC template submission

See Draft:West Virginia Mountaineers women's basketball navbox. Thank you, FoCuSandLeArN (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Washington University Bears rename proposal

There is a proposal to rename Washington University Bears page names to Washington Bears here [6] if anybody is interested in participating in the discussion. For those who may be unfamiliar the current Washington Bears page is about a 1940s basketball team that won the 1943 World Professional Basketball Tournament. Any opinions on the move would be appreciated.UCO2009bluejay (talk) 02:02, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Team colors

FYI

I've made a request at Template_talk:Infobox_basketball_biography#WP:CONTRAST:_text_color_and_borders to address WP:CONTRAST changes being made to team colors. Feel free to join the discussion there.—Bagumba (talk) 01:59, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Manual of style

• I just wanted to report that I made a start with the Basketball Manual of Style (MoS), comparable to Wikiproject Football MoS. So that there will be transparency in all basketball articles. All help and suggestions are welcome. --H-Hurry (talk) 19:18, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a good idea for having a decent Project Page. I think it's necessary to separate NBA and other leagues by continents in the manual of style. In European Leagues we are not working like in the NBA ones, e.g. Asturkian (talk) 04:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think there should be major differences. There are some things that are different with European teams/leagues (relegation/promotion, changing sponsor names, high profile continental leagues) but by and large how information is organized, formatted and displayed should be consistent with any differences being for specific reasons. My advice is invite WP:NBA to help craft a shared MOS. Rikster2 (talk) 11:55, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Caps and home arena for national team

H-Hurry added parameters for caps and home arena to {{Infobox national basketball team}}. Is caps a common terminology in basketball? Is there a home arena typically tied to a national team? The answer would be no in both cases for the US, but not sure with other countries.—Bagumba (talk) 18:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

By my experience, for national basketball team players, even those from outside the USA, game appearances ("caps") are almost never tallied. Quick question: How many games has Tony Parker played for France? No one can easily answer that, right? As for home arenas, almost all of the games of a national basketball team are away from home, as most games that matter are hosted elsewhere. Even qualification, where the home and away system is widely used in soccer, is sparingly used; instead a city hosts all games, and it's not always on the identified "home arena" of the national team. It's only used in EuroBasket qualification, and a quick check has several teams playing on a single venue consistently, while other teams do a rotation. –HTD 21:17, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

As there is currently WP:NOCONSENSUS for this change, I will revert it for now. No problem if consensus changes.—Bagumba (talk) 15:37, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Top scorer

I overlooked that "Top scorer" was also added with the previous edit to {{Infobox national basketball team}} discussed at #Caps and home arena for national team. Seems like another convenient way to creep more trivia that is otherwise not given much WP:WEIGHT in sources. MOS:INFOBOX states: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." Is there consensus to have added this?—Bagumba (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Ditch. Unlike soccer, records are not universally kept for national basketball teams, especially on "friendlies". –HTD 20:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Removed from infobox due to WP:NOCONSENSUS here.—Bagumba (talk) 20:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Draft:European Universities Basketball 3x3 Championships

Hello basketball fans. This old draft will soon be deleted as stale. Is this a notable basketball topic? Or should it be let go?—Anne Delong (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Most certainly non-notable, 3x3 receives little coverage on its own (it's not streetball) and the university competitions in Europe are purely recreational. Throw it in the chimney.--ArmstrongJulian (talk) 21:02, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, ArmstrongJulian. It's gone.—Anne Delong (talk) 21:39, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

ULEB/European navigational boxes

They're a goold navigational tool but I would like to standardise them as they currently change every single season. My preference would be to use the 2015–16 template with this order: Continental competitions, Regional competitions, Domestic competitions (cups in parenthesises) and Womens competitions (no need to separate them). With the whole Template category renamed as European club basketball 2015–16 because European Basketball season could imply national teams and ULEB is not exact as the FIBA Europe Cup and most of the women's competitions fall outside its influence (plus it's more opaque for outsiders). --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 21:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I support standardization. But... first thing first, you've got to decide are you doing for just ULEB competitions or for all European competitions in general (regardless of club, national teams, etc.); I don't think if you'll agree with me, but we should go for the latter, when you already have intion to go through the process of the standardization (last 10 seasons or whatever?).--AirWolf ^talk 10:21, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Listed height and weight in infoboxes

I always assumed the logical and reasoned way of listing height and weight parameters in the infobox was to use what was listed by the player's current team (or league). That would entail using feet and pounds for those playing in the U.S. (and Australia?), centimetres and kilograms for those playing in nearly the whole world, regardless of the player's nationality. I've had two editors change articles of European based players to the imperial units with little explanation or reasoning for their actions. It would be helpful to define the consensus on the subject so a standard can be applied and disruptive editing undone. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 20:59, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I've changed players (i.e. Jarvis Varnado, Alexey Shved) back to regular units because I think that just because they play in Europe, the height and weight shouldn't be changed to the metric system just because they're playing in Europe. Especially in Varnado's case, since he is American, I think he should at least stay in the normal units. But another user came up with a really good compromise on Alexey Shved's page, by putting the height in metrics in the lead paragraph, and the height in regular units in the infobox. I thought that was a good compromise so I kept it that way because then both units get used, instead of one ruling over the other. But since players like Shved, Nenad Krstic, Jan Vesely, and Kyrylo Fesenko have been playing in the NBA for the past couple of years, it just seems kind of pointless to change it back to the metric system when there weren't any problems with the way it was in regular units. But, then again, that's just me. --Miamiheat631^Talk 21:33, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

First of all, Miamiheat631 stop calling them "regular units." They may be "regular" to you, but to pretty much everybody outside of the U.S., metrics are regular. So just, please, stop. OK, getting back to the discussion at hand, I thought that my compromise on Shved's page was good enough, because I think that users that are familiar with the metric system can see it in the opening paragraph and users that are familiar with American units can see it in the infobox. Personally, I think that is a fair enough compromise, so I vote to keep it like that. Cheers. KanterMan340 (talk) 22:06, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I actually thought that consensus was to use the players' home units. In other words, American players use feet/inches/pounds and Europeans/Austalians/etc. use meters/kilograms. Rikster2 (talk) 22:35, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't really understand the motivation for choosing the units solely on nationality, apart from crass jingoism. If you really want to go by that rule of nationality, then change Pau Gasol's stats to metres and kilos, see how that goes down. The fact is the parameters given by the player's clubs or leagues are: official, recent and verified. There are players from the U.S. who have been playing in Europe (or vice-versa Europeans in the NBA) for a long time and whose stats given in "national" units date to sometimes a decade back. For example, Phil Goss (left the U.S. in 2005) is listed as 6'1 and 185lb by Fox Sports but by all accounts is 188cm and 85kg, not the same stats. If you tell me we can just convert the recent data into imperial units that's a complete waste of time seeing as there's a conversion by default when you input those stats into the infobox. That's discarding the notion that feet and inches are unprecise measurement units and that inputing them as the basic data can lead to differences of at least 3cm in player height. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 10:46, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, I don't care. I was just saying what I thought the consensus was. Rikster2 (talk) 11:53, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

A few comments:

1. Per WP:NBAHEIGHT, height is general not listed in the lead unless it's incredibly tall (e.g. 7 ft) or short.
2. Conversion errors can be avoided in Template:Infobox basketball biography by using imperial/metric as the base for input, but changing the order of display using |height_order= and |weight_order=
3. The practice that generally seems to be followed is that players currently playing in the US use ft/lbs. See Gasol, Steve Nash, etc. Even recently-created Jonah Bolden, an Australian playing in college in the U.S. now, went from imperial to metric and now seems settled on imperial. Per WP:UNIT: "The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of "strong national ties", where applicable."

I'm pretty apathetic about changing these if a non-American is no longer active in the U.S. However, it would only make sense, at best, for players from predominantly English-speaking countries. Otherwise, I'm assuming fewer readers from their country would be reading en.wikipedia, and there would be more Americans reading about the overseas player.—Bagumba (talk) 17:05, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

• I wasn't aware that placing height and weight in the lead was discouraged but wholeheartedly agree with that, it doesn't add any information to the article if not used in context and should be purged from articles (its rife in those of European players). The compromise suggested by KanterMan340, whilst in good faith, hence does not really answer the problem. Not too keen on the "strong national ties" argument, when do you draw the line between strong and weak ties? How do you explain the choice in the article? I agree with the fact that U.S. based players should have their parameters in imperial units (hence not respecting strong national ties for a lot of them) but I don't understand why that is not concurently applied for players based worldwide with metric units. I'm probably commenting too much on this but I'd like the issue settled with more participation, if not it'll just be completely random and an open invitation to edit wars (as has been the case already). --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I think an exception is made to use feet for foreign NBA players like Gasol, presumably because most readers of their bios are Americans who are following the NBA. If we can agree that all Americans should use feet, and that all foreign players who are currently in the NBA players are likely listed with feet also, I think the only gray area might be foreign NBA players who are not currently in the NBA i.e. not playing/retired or currently in another league.—Bagumba (talk) 19:16, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

For European players who plays in Europe its normal to have meters and kgs... if they move to NBA then can be changed to feet. For Americans in Europe i dont have nothing against to have american units, but for European players in Europe it just doesnt make sense to have feet.--Bozalegenda (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. Agree.--AirWolf ^talk 19:50, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Proposal (based on previous talk):
Let's get a consensus on this "problem". I want you all to see metric system. All world countries, with the exceptions for the US, Burma and Liberia are using metric system. Based on what others wrote here, these are my conclusions:

• Players coming from USA (Burma, Liberia) should have non-metric units (e.g. feet/inches for height, pounds for weight);
• Players coming from countries that adopted metric system should have metric units (e.g. meters/centimeters(less common) for height, kilograms for weight);

On Wikipedia, there have been created many templates which auto-translate these measures to opposite (metric to non-metric) by putting the secondary in brackets. I get that many readers come from the US, and we should give non-metric measures a lead (make it primary) when a player comes to NBA (other US leagues) from the country where metric system is officially adopted so that readers don't get confused. Also, my proposal is that once they sign with non-NBA team or exit NBA (by retirement etc.), we make metric system a primary for that player, just like it should be a case with Nenad Krstić. Non-metric system measures will still exist, just it won't be primary, but secondary. Who is in? And not? Support/Oppose/Comment, choose.--AirWolf ^talk 20:05, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Note: WT:NBA has been notified of this discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 20:17, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if Canada should be included for imperial. Their national team website lists their men's national team in feet [7].—Bagumba (talk) 20:21, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Maybe the United Kingdom as well, metres and kilos are officially used (sometimes solely) but imperial units are still widespread for height and weight. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 20:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't want to open that can of worms but I'm pretty sure the centimetres/metres issue was decided in favour of the former, you can find the conversation in this talk page's archives by searching height if I'm not mistaken. My preference is for assigning the units based on where the player's are playing, not on nationality, everybody agrees that should be the case for U.S.-based players but no one seems to see the other side of the coin, the argument that english wikipedia basketball users are mostly American is shaky, its not the case on this talk page for one. That said, I'd rather have a reasonable consensus than anarchy and if the majority agree to using units based on nationality (with an exception for the NBA) then I'll vote for that. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 20:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment - That's almost exactly what I've proposed. Using units based on territory the player is playing currently. What about retired players? Based on nationality?--AirWolf ^talk 20:36, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose - I think that just because a European player (especially those who have played in the NBA for multiple years) shouldn't be moved back to the metric system because most American NBA followers that know them don't really know the metric system. I think that KanterMan's compromise suits everybody's needs because it gives both sides they're respective units. --Miamiheat631^Talk 20:24, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Comment - They don't have to know metric system. They are offered non-metric units in brackets as secondary once given metric units a primary function. That is also in correlation with "KanterMan's compromise".--AirWolf ^talk 20:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Medals

Hey, just to get some input about medals in the infobox. Does the team national team needs to be linked over and over? The team parameter should only be used when there is a specific article for the tournament, imo. Having 4-5 links to the same team is not needed. The national team is linked 1-2 times in the article already. The same is done on football, handball articles and so on. Just dont see the need for a repeating link which offers nothing to the linked tournament. The olympics can and should have the subarticle there. It just makes it look more clear in my view. Done that on the french articles like Tony Parker. User:AirWolf disagreed. So we ask for opinions and go with the consensus. On phone right now but can offer more input and diffs when i am at home soon. Just to get it started. Kante4 (talk) 09:54, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

First of all, reducing multiple same links to one per article is really needed. That being said, and maybe me being a bit traditional, leaving at least one link to the national team should be good solution, just like it should be the case of Tony's. If the player has won more medals with his national team, there, for consistency should be only addition next to medalCompetition "|Team" with no link as it was previously mentioned. If the team have page created only for one tournament (e.g. Olympics), the link is a no-brainier. Two more arguments: With the addition of link in medal part of Infobox template, we avoid possible nonexistence of link to the national team in article and we make to mobile-reader a faster way to get to the national team page if becomes interested. And the second argument is that we have some players who have u21, u20, and so on till u16 medals, just like in Tony's case; so there we should make a clear difference and faster way to reach these sub-articles of national teams. Some national teams have them just like the Serbian national basketball team, some don't.--AirWolf ^talk 10:12, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

The one link would be a good solution for me. Or in the infobox a link maybe or above the first won medal? Kante4 (talk) 10:19, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, please don't go too far. Lets agree on this, which can bee transitional, and then once agreed, we can think about what's next, like football (soccer) templates - meaning of the period player played for the national team etc. Which in my opinion can be great asset but... first things first.--AirWolf ^talk 10:26, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, I don't get it why have you deleted parameters MedalCountry and MedalSport from Tony's article?--AirWolf ^talk 10:28, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Those can be added but arent there on many other articles. Why not have the link to the national team instead of country, a flag could still be there. Kante4 (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that would pretty much solve the problem. We just need good developer who will track all national teams (many don't have men's addition). If that's the case, what about younger teams, meaning of under21 etc?--AirWolf ^talk 12:46, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

What it looked before

Tony Parker

Medals Men’s basketball Representing France FIBA EuroBasket 2013 Ljubljana National team 2011 Kaunas National team 2005 Belgrade National team FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship 2000 Zadar National team

What it looks now

Tony Parker

Medals EuroBasket 2013 Ljubljana 2011 Kaunas 2005 Belgrade FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship 2000 Croatia

Idea (with link to national team in country parameter)?

Tony Parker

Medals Representing France EuroBasket 2013 Ljubljana 2011 Kaunas 2005 Belgrade FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship 2000 Croatia

About U21 and so on. There can be another link above those won medals, if they have to be in the infobox... Kante4 (talk) 13:02, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Here is my proposal:

Agree with third one, but with some modifications...

Tony Parker

Medals Men's basketball Representing France EuroBasket 2013 Ljubljana 2011 Kaunas 2005 Belgrade FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship 2000 Croatia Team

Specific case 1

Miloš Teodosić

Medals Men's basketball Representing Serbia World Cup 2014 Spain EuroBasket 2009 Poland U20 European Championship 2007 Slovenia Team Representing Serbia and Montenegro U18 European Championship 2005 Serbia and Montenegro Team European Championship for Cadets 2003 Spain Team

Specific case 2

LeBron James

Medals Men's basketball Representing the United States Olympic Games 2004 Athens Team 2008 Beijing Team 2012 London Team FIBA World Championship 2006 Japan FIBA Americas Championship 2007 Las Vegas

Carefully go through all specific cases and tell me your opinion. Based on our previous talk, I think we are near consensus. Am I right?--AirWolf ^talk 13:07, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I really like that. If there is no "under-19" or so link, do we leave it blank or add the redlink? And, is "MedalSport" really needed to be added? Basketball is linked in the lead, articles is about a basketball player, all links in the medalbox lead to basketball articles so i say we can skip that.

When we agree, i go through the eurobasket players i already went through and add the country. I will work my way through all that are playing at the EuroBasket 2015. Kante4 (talk) 13:15, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Just skip it/leave it blank, as many teams don't have such articles, even the US don't have it. I would still put it (MedalSport par.), more than 90% of articles have it. If it really becomes annoying, we can use the services of some bot and that's it. For a start, EuroBasket 2015 isn't bad, but keep in mind, there are much more articles having such templates. Deal sealed, right?--AirWolf ^talk 13:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

MedalSport is the only thing i see different but that's a minor part, so Deal! Kante4 (talk) 13:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Didn't catch all of that and I'm late to the party but just a few opinions. I agree with the adopted solution, it looks better and it's easier to navigate, plus linking to the country article instead of the national team was a bit useless. My caveat is putting the Under-age results in the infobox, are those medals really that important? In my eyes they're not, there was a discussion before on the subject that was roughly of the same opinion though no consensus was established. Olympic medals are big deals, World Cup less so, Regional championships about par for some but no one would consider an under-age medal their career achievement, which is what the infobox highlights portion should illustrate. --ArmstrongJulian (talk) 19:01, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

LeBron James

Medals Men's basketball Representing the United States Olympic Games 2004 Athens 2008 Beijing 2012 London FIBA World Championship 2006 Japan FIBA Americas Championship 2007 Las Vegas

Looking at Template:MedalGold, the last parameter is supposed to be for the event, not something like "team". However, competitions like the World Cup don't have an "event", it's basketball only. I'd prefer a presentation that looks consistent, but having entries with a lot of space at the end where the parameter is not used looks awkward. Thus, I'd propose not using the "event" field for basketball. If a country has an article specific for that year's national team e.g. 2012 United States men's Olympic basketball team, just use it for the link to the competition e.g. 2006 FIBA World Championship. Otherwise, link to the competition's article. For example, LeBron James could look like the example here.—Bagumba (talk) 20:09, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree there, except for the part of underage competitions.--AirWolf ^talk 20:44, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

The underage thread (below) is separate, and unrelated to this discussion. Thanks.—Bagumba (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Don't try to be "smart" when interacting with anyone here, it's rude. I've given opinion on both your and Julian's talk.--AirWolf ^talk 21:10, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Underage medals

I propose removing underage medals from the infobox once a player has won a medal with the senior national team. Per MOS:INFOBOX: "The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance." I doubt any FA/GA bios even mention the underage medals in the lead. They can instead be mentioned in prose, or in a general list of honor in the body.—Bagumba (talk) 19:38, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Oppose: Many European national teams have sub-articles for their younger selections. These are events organized by FIBA, and have World and Continental championships. Not notable? I doubt it. Then why not delete all articles about such events?--AirWolf ^talk 20:43, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I was referring to notability relative to the player, not that it wasn't notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia. That being said, we don't need to necessarily list everything that has a Wikipedia article in the lead or in an infobox. Per MOS:INTRO: "According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources." If a player earned a medal as part of the senior national team, then I think it's less important to list the underage national teams. We employ a similar practice for pro players, where not all of their college or high school awards are listed. For that matter, not all of their pro awards are always listed, even if it has a Wikipedia article.—Bagumba (talk) 20:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)