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Template-protected edit request on 2 September 2015

Please add the following text immediately before the noinclude tag at the bottom of the source. It adds a necessary tracking category to find potential footnotes that have not been converted to the new parameter yet (and other misuses of the nowiki tag, I suppose).

<!--
-->{{#if:{{#invoke:String |match |s=_{{{pastteams|}}} |pattern=%<nowiki |plain=false |nomatch=}} |{{main other |[[Category:Infobox NFL player articles with potential unconverted footnotes]]}} }}

~ Rob^Talk 13:36, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Is it necessary? There's only 163 {{Infobox NFL player}} articles which use <nowiki>, only 24 of which use it with an asterisk. Even if there's a high percentage of false positives, you could wade through the list comfortably in about half an hour. Alakzi (talk) 13:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

A category allows me to use AWB easily. Almost all of these can probably be taken care of with 2-3 regex strings, which saves time. ~ Rob^Talk 13:55, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Rob, I just tried to add your requested tracking category code (above), and it blanked the documentation page except for the code string, and rendered the code string at the top of every article where the template is transcluded. For example, the Dan Marino article had the following visible code string immediately below the San Marino hat note and above the lead paragraph:

{{#if:{{#invoke:String |match |s=_* Miami Dolphins (1983–1999) |pattern=% <!-- Add categories to the /doc subpage; interwikis go to Wikidata. --> {{Documentation}}</noinclude>

Reactions? Please review the diff where I inserted the requested tracking category code, and see if I did something wrong. Thanks. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

The "nowiki" is being parsed, for whatever reason. I've fixed it in the sandbox; copy the code from there. Alakzi (talk) 14:51, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, A. That looks like it worked -- or at least the template documentation did not disappear and there are no rendering errors on the individual article pages. Rob, is this generating what you wanted for tracking purposes? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's not doing anything. As we should've guessed, you can't capture a <nowiki>. Alakzi (talk) 15:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a dud? Not generating the category data? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes; and it appears to be caused by phab:T16562. If we were to simply omit the less-than symbol, it should work. Alakzi (talk) 16:12, 2 September 2015 (UTC) [Which it does. Alakzi (talk) 16:20, 2 September 2015 (UTC)]

Also, for future reference, please create a tracking category before altering the code, or the category will show as a regular - albeit red-linked - category to everyone. Alakzi (talk) 16:25, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

My apologies for the headache this caused. That's very bizarre that the unclosed nowiki tag was treated as closed. Just need the removal of the < sign now, as per Alakzi's comment. ~ Rob^Talk 17:58, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

It's okay, guys. No harm, no foul. Please be specific: to which "less than" (<) sign do you refer -- the one at the beginning of the code string, or somethng else? Is that the only character in the strong to be changedDirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:09, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Simply copy-and-paste the code from the sandbox. Alakzi (talk) 18:10, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dirtlawyer1: By the way, it appears you accidentally removed another tracking category of mine while adding this one. Mind adding it back? It's being used in an active BRFA. (No, it's not. That was pending still.) See: [1] ~ Rob^Talk 18:28, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

@BU Rob13: Sorry, to be so slow to respond, but it's been an annoyingly day -- I actually had to take client calls and do RW work today. The coding to which you refer is the string that created Category:Infobox NFL player with debut/final parameters? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:12, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

@Dirtlawyer1: Yes, it is. And no worries, I hate those annoyingly days. ~ Rob^Talk 00:19, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

It appears that this one is  Done, so I've closed it with no prejudice to reopen if all parties are not in agreement. Painius  13:25, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Reopened, still need a copy from sandbox to fix the issue with the new tracking category and the re-addition of the tracking category that was accidentally removed (see above). ~ Rob^Talk 13:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Copy means copy. You don't have to go through the same learning process I did. Alakzi (talk) 13:56, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

 Done Painius  14:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Players that were drafted multiple times

Is there a way to show in the infobox that a player was drafted multiple times in the NFL draft? Examples: Ed Stacco (drafted in 1945 and 1946), Bob Hoffman (drafted in 1939 and 1940), Jim Cullom (1949 and 1950), Pat Abbruzzi (1954 and 1955), Craig Erickson, Monroe Eley, Mel Bratton, Matt Darwin, and Bo Jackson. Thanks. Jwalte04 (talk) 17:59, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

• @Jwalte04: At present, there is no way to show two different NFL drafts using Infobox NFL player. I was aware of the rare instances of two-time NFL draftees, including those that were double-draftees as a result of World War II; I had forgotten about some of contract-dispute examples like Bo Jackson. I took a few minutes and reviewed the examples you linked above, and it appears individual editors have included the particular draft deemed to be more important in the infobox. I'm not sure what the solution would be -- whether we should include two drafts in the infobox -- but these oddities should certainly be discussed and explained in the text. In my experience, such oddities as double-draftees are better explained in the text rather than in simplified bullet-point fashion in the infobox. That said, what would you like to do with this? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Dirtlawyer1! I think you're right, explaining these rare occurrences in the text is probably the best option. I was really asking to make sure that there was not a current solution regarding this question. Thanks for the help! Jwalte04 (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment List of NFL supplemental draft picks might provide an additional scenario for a player being twice drafted. However, I did NOT immediately locate one within this list. UW Dawgs (talk) 19:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Unlink "central" draft articles

Hello.

Could someone please unlink '''[[National Football League draft|NFL draft]]''', '''[[American Football League draft|AFL draft]]''', etc. The links cause every player ever drafted to link to the central pages, so that they have thousands of incoming links, making it impossible to identify which articles really link to them. And this number will continue to grow.

Linking to the actual draft (year) article is relevant in the player article context, but not linking to the "central" pages.

If someone thinks the links are relevant in the context of the template itself, then the linking could be limited by <noinclude></noinclude> tags.

Thanks.

HandsomeFella (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• This would need consensus, and I doubt it would be forthcoming. The links are useful, the year links will already be in the article, and there's no reason to limit how much linking we do within the wiki. Actually, more linking is generally preferable to aid in navigation between pages. I support the links as is. ~ Rob^Talk 16:25, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your response. I guess it can always be said that links are useful. Yet there's a guideline in the MOS (WP:OVERLINK) on the topic. Unfortunately it touches only on the problem of having too many outgoing links, not (explicitly) on that of having too many incoming links. At least I haven't seen that.

I realize that it's – to some extent anyway – a matter of opinion what should be linked, and what shouldn't. I personally think that a reader of a player article would be more interested in who else was drafted, and by which team, that year, than in the generic process itself, however interesting that may be. If the reader becomes interested in that process after reading the year article, s/he can access it from there, where a link obviously would be motivated.

The question of whether links "acquired" from transcluding a template, shown in the "What links here" function just like "regular" links, could (or should) be avoided has been raised several times on WP:VPT, so I guess other people have also seen the problem. In some cases though, the problem is that some templates encompass a set of pages that is too large, and when all those articles transclude the template, all will also have very many incoming links.

The problem is somewhat different here. We have a template that doesn't have very many outgoing links, but it's transcluded by v-e-r-y- m-a-n-y articles, and that number is growing by – I'm guessing here – at least 100 a year. So the problem is growing. We could mitigate that problem by de-linking some of the most common, or generic, link targets.

HandsomeFella (talk) 16:58, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I work as much with this particular template as anyone, and I would not oppose de-linking the built-in infobox link to the general NFL draft article, so long as the links are preserved to the articles for the individual draft years, e.g., 2015 NFL draft. In the past, several of the infobox field/parameter labels were linked, including "Position," "College," "High school," etc. From a design standpoint, I always thought it was kind of odd and more than a little distracting to link some, but not all infobox field labels. Frankly, at one point in Wikipedia's history, there was a tendency to link everything that was link-able. I think we're past that (see WP:OVERLINK), and now we are only linking to the most important subjects or most relevant subjects. Those are my thoughts. Let's see what others have to say. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:22, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I only saw it when I saved a new paragraph that I added to my post immediately above. Amazingly, there was no edit conflict. WP software is getting better every day, it seems. HandsomeFella (talk) 17:29, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

As a clarification to my rationale for supporting the links, I'm not in the business of recommending we link everything. In this case, I believe the links are useful because those who may not know too much about sports might not know what the draft is, how it's carried out, etc. I'm lumped in with the category of "people who know nothing" for many sports other than football, and I know a link to, say, the NHL draft would be helpful to me. ~ Rob^Talk 10:37, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Not done for now: It is evident that the delinking requested needs more discussion and would require a community consensus. Painius  23:35, 21 September 2015 (UTC)