Template talk:Pittsburgh Panthers football navbox

Please discuss changes before making revisions

What makes sense for one school does not make sense for all. This template also falls under the Pitt and Pittsburgh wikiprojects. CrazyPaco (talk) 06:43, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

The claim "What makes sense for one school does not make sense for all" is wholly unsubstantiated. Also, the dates of the venues in this navbox match the dates listed in the infoboxes of the articles. If these dates are wrong, please correct in all places. Thanks. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:24, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

You have not achieved consensus on your opinion either at the College Football Wikiproject nor here. Standardization guidelines for navboxes should not include such rigid inflexibility that it prevents common sense additions of articles or categories that would best guide a reader to the most successful understanding of a topic as determined by the consensus of editors with expert knowledge on that topic. As Navboxes in articles in other, more active Wikiprojects, such as those for other sports, cities, countries, political figures (and many more) have retained flexibility in Navbox content, including even Featured Articles that fall within the same projects and categories, you do not seem to have consensus on the general idea preventing the customization or tailoring of navboxes for particular topics across the general WIkipedia community either. Nor does such policy or guideline exist elsewhere.

Further, you have failed to justify for this template, on this discussion page, or the discussion page of Pittsburgh Panthers football, why the inclusion or exclusion of specific articles or categories is warranted. For this particular navbox, why is it warranted to exclude the retired jerseys of the University of Pittsburgh when it plays such a prominent role in the University of Pittsburgh's and the City of Pittsburgh's own sense and understanding of its college football program? Why is the inclusion of defunct venues for Pitt's football program, some used only for one season, so important to make it included in the navbox? Additionally, why would such a a prominent location, the very first entries in the navbox, be warranted for these articles? The articles those venues have only tangential or peripheral applicability for to the football program and would provide the reader mostly inconsequential information for understanding the topic. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:39, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Navbox contents

This navbox contents and format is to be discussed below in order to gain consensus for the best possible navigation tool for readers of the subject matter, Pittsburgh Panthers football, in order to provide "a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles", per WP:NAV, in order to provide the reader the best possible understanding of the topic, Pittsburgh Panthers football.

Keep in mind, per WP:NAV

• "The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space. Ask yourself, does this help the reader in reading up on related topics? Take any two articles in the template. Would a reader really want to go from A to B?"
• "They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value. For navigating among many articles, consider:

Split them into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic."

• Red links should be avoided unless they are very likely to be developed into articles, and even if they do, editors are encouraged to write the article first.

• The most pertinent overviews and articles of the topic Pittsburgh Panthers football should be at the top of the navbox (intuitively for readers it is likey the most prominent location on the navbox).

For the the top Pittsburgh Panthers football, the most prominent articles are related to the topic's overall history likely are similar to the following: 1) A list of all seasons, 2) a list of all bowl games, 3) a list of all head coaches, 4) a list of all All-Americans (under construction) 5) National Championship seasons.

• The second most important group of articles to convey and understanding of the topic, Pittsburgh Panthers football, to the reader are articles related to the culture (or lore) of the topic. These include panthers, "Hail to Pitt", "Pitt Victory Song", University of Pittsburgh Varsity Marching Band, 13–9. The most important historic venue, Pitt Stadium is a candidate to be moved here since many of the other historic venues may be trivial to the understanding of the topic and may therefore be distracting.

• The third group may either be Rivalries or Retired Jerseys. Rivalries should be list either by active or most played to denote importance of each rivalry respective to another.

• Retired Jerseys should be denoted by order of jersey number. Retired jerseys represent a selective list of some of the most important individuals associated with the topic and likely warrant inclusion.

• Perhaps the least important aspect for understanding the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football are little used historic venues, although major facilities are important. Of these only the current venues, Heinz Field and the UPMC Sports Performance Complex, along with the historic venue of Pitt Stadium are of a priority for inclusion because of their necessity or understanding the topic and the importance in its history. Forbes Field is of secondary importance, but could be included. Recreation Park and Exposition Park listings are trivial as early games were sporadically played back and forth at these venues over a short number of years. Three Rivers Stadium was a one-year temporary venue and is not relevant for understanding the topic and should be removed.

• Lists of 100+ seasons should not be included per WP:NAV and should be "split ..into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic" and "red links should be avoided". CrazyPaco (talk) 03:58, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

• Other individuals of import for the navbox are Jock Sutherland and "Pop" Warner. Perhaps Johnny Majors. I'm not sure how to work those in under current conditions. But the retired jerseys and these 2-3 coaches are historically the most important people to Pitt football.

• Should there be a "current" category to link the current season, Paul Chryst, etc? It could be consolidated with venues. Thus, for example, the navbox could have Past (for history) and Present (for current information)

For comparison, here is the existing navbox:

And here is a mock-up of a stream-lined version:

And here is a third possible version mostly by NThomas:

And here is a fourth possibility with current and historic groupings.

What are the best attributes of each that provides the best navigation tool for the topic? CrazyPaco (talk) 10:36, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I oppose all of the these changes and as well as the undue Pittsburgh-centric focused nature of this approached. While there is merit to some of the issues raised, none of them are native or specific to Pittburgh Panthers football. Most programs have luminary figures, relatively obscure former venues, and retired jersey/honored numbers. It far more appropriate to continue this discussion at WikiProject College football and consider modification to the standard form for all college football program navboxes. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:49, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

On what grounds? The topic for navigation is Pittsburgh Panthers football, which falls under the domain of multiple WikiProjects (including WikiProject Pittsburgh), not simply college football in general. Therefore, it should have topic-focused links to provide the best possible navigation to the reader to help the reader obtain the best possible understanding on the topic. WP:NAV speaks pretty clear on some of these navigation issues. Perhaps this is best taken up at WP:NAV? CrazyPaco (talk) 17:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

One the grounds of making Wikipedia as a whole as standardized as possible, which makes it predictable and easiest for everyone to navigate and utilize. If every city or state project runs wild with their own version of formatting for elements that are part of a national or global set of analogs, then we have a chaotic mess. Perhaps, WP:NAV is a good place to address this. The verbiage and policy there seems lacking and outdated in a lot of ways. For one, there is no mention of such classes of analogous navboxes, and there should be. Jweiss11 (talk) 17:59, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

So you are suggesting that navigation boxes should not be "centric" to their topics, which would seem to me to be contradictory to WP:NAV? And the grounds for this is a desire to see an unprecedented level of standardization that exists nowhere else on Wikipedia; one that trumps determinations of content inclusion and exclusion that have historically been based on a consensus achieved after the evaluation of a specific topic in the spirt of WP:TPA. As an example, you cite possible chaos with city, country, state navboxes, all of which currently have customized formats (custom categories and layouts that are centric and to their topics)? So I'm not mistaken, you are referring to a standardization of navboxes that is well beyond the simple standardization of the formatting of elements like en dashes or layout or grammar per WP:MOS, but one that predetermines content and navigation irrespective of any considerations of the idiosyncrasies of any one topic. Is such thinking in any policy, guideline or essay? Can you cite anything that ever suggested this as appropriate or that has any such precedent? BTW, you also failed to address any of the points above about the inclusion of specific content in the navbox or issues of the current navbox raised in WP:NAV, so I am assuming there is no further comment on them. CrazyPaco (talk) 05:14, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

A given college football team navbox should be centric to its topic, but also constructed in a way that is parallel to the navboxes for all other college football teams. I'm just taking a quick look at Category:United States state templates and it seems like there's a general effort to keep things in parallel between all the navboxes. There are some differences, but they do seem more idiosyncratic than necessary. Frankly, I think WikiProject College football is further along than these state projects in terms of coordination and standardization. The idiosyncrasies that we're seeing here are more a reflection of the idiosyncrasies of the editors who built this content and their approach to building it rather than the idiosyncrasies of the subject matter itself. Such idiosyncrasies need to be engineered out. I'm not quite sure that these values have been stated in any existing formal policy or guideline, but their virtues and utility seem self-evident and in line with the greater goals of Wikipedia. I can comment on the points above about the inclusion of specific content, but perhaps it make sense to do that at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject College football. I see that you've opened up a new discussion about these navboxes there. Jweiss11 (talk) 12:13, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

In my personal opinion, in stark contrast to yours, the navboxes that have been implemented on behalf of the CFB WIkiproject are substantially inferior to the vast majority of navboxes for many of cfb teams, and that view would seem to be supported by the WP:NAV essay for the reasons noted above; the points of which you have yet to address. Your implementation has gone beyond providing a parallel between navboxes of similarly related topics and crossed into the enforcement an inflexible rigidity, that lacks consensus on any level, and that has resulted in your perfunctory reversals of any category additions and many links across the 100s of individual team topics (that in most cases fall under additional WikiProjects) irrespective of the reasoning behind those additions. The "virtues" of such rigid standardization, as you proclaim, is absolutely not self-evident, but in fact detrimental to the greater goals of Wikipedia, such as those described in WP:TPA, if those goals can be extrapolated to templates. I must admit, however, that your proclamation of "self-evidence" as reasoning for your desire to enforce a Wikipedia-wide erasure of all individual topic-specific navigation tool "idiosyncrasies" is a new one for me as I'm much more familiar with Wikipedia discussions using reasoning based on policy, guidelines, essay, or precedent. That said, I'll patiently wait for additional comments from third parties. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:10, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Crazypaco, it's been a little tough to keep up with this since you've taken this issue to a number of locations, but I will try to address all your points here and now. First off, a quick question. You stated above that the standardized CFB team navboxes are "inferior to the vast majority of navboxes for many of cfb teams". I'm not sure what you mean there. They are inferior to which navboxes?

I meant inferior to all other team sport navboxes: teams in the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, Premier league. In general, most current CFB navboxes are inferior to all of those teams. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, let me step back a minute and recap the history of the standardized navboxes, the thinking that went into them, and the consensus that does exist behind them. The effort to standardize team navboxes for college football teams was indeed spearheaded by me in the latter part of 2011. In a sense the effort was an outgrowth of an earlier project, circa late 2010, to standardize the college football coach navboxes. It's worth noting the standard form for college football coach navboxes has been adopted and implemented by a number of other WikiProjects including WikiProject College Basketball, WikiProject College baseball, WikiProject National Football League, and WikiProject Canadian football. Like the earlier coach navbox project, the team navbox project set out with three main aims: 1) provide a standard, predictable, parallel form to allow for ease of navigation, 2) combat footer clutter in biography articles, and 3) eliminate the need for succession boxes—which are cumbersome, static, and often messy—wherever possible.

The team navbox standardization project was discussed in depth and at lenght at the WikiProject College football talk page, and a number of editors weighed in and ultimately expressed approval. I recall that User:Dirtlawyer1 and User:Cbl62 were instrumental in revising the standard form. Once the standard form had been arrived at, User:Patriarca12 helped create team navboxes for FBS programs that were lacking one. More recently, User:Ejgreen77 has rolled the standard form across the FCS programs. You seem to be the only one who has a real issue with the standardization.

I think you really need to review that 2011 discussion. It did not provide you some widespread consensus over 100s of navboxes that you are claiming. You are inappropriately extrapolating comments about specific style issues, like bolding national championship seasons, to the issues of strictly enforcing only your version of a navbox across 100s of templates. Your actions reverting additions to any of 100s of navboxes in the name of a nonexistent authority granted by a WikiProject are, frankly, inappropriate.

I'll summarize comments from every editor that commented from that discussion (particularly about navbox flexibility)...

• Dirtlawyer1: "There needs to remain some degree of flexibility from program to program, and we should not try to cram every program into an absolutely inflexible one-size-fits-all cookie cutter pattern."
• Cbl62 "allow some flexibility" [and repeated this on March 9, 2013] "I support some flexibility in allowing knowledgeable editors to tinker with, customize, or modify a program's team navbox."
• Hholt1: "Non-Support, Strongly,... College football is regional, and varied,"
• cmadler commented "I'm not clear about the "List of X X bowl games" link, though. Does this mean that every team should now have such an article? That seems like overkill. Perhaps a common-sense solution would be to allow direct links to bowl games for teams with a small number of appearances" [...This is obviously a call for flexibility.]
• Patricia12 comments "I do like the more streamlined navboxes as I do tend to agree that there should be some standardization across all programs. I do have a couple of issues though. I do believe that Heisman winners should be included in the navbox." [...That in no way seems to give some power of inflexible standardization that you have enforced and in fact has comments on February 20, 2013 again suggesting a preference for flexibility:] "However, my overall thought is tied back more to what Crazypaco has been saying about allowing for more flexibility based on individual programs unique history."
• Tony the Tiger "Overall standardization is good. I am not sure how we interpret who the legends are of a program if Heisman Trophy winners is removed. I assume bowl games are removed because they have a dedicated navbox. Not sure why rivalry games and bowl games are treated differently. I would think rivalry games should also have a navbox, but I guess we need to flesh out interest in having sport specific or multisport rivalry articles."
• Jtalledo commented about highlighting in color and including scandals if existing scandals were equally put on all relevant navboxes.
• NReTSa "Overall, these are good efforts to standardize navboxes". That's the closest thing you have to supporting these actions.

Recently, I know MarketDiamond has let his thoughts known after I alerted him to the issue.

I see a general desire for cleanup, parallelization, streamlining, and even some standardization, which was accomplished; but absolutely not the inflexible enforcement of your singular navbox style. Comments specifically in support of rigid standardization, first objected to by Dirtlawyer1, do not actually exist. You have single handedly taken on the task of reverting any additions to navboxes across Wikipedia in claiming a consensus that does not exist under the nonexistent authority of a Wikiproject. Where is your consensus? Does that seem to show that I am "the only one who has a real issue with the standardization?" It is you that is in the clear minority here. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Now on to to some of your specific points:

• Retired jerseys: the reason these are left out of the team navbox is that one of the main precepts behind the standardization was to exclude links to any biography articles. This was done to combat footer clutter. We have other navboxes dedicated for coaching successions, starting quarterback successions, and things like prominent awards and retired/honored jerseys. If we add, say, coaches to the main team navboxes, then one of two things must happen. Either 1) we transclude the team navboxes on all those biography articles and now have the team navbox there in addition to the coach navbox. Or 2) We don't tranclude the team navbox on the bio article even though there is a link to that article in the navbox. This violates a principal of one-to-one linking in navboxes that ensures a closed loop of navigation. It's poorly formed navigation to provide a link within a navbox that takes a user to an article that does not also have that same navbox. That's a navbox dead-end, if you will. While WP:NAV may say nothing of this principal, it well should. So to include bio articles would leave us with the dilemma of either footer clutter or bad navigation.
  • Per WP:NAV, what does navbox clutter have to do with the appropriateness of these articles to the topic for the purposes of guiding the reader through the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football? Pitt has a retired jersey navbox. Is it not more efficient, regarding navbox clutter, to fold a navbox that contains only eight names into the Pitt football navbox, which also, in turn, would also benefits from improving navigation within the topic? Can you cite any other team sport navboxes outside of your own CFB model that exclude biographies? I'll save you time: this is not so for NCAA basketball, NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, or MLS team navboxes. You do not have existing precedent nor consensus opinion regarding this issue. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Current category: no, for the same reason stated above for exuding bio articles, plus undue weight to recent events and unnecessary maintenance required.
  • Per WP:NAV, what does that have to do with the appropriateness for guiding the reader through the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football? I disagree that current news about the program constitutes undue weight, although I see your concern with this. The truth is, some season are naturally more important than others, particularly championship seasons, and in my opinion, the most current season. Undue maintance for Pittsburgh Panthers template is not a concern for me or other editors of this topic since we also maintain current season articles already (and is easily handled with {{Current lunar year}}). CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Luminary figures or "individuals of import": no, same reason regarding bio articles, plus here we don't even have an objective set of criteria for inclusion.
  • Per WP:NAV, what does that have to do with the appropriateness for guiding the reader through the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football? For Pitt football, a proposed criteria of inclusion is retired jerseys and/or national championship coaches. Do you have a comment on the appropriateness of that criteria for the topic of Pitt football? CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Historic venues: all venues with stand-alone articles are included with parenthetic years of use to provide a comprehensive overview of the full succession of venues and obviate the need for cumbersome succession boxes that provide similar information in a far less efficient manner.

Per WP:NAV, what does that have to do with the appropriateness for guiding the reader through the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football? No expertise on the topic is being applied by your answer, per WP:TPA. You also do not have precedent or consensus of succession boxes being used on venues. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Seasons": links to every season article are included because of long-standing precedent of stand-alone articles in existence for any and all individual seasons, at least for NCAA Division I football teams and their historical equivalents. Seasons are not broken out into their own set of navboxes for efficiency, and because the team navboxes are not terribly bloated with them. At most they tend to add about five lines of text.

Per WP:NAV, what does that have to do with the appropriateness for guiding the reader through the topic of Pittsburgh Panthers football? What long standing precedent? The vast majority of these articles do not exist? You still have not attempted to reconcile this issue with WP:NAV. Per other sports navboxes with lists of included seasons, I recommend, at minimum, that if they are to remain that they be contained in a hidden category by default as is done for MLB and NFL teams.

• National championships: no special link to a summary of national championships because no such stand-alone article has ever existed for any program. Individual national championship seasons are not restated since we have links to all seasons.

This has no precedent in other sports. All other sports that link all seasons (hidden by default) in their navbox also have links to the seasons of their respective league championships (not hidden). Those navboxes are of a superior design for navigating the reader around the topic. CrazyPaco (talk)

I think that covers most everything. Standardization efforts such as this are surely not detrimental to the greater goals of Wikipedia as they force us to take the most global approach to a given topic. They combat the idiosyncrasies I have been talking about, individual editors marking a locality of articles with a particular style that doesn't scale up to relevant topics at large. Jweiss11 (talk) 04:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The topic here is in the title bar of the navbox. CrazyPaco (talk) 08:47, 14 March 2013 (UTC)