User talk:Colonies Chris/Archive/2016/Oct

City, State in basketball infobox

Chris - back in July we had this discussion. Basketball infoboxes and roster templates always list City, State for formatting consistency. I reverted an edit yesterday so you'd get an alert, but now I see you continuing to remove state from Indianapolis, Atlanta, Chicago, etc. In the past I have gone in and only corrected the City. State formatting but I am not going to take that time any longer - I am simply going to revert edits where this is done. It is frustrating to have brought this to your attention so recently (discussion in your July archive) and to believe from that discussion that we'd reached a peace, but then see this stuff happening again. Please stop. Rikster2 (talk) 15:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I have been avoiding removing state from tables, as I can see some sort of sense in your wanting to keep a consistent look within a single table, even if I don't agree with it. However, I cannot accept your attempt to impose this on infoboxes within different articles. Nobody's experience of basketball articles on Wikipedia is being in any way damaged by the 'inconsistency' of being told that in one article that Phoenix is in Arizona - a necessary disambiguation - but not being told, in another completely different article, that New York City is located in New York state - redundant and useless information. You have no justification for reverting my edits, which consist of many minor improvements of which these changes are only a small part. I will reinstate these changes - if you can't accept that, we will have to take it to some sort of dispute resolution. Colonies Chris (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

It is not just me and I know that not only did another editor agree with me in the July discussion, but that User:Sabbatino has also talked to you about this. You are the one unilaterally imposing your preference Rikster2 (talk) 15:54, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, perhaps if you'd be more careful with your edits I'd have not reverted them. Again, I tried reasoning with you in July and this feels like you are just ignoring that conversation Rikster2 (talk) 15:55, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring you, I'm disagreeing with you - in part - as I explained above. I responded to Sabbatino's comments in detail here, after he had grossly misrepresented what I had said in my 'discussion' with him - if you can call it a discussion where one party keeps reiterating their personal preference, as if enough repetition would justify overriding MoS guidelines. These guidelines have been agreed for a good reason - so that our articles are as helpful as possibly to our readers. A reasonable argument can be made that consistency of appearance within a table contributes to that. I personally think that the importance of visual consistency is overrated in such cases, but I'm prepared to let it go, in the face of differing preferences. However, infoboxes in different articles are another matter - supposed consistency is not relevant here - no reader is hopping from one article to the next and being taken aback by a supposed lack of consistency in whether a state is specified or not. Colonies Chris (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

MOS guidelines do NOT require dropping state in all cases. You are wrong there. Rikster2 (talk) 20:08, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I've never said they do. They do however require us to think about whether what we're including, and what we're linking, is actually useful for our readers. Visual consistency is a technique which is usually beneficial, but can be discarded when it requires negative effects such as introducing redundant information - there's a balance to be struck in each case, and opinions will differ on where to strike that balance, as I've acknowledged. However, in the case of infoboxes, there's not even any significant conflict; dropping state for certain cities not only is in line with the recommendations in the MoS, but has no significant effect on visual consistency. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

What makes you think that your opinion of what is useful or desirable for readers better than other editors? In truth, it is probably minimal either way, so why are you concerned with what basketball editors have chosen as a design choice? Rikster2 (talk) 21:05, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

(←) My edits reflect agreed community guidelines. I don't need to provide further justification. You need to have a clear reason for overriding those - so far, all I've seen is an appeal to 'consistency' and nothing to explain how this consistency is any help to our readers. Colonies Chris (talk) 21:44, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Actually, they don't. Where in MOS does it say that cities should be listed without state? I mean, besides WP:USPLACE which specifically talks about article titling, not usage? Rikster2 (talk) 22:13, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that it's a good idea to include the state even when the city has been identified as being so well known that its article title doesn't need the state? How does that make any sense? I'll ask again - how is it helpful to a reader to see a location of 'Chicago. Illinois', for example, rather than just 'Chicago'? There is only one Chicago, it's internationally known, it's not going to be confused with anywhere else, the state is redundant (and as it's probably less well known than the city, not even marginally helpful). No reader is going to find anything troublesome in the fact that some basketball articles identify a less well known location by 'city, state' and others just have the city, for better known cities. Colonies Chris (talk) 22:34, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

So the article always trumps? So there'd never be a case, for example, when "Bill Clinton" should be listed as "William Jefferson Clinton" in a list? If it is community guidelines, then you should be able to produce them. A guideline on titling that doesn't address usage doesn't fit that bill. But, whatever, man. I don't mind disagreeing, what I mind is that you and I had a grown-up conversation two months ago where you in essence said you wouldn't do what you are now doing and now you have reversed course. Knock yourself out, scriptman. I will feel free to change these back as I come across them. Rikster2 (talk) 22:56, 6 September 2016 (UTC) 22:56, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

You should really stop abusing that bot that you're using, because most of the time it applies everything "by the book". Templates and specific projects are created for a reason and consistency in the tables, templates or infoboxes is KEPT FOR A REASON. – Sabbatino (talk) 17:01, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Your summaries on your numerous and indiscriminate reverts say 'Standard for NHL/AHL templates'. What standard is this and where exactly is it documented? Colonies Chris (talk) 21:01, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

For example, WP:HOCKEY/TPF. And this includes every single ice hockey team (club, national team, etc). So please stop abusing that bot and stop de-linking everything blindly. Your edits only make sense in prose. Leave all the infoboxes, tables or templates alone, because they are different from prose. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:24, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I see you keep removing everything from infoboxes or tables. On top of that, you create redirects in every article that you edit. Please stop this, because other editors disapprove with your actions. – Sabbatino (talk) 18:51, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

• Sabbatino and Rikster, I have watchlisted Chris's talkpage for many years, partly because I admire the logic and intelligence with which he conducts his maintenance work. Asking "What makes you think that your opinion of what is useful or desirable for readers better than other editors?" rather begs the question of whether he hasn't indeed thought deeply over an extended time about what are readers need and what they don't. Consistency cannot always be rigidly applied, whether in grammar, typography, linking, or the decision as to whether to include an intermedial geographical descriptor. I agree that it's probably best to be consistent in long tabular lists, where the eye is drawn up and down in a column and might bump over inconsistencies (although it wouldn't bother me—I favour brevity and visual isolation as a reading psychologist). But in an infobox we are not facing the issue of within-article consistency, a major premise on which en.WP is styled. Infoboxes are exposed visually, very tight on space, and are prone to cluttering effects. Our long-established practice is that well-known cities are not linked in the main text (unless, maybe, part of a long inline list of cities that are linked); the same logic applies to redundancy in multivariate place names. The silliest one I rarely see nowadays is "New York, New York", as though slo-mo stutter; Chicago is better-known than the state of Illinois; Paris (unless the other tiny Paris is in contention) does not need to be earmarked as part of France (nor as part of its immediate environs either (Isle de something), which would be required if we were applying the always-include-the-state idea without thought as to need). Wikipedia is not a postal envelope; let's assume a modicum of knowledge among our readers, who are after all bright enough to find the article and read text. Tony (talk) 10:58, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• The problem is in some cases, sub-nationals in the ice hockey infobox for sure, have been the subject of discussions to include them, so unilaterally removing them when there is no guideline/policy to do so is actually against AWB usage guidelines which says to not make such large unilateral changes without discussion. -DJSasso (talk) 11:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• Also, you mention NYC and Chicago, but do you actually think Cincinnati and Cleveland are so world-famous that they are eponymous? They are just uniquely-named cities. I'd also pont out that following a consistency of format for like information exists as a design choice in the real world, so it isn't like Wikipedia is moving against the times here. I believe the readability/ease of use aspect of inclusion of state/province is being seriously overstated – I believe it being there or not has no impact on this. Rikster2 (talk) 12:06, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• How would inserting the state help those who don't know what Cincinnati means? Is the city linked? If so, there is utterly no reason to include the state. Tony (talk) 12:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• There isn't actually a good reason (or any WP guideline) to remove it, either, which is why you guys should just leave it to projects to decide how they want to display this information via consensus. If we like consistency and that consistency doesn't go against any guideline, why is it your problem And if consistency isn't important, why are you guys trying to unilaterally enforce it? Rikster2 (talk) 12:31, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
• I can't speak to basketball but in hockey the province a player comes from is often discussed as to the type of player a player is. So in the infobox it is an important piece of information like any of the other bits that are in an infobox. The same goes for in tables where we list the birthplace of a player, that is key information. -DJSasso (talk) 14:23, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• So you're going to force everyone to do it, in every country, are you? Tony (talk) 13:00, 23 September 2016 (UTC)
  • LOL. I could ask the very same question to Colonies Chris. Given that he has ignored multiple editors disagreeing, he continues to remove state over project consensus. Tony, this isn't even your talk page so I am done replying to you here. Rikster2 (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Rikster2: your real-world example isn't relevant to this discussion, because there you have multiple 'infoboxes' on a single page. That's analogous to a table format within an article, where I've already acknowledged that opinions on the value of visual consistency differ, so I have been leaving them as they are. And it's bizarre to accuse me of trying to enforce consistency - on the contrary, I'm trying to do what the wider community has decided is the best way to help our readers, which in this case means stepping away from a rigid and unhelpful consistency across different articles.

There are multiple infoboxes on a player or coach article? That's news to me (except in rare cases). My real world example is very relevant because in the "real world" consistency of format is often adopted for like display of info. And, no, you don't have the backing of the wider community to take this to the level that you have. You have made many assumptions about what the comminuted wants based on a guideline about titling. Rikster2 (talk) 13:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. The webpage you linked to (or rather, tried to link to, because it leads to a largely empty page; I selected 2015 from the dropdown to get a good page) shows a summary of the details of multiple players on one page - in effect multiple infoboxes on a single page. This is unlike the Wikipedia articles under discussion which have a single infobox in each article. That's why they're not comparable.)

OK, here is that same site's single-player entry for a guy from "Chicago, Ill." Or maybe you'd prefer a Major League Baseball player? Or an NHL player? Rikster2 (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Again, this has no relevance. In this, as in many things, different organisations have different preferred styles; we don't have to follow any of them and we often consciously choose not to. In this specific case, you yourself choose to depart from their style - they *consistently* use state abbreviations such as 'Chicago, Ill.', or 'Antioch, Calif.' which, as far as I'm aware, no-one here would find acceptable in infoboxes or anywhere else. Colonies Chris (talk) 17:13, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and WP:BASKETBALL and WP:HOCKEY have adapted a style via consensus that includes state/province (the two projects differ on if to use full name or abbreviation). My point is that no one at these projects is advancing some crazy, off the wall style that needs "fixing," they have chosen styles that are reflected in the real world. But I am through arguing with you as it has been clear for awhile from your words and actions that you aren't that interested in a differing POV on this. We don't personally have to agree on this. Rikster2 (talk) 17:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I've looked back through various basketball-related discussions, and the only discussion I can find that's at all related to this question is here, where the possibility of omitting the state or not linking commonly known cities is never raised or discussed at all. There's a difference between 'we've always done it this way' (which appears to be the case) and 'we've made a decision to do it this way' (which, so far as I can see, is not the case). The situation is similar with hockey bios. Back in about 2006, someone set up a model template with examples that included links to city, state and no-one has ever questioned it. No active decision was made - and that was a very long time ago, before we collectively decided to be a lot more restrained with our linking than we used to be. And I'll come back again to the question I've asked before, and needs to be at the front of our thoughts all the time - is the method we choose the best way to help our readers? I can't see that providing superfluous information and links in the name of a unwavering consistency between articles (because that's what we're talking about here - I've already conceded the point over tables within an article) is helping our readers at all - quite the contrary. Colonies Chris (talk) 18:31, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Then you did not look too hard because we had one back in July in the hockey project. Most hockey discussion goes on over at the wikiproject page and not on template pages. It also came up a couple of years ago when it was discussed if we wanted to start adding the Soviet SSRs during the communist era to the list of sub-nationals we use. That one was a massive debate that was spread out over many talk pages so that one I am not surprised wouldn't have been able to follow easily. Even if we didn't there is the concept of silent consensus where if it has been done that way since 2006 for example it enjoys consensus just as though a discussion had occurred so any major change like changing thousands of articles would need to be discussed. -DJSasso (talk) 23:57, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Do you mean this discussion, where the discussion was based on Sabbatino's gross misrepresentation of my views? I added a detailed explanation to clarify what I was actually trying to achieve, and no-one responded to it. Colonies Chris (talk) 19:10, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

However, you're the one that likes to misinterpret MOS:OVERLINK, which states Unless a term is particularly relevant to the context in the article, the following are not usually linked... Here's that magic word usually, which makes a big difference to this guideline. You can link it or you can decide not to link it. For, example, Los Angeles has links to many major cities, because they're relevant to the topic as specific sections compares or gives similarities between LA and others. Of course you shouldn't get carried away and link the same term 100 times in one article. On the other hand, here it's not relevant to the context in the article and Los Angeles is not linked anywhere. There is also this MOS:DUPLINK, which specifically states that "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, hatnotes, and at the first occurrence after the lead." Looks like this advises that a link should be made at least once (if it's relevant) or it can be used more than once – "Duplicate linking in lists is permissible if it significantly aids the reader. This is most often the case when the list is presenting information that could just as aptly be formatted in a table, and is expected to be parsed for particular bits of data, not read from top to bottom. If the list is normal article prose that happens to be formatted as a list, treat it as normal article prose." As I said before table/infobox≠prose, but you tend to think otherwise, which is just your personal preference. – Sabbatino (talk) 10:16, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

1. We're not arguing about tables or table-like lists. I've already accepted that they should be treated differently (see above).
2. In both of your quotes above are clauses that are crucial: "if helpful for readers" and "if it significantly aids the reader". That's the whole point. In basketball articles, the reader is not helped by links to New York City, New York, nor by the unnecessary state and link in Chicago, Illinois, or similar major cities, whether in an infobox or in prose. Colonies Chris (talk) 13:26, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Of course it helps, because it's the birth/death place of a player/coach/executive/etc. And I'm not only talking about basketball infoboxes. But that aside, WikiProjects exist for a reason and have different guidelines FOR A REASON, so anyone should read the project's guidelines, template's documentation or templates' documentations and other stuff related to that before making "by the book"—changes made according to MoS–edits. Moreover, as I said before everything should be kept consistent in the infoboxes or tables. Prose is different and that's where a person should really apply the MoS nonsense. I'm not going to discuss this any further, because it's clear that you don't see what people write and you just continue going your "by the book" path. – Sabbatino (talk) 07:27, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

@Rikster2: Abbreviations have been abolished in the ice hockey template so they should be removed in ice hockey players' infoboxes. – Sabbatino (talk) 10:16, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

@Sabbatino: – "Not usually" in MOS means you'd need to mount a pretty good case for doing so. Tony (talk) 14:45, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

By the way, are you also endorsing User:Sabbatino's sudden objection and edit warring over redirects? Colonies Chris (talk) 13:18, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't think Sabbatino's objection is sudden, but I never said anything about edit-warring. Interesting that you'd bring it up, since you have been pretty quick to get into these with users, including myself. You've made somewhat of a set of "bold edits" against consensus and the typical way to proceed would be WP:BRD, not just plowing on making your desired changes. Rikster2 (talk) 13:27, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Is this not discussion then? Colonies Chris (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

At what point did you stop removing state/province so that this discussion could occur? Rikster2 (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• Was the existence of that so-called discussion advertised so that normal editors would have the opportunity of providing their opinions? Tony (talk) 03:44, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Nowitzki

Hey, but i don't get why a correct link to List of NBA champions and the All-NBA teams are moved to a redirect... I will correct them as i don't see a reason it was done. Kante4 (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kante4: Piping and redirects achieve the same thing - sending the reader to a location other than the visible link - but they are suited to different situations. When the target needs to be more specific than the visible link, piping does the job (e.g. in an article about Oregon, a link to Portland would be piped as [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]], because the reader understands that the link is referring to the Oregon city, but the software needs to be told that explicitly. But redirects are valuable in the opposite case - where we don't have an article specifically for the visible link, so the reader has to be redirected to a more general article. A redirect keeps the article that contains the more specific link independent of whatever article contains the actual information, so that the target article can easily be reorganised or renamed in the future without requiring any change to the article that contains the link. For example, there are 3 different All-NBA teams referred to here - First, Second and Third. Having separate links allows an editor to see whether where are enough separate references to each to justify creating a separate article for each. Or if the main article is reorganised or renamed, only a few redirects need to change, rather than every article that mentions those teams. Or if a reader is researching the Third team specifically, they can easily find which articles cover it by looking at the links. Redirects are extremely cheap to implement - when a reader clicks on a redirect, the extra cost of sending them to the true target article is trivial. A good example is a link I mentioned, [[FIBA EuroBasket Honors#FIBA EuroBasket MVPs and Top Scorers|FIBA EuroBasket MVP]]. The piping, as it was, took this to another redirect, because the target article had been renamed (and on top of that, the section had been renamed too). With a redirect, all that complexity and fragility is taken out of the source article, which only needs to link to the actual subject it wants and not concern itself with where that information is located. Colonies Chris (talk) 14:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

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