Category talk:NCAA Division I FBS championship team navigational boxes

inclusion of player numbers in NCAA/NFL player navboxes

A prolific IP editor is adding some jersey numbers to college and pro navboxes, see Special:Contributions/65.30.138.98. For example, 2 of 13 of the 1977 Notre Dame players are now "numbered" or 5 of 44 of the 1961 Minnesota Vikings players. My objections:

1. Little/no incremental value
2. Additional visual clutter and increased physical display space
3. Inconsistently implemented (not done for all players within a given team-season navbox)
4. Creates inconsistent player ordering within navbox (prior was alpha by last name, but is now partially via jersey number and then by last name as two distinct groupings)
5. Not easily sourced or verified

I don't see any benefit if this was well-executed, and presently these changes are not well-executed.

Thoughts on changing our consensus to including jersey numbers in navboxes? Cheers, UW Dawgs (talk) 18:09, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• Don't per those reasons. Lizard (talk) 18:34, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
• Comment A part of me likes it, as they should be like the basketball navboxes. It seems to make for less visual clutter. However, the ordering and verification are some serious issues. Cake (talk) 18:40, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• Keep per my comments above and some later consideration. When it can be verified (which shouldn't be too difficult for teams which left a visual record), order by jersey number provides more information than does sorting merely by name. Cake (talk) 22:31, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• Remove per Lizard. If they only had 5 or 6 tops I wouldn't have an issue. However, many of these are too large for that. So I think it would be best to remover them across the board. -UCO2009bluejay (talk) 20:05, 2 August 2016 (UTC)
• Comment For the record, jersey numbers appear to be used on the templates for NFL championships, NBA championships, MLB championships, college basketball championships, international soccer championships and international basketball championships. One thing that may be worth nothing is that, unlike NFL football, NCAA football can feature multiple players with the same jersey number on the same team. Of course, in NCAA football not all of the players are automatically notable, too, so I'm not really sure how big of an issue that would actually be. Ejgreen77 (talk) 00:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

I've tried to fill out the info for some of what the above IP started. No hard feelings if it is later reverted, though of course I would prefer otherwise. Anyway, it allows me to possibly respond. Usually if college teams use the same number, the players have to at least be on separate units, so that they are never on the field at the same time. For example, Devonta Freeman on offense and Tim Jernigan on defense both wore number 8; Ryan Smith on defense and Chevon Walker on offense both wore number 28. However, there is an issue if a number is reserved for a certain position and still seems to have multiple owners. For instance, Shane Conlan wore 31 at linebacker in 1986, and Andre Collins wore it in 87-89. Cake (talk) 18:15, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• Keep I would say keep them. I mean, most if not all of the most recent teams have rosters on the season article, and they are numbered. I see no difference with this. CrashUnderride 21:07, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

@Elirbosley118: UW Dawgs (talk) 00:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)