Template talk:Infobox NFL biography

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Draft info

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@Dissident93: I'm OK with your changes to move away from slashes for the draft info;[1] it was never really consistent with MOS:SLASH. However, the new format, e.g. NFL draft: 1973 (round: 3 • pick: 64), seems semi-cryptic with the parens, colons, and bullet. Could we alternatively use more natural English, similar to Template:Infobox basketball biography, e.g. NFL draft: 1973: 3rd round, 64th overall pick? —Bagumba (talk) 06:48, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, the NBA code might need a bit of tweaking for use here but I'll try and see if I can get it working on a sandbox later. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 00:38, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's basically just using {{ordinal}}. I don't think "overall" (to distinguish from pick in the round) will fit without some tweaking, but then the NFL ibx never had it anyways. —Bagumba (talk) 03:46, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's implemented now. I tried testing it with overall but it wrapped around in infoboxes that lacked images (which makes them slightly wider) and it's not really necessary anyway. The only thing I'd still like to see is automatic linking to the lists of first and second overall pick pages, but I think I'd need to have the manual links that currently exist on each individual page removed first. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 15:43, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, like the manual link for Peyton Manning goes to the redirect List of first overall National Football League Draft picks instead of the direct link List of first overall NFL draft picks. You could code up the template for plain "1" and "2", for simplified use for any future drafts. Then at any point later the old articles can have their links stripped from the wiki text, causing the template to encode it. —Bagumba (talk) 16:27, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's the plan. Removing the links is pretty simple with AutoWikiBrowser so it shouldn't take much effort. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:49, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's implemented now. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 21:52, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dissident93: Gerald McNeil's supplemental draft display is broken (not sure if necessarily the recent changes). —Bagumba (talk) 00:33, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's because his article and all others from the 1984 NFL supplemental draft of USFL and CFL players used manual links. I've made values of 1984 link to that page instead and added the |suppdraftpick= parameter since that draft also had pick numbers (other supplemental draft picks only account for round). They should all be following the same formatting as any other NFL draft now. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 02:00, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dissident93: Some more bizzare formats encoded into "round" like Charlie McNeil (American football) and Walter Beach. Is there a definitive way to find all the non-numeric inputs? —Bagumba (talk) 09:27, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dissident93: And this one crams the draft team into the draft pick. Do we tweak the template or run something like AWB to find and update the pages' encoding? —Bagumba (talk) 04:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like this issue is just for the 1960 AFL draft? Only numeric values should be used in |afldraftround=, the rest of them have to be manually fixed but I'm not sure if there's a definite way to find them all. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 16:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've made it so all 1960 AFL draft picks ignore |afldraftround= and |afldraftpick= since that draft didn't seem to use that? They should still be removed locally from articles but no longer get displayed. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 16:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dissident93 I figured out how to get command line regex to work here. Seems it's more than 1960 AFL draft. —Bagumba (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess if it's piped to a number it works out OK. Some have "Undrafted" though, which turns into "Undraftedth round". —Bagumba (talk) 11:08, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can go through the list and fix them myself. It looks like |aflundrafted= is needed for some unless the issue that Kansas Comet 48 (I'm aware they're a blocked sockpuppet) brought up isn't that big of a deal. Some of these drafts also have "red shirt" rounds that should also be accounted for, but I'm not sure if it needs a unique parameter or if displaying "Red shirt 3(rd)" like Jan Stenerud is acceptable. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 22:59, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to suggest a change. Now that the format is different, I'd like to see a parameter for undrafted free agents that signed with an AFL (1960–1969) team. Some really good players like Dick Harris, Speedy Duncan or HOFer Willie Brown did not sign with any NFL team coming out of college. So now I think it's a good time to add a parameter for that players. Kansas Comet 48 (talk) 19:45, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I don't think that's a good idea / implementation. The AFL actually succeeded in large part because they were able to offer equal or more money to prospective free agents. It's not necessarily indicative of anything. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:53, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're right about it, but I mean if we use | undraftedyear = it would redirect to the notable UDFAs of NFL teams. For whatever reason, they did not signed with an NFL team. As we know, the NFL and AFL were separated leagues from 1960 to 1969. Kansas Comet 48 (talk) 22:03, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
|aflundrafted= could be added to match NFL and CFL. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 16:54, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba I'm finally starting to go through the list you provided and cleaning it up. The only issue I have is with the 1960 AFL draft with the "First" and "Second Selections". The article just lists them by team and not any sort of round unless I'm missing it, so I'm using only |afldraftyear=. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:50, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Undrafted year

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Not sure that's an improvement. Kurt Warner looks weird having the year blank. In regards to the American Football League, a lot of players were selected in both drafts back then. That's not a big enough issue to warrant removing everything. If someone was only selected in one draft, then the undraftedyear can just be left blank like at Harry Schuh. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 23:15, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It automatically links to that year's respective NFL draft even if they never played in the NFL. An |aflundraftedyear= parameter could be created for AFL-only players and automatically be hidden if |undraftedyear= is also used for players that played in both leagues. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:56, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Bagumba, why not just add the link back to 1994_NFL_draft#Notable_undrafted_players like before? That's where Kurt Warner is listed at on that page. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 14:07, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@WikiOriginal-9: Didn't realize you already raised a concern here. I restored it. @Dissident93: These types of edits should get prior consensus per WP:TPECON, as non-TEs who object can't just revert it. —Bagumba (talk) 15:37, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, I wasnt a big fan of linking to the section, people can navigate their way from the TOC, and Dissident93 had mentioned some page's not having that section, so I considered it a compromise. FWIW, NBA infoboxes just link to the draft page, not an undrafted section. —Bagumba (talk) 15:43, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
|aflundraftedyear= has been added. The text automatically disambiguates between the NFL, CFL, and AFL if they were drafted (or undrafted) in another league, otherwise it defaults to Undrafted: like before. I kept the links directed towards the notable UDFA section until further discussion. Could a link to all AFL UDFAs be generated so they can use it? I'll handle the rest as I slowly clean these ones with invalid values. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 19:51, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Dissident93: I think the most recent change to this infobox removed the "roster status" from appearing on infoboxes. Eagles 24/7 (C) 13:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good catch, it was the data # being overridden from the new parameter. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:02, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've only realized now that the infobox shows "Undrafted: 1994" (even before recent changes), instead of just following the normal draft syntax with like "NFL draft: 1994: undrafted" (see basketball player like Austin Reaves). Then showing a parenthetical like "Undrafted (NFL): 1994" (see Tim Tindale) looks cryptic. Infobox fields are typically nouns like "NFL draft", not adjectives like "Undrafted".—Bagumba (talk) 14:40, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This does look way cleaner and simplifies the infobox as well. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: Nobody seemed to oppose this, so it's live now. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 23:16, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, seems weird on lower-level players like Arena Football League players when NFL draft is specifically highlighted in the infobox when they weren't really a prospect anyway. Like Nick Davila ("rated as the 60th-best quarterback in the draft") Looked better when it just said undrafted. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 23:41, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's otherwise MOS:EGGy what "Undrafted" is linking to. If the draft is insignificant, the other option is for editors to consciously leave it blank. But I think it's relevant as a clue to why someone didn't play in the NFL. If they were Canadian and weren't drafted by the NFL and never played in the NFL, then I think the NFL draft can be left out (esp. if didnt play college in US); that would be consistent with basketball and non-domestic players not showing undrafted for the NBA. —Bagumba (talk) 01:14, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No one is confused as to what undrafted means. It's undue weight to have NFL draft specifically listed on literally every gridiron article now. Are people going to start putting both NFL draft: undrafted and AFL draft: undrafted on select articles now? If someone only played in the American Football League, "Undrafted" can just link to the AFL draft. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 02:26, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's undue weight to have NFL draft specifically listed on literally every gridiron article now: I haven't looked at the implementation. Are you saying it's linked on pages now where it wasn't before, or just that it's labelled "NFL draft" now but the links are unchanged? —Bagumba (talk) 03:43, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the issue is with non-NFL players then it could be made to omit NFL from being displayed by cross-checking |draftround= / |cfldraftround= / |afldraftround=. Is there a specific article that doesn't look right? ~ Dissident93 (talk) 15:36, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Merging

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I have started the process of merging this template per this TFD. I welcome any input but most importantly could really use help with testcases. This is going to be a lengthy process so bear with me. —Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 08:32, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your assistance with this. If you have any questions at all about parameters, just let me know. I assume you probably already read my comment at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Finish_merging_Template:Infobox_Canadian_Football_League_biography. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 15:19, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would LOVE some help with developing testcases if you have any to add. Also some of the complicated parser functions could use some cleanup. I’ve left NOTE comments in the text… —Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:10, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Sorry, but I don't see the notes? I'm kind of confused by the testcases. In the gridiron bio column on the left, it looks like some of the formatting style from the CFL infobox is still there. For example, the Chad Owens gridiron infobox is still using the CFL infobox's team formatting of playing_team1, etc instead of the NFL team formatting.
Sorry for any confusion, I don't deal with testcases much. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 00:51, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see the NOTES now. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 01:19, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed there is a "Uniform Number" in the testcases, example: Template:Infobox_gridiron_football_biography/testcases#Jayden_Daniels_(current_player). The "uniform_number" from the CFL infobox isn't actually used, just the "number" parameter. The CFL infobox has a lot of old parameters and formatting quirks that aren't really necessary. It hasn't been updated in years. Most everything will stay the same as the NFL infobox. The only thing that might need added is the parameters for Canadian Junior Football League teams but that's not strictly necessary. I always put it in the body anyway. Pinging some other frequent editors to this template to see if they have any thoughts @Dissident93 and Bagumba: ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 16:42, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While |number= is displayed at Template:Infobox gridiron football biography/doc, it seems the underlying template code also accepted |uniform_number=. So if there's any existing pages that use |uniform_number=, either the merged template needs to handle it or all page instances need to be normalized to pass |number= instead. —Bagumba (talk) 17:24, 5 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Bagumba: both are supported via {{{uniform_number|{{{number|}}}}}}}}. Good catch tho! Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:14, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So I modified the testcases to all point to {{Infobox gridiron football biography}}. The only change that has been made is there is no longer a header bar with Team and Number displayed. Without objection I’m going to redirect this template. — Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 04:39, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why'd you remove the team and number bar? ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 03:32, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly an ascetic choice. That information is displayed elsewhere in the template and was only used by the NFL teams. If there is opposition to that change, I have no issues with it being implemented the other way! -Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 04:36, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just for the record, the CFL infobox had the banner also. The parameter was "team". ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 06:15, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know! I’ll work on adding it back. - Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 06:16, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's confusing, I know. Thanks for your help streamlining this. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 06:30, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey I enjoy the challenge! Just implemented it… Take a look at Jayden Daniels and tell me what you think. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 06:38, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I just left a few other minor notes at Template talk:Infobox gridiron football biography. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 06:49, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is AWESOME! I’m looking at those now. Also check out the testcases for more things you might want changed… Keep them coming. — Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 07:07, 7 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]