Template talk:Infobox football biography

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Change to how birth/death information is displayed

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I made a change to how the birth/death information is displayed. Initially I made the change to the main template, but that change was reverted by GiantSnowman so I have performed the change in the sandbox so people can take a look at how it looks in the testcases. I made the change so that the birth and death information is consistent with how other People and person infobox templates display, far less cluttered. Please let me know if there is strong objection to this change. — Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you can show us examples of the output before and after? GiantSnowman 18:06, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support this – consistent and cleaner. It is positive when this can be done by also saving a couple of pixels on the right side for images and when bulky career tables are added. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 18:51, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GiantSnowman: please view the testcases for clear side by side views of the difference… —Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:00, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see no benefit to the proposed change. The spacing is odd. GiantSnowman 21:20, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
GiantSnowman the spacing is the same as every other Person infobox. It declutters and improves the layout. What is odd about the spacing? —-Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:22, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not even. GiantSnowman 21:23, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean it’s not even??? Can you be more specific? Again this is exactly how {{Infobox person}} (547,206 transclusions) is displayed… —Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:25, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@S.A. Julio, Jdlrobson, Frietjes, and Jonesey95: as frequent editors of this template, please weigh in… — Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 21:27, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the current, longstanding version, the spacing between Full name/Date of birth/Place of birth/Height etc. is even. In your version, it is not. Hence, "the spacing is odd" and "it is not even". It might work on other infoboxes, but it doesn't on this - probably why it has never been changed before.
Please also request wider input from WT:FOOTBALL. GiantSnowman 21:32, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the most recent pre-revert modification, the spacing between fields was left as it has been. What was GiantSnowman's objection to this most recent change that caused them to revert? I have put the previous version in the sandbox so that Template:Infobox football biography/testcases can be used to compare the current rendering with the pre-revert version, which processes untemplated birth and death dates. GiantSnowman or others: please link to a specific sandbox test case version that you object to. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:55, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is clear that there is opposition to any change, and especially one that has not been explained. Zackmann is attempting to run before they can walk. GiantSnowman 18:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is not clear to me. The opposition was to the change in vertical spacing; that change is gone. I like that the proposed version calculates the person's age, even when a template is not used. I like that the spacing remains the same. What are your specific objections to the proposed code that is in the sandbox? – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:46, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A new discussion has been started below, for some reason. GiantSnowman 19:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion to implement Module:Person date

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There is a new module that I worked on called Module:Person date. In short, what this module does is automatically format birth and death dates to use the templates such as {{birth date and age}} or {{death date and age}}.

What this code DOES NOT DO.

  1. It does not change the way the date is displayed on a separate line than the location as per the above discussion.
  2. It does not change the MD vs DM format of the date. Whatever format the page uses currently it will continue to use.

I attempted to implement the code in this diff but was reverted because of the previous attempted change I made. So I’m going to let others decide if the code should be implemented. I will NOT be following this discussion so if you have specific questions that I can address please {{ping|Zackmann08}} me and I will gladly respond.

Some more useful information:

Please ping me if you have any questions. Hope this code proves useful. — Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, I will repeat - tying to force a module that YOU have created onto templates, without any community discussion or support, is very disruptive.
Secondly, what is the purpose of and benefit to this? GiantSnowman 19:06, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose and benefit is that ages are calculated even when the above-linked templates are not used in the infobox. See this test case (date of birth) and this test case (date of death) for the proposed change. The birth and death dates in those examples have no templating, like the dates in Jacinto João and other articles that use this template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:54, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Does that mean that it will be saying people born in 1905 who we don't have a date of death for are 120 years old? GiantSnowman 19:57, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is what the articles already imply or state outright; any infobox that already uses {{birth date and age}} without a death date does that now. Any extreme usages, if they exist and do not use a template, will have a tracking category added for project attention (the current cutoff is 130 years, since the oldest person in history lived to be over 122 years old). It will also track pages where the plain-text death date is earlier than the birth date, as shown in this test case. After the affected articles have been examined and adjusted, the project should end up with fewer errors in its articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:05, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So it will be claiming that someone born 100 years ago is still alive? In which case oppose. GiantSnowman 10:28, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The current version of the template does that now. I linked to the test case (the current template is the one on the left). Please let us know if there is anything you oppose in this proposed change. – Jonesey95 (talk) 11:30, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it does not. The 'current' test case uses the {{birth date and age}} template. GiantSnowman 17:03, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As it should, per the template instructions: The player's date of birth. A template ({{Birth date}}, {{Birth date and age}}) should be used to add the date, but be sure to use the appropriate parameters to present the date in the same format as used in the text. The date should not be wikilinked. The current template, when used per the instructions, shows ages up to 129 years old. The proposed change catches instances where the instructions have not been followed, and tags some of them as errors, which will allow editors in this WikiProject to improve the project's articles. Please let us know if there is anything you oppose in this proposed change.
Edited to add: this test case shows what happens in the proposed code when the death date is earlier than the birth date, due to a typo or vandalism. The current template code does not detect this error.
If people use the {{birth date}} template per the instructions and the death date is not known, the age is not shown; see this test case. So the only time when GiantSnowman's concern about showing ages for dead people arises is when people have not followed the template documentation instructions for the birth_date parameter. This change will catch some of those errors. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, what is the actual point? GiantSnowman 19:50, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The OP and I have explained the point at length. It is to improve the function of this template when editors supply plain-text birth and death dates. Ages are displayed automatically, and more errors are caught and categorized. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:49, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that what, you have not convinced me on the why. GiantSnowman 17:51, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Because it will lead to improving Wikipedia, which is the main reason we are here. To give a specific example, Jacinto João does not currently show the person's age at death. With this improvement to the infobox's code, it will do so automatically, which helps our readers. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:01, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And the only change is this? If so, I'd be inclined to incorporate, but have the cut-off for automatically adding to 'living' people at 100, if that's possible. GiantSnowman 18:42, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, changing the handling of plain-text birth and death dates is the only change. There is no "adding to 'living' people" via a category or other means. As for the proposed 100-year cutoff, people live past 100. See Jackson Nascimento, for example, who made the news for celebrating his 100th birthday. Park Jae-seung, Koji Miyata, Tibor Garay, Jimmy Collins (footballer, born 1923), and China (footballer, born 1923) may still be alive at 101 or 102 years of age. Sometimes people live a long time, and we do not want to report anyone as dead without a reliable source. That is why the cutoff is currently set at 130. If there are dead people whose age is being reported as 100 or higher by a template, which was happening at this article until a moment ago, they will be easier to locate with a search query after the template improvement is put into place. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:01, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think having someone who is 100 and not having an age is preferable to having someone who is dead being claimed to be 129 years old... GiantSnowman 20:51, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, the articles already state or imply an incorrect age if they use the recommended templates. If they use plain text, they imply the improbable age, and we can't find it. These problems will be easier to find with the new template code. The new code will help us find errors, thereby improving football biography articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:12, 29 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible to add the stuff, initially limit it to put people above 100 (or even 95) in a tracking category instead of showing the age inside parentheses? Kaffet i halsen (talk) 13:12, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting idea, but I don't think so. The underlying code is used in many infoboxes. Human ages are the same in most endeavors. I have provided search links above (example, age 96) that should help to find instances where {{birth date and age}} should be replaced with {{birth date}} so that the age is not shown. As an example, Armando Cavazzuti, Wolfgang Lischke, and possibly Jim Bannister are showing an inappropriate age, even with the current template code; that would not be fixed by any sort of tracking category, so you need to search instead. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:54, 30 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all for engaging. It appears that all objections have been addressed. I have updated the template. User:Zackmann08 has offered to watch for errors and fix them. I have provided many search links above that can help editors find existing errors (like this one) that may or may not be addressed by this template enhancement. [Edited to add: I fixed 17 incorrect or suspiciously high ages by using the search links I provided above.] – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Simplifies the production of articles in the style of Wikipedia:WikiProject Football/Players and tracks forgotten players with missing death dates. There are no reasons to not implement. Kaffet i halsen (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For what it is worth, as result of implementing this change on every other infobox about a person that has a |birth_date=/|death_date= (except for {{Infobox deity}} because they can live much longer than 130 years), errors like this, also this one and this one (note dates were in article but not in the infobox) are being caught. These are just a few examples, if needed I can poll my contributions and find more. Additionally I am monitoring Category:Pages using age template with invalid date (0) multiple times a day (see my userpage where it shows up in red if there are articles in it) to help flush out these problems and correct them. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:49, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. I support any improvement which adds data validation or tracking to allow for better date handling. Gonnym (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
FYI all, the cache seems to be catching up finally. Category:Pages using age template with invalid date (0) is absolutely exploding right now. I've gone through it a few times in the last hour. About to call it a night, but will check it first thing in the morning. Know that I am on top of it. - Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 09:55, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We do NOT add 'unknown' as the date of death. If the infobox is claiming that people are aged 140, it needs fixing, or reverting until it's fixed. GiantSnowman 17:07, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GiantSnowman: and where does it say we do NOT add 'unknown' as the date of death? This has already been discussed... The date of death IS unknown. What is the problem with saying so? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:38, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Zackmann08: Where has this been discussed where you got consensus to go ahead? Per MOS:INFOBOX, "If a parameter is not applicable, or no information is available, it should be left blank, and the template coded to selectively hide information or provide default values for parameters that are not defined". Nikkimaria (talk) 17:54, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:UNKNOWN. Nehme1499 (talk) 17:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c x 2) We should not say 'unknown' in Wikipedia voice unless we have sources saying it is unknown. Editors not knowing is not the same thing as something actually being unknown. I had to amend several articles on politicians where you added 'Unknown' in the date of death field to get the infobox to stop displaying error messages after it was introduced for infobox officeholder. Number 57 17:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria, Nehme1499, and Number 57:. Thank you for the information. I'm implementing a different solution. If you wrap the |birth_date= in {{birth-date}} the module does not parse it as it is already in a parsed format. Thus the only change to the page is that there is the hidden HTML coding that aides in accessibility. (Courtesy ping: Jonesey95 who discovered this solution a while ago).
I will say that these articles largely have "unknown" (such as James Sutherland (footballer) which says James Sutherland (born 1881, date of death unknown) was a Scottish... or "?" (such as William Smith (footballer, born 1865) which says William Stevenson Smith (1865–?) was an English professional...) in the opening sentence. So I'm at a loss as to how it is a negative user experience to add that the death date is unknown... Leaving it blank implies that the person is still alive. I think this is different than saying that their current employer or spousal situation is "Unknown". As having JUST a birth date implies they are still alive.
I do want to thank you for coming back with direct links to the MOS and an essay about unknown. This helped tremendously.
I will point out that until this new module was implemented multiple templates had displaying "Unknown" for the date built into them (I understand that {{Infobox football biography}} was not one of them).
In any case, while I disagree, I am happy to implement a solution that works for everyone. Moving forward I will not add "Unknown" but will instead wrap the birthdate in a {{birth date}} or similar template. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:02, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It would be better to display the date of birth without the age. So just "1 January 1880", not "1 January 1880 (age 140)" Nehme1499 (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this implementation, whilst it had support (including from me), is clearly botched. Unless I hear convincing arguments otherwise, I will revert the changes until a proper fix is found. Insisting on all dates being templates is not one, given how many editors edit this infobox (meaning error will just be continual). GiantSnowman 18:16, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Nehme1499: so anything with an age over 140 will automatically trigger an error and end up in the category. This threshold was decided long ago (NOT by me) as, if I recall correctly, the oldest person on record was 128??? Not certain about that number but that's my recollection. In any event, wrapping the |birth_date= in either {{birth date}}, {{birth-date}} or {{birth year}} suppresses the age. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:17, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Yes (to Nehme1499). If an error message is reporting that the person is 140 years old, simply wrap the year in {{birth year}} or, for full dates, format the full date to be compatible with {{birth date}} and use that template. Here's an example of using the birth year template and an example of using the birth date template. Adding "unknown" for a death date is not necessary. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:18, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Zackmann08, you are adding confusion. I said above: the current cutoff is 130 years, since the oldest person in history lived to be over 122 years old. And GiantSnowman, I don't see anything botched here. You knew that error messages would appear, and Zackmann08 promised to fix them and is doing so. The template documentation says to wrap the birth date in a template. Doing so is helpful for many reasons. I recommend taking a breath and realizing that a few hundred articles will need to be updated to match the documentation, that this will take a short period of time, and then we'll be able to see if things still look "botched". I suspect not. Change can be hard, but I think this one will be over shortly. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:22, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What Jonesey95 said... --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:24, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, Zackmann is adding errors back. Our initial discussions said that anybody over a certain age would not be shown as living - that is clearly not the case. GiantSnowman 18:24, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GiantSnowman: come on man. You are just not being accurate. You are linking to a diff of mine THAT I REVERTED minutes later after the conversation above. I am not adding unknown to pages anymore, we've already established that. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:27, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Only after blindly reverting to restore breaches of MOS and only after multiple users informed you why that should not happen. This change is not being well thought out/implemeted at all. GiantSnowman 18:31, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As agreed upon and discussed above I will continue to monitor Category:Pages using age template with invalid date (0) and update those pages with a birth_date more than 130 years ago by wrapping the birth_date in {{birth-date}}. There will of course be some pages with errors. Know that I'm updating them as quickly as I find them, but am working on other projects simultaneously. If anyone comes across a page with the invalid year, age > 130 error, know that all that needs to be done is to wrap the |birth_date= in {{birth-date}} so feel free to fix it yourself if you find it before I do. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thank you - is there anyway any of this can be automated? GiantSnowman 18:48, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You can certainly make a WP:BOTREQ. I will say that I don't think it is necessary. With the other 30 or so infoboxes we implemented this in, it was a few days of updating pages, but then it was mostly over. Until this was added to {{Infobox football biography}} the last few weeks have mostly consisted of catching vandals who messed with the birth/death dates.
Additionally I'm using WP:JWB to make the corrections (for lack of a better word) so it goes pretty quickly. The only reason it can't all be done at once is because of caching. As I'm sure you know it takes some time for the server to catch up and add all the appropriate pages to the category. If you have a better/faster idea, I'm am 100% open to it and will gladly work with you. Right now, patrolling the category is the best solution I've got. Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:56, 14 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox person has an RfC

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Template:Infobox person has an RfC for possible consensus regarding the removal of color from person infoboxes. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. —Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:12, 2 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]