Template talk:MedalTop

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[edit] Template description and user instructions

[edit] Part of a set

This template is used to begin Olympics medalboxes. It opens the table and must be followed eventually by {{MedalBottom}}. In cases where an olympian's picture should be part of this table, {{MedalTopPic}} can be used. Each medal has a separate template between MedalTop and MedalBottom; there is also a template to introduce the sports in which a competitor has won medals.

The full set of templates:

[edit] Example

Medals are ordered by sport, then by medal color (gold; silver; bronze), then by year, then by event. For example, if a male competitor has won two gold medals in fencing in 1900, a bronze fencing medal in 1896, and a silver wrestling medal in 1896, the template calling code for that would look like shown below (indentations done for readability), providing the box on the right:

Olympic medal record
Men's Fencing
Gold 1900 Foil
Gold 1900 Sabre
Bronze 1896 Foil
Men's Wrestling
Silver 1896 Greco-Roman 
{{MedalTop}}
{{MedalSport | Men's [[Fencing at the Summer Olympics|Fencing]]}}
{{MedalGold  | [[1900 Summer Olympics|1900]] | Foil}}
{{MedalGold  |                        1900   | Sabre}}
{{MedalBronze| [[1896 Summer Olympics|1896]] | Foil}}
{{MedalSport | Men's [[Wrestling at the Summer Olympics|Wrestling]]}}
{{MedalSilver|                        1896   | Greco-Roman}}
{{MedalBottom}}
-- Jonel | Speak 20:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Arguments

The arguments for each of the templates are as follows:

[edit] Discussion

[edit] de Coubertin medal

I think it would be appropriate to include the Pierre de Coubertin medal in this box, but wouldn't know how to do that myself. Average Earthman 16:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Done. Use the {{MedalTrueSpirit}} for that. the only argument is the year. (i.e. {{MedalTrueSpirit|2006}}). Since this is considered by many to be greater than a Gold medal, and since it is not associated with a particular sport, please place this directly after the {{MedalTop}} template. It's not too terribly beautiful, so if anyone wants to fix it up, that would be wonderful :o) tiZom(2¢) 18:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
I have changed it to make it a bit tidier, keeping everything on the one line. Let me know what you think! mattbr30 15:42, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disqualified

If an olympian has had a medal taken away due to verified drug use (for instance, those people who appear on this list), then the {{MedalDisqualified}} template may be used in place of the medal that was revoked. tiZom(2¢) 18:40, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Color change

Why was the bgcolor changed to #E3DFE0? Looks awful. --24.205.144.125 03:48, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The current color is also far too similar to that of the silver medal. I'm going to change it back to white. -- Jonel | Speak 04:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thank you. --Pelladon 10:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
I know, I thought it looked rotten too... The problem was that someone changed the olympic rings image from one with a white background to one with a darker background. I understand that the colors on the rings themselves are more accurate, but the background of the image should match the background of the top of the table - otherwise, it looks trashy. I've just uploaded a PNG of the new ring colors with a white background. Looks a little better now. tiZom(2¢) 16:01, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
Great work! -- Jonel | Speak 19:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Medal Images

I must admit, I'm not too fond of the medal images - it feels a bit cluttered. But then again, it looked kind of empty before. Any thoughts on this? tiZom(2¢) 23:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I kinda like it, but I'm not particularly attached to it. -- Jonel | Speak 23:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't like them. I've noticed that they add to the page load - not necessarily on athlete pages, but on other pages - and I don't understand the significance of the design on them. Sue Anne 17:27, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

They look a little too cartoony to me. I don't know if they're really contributing to the extra bandwidth though, because they're only adding 2k each, so at most 6k to the total page size (right?). As for the design on them, there really is no significance. It's just a gold, silver, and bronze medal that someone designed with a cup on it. I particularly don't like them that much, but like I said before, I think it looks a little bland with just nothing there. Maybe if those Medals were aligned on the left? I don't know... tiZom(2¢) 17:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed them for now. -- Jonel | Speak 00:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I liked them. They're far smaller than say a picture of the athlete in question. When they were removed, the chart looked like it was missing something. -- Don Sowell 01:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll put it on Wikipedia:Olympic conventions for wider discussion. -- Jonel | Speak 01:52, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Template:OpposevoteI strongly oppose using the medals templates that are set out to be used by this page. They are quite ugly, to be frank, and they are not bright and flashy to catch the user's eye. They are very dull. I urge you to consider your thoughts, as the cartoon-like ones used on many other pages are obviously better, brighter, and more attractive! --Jared [T]/[+] 20:58, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sorting method

I'm not a fan of the proposed sorting method. I prefer sorting by sport, then year, then medal type. The advantage is that this allows quick and obvious recognition to the user of two pieces of information: the athlete's performance in each olympics that he or she competed in and the rough numbers of each medal won. With the medal types being already color coded, the reader can see quickly what the type of medals an athlete has won, so sorting by this ahead of individual olympics is overkill. -- Don Sowell 01:47, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Athlete photo, name

This is a great template set. I have two suggestions for improvement: 1) Should we include a template for the athlete photo, to make things more consistent? Currently, non-experts/casual users like myself need to peek at other Olympic athletes in order to learn/remember how to include photos. And, 2) We should have the athlete's name prominently displayed (e.g., bold) immediately above the name of the sport (i.e., below the photo if one is present). Any comments? --Wernher 23:58, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Olympic medal record

Center
Men's Athletics
Gold 1896 Triple jump
Silver 1896 High jump
Bronze 1896 Long jump

I have added {{MedalPic}} to address this issue. The template takes the following arguments:

    1. Image name (e.g. OlympicMedalist.jpg)
    2. Optional Size in px (e.g. 150px)

The following code yields the box on the right:

{{MedalTop}}
{{MedalPic|connolly.jpg|150px}}
{{MedalSport | Men's [[Athletics at the Summer Olympics|Athletics]]}}
{{MedalGold | [[1896 Summer Olympics|1896]] | Triple jump}}
{{MedalSilver | 1896 | High jump}}
{{MedalBronze | 1896 | Long jump}}
{{MedalBottom}}


I did not add a place for a caption because this template is meant to be placed in a prominent place on the athlete's page, and the name is already shown in the title.

Also, the code wasn't working :oP

There are some circumstances where it may be appropriate for a caption to be displayed. For example, in the case of a team photo, the reader may want to know which team member is being referenced. In this case, it's probably advisable to move this to the left and caption it, similar to what was done in the page for Anette Norberg. I actually find this method preferable in all cases, and have been using it for most athletes. I think it just looks better. tiZom(2¢) 01:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, I'm taking a second look at this, and I'm not too sure this is the way to go. Take a look at Elvis Stojko. See how the medal list is separated from the title "Olympic Medal Record"? The picture just doesn't really make sense there. Any input? tiZom(2¢) 03:56, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
I suggest we change the layout as follows: At the top, above the optional photo, we put the heading "Olympic medalist" together with the rings; below the photo, we put the athlete's name (in bold) and then the text "Medal record", in regular italics---how about that? --Wernher 12:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Done. See {{MedalTopPic}}. Arguments are image (name only) and image size. tiZom(2¢) 20:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Why not just hardcode the 150px? I mean, the table and picture should be the same width every time. And that would mean one fewer argument to type in when adding the template. -- Jonel | Speak 20:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Done. Take a look:
Olympic medalist
Center
MedalTop
Medal record
Men's Athletics
Gold 1896 Triple jump
Silver 1896 High jump
Bronze 1896 Long jump

Gives the box on the right:

{{MedalTopPic|connolly.jpg}}
{{MedalSport | Men's [[Athletics at the Summer Olympics|Athletics]]}}
{{MedalGold | [[1896 Summer Olympics|1896]] | Triple jump}}
{{MedalSilver | 1896 | High jump}}
{{MedalBronze | 1896 | Long jump}}
{{MedalBottom}}
Looks great to me! -- Jonel | Speak 22:09, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

How about the recent extension I've now done to {{MedalTopPic}}, with a third, optional, argument for the athlete's name? Check out Anni Friesinger or Cindy Klassen for examples. (In case we'd decide that the vertical layout of a name-supplied medalist box would be more balanced with a matching white line above the photo, this may probably be fixed using an "if-template".) --Wernher 13:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but we're trying to avoid using meta-templates (WP:AUM). But it looks great the way it is :o) So we'll not worry about it. tiZom(2¢) 18:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chronological record item order?

I have noticed that for some medalists where this template set is used, the order of the medals is purely chronological rather than sorted by medal valor. I wonder whether the chrono order may actually be better that the valor order presented as "official usage" in this page. Comments? --Wernher 12:51, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I must say that I'm torn. With the original way, it's really easy to see how many gold / silver / bronze medals each olympian has. But this proposed ordering will show a better idea of how the olympian has done over time. I'd like to get Jonel's opinion, since he proposed the original method. tiZom(2¢) 19:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Also torn. Both are useful in different ways. I think I'm going to go with supporting the chronological order as first sort criterion. The color used in the left column of the MedalXXX boxes is sufficient to show how many gold/silver/bronzes--we don't have a similarly easy way of visually distinguishing years. -- Jonel | Speak 20:05, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
I prefer chronological order as per my comment above from February 22. -- Don Sowell 21:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I somehow completely missed this part of the discussion. I think there were so many pages showing up on my watchlist in the last couple of days at the Olympics, that I missed this coming up. I would prefer the medals being sorted by medal, then by Olympics, and finally by event ... basically going left to right. I personally think the medal type is much more important than showing how they progressed over time. Sue Anne 01:54, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
Colours (or, medal images recently) are used to display "value". Why sort on gold, silver, bronze medal when the background colour already makes it very easy to count medals in that order? Yes, I agree that most athletes would rather win one gold medal than two, three silver or bronze medals, but it already is VERY easy to count golds. And if medals are sorted by "value", that will stress that point even more. No point in doing that. I'd rather see an athlete's progression or decline, because I can count the medals within a few seconds. It takes me a lot longer to see how an athlete "grew" or "deteriorated" when the medals are not ordered/sorted chronologically.
As a final remark, I'd like to state that everyone who missed this vote (or was there a vote to start with, anyway?) has not had a chance to argue this, not to mention the fact that "ordering by colour" "seems" to have been decided upon by 3, 4, 5, 10, people... while there are more than one million people having made English edits. I have created several articles and had others come in and change the Olympic medal order while justifying it with "style". How can a style that only at most 10 people have voted on constitute a majority in that respect? Come on, I could start a vote and have it close 2 weeks later about use of American English, British English, metric vs. imperial, and so on, and then (based on that vote) start changing every single article that did not have the "majority" vote. In short: There is no WP:MOS-<sorting of medals/world championships/records/other championships> and so on... so since there is no official English Wiki policy on this, I strongly object to people changing the "colour of medals" order if that is the only thing they "contribute" to an article. This – in my opinion – is the same thing as going into an article and changing the date format (May 19, 1975 vs. 19 May 1975) or 12 vs. 24 hour clocks or "realised vs. "realized" or "color" vs. "colour") for no objective reason at all – the only reason being that these particular users prefer one format over another, but NOT following official Wiki policy about certain things being equally valid. To conclude... can someone please show me where it has been made official Wiki policy to list Olympic medals in order of colour? If not, then no one has the right to change that in articles I have contributed. wjmt 04:24, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
May I add one more thing? Some people seem to want the English Wiki to reflect only their personal preferences. I have had people edit only the format of dates (while mine were equally valid as per the English Wiki) because they apparently preferred seeing dates in a certain (equally valid) format. Come on. Is that cooperation? That is so much against what Wikipedia stands for... to have a single repository for all human knowledge. If I wanted to have my own "niche" of things I am interested in, I'd copy the articles in question and keep them on my own hard drive. But it is completely against Wiki policy to impose one preferred format over another when the official policy on which formats are equally accepted states otherwise. Come on, this goes so much against Wiki policy and next time someone tries to impose his or her personal preferences on an article I stumble upon, while there is NO official policy for this, I'll revert that article the moment I see it. I don't care if that person has many more edits than I do or if that person is an admin. We are all peers here and there is only one English Wiki. Nobody owns Wiki. And if one or a few persons try to impose that on Wiki, then that makes them entirely against the nature of the beast.
Once more... tell me where "sorting by value" has been made Official Wiki Policy and I'll comply. But if someone from now on changes it in articles I contributed while it is not official style policy, I'll revert. I try to keep to the guidelines, but I expect the same thing from my peers.
Check template talk pages before using those templates. Said talk pages typically contain advice and discussion on usage and are a much more reasonable place to expect discussion than on the talk page of an article you created today (Talk:Karin Enke). If you disagree with such advice or discussion, simply say so and attempt to convince people of the strength of your argument by reasoned discussion. If you feel that year-event-color (rather than the current color-year-event or the above suggested year-color-event) is the proper sort order, convince us.
This is not, nor has it ever been, a vote. It is a discussion. You have missed nothing. It is all right there above your comments. You, and any of the other million people who want to, still have every opportunity to argue your position. The sort order was, essentially, chosen by me when I created these templates as it was what made the most sense to me at the time. As you can see if you read my comment above, I have no personal attachment to it. However, this is something that I feel should be standardised, whichever way we do it. Sue Anne's comment, and the fact that there are editors out there who do go to the trouble of changing orders to fit the recommendation, show that there is support for sorting by medal color. Unless someone feels that there is agreement to change the sort order (something I don't personally think is in evidence), it's probably going to stay the way it is. At least unless we create the sort of comprehensive guide to Olympic editing that Tom has suggested elsewhere.
And since the MoS and official policy don't Olympic medal order, it falls upon Olympic editors such as you, me, and everyone else here to determine it. So please stop yelling about policy. Especially when your last two paragraphs suggest that you might want to reread WP:OWN, which is official policy, yourself. While Darius's changing of date formats is pretty much pointless, your reversion of it was equally pointless. And your long diatribe on his talk page stretches WP:CIVIL. -- Jonel | Speak 05:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)
OK. I guess I'm not "fit" enough to edit on wiki. I'll delete my account now. wjmt 06:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Some points ...

  1. If you take notice of the discussion that occurred during the initial setup of the templates, there was specific discussion about sorting by sport, medal color, year of Olympics and then event. Having completely missed the second discussion – that for the most part seemed rather ambivalent about the issue – I thought that the standard was still to sort by medal color after sport.
  2. I didn’t purposely go looking at any page to specifically sort the medal table. I was already on most the pages either adding categories and/or making certain categories more specific. (For example, changing “Competitors at 2006 Winter Olympics” to “Alpine skiers at 2006 Winter Olympics”. Seeing that the medals table was out of sort, in my opinion, I resorted the rows.)
  3. Since Tomtheman5 alerted me to the discussion I had previously missed, I have not resorted any medals table.
  4. Also, I agree that there is no MOS or anything of the sort regarding the use of these tables. Since working on these Olympics pages, the ones that do exist frequently contain errors or people creating a table with no specific order. It was not my intent to revert anyone’s decision (again, refer back to the fact that I have not “resorted” any tables since realizing that I was in error about that fact.
  5. As for other things, I think Assume Good Faith is a good standard to follow. Darius Dhlomo drives me a bit batty. He never uses edit summaries and he does things that I find unnerving at times. But, overall he’s working towards building a better encyclopedia and building up the Olympics sections of Wikipedia, which I would argue is a noble goal.
  6. Other than that, I stand by pretty much what Jonel said.
  7. Finally, no one said that you shouldn’t be an editor any longer but that maybe you needed to take a deep breath about some of these issues ...

Sue Anne 08:02, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New images

Thanks to R.Koot for uploading new medal images. I like them a lot better than the old ones. However, the only thing that concerns me is that we really need a consensus on ALL the instances where we will be showing a gold/silver/bronze medal. For example, the cells in the table in Ski jumping at the 2006 Winter Olympics should match the cells in the table in Ski jumping at the 2006 Winter Olympics - Normal Hill (K90), which should ultimately match the cells in the medal table for Lars Bystøl. It just seems off. I think that the Medal Table should be bolded, with no picture. Anyone else have any input? tiZom(2¢) 19:41, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

No opinion from me on whether or not there should be images, but I just hated the background colors. Also I think the column containg the medals should probably be left-algined, not centered. —Ruud 21:13, 25 February 2006 (UTC) (R.Koot)
Yeah, the new medals look better than the old ones. - Nick C 22:07, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, much better (though I kinda like the background colors). -- Jonel | Speak 22:12, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
You happy bunch of Firefox users :) —Ruud 22:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh wonderful - the images are working now - they weren't working on my browser before. Thanks, R.Koot (for whatever you did!). Anyway, I changed the colors so they're a little truer to life. Hope you all enjoy :o) tiZom(2¢) 00:07, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I converted them to GIF files, which unfortunatly means we can't use a background color which differs too much from white or light gray. Cheers, —Ruud 00:12, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Can we get the best of both worlds and have the new medal pictures and the background colors using a different file format? -- 24.17.161.101 21:50, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

How about these medal images, though? I think they are very intuitive and clear-looking. Arguably, one might remove the numbers, but also, they supply an extra 'layer' of information (superfluous?). --Wernher 01:14, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Image:Olympic rings white.png
Olympic Medal Record
Gold		 year 1 event 1
Silver		 year 2 event 2
Bronze		 year 3 event3
So it's this
Image:Olympic rings white.png
Olympic Medal Record
Image:GoldMedalSmall.gif
Gold		 year 1 event 1
Image:SilverMedalSmall.gif
Silver		 year 2 event 2
Image:BronzeMedalSmall.gif
Bronze		 year 3 event3
Image:Olympic rings white.png
Olympic Medal Record
Gold Gold year 1 event 1
Silver Silver year 2 event 2
Bronze Bronze year 3 event3
vs. this
(with or without backgrounds)
Image:Olympic rings white.png
Olympic Medal Record
Gold		 year 1 event 1
Silver		 year 2 event 2
Bronze		 year 3 event3



I must admit that I personally like the second one, as (1) it adds a little graphical appeal to what we previously had, (2) matches the same background colors very well, and (3) still matches all the millions of other WP pages on the olympics.
If we did this though, we are going to need to tweak the images a little bit so you can't see the white around it - something that I can probably do with MS Paint or something, and also we'll need to license the images (I haven't the faintest idea what to license this image as...so I left it blank until I can get some input on it.) And also, yeah, maybe the numbers are too much :o\ Also, not really a big deal though. tiZom(2¢) 06:30, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't like the muted versions of the gold, silver, bronze colors in the first box. The ghosting around the images on the second box is really bad. Sue Anne 18:10, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I can fix that sometime when I get access to a good paint program. I like the second version better. Let's do that. tiZom(2¢) 18:28, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I can pretty much assure you that those images can't be used on Wikipedia, also i think the background colors in the second box are very... uhm... unsubtle. —Ruud 19:03, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Re: the "can't be used on Wikipedia" statement: so the following passage from the originating website is to be ignored, then? "you are free to copy from this site in whole or part, provided that proper acknowledgement is given to Sports123.com, all rights reserved" [1]. I thought that simply including such an acknowledgement on the page of each medal image would make it OK, then? Or we could ask the site's administrators explicitly for permission. Just wondering; as IANAL. --Wernher 11:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
The problem here being that sports123 does probably does not have the copyright on the images on their website. —Ruud 18:52, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm in favor of option number 2, using the images that they use on the IOC site. It's clear, it gives the user an instantaneous view on how that athlete has done, and the connection to the IOC site is a nice touch. - Don Sowell 17:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I am in favor of the 3rd table. This is on most of the pages currently, and they are more animated and drawing-like. The colors of the top one are quite ugly (as I mentioned above in a different section) and the second one is not so Olympic-like with its numbers. I urge you to consider using the 3rd option poermanently, as this is obviously the best option. --Jared [T]/[+] 21:04, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think they are obviously the best option as they are very pixelated and I don't think think their cartoonish style really fits in with the rest of the Wikipedia interface. Also might I again suggest not using background colors. Not only because I don't like them estetically, but because they make the text harder to read for people with vision problems or when printed with a black-white (laser) printer. —Ruud 21:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)




Olympic Medal Record
Sport
Gold Year1 Event1
Silver Year2 Event2
Bronze Year3 Event3

Ok, how about this one? I found this on the Michael Phelps page, and I liked it a lot, so I borrowed it. It addresses the following issues:

  • It looks very informative and professional without looking cartoon-like.
  • It is extremely easy to distinguish - one glance, and you know exactly what is going on.
  • No copyright problems
  • It matches precisely the other Olympic pages
  • The colors aren't as "unsubtle" because they are no longer touching each other (I think that was the biggest problem)

Does this work? I'd really like to get this finished. tiZom(2¢) 23:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


I've always been against using any images, so I think this looks good. My only nit would be to center the "gold", "silver", "bronze" headings as with everything else centered and those to the left, it doesn't look right to me. Sue Anne 23:26, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Olympic Medal Record
Sport
Gold Year1 Event1
Silver Year2 Event2
Bronze Year3 Event3

Fixed. I was thinking that too, after I looked at it. Won't be so much of a problem once we get some substance in the other cells, so that the left-most column shortens. Does anyone have a problem with the shading, and the fact that this is a non-standard infobox? I enjoyed the way the shades sort of guide your eyes down the chart. tiZom(2¢) 23:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Since we can't use the rings image, I think shading works well. Sue Anne 23:33, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

If anyone has any problems with this, please say so here. Otherwise, I'll change it tomorrow. Thanks! tiZom(2¢) 00:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Looks great. -- Jonel | Speak 22:47, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
Wait a minute, you can't just do that. There are like 10 people who wrote comments above (me inclusive) that may not agree with you. Please think about what you do before you do it. Other Wiki members have their say, too. --Jared [T]/[+] 23:25, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
First, let's not exagerate. In total, there are 9 people involved in this discussion. At least three of us seem to be on the same page regarding how the boxes should look. There is major disagreement about a) whether images should be used or not and b) if images are going to be used, what images should be used. Personally, the best course of action is to have the current template have no images - the way it was when Jonel created it before someone added the cartoony images with the cups - until we decide as a community a) if any images should even be used and b) what the images are going to be. Sue Anne 00:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Heh, that was actually me that added the cartoony images (they were the only ones I was aware of us having on WP at the time). I also removed them (I think the bgcolor with no image does look best). -- Jonel | Speak 03:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Jared, I decided to be bold in bringing this to a base state upon which we can make additions. Please understand that I also took into consideration that in the Wikipedia:Olympic conventions page, there is a 7-3 vote against the images. tiZom(2¢) 02:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

That's quite alright. Actually, I'm starting to get fed up with this whole Olympics thing; its quite overwhelming! I guess that box looks good enough. --Jared [T]/[+] 02:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Heh, try figuring out just exactly what was going on in the Sailing at the 1900 Summer Olympics competitions--that'll drive you bonkers. Bunches of events, not all Olympic. Some of the best-known Olympic historians list some of the events; the IOC medals database lists some of those events and some others. Even when they do overlap on which events are Olympic, they have different names for the sailors in a lot of the boats. And it's never quite clear whether someone with the notation "{owner}" next to their name competed in the boat they owned or just sent the boat. Throw in a mixed-nationality team or two, and the fun really begins.
And that's when you realize that you're still on only the 2nd edition of the Games and that there are plenty more with actual red links to Sport at the Y Olympics pages that you haven't even touched yet. That's when you take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember that there are a bunch of people working right along with you earnestly trying to improve WP's coverage of the Olympics. -- Jonel | Speak 03:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that pretty much hits the nail on the head! --Jared [T]/[+] 12:02, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Games location with year?

I've noticed usage of these templates where author has put the games location with the year (e.g. Clara Hughes) or just the year only (e.g. Donovan Bailey). Should we try to adopt a standard notation? I note that the examples on this talk page show the year only, but I can see arguments for both styles. I would just prefer we were consistent; I'm comfortable making editing changes either way. Andrwsc 21:06, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion, although I'm leaning slightly towards having them with the city name. It should be consistent. Sue Anne 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
Definitly year and location. —Ruud 22:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
I like year and location, but I don't like how sometimes the year forces a second line... but I can't find any examples right now, so I suppose it's not too much of a problem! tiZom(2¢) 15:24, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I'm in favor of year and city. I've been doing that with all of my updates. Having just the year seems very lacking to me. I'm also guilty of putting in Torino for the city name, but now that we have addressed that standard, I'm switching to Turin. - Don Sowell 17:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm strongly against that because it forces a second line and makes the medal list look ugly, and the info can be easily retrieved by clicking on the link... I urge you to reconsider, but if I'm the only one who finds this ugly, then I won't object if you continue with adding of the city name. But, please stop for a day and reconsider. Thank you. --Dijxtra 14:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
not against the principle - but certainly against any bad display aspects. Don't forget not everyone works with the same equipment as each other. Also bear in mind that some City names are quite long "Lillihammer" for instance. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page) 16:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
There are two major things working to force the second line in those cells:
  • The city name does indeed make it pretty lengthy, but I've found that it gives a really nice frame of reference, especially for more recent games.
  • Making the event gender-specific (i.e. Women's 10km) is both redundant (it should be part of the Sport cell), and it causes a little bit of length.
I noticed these last night, and extended the box from 30% to 35%, and that seemed to eliminate most of the forced second lines, at least on my browser. tiZom(2¢) 21:32, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I was using a lower-resolution screen. It's almost too much space on the higher resolution screens. tiZom(2¢) 21:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
There is a well known saying in software engineering: "never ever output incorrect information even if it makes things look ugly." I think this applies here as well. When I will start working on several of the articles on speed skaters, I will create a "merged" which will display the medals won at both the Olymics, World Cup and World Championship. Displaying the year alone will no longer supply enough information. —Ruud 20:53, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
This is an issue that should be address on everything. I think there should be separate "infoboxes" for each major category of competition - Olympics, World Cup, World Championships, etc. It's not just the speed skaters that have this issue, but almost all the athletes. Sue Anne 23:15, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Since there seems to be a consensus that the year and location should be displayed, and also since the table has been altered to fit any sized text, I'm going ahead and beginning the change. There are 1500 articles that have the Medal templates, so it will be a while. As far as merging the boxes, I personally think they look better separate, but I wouldn't mind them together. It would be a lot of work merging them together, but if we were to do it, we could:
  1. Add a {{MedalRecordType|Olympic}} to all current articles using a bot
  2. Change the templates so that {{MedalTop}} just opened the table, and {{MedalRecordType|Olympics}}, for example, became a header.
God, I wish meta-templates weren't so disruptive to WP :o( Does anyone know of any other way we could do that? tiZom(2¢) 23:34, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Where should the wikilinked fields point?

Another question has come up for me. What should the various fields link to? For the MedalSport field, I've seen links to the generic sports page (i.e. Athletics) and also to the Olympic summary page (e.g. Athletics at the Summer Olympics). I think the latter makes most sense.

What about the fields in the MedalGold et. al. rows: Should the year (& location, depending on opinion above) link to the games-specific sport page (e.g. Athletics at the 2004 Summer Olympics or just to the "root" page for the games (e.g. 2004 Summer Olympics). I think the sport page makes most sense, but that doesn't seem to be as common. Comments? Andrwsc 22:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

The more specific, the better, I say. -- Jonel | Speak 01:57, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, although the one concern is putting too much of a burden on the editor in question. - Don Sowell 17:27, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
If the editor just puts the non-specific links, that's fine. Those of us who enjoy this stuff can always come through and fill out the more specific links. -- Jonel | Speak 22:46, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Olympic logo

Due to copyright constraints, the olympic logo has been removed. Please be advised. It should not be replaced without a good reason. (Unfortunately) tiZom(2¢) 23:09, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd have to look into this deeper but I highly doubt we are not allowed to use this image the way we were. —Ruud 18:10, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Can I use the Olympic Rings? The Olympic rings are the exclusive property of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and cannot be used without the IOC's prior written consent. You will find the rule about this subject in the Olympic Charter, Chapter 1, Rules 7-14, p. 17-25: Open the document First, a request form must be filled in, as precisely and with as many details as possible. Obligatory information includes: 1) Identify yourself Name, full address, telephone and/or fax number, e-mail address. Institution, organisation, company, museum or individual. 2) How will the Olympic Rings be used? Private use (no broadcasting), school work, group activities, exhibition, production/broadcasting.

So we would need permission first. —Ruud 19:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I was given the following note on my talk page:

Under the IOCs conditions, the Olympic Rings are not free enough for Wikipedia, as they restrict third-party use (worse, they restrict our use). ed g2s • talk 00:13, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Please take any questions up with ed g2s, as I'm no expert on this subject. tiZom(2¢) 22:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table alignment

Would anyone object to adding an argument so that the alignment of the table can be specified? For an example of why this is needed (IMO, anyway), please take a look at Jacque Jones. I'd like to float the table on the left. android79 02:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Done. To float left, key in {{MedalTop|left}}. I didn't put this on the {{MedalTopPic}} template because it's really not appropriate - the reason it's being floated left is because of other content on the right. Also, the coding gets weird, because the second argument is optional, and this would add a third argument. Entirely do-able, but very much less user-friendly. tiZom(2¢) 05:17, 4 March 2006 (UTC)


Sorry, appparently, my method doesn't work. Although I'm not sure what is wrong with it, I've gone ahead and asked Ed g2s to help us get it right. Also, it is worth mentioning here that Ed g2s changed the whole structure of this infobox to a standard infobox, but we have all agreed that it looks terrible that way. I have therefore reverted it to the edit right before I added the alignment. tiZom(2¢) 04:21, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Centered?

Is there a reason that medaltop and medalsport aren't centered? Hazelorb 22:17, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

You mean the text in the templates? It is centered. What browser are you using? tiZom(2¢) 07:51, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Internet Explorer Hazelorb 01:42, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this was because the header that uses exclamation points doesn't always work in all browsers. I went ahead and added an "align=center" argument...should work now. Let me know if it doesn't. We could slways make it style="align: center;" tiZom(2¢) 03:53, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Awesome thanks Hazelorb 19:39, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with Template:MedalGold and categorization

The sorting of Olympic medal categories is a mess. I am just fuming about this. Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sports Olympics#Total inanity, Template:MedalGold and the like. Gene Nygaard 11:26, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] PAGENAME on MedalTopPic

I think the PAGENAME as default is a really horrible idea. Most of the medalists pages have the medal record at the top of the page, and I see no reason why there needs to be an extra line there with the person's name on it when it's in really big, bold letters just to the left. Sue Anne 02:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

"Horrible", even. My goodness. I might've argued the case in some earlier thread here, but anyway: AFAIK, having the name of a person below a photo of her/him is a common practice in articles and other written pieces about the person in books, magazines, etc., even if the person's name is prominently mentioned in the heading. Why shouldn't that be the case in WP as well? Do you find it intrusive? --Wernher 03:12, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Default Picture Size on MedalTopPic

I had removed the default picture size, and someone added it back in. The reason why I removed it was due to the fact that the picture size was too big for some of the pictures. Many of the pictures on these medalists pages are "promotional" photos and can be of a lesser quality. Having the default at 200px and even at 150px is too high. If pictures are of a better quality that the size can be increased, people can do that manually. I think the default should be set at a size where the lowest common denominator looks good and everything else looks better. Sue Anne 02:28, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Are there really that many athlete photos of less than 150px horizontal resolution? IMHO, using as small a width as 100px makes the pictures almost "disappear" compared to the size of the medals table. Athlete's faces get so small they almost can't be distinguished... If there aren't very strong reasons the size couldn't be reset to 150px, I think we should rather use that default. I see your point that in principle we can always adjust the sizes of individual photos, but I just 'couldn't believe' that there's so many of extremely low resolution(?) --Wernher 03:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
There's been enough of them that I felt prompted to remove the default picture size, and both 200px and 150px didn't solve the problem. Especially as we become more vigilant in cleaning out things that have not had a valid source or have been inappropriately tagged as "fair use", there's going to be more of a reliance on "promotional" photos that may not be of the highest quality. Sue Anne 04:47, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] MedalTop vs. MedalTopPic

Which looks better? It's been bothering me for a long time that they don't look the same. I think the MedalTopPic looks great with the white between the medal background colors. See this and this. Any opinions? tiZom(2¢) 01:24, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Made changes to MedalTop to have the same look as MedalTopPic. --Pelladon 07:17, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Love it. Thanks. tiZom(2¢) 20:19, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Competitor country

Olympic medal record
Competitor for the United States United States
Men's Athletics
Gold 2000 Sydney 4x400 m Relay
Olympic medal record
Women’s Badminton
Competitor for Indonesia
Silver 1996 Atlanta Singles
Competitor for the Netherlands
Silver 2004 Athens Singles

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but what do people think about adding a line/template for the country of the competitor? Would people want to use country flags? I would like to hear what people think. Thanks, mattbr30 22:45, 8 May 2006 (UTC).

I'm ambivalent about putting the country name in the infobox. I'm worried that it would be another way to clutter the box. I'm opposed to adding the country flag. Sue Anne 23:26, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Also, there are occasions when people have switched nationality. Such as Mia Audina. -- Jonel | Speak 01:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. I have added a couple of examples for illustration, with the first being for single nation competitors and having a flag, and the second for multi-nation competitors and without flags. I think it could be set up in the format {{MedalCountry|IOC}} where IOC would be the IOC country code, with 'the' being added as necessary. mattbr30 09:08, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I support this template completely (flag and all). I think that the nation for which an Olympian competes is extremely important, given the nature of the Olympics. I think it's a great way of spicing up the pages without infringing on any copyrights, and I think it helps the user to identify and categorize the competitors. tiZom(2¢) 16:46, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I also support something like this, as I just now came to this page looking for a way to clarify the team that Ivica Osim coached in 1984. Neier 14:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have created a test version at User:Mattbr30/Sandbox, which is used in the example above with the flag. Please let me know your thoughts! mattbr30 13:26, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I created the template a couple weeks ago hand have used it on a couple of pages. Template:MedalCountry. --Sue Anne 18:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi Sue Anne, you mentioned above you oppose adding the flag of the country, but you have included it in the use of your template by using templates such as {{USA}}. My template uses the same templates, but includes 'the' when needed (as in 'for the United States') and gives the right flag at time of competition by adding the last year of medal winning in one of the template parameters. This should hopefully make it easier to add the information and make it more accurate. mattbr30 12:01, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

For those who don't have that page watched, I added a comment at Template talk:MedalCountry. -- Jao 20:26, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Joa's comment moved to this page from Template talk:MedalCountry (mattbr30 20:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)):
User:Mattbr30/Sandbox seems a bit better than this template [the current MedalCountry]. Any chance it can replace it? I really like the idea, however it is implemented. I tried it out on a few of the sport shooter bios, and it can get a bit messy as in Jasna Šekarić (also, what do I enter for IOP and the FRY? Are there solutions to this in Mattbr30's template?), but then again, these cases are also where the information is most useful. -- Jao 19:59, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Olympic medal record
Competitor as part of a team of
Independent Olympic Participants Independent Olympic Participants
Competitor for Greece Greece
Competitor for Yugoslavia Yugoslavia
As IOP (along with IOA, EUN etc) was used as a country code, their use is supported in my template. My template primarily uses the three letter code templates (such as {{USA}}, {{AUT}} etc), but where these don't exist or have another use (such as {{HOL}}), a different text is called. A different text can also be called if a country has changed its flag (such as Greece, whose 1976 flag is shown to the left), which is done by entering the year in the second parameter. The editor doesn't need to know the flag was different, as this is determined by the template, hopefully making, as I said above, the information more accurate. So for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, YUG was used, and if any Olympic year between 1994 and 2002 is entered, the example shown is produced. mattbr30 20:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I think this might be useful for competitiors that have competed for mutliple countries but I believe it is redundant for those who have only competed for one country. In the latter case, such a template serves no purpose at all. I would also recommend we dump the flag. We have far too many flags in wikipedia and in my opinon they are a usulally a distraction. What purpose would the flag serve with respect to the medalcountry template? David D. (Talk) 20:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
As tiZom(2¢) said, I think adding the country of competition adds a useful piece of information to go along with the rest of the information in the table and helps readers mentally categorize the competitor, especially as countries play an important part of Olympic competition. Other sport infoboxes include this information and with the development of the table to include other competitions, I think it helps build on the summary of information. As regards to the flag, I think it helps readers identify the country (especially if they have a limited understanding of English) and helps break up the text and add a bit of colour, especially to a series of gray boxes! mattbr30 20:47, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
I can see the advantage of a flag in a table where someone may wish to scan for medalists by country. The flag does serve a useful purpose in that case. But do you really think that people will recognise a flag over the country name for most countries? Furthermore, these medal tables are on the biography pages where, invariably, the first line of each article is "so and so from country X". I agree there are too many grey boxes. That's why i say we should only use it to represent something useful. Having it in there becuase we can makes little sense to me. As an aside, what is to become of the achievment tables in the biographies? In most cases the information is completely redundant. I would suggest the achievement table are either deleted or expanded to include performances too. David D. (Talk) 22:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
No, I've encountered many articles, where the country of a competitor is not mentioned at all. Although this may be because I work on such "unpopular" topics, as related to the USSR. I believe, that the flag and the country of a competitor in the template are very important, because quite a lot of them represented several (even three in many cases) countries through their career and because no one competes at the Olympics "on one's own" - an athlete always represents one's country - wear a specific uniform, anthems of countries are played during medal ceremonies, unofficial stats of medals by country are always calculated and so on. By the way, the IOC does not consider flags irrelevant: see, for example, this page Cmapm 20:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Right, i think that this is the exception where this template is useful. That does not mean it should be used in every case. Most athletes only represent one country. And if a bio does not state that country in the first paragraph then there is clearly room for improvement in that particular stub. Why is the flag important if the name of the country is present? David D. (Talk) 20:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Do you mean achievement tables like this one? Why are they redundant? Because only "medal performances" are mentioned? Then feel free to add "non-medal" performances if you have corresponding information. I believe, that such tables make articles much more informative and easy to look through. Cmapm 20:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
You missed my point. If they give exactly the same information as the medal templates then they are redundant. In the example you give the medal template is not used so it is not redundant. If the medal table is used then the achievements table only makes sense if it offers additional information. In most cases that is not true. David D. (Talk) 20:52, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, in this case, duplicate info should be removed either from the table of achievements, or from the medal template. Then, I support this point too. Cmapm 21:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I think that there is no need to have an achievement table if it contains exactly the same information as the medal table, but I think that if they contain additional information, such as times/distances, notes or other achievements/placings, and provide a comprehensive competitive history then there is a place for both. mattbr30 14:23, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
That is what i was thinking when i mentioned additional information. Both is good if there is more information in the achievement table. David D. (Talk) 07:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
Do we have any consensus on this issue? I noticed that User:SndrAndrss (see:User_talk:SndrAndrss#MedalCountry_template) has started adding it to athletes medal tables. David D. (Talk) 19:25, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
And why shouldn't somebody do so? The template is not banned. If somebody thinks, that the template is not appropriate, then one should nominate it for deletion. Cmapm 20:23, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Well i think it would be premature to nominate it for deletion before a discussion. Besides it would be useful in some cases where athletes have represented and won medals for multiple countries. Personally i don't think adding it to every bio, just because we can, is necessarily a good strategy. David D. (Talk) 20:43, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't plan to specially add this into 300 or so articles. I've added 10 or so of them so far. However, in any case, whether inclusion of this into the template will be accepted in the discussion or not, I'll do my best to add country inf. in some form either into the template or into the article, when I come to edit any article, that lacks it. This discussion will just give me a hint, where to include it. But once again, I think, that mentioning country in the template (with the flag or not, it's not too important for me) would be more convenient for the reader in all cases, not just where an athlete represent several countries. Cmapm 21:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I think the template is a good idea (flag and all), but my one objection is that on User:Mattbr30/Sandbox, Matt uses the full name of the country, which causes a line break for some country names in the table. This is a little over-kill and the full name is not needed. I think just putting "Laos" or "Libya" or even "United States" is sufficient in conveying the message that they competed for that country. It seems like a fair compromise, non? The table should be as simple as possible, as some people have already said. → JARED (t)  22:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I was sticking to the IOC designations, but I shall change them to the short names. Thanks, mattbr30 15:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Olympic logo again

It was removed from this template two months ago due to the copyvio. But it is curently used in many other templates, including the one at the top of this Talk Page. Maybe it could be included back into the template? Cmapm 05:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

It needs to be removed from the other templates, not added to one. Fair use images are not allowed in templates. Sue Anne 18:55, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] World record template

anyone else think this is a good idea? Yonatanh 02:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes - for sure - does it no exist already? Ozhiker 17:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Combined events

Olympic medalist
Center
MedalTop
Medal record
Men's Snowboarding
Gold 2006 Turin Men's Halfpipe
{{{1}}}
Men's Snowboarding
Silver 2002 Slopestyle
Gold 2003 Slopestyle
Gold 2004 Slopestyle
Gold 2005 Slopestyle
Gold 2006 Slopestyle
Silver 2002 Half-pipe
Gold 2003 Half-pipe
Gold 2006 Half-pipe
Men's Skateboarding
Silver 2005 Vert

There may be something I don't know. But I would either like imput on how to do this, or propose that some method be created: There are several athletes who participate in multiple high-end events. For example, Shaun White (check out his current page). Currently, each group (Olymics and X-games) is in separate infoboxes - which looks cluttered, and they don't match well. I tried to integrate the boxes by plugging in {{XMedalTop}} (the top of the x-games infobox) as th value for {{MedalSport}} ({{MedalSport|{{XMedalTop}}}}). I had a measure of success. The finished product looked like the box to the right.

The only problem in that the top of the X-games section, there is no marker. Where the {{{1}}} is, there should be this. I could just type "X-Games" there, but I think that is inferior. No of anyway to make the x-game top template appear instead of the one (and without just typing X-games)?

PS - the caption under the picture says Medal Top becuase the template defaults to the article title. On the page it says Shaun White.--Esprit15d 15:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Forget it, is subst'd it then edited it to make it fit.--Esprit15d 15:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
You bring up a good point. This template is rather narrow in scope. Perhaps we can expand it to allow different Games within the same table, or create different {{MedalTop}}-style templates to make separate tables for some of these other games? tiZom(2¢) 16:49, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additions to the Medals Template structure

I have created a new template {{MedalCompetition}} which allows listing of medals for various types of competitions other than the Olympics (eg, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, National Titles, Goodwill Games, Paralympic Games, etc). With it, tables like in the article for Jonathan Edwards can be created.

If there are no objections, I would like to also make a few invisible changes to the template pages, adding the following:

  • Default values for all Medal Year and Medal Event fields in the {{MedalGold}}, {{MedalSilver}}, {{MedalBronze}}, {{MedalTrueSpirit}} & {{MedalDisqualified}} templates.
  • Add non-template code around the actual templates, to make them show on the template articles as they will in the articles they are used in.
  • Add template specific descriptions and usage notes to each template article - the usage notes in this talk page are a bit out of date.
  • Make {{MedalWorldChampionships}} and {{MedalOlympic}} meta-templates which are just specific instances of the new {{MedalCompetition}} template.

Ozhiker 17:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

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