Template talk:Infobox martial art school

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[edit] Suggestions

I've got a couple of suggestions for tweaking this template.

  1. I don't see the use in a field for "style" - it seems redundant to "arts taught". I realize that different information is being conveyed, but the style will be inherently identical to the "style" field at the article about the martial art itself, and is inelegant in its inclusion in this template.
  2. It looks very unattractive (to me) to have the logo above the name of the art, I would rather have the name of the group at the top.
  3. I realize that the "nationality" field got carried over from the koryu template this was modeled after, but I don't think it works out that well. Perhaps a "country of origin" parameter lower down, instead.
  4. "Dates" is very non-specific and inelegant. "Date founded" would be better, I think.
  5. Because this template is going to be moved to "infobox martial art school" (once the current articles using that template are updated), descendant and ancestor "groups" should be changed to "schools".
  6. I don't see any use for "ancestor arts" that wouldn't be redundant to the article about the art a school practices.
  7. "Areas" is also a vague name for a field. Perhaps parameters for "Headquarters" and its location would be better.
  8. I don't know that we need separate field for "founder dates". It might be better to either code it so they appear in parentheses after the founder's name, or not include them as a parameter at all and let people manual enter them in parentheses.

That's all I've got off the top of my head, let me know what you think. Bradford44 04:32, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

My comments:
  1. Support
  2. Oppose - I personally prefer to see the logo on top, and this allows to have a picture under the name
  3. Support
  4. Support
  5. Support
  6. Partially oppose - perhaps some schools practice a variation of one or more arts?
  7. Support - Area should be changed to "country of origin", or "headquarters". I prefer the second one
  8. Support
Keep up the good work - Nmnogueira 16:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
I've done all but the two you opposed. I still think that the descendants and ancestors of an art that is practiced is better addressed at the article about that art, not in the infobox for the school. Bradford44 17:07, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with basically everything above and like the current infobox. I do think that "ancestor arts" is unnecessary and should be removed. By our definitions, "a school or multiple systems form different arts." While we could better word this, I take it to mean that a school practices an art (or arts). If a school practices a unique art that descended from another art, it would be a new art and should use {{Infobox martial art}}. "Descendant arts" is probably also unneeded. Does it ever happen that an individual school goes on to form a new martial art? If so, wouldn't the school become an art? Is there a distinction between the new art and the school practicing the art? I could go either way on this field, but I think a new art coming from a school is so rare that it can be safely excluded from the template. --Scott Alter 01:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Another field that is important to add is some sort of "ending date" field - when the school became inactive or was succeeded by other schools. I'm not sure what best to call it. The field could be called "ending date," but use if statements so that the field displays "succession date" if there are descendant schools or "defunction date" if there are none. --Scott Alter 01:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

As I've stated previously, I agree that having ancestor and descendant arts is redundant and should be eliminated. As for the second issue, perhaps "dates of activity"? Bradford44 (talk) 04:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
"Dates of activity" sounds like a good title to be displayed. Any opinion of whether this should be one field or 2? Should it be a free-form field that would completely replace "date founded" or should there be separate "date_start" and "date_end" fields? I think having 2 fields is better. If only a "date_start" is provided (the current "date_founded" field), the template could either automatically change the title of the field to "Date founded" or display the content of the field as "date_start to present." --Scott Alter 05:50, 18 November 2007 (UTC)