Template talk:National Rugby League Teams

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[edit] Spot of bother

I'm trying to bold the Former Teams link on the template but I'm not sure how. If someone could help that'd be great. Bongomanrae 19:04, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks pretty bold to me. That said, I think it would be appropriate to leave the former teams listed out in full in the template given it is used in pages such as New South Wales Rugby Football League season 1913. Thoughts? mdmanser 02:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Personally I prefer having a link to the former teams rather than listing them all on the NRL template. It looks neater and is less confusing, it also means that we don't waste space on teams like Cumberland, Newcastle (Rebels), (Sydney) University and others who have very little to do with the NRL. Bongomanrae 10:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said, this template is not exclusive to the NRL. The NRL only makes up 1/10 of the number of seasons in the competition - former teams such as St. George and Newtown are very very relevant to the history of the competition. If we were to just include current teams then we should also remove the other 90 years of the competition from the list of seasons. There's no harm done in including the list of former teams - it takes up a little over one line more in template space and makes accessibility much higher for those who want to browse quickly between teams. This issue of including former teams is one that I feel very strong about. mdmanser 16:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Remember that this is a template about National Rugby League Teams, its primary function is to list the current NRL sides. There is no reason for cluttering it up with clubs that competed for only a single season one hundred years ago in a different competition.

Having a simple link to an article listing the teams that have competed in the NSWRL, ARL, SL and NRL is much more logical, and befitting an encyclopedia, than simply cramming onto the template all of the teams that have competed at one stage or another over the last century, particularly when many of them are completely irrelevant to the NRL. Bongomanrae 19:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

How about the template National Rugby League season? Should we remove every year before 1998 because its primary function is to list the current NRL seasons? Is there no reason for cluttering it up with seasons that were completed one hundred years ago in a different competition?

Is the solution to change the name of the template altogether or to create a separate "former national rugby league teams" template? I wouldn't say that my version of the template is "cluttered" either - there are only one or two lines extra in the page because of it. mdmanser 01:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with how the the NSWRL/ARL/SL/NRL seasons template is currently but I would have no problem with restricting it to either 1988 onwards (when the NSWRL became the de facto national comp), 1995 onwards (the creation of the ARL) or 1998 onwards (creation of the NRL). Personally I think that will eventually happen, much like the current NRL page used to contain information on the NSWRL and ARL/SL before someone divided them all up onto their own pages.

For your second point, the template is cluttered because instead of leaving the focus on just the current NRL teams it divides the users attention between the current teams and the former teams. The former teams link lets the user focus on the current teams and provides and easy way to see what teams used to compete. Keep in mind that the majority of of people using the template will be focussed on the NRL teams, the people who are using the NRL template to look for clubs like Newtown would have to be in a tiny minority and would be suitably serviced by a simple 'former teams' link.

Remember that by adding in a link to the former teams they will still be represented on the template, they aren't going to disappear. Think about it for a couple of days. Bongomanrae 06:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"right, ive had a think about it for a week and still wasn't convinced. every team is relevant in the history of the competition"

I agree, they are relevant to the history of the competition. However they aren't relevant to the competition as we know it. For instance, Cumberland played a grand total of 8 games in 1908. Eight games a century ago. How on earth is that relevant to the NRL? Why should they be listed along side the Melbourne Storm and NZ Warriors?

Look, I can understand where you are coming from but half of the teams only lasted for a handful of years and the other half are still represented in the competition as we know it today thanks to mergers. The only exceptions are Newtown and North Sydney and even then, Newtown exited the NSWRL top grade long before the the league became the defacto national comp.

Like I've pointed out, a single link clears up the clutter and moves the teams irrelevant to the NRL off the template whilst at thew same time still providing that 1% of wikipedian's looking for Glebe on an NRL page a link to that team. It's the perfect solution. Bongomanrae 16:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The spot of bother comes down to whether or not we are defining the entire competition history in this navigation box or whether we are defining the current status of the competition. From what I've seen with sporting navigation boxes across Wikipedia, all of the relevant historical information is available under the one navigation box. Check out some of the major Football clubs from Europe and you'll see what I mean. Every single season of a competition / World Cup is always listed in the box below. Again, here, each club in my opinion has a very important spot in the history of the competition. The work I do on Wikipedia is largely due and based on what I find lacking around the Internet. To me everything is about accessibility speedily to information and this is no different in this situation. Your main issue is about "clutter." I don't see any. For what it's worth, an extra line, there is a hell lot more relevant information listed in the one space where people want it quickly on demand.

I don't see this being solved between the two of us unfortunately :p . Perhaps this is one to be put under discussion elsewhere. mdmanser 16:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)