Talk:ISU Speed Skating World Cup

Not just winners?

Maybe this should be expanded to list not just the winners, but gold-silver-bronze? Rationale: The World Cup is a pretty important event in speed skating and it led to the single distance championships. wjmt 16:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Design of navbox templates

There is now a dispute over the design of the navbox templates for this series of articles. The articles cover World Cup seasons, where each season consists of several competition weekends, in which several distances are competed. This creates a matrix of articles, where individual competitions are in the cross-section intersection of the distance competed and the competition weekend. (The "Standings" table in the 2013–14 ISU Speed Skating World Cup – Men's Grand World Cup illustrates this.)

This calls for the need of navboxes, firstly on the season level, where one can navigate between, on one hand, the various distance cups (the x-axis so to speak), and, on the other hand, the various competition weekends (the y-axis). The next level is on the competition weekend/distance cup level, where one can navigate a) between various distances competed on a particular weekend, and b) between the various competitions over a particular distance (as the results ultimately combine to crown a cup winner).

Now, initially, there were templates of dubious design in the ISU Speed Skating World Cup area, particularly on the season level. Many colors, etc (see below). The others were fairly good. A standard sidebar template, the {{sidebar games events}} template, appears to have been created recently, which is good, and user:Zackmann08 seems to have been going over many sidebar navboxes to introduce this new standard template. It is a big task, obviously, and one cannot expect Zackmann to avoid errors in all places.

It is also to be expected that experts and major contributors in topics that these templates touch will make further adjustments and improvements to Zackmann's first effort. This is what I have done: adjustment and improvements, still using the sidebar games event template and its various parameters. I have now been reverted several times over, because Zackmann imagines that navboxes can only have one design. Rather than continuing on his edit-war path, I am now starting this discussion.

The following is, in turn, 1) the original design of the navboxes (before the introduction of the new standard template), 2) Zackmann's first effort (which he has reverted back to), and 3) my improved and adapted version.

1: the colorful original:

2: Zackmann's first effort:

3: after further adjustments and improvements by a subject matter expert and major contributor:

Apart from the most obvious errors – such as completely missing that there were nine (9) competition weekends on the 2012–13 season, not eight (8), and placing the location names on the wrong competition weekend – it's fairly obvious that Zackmann's version is fairly one-dimensional (along the men/women line), and does not give equal weight to the competition weekends by placing them in the "below" parameter.

Now, I firmly believe that the use of the new standard template accomodates for variations like this the ones I have created. The appearance can very obviously vary from one games article to another. Furthermore, this article series is not a standard games, it's a matrix of competition weekends and distance cups over an entire season, where the number of competitions reaches up to around 80. That calls for some adaptation.

Concluding, personally, I think my design is superior in looks (in addition to giving equal weight to the "x- and y-axes"). I am fully aware that I don't WP:OWN the articles (or the templates), but that particular guideline also calls for consideration to a major contributor: "it is important to respect the work and ideas of your fellow contributors. Therefore, be cautious when removing or rewriting large amounts of content, particularly if this content was written by one editor". I have worked on these articles far more than all other contributors combined, and have put countless hours of work into them. So, blind reverts would not be a good way to go about improving these articles, or indeed the project itself.

I confidently submit to other editors the above comparison of versions.

HandsomeFella (talk) 22:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok well setting aside the blatant insults that HandsomeFella made no attempts to hide... I will just address the actual template rather than the personal character attacks. Literally EVERY other sidebar for EVERY multi-sport event has events with 3 columns... The event in column 1, the men/boys in column 2 and women/girls in column 3. There are some exceptions where a 4th column is added for mixed events. This was not some new convention that I created as HandsomeFella suggests. This has always been the way it is. Anyway, I'm looking for input from other users. Handsome just wants to attack me, point out every typo I've made and how my edits make a version that he basically thinks sucks. Happy to bow to consensus. If the decision is made by other editors to do this a new way, I have no problem with that whatsoever! But short of a consensus to do this template a different way, I'm sticking with doing it the way the rest of the 16342 transclusions of {{Sidebar games events}}. --Zackmann08 (^{Talk to me}/_{What I been doing}) 01:00, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

(Bypassing the distraction.) "EVERY other sidebar for EVERY multi-sport event" doesn't cover an entire season. If you had cared to look in the competition weekend articles (such as 2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup – World Cup 1), you would have found that the look there (the 2nd template) is more like your preferred version, because each competition weekend is a multi-sport event. But this makes no sense in the top-level articles (the season articles).

And why would all sidebars have to look virtually identical? Articles don't look identical. They must have a common structure, but there (of course) are big variations. You are underestimating the reader.

Inviting other editors to weigh in. @FakirNL, Ionel141, Wolbo, Dsprc, TheGreenGiant23, 18abruce, WildCherry06, Sander.v.Ginkel, Kante4, and Frietjes:

HandsomeFella (talk) 14:51, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Third party here. (Disclaimer, the only reason that I found this is that I'm followed Zackmann08's talk page because of a link mistake he made on a fraternity template.) I perfer Zackmann08's verions for the following reason: It is clearly a sidebar. The version created by HandsomeFella, It is unclear to me in isolation whether it is a sidebar or a non-sidebar template that is being viewed with a narrow amount of space available. It *may* make sense for that version to be in the article, but it would be placed at the bottom of the page and built without the sidebar functionality.Naraht (talk) 16:57, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for input. Allright, #3 doesn't look like the ordinary sidebar, I give you that. This is because I think the template in this case should have a more prominent appearance than a regular sidebar. After all, an article on a sports season that has several different cups and that stretches over several competition weekends needs a box where one can see 1) that this is not just another games article with various events – the articles on the individual competition weekends are – it's actually one level above games articles, and 2) the entire structure of the season at a glance. I don't want a navbox at the bottom, that ruins the whole idea of an at-a-glance box. Is there an alternative to a sidebar template? Do we need a new type of navbox? HandsomeFella (talk) 18:24, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

The other choice would be an infobox, I believe. The other type of event with a similar setup to what this has (world cup, multiple events from multiple locations would either be Skiing (where something related to Template:Infobox Double Wintersport World Cup) or AutoRacing.

Thanks for the tip. I'll see what I can do with it. HandsomeFella (talk) 07:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

• Use the narrow version; that's what we pretty much universally prefer for sidebars, because in mobile and otherwise narrow usage, wide sidebars muck up the page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:10, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

Ok, which is the narrow version? HandsomeFella (talk) 07:44, 20 October 2017 (UTC)

The template for the 2012–13 season still only links to 8 of the 9 competition weekends. But I guess, to some, the importance of correctness is subordinate to keeping a uniform appearance, no matter if that's suitable for the template in question or not. HandsomeFella (talk) 12:20, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Overview of template usage

Template type	Use in season articles (e.g. 2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup?	Use in competition weekend articles (e.g. 2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup – World Cup 1)	Use in distance cup articles (e.g. 2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup – Men's 500 metres)	Use in individual competitions (e.g. 2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup – World Cup 1 – Men's 500 metres)?
Season template (e.g. {{2014–15 ISU Speed Skating World Cup}}	X	X	X
Competition weekend template (e.g. {{2014–15 ISU SS WC1}}		X		X
Distance cup template (e.g. {{2014–15 ISU SS men's 500}}			X	X