Template talk:Footer Olympic Champions Floor Men

Many years ago, I added the "not included" years prior to the years that Floor Exercise made its Olympic debut in 1932. I did this specifically because it is the only individual event in men's artistic gymnastics that is still being contested, that has been contested for a long time (many decades - the better part of a century, really), that was not included in the very earliest Summer Olympic Games (1890s and 1st decade of the 20th century), and that made its Olympic debut much later than the other events. I do this to help make that navigation box more fully informative and to help clarify any confusion to any possible researchers because it stands alone in that respect to the extent that it is practically anomalous and does not parallel all of the other templates for individual events in men's artistic gymnastics.

As far as I know, there are no specific rules disallowing for brief notations like this in Olympic-themed templates, and as I have said elsewhere before, even the main navigation box for the entire Olympic Games makes exceptions for Olympiads for which no hyperlinks exist, including entries for 1916, 1940, and 1944, which have notations included in that navigation box. If such an example stands, for information points which should be obvious, then it should be even more obvious that information points (especially if it is only one information point, articulated in a terse fashion, not even disrupting the design of the navigation box) should be included in such a template for which reason for lack of inclusion should not be obvious.QuakerIlK (talk) 19:12, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I think that's a good case for an exception to the usual format of having these templates start with the first year the event was held. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 19:52, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree. Having "not included" is just as meaningless as having nothing there at all - there's no "why", and as of right now there's no place to discover the why. A researcher doesn't need to be told that it's different - it's obvious.

I think that commentary like that could be better served in a summary page, not cluttering up the navbox. Other apparatus have summary pages which are included in their navboxes, such as Rings at the Olympics. I do not think that being the last of the apparatus to emerge in artistic gymnastics is significant enough to break the uniformity of the other templates. The navbox, as it was under my edit, is fully informative - every Olympic champion in men's floor is listed, and their competitions, WP pages, and countries are linked to. In theory, all Olympic champion navboxes should start with the year first included - if a researcher comes with a curiosity about why Floor started late, if the reason is even significant apart from its timing, the rationale should probably be among a more detailed report of the event.

If this template is allowed to be different for something so minute, claims could be made about many other templates, and not just limited to gymnastics. It would be best if all of the templates were uniform. I am aware that there are some that are not in line, but for the most part, Olympic champions templates do not include unlinked text concerning years absent. As I recall, unlinked text is something to be avoided in navboxes.

Regarding the main Olympics template, for the record, the cancelled games do have hyperlinks (albeit to essentially stubs). To exclude those links and years, especially for Summer, would be an blatant error to anyone who is even somewhat versed in the history of the Olympics. That template serves a fundamentally different purpose, as I feel like I've stated before, even if it is laid out in a similar structure. EditorSeto (talk) 02:24, 14 August 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you are right. For the record, the various texts for "1916", "1940", and "1944" are hyperlinks to stubs for those competitions. I must have forgotten the point exactly and conflated some issues. But the point is that the main template for the Olympics is *complete*, including all Olympiads, whether held or not. There are mathematical symbols indicating notations, as well as brief explanations for those notations - within the template navigation box.

I don't think that having "not included" is meaningless. If somebody was a really hawkish researcher, they might notice that detail when comparing templates. Somebody less interested and hawkish might not notice that, especially if they weren't comparing templates. What that brief bit of text says implicitly is that, for the person who notices the difference in templates, this is not a mistake. Without including that at all, there is less likely to be a question of "WHY?" in the first place, because it would be less likely to be noticed. That's one thing that research is supposed to do - if it can't answer a question, it should lead to other questions, which would hopefully, eventually, at some point, lead to an answer to the question, to begin with, or at the very least stimulate thought.

Although you did not specifically state that this template is cluttered, you do bring up the point. But I challenge you to demonstrate just exactly how the brief little bit of text I reincluded in this template clutters it. It does not break the visual formatting of the template *at all*. Although it is a navigation box template, it does not exist merely to decorate the pages onto which it is transcluded - it is also meant to be an instrument of information.

It would be nice if life was nice and neat and tidy and we could completely and without exception apply a cookie-cutter rule approach to all sorts of things. But The Olympics, like life, are a very big and complicated thing which war and politics have made even more complicated. So, how can we honestly think that The Olympics is something that we can lazily reduce to little cookie-cutter rules that are so easy to display and code at a kindergarten level? We can't. We should take extra pains to try to respect them by putting a little bit more effort into things.QuakerIlK (talk) 03:39, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Your re-added text does not add anything of substance to the template. Your claim was that it was significant to note because it entered the Olympics later than the other apparatus, but you did not put forward any particular reason for its non-inclusion. If there is a specific reason that Floor was not included until 1932, that information is most certainly worthy of more space and does not belong in the navbox. If there is no specific reason, then the information isn't noteworthy enough to include when these navboxes already only list years contested - at that point it's just a quirk of history, a fun fact. Either way, it becomes unnecessary, and therefore is clutter.

I again make the suggestion to you that this information belongs in a not-yet-made summary page concerning Floor at the Olympics. EditorSeto (talk) 04:31, 18 August 2021 (UTC)