Template:MedalTop is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. This template does not have a testcases subpage. You can create the testcases subpage here.
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the MedalTop template.
This template is within the scope of WikiProject Sports, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sport-related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SportsWikipedia:WikiProject SportsTemplate:WikiProject Sportssports
Assess : newly added and existing articles, maybe nominate some good B-class articles for GA; independently assess some as A-class, regardless of GA status.
Cleanup : * Sport governing body (this should-be-major article is in a shameful state) * Field hockey (History section needs sources and accurate information - very vague at the moment.) * Standardize Category:American college sports infobox templates to use same font size and spacing. * Sport in the United Kingdom - the Popularity section is incorrect and unsourced. Reliable data is required.
* Fix project template and/or "to do list" Current version causes tables of content to be hidden unless/until reader chooses "show."
The documentation in Template:MedalRelatedTemplates is not protected, so that already serves as a doc subpage. The categorization could be handled by putting this on a doc subpage:
Disabled. max-width is ... CSS3? I don't believe it was wide cross-browser support at all. I'm very hesitant to implement changes that only a few people will see.... --MZMcBride (talk) 20:02, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Matching usage capabilities-II
Aside: IMHO, the default width of both these header templates should be made and kept identical and the smaller quantity... 22 em.
Usage implied (was incomplete and made no distinction) that a second argument parameter should be the medals image, the third the width, and the third and first (image) are also apparently missing... are missing in this template but not the other head subtemplate. However, the width parameter above edit should also be installed in {{MedalTableTop}} as well ASAP. In short, please update both templates with the same minor change type to reflect the usage modes. (Usage page updated and corrected tonight by me.) // FrankB01:39, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In closing, after installing the maxwidth, please complete this one by adjusting the maxwidth parameter so it makes the medal box smaller. Thanks. // FrankB01:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with both your former suggestion and your latter preference. I'd assumed there would be no wish to do either. If we do add an optional name parameter to MedalTop, I'd also like to include conditional classes "vcard" and "fn" (to add an hCardmicroformat) if the name is present, changing your:
{| class="infobox" style="width: 23em; font-size: 90%;"
!colspan="3" style="text-align:center; font-size:125%;" | Person name
to:
{| class="infobox vcard" style="width: 23em; font-size: 90%;"
!colspan="3" style="text-align:center; font-size:125%;" class="fn" | Person name
I think adding much more info than is already catered for in the templates turns it more into an infobox rather than a medal record, and I think adding an infobox (even a sparsely populated one) that incorporates the medal record would make it easier for (and maybe encourage?) people to come along later and expand. Does anyone else have any comments? mattbr15:05, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with suggestion's to expand this template. This template is not an infobox. It is used to add medal records to articles that should already have infoboxes, and is frequently used inside an infobox, so adding a name field is confusing and redundant. For example, see Michael Phelps and Chris Hoy for instances where the medal record is located within the infobox (under a "show/hide" drop-down) and Jaromír Jágr, Michael Jordan, and Brazil national football team for instances where the medal record is located outside the main infobox. The correct thing to do on the Steve Danielson article was not to add a redundant {{MedalName}} field, but instead to add {{Infobox field hockey player}}. — Andrwsc (talk·contribs) 17:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I made these suggestions because I've seen the medal templates on pages, with no other infobox present. An optional name parameter would not stop their use inside other infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits19:16, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but adding optional infobox-like fields might encourage the use of this template as an infobox replacement, and I think that's wrong. — Andrwsc (talk·contribs) 19:46, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I realize for most individual sport participants a medal table is sufficient to show results of championships. However, I was wondering if a tweak could be made, so that all international results could be shown? What I mean is WP:HOCKEY uses this to show medal results for players, but since this is a team sport, finishing below 3rd isn't the same as finishing below 3rd in an individual sport. The reason I ask is that, we are having a battle between some users over MOS:ICON with respect to flags. I figure we can skirt the issue by using this template to show all international experience, if the slight tweaks could be made. This way, since many players have this on their pages less editing work would be necessary. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 08:55, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does anyone have a problem with me tweaking the layout of the medal template? Specifically, I wan't to put the sport the individual competes in on top of the country he/she competes for. This will put more emphasis on the sport rather than the country the individual competes for. Also, I think it just looks better. An example is below.
Please add these interwikis: to Template:MedalTableTop: [[de:Vorlage:Infobox Medaillen]] [[pt:Predefinição:Lista de Medalhas Topo]] [[ru:Шаблон:ОИ-награды]]
To Template:MedalBottom: [[fr:Modèle:Médaille fin]] [[ko:틀:메달_끝]] [[ja:Template:MedalBottom]] [[pt:Predefinição:Lista de Medalhas Fim]]
To Template:MedalCountry: [[es:Plantilla:PaísMedalla]] [[pt:Predefinição:Medalhas País]]
Discussion above, from 2008 and from 2009 remain unresolved, and this template-family is still being used as an infobox, for example on Cathy Freeman. How might we best resolve this?
I personally don't have a problem with the medal template display substituting for an infobox. The majority of the time that occurs is when there is little of significance (no picture or other serious information) to add to the infobox. Essentially all the blanks make the infobox a waste and the medal template far more appropriate. Trackinfo (talk) 22:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The simple answer is that {{infobox athlete}} didn't exist at the time. I don't believe that there's a practical route to (semi-)automatically replacing instances with the real infobox, but nor do I believe there is any real objection to replacing them manually. It'll be done in time. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a question of efficient presentation of key information. If the only information that gets added in a transition from medaltemplates to infobox is the name and date of birth, then I don't think it's worth doing. In my opinion the medal template on Dong Bin is a better emphasis of key facts than the infobox on Gaylord Silly. That said, the infobox is more useful and efficient for athletes of greater notability/achievements (Michael Johnson (track and field) being a good example here). Cathy Freeman fits into that category and the article could benefit from a switch to the infobox. As far as a wide-scale transition goes, I'm not really convinced that infobox usages on smaller articles (e.g. Erica Moore) are beneficial to the reader, where they serve more to distract the eye from the more efficient primary text rather than offering the condensed key-fact-breakdown they were built for. SFB20:42, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SFB and his examples are clear. Note on Johnson, and other athletes of that ilk, the medal table is truncated at Olympics and World Championships. For someone of his accomplishments, we could go overboard and list them all, but smartly we haven't. For the lesser athletes, like Moore, a simple medal table would suffice, particularly now for the brevity of the article. The accomplishments table is unnecessary. We have those all over many older european articles, many at the exclusion of the medal table Yekaterina Podkopayeva, or redundant with it William Van Dijck. That makes for a poorer look and inconsistency. An accomplishment table works well with a Road Racer/Marathon/Racewalk kind of article Delilah Asiago where a place still signifies prominence. A medal table, or its absence, at the top gives a quick overview of the status of this athlete. Trackinfo (talk) 22:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It was neither. The point was that infoboxes are not suitable in all cases, particularly very brief articles. As for the subject's name, I personally believe that the main article title does that job well enough on its own. I am in no doubt about what the medals listed at Dong Bin refer to. I agree that it is a pseudo-infobox in its placement, but I don't think that is a problem in and of itself. The basic style and customizability of these basic templates means that they can be easily used for any competitor in Olympic sports in the last 100 years (a pretty wide article base). If a name at the top is desirable on stand-alone medal templates, then perhaps this could be incorporated into Template:MedalTableTop. Is it possible to automatically generate the athlete name, whilst stripping out the (bracketed) disambiguator if present? SFB15:20, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not displaying the subject's name above the medalbox creates inconsistency with all the other biographies on Wikipedia, which do have infoboxes, and display names in that position It also prevents the emission of useful metadata. I'd be happy with the use of {{MedalTableTop}} as you suggest, but I do not believe that automatically generating the name, whilst stripping out the disambiguator is possible. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits17:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
These templates work with Infobox sportsperson. If someone's biography is not sports-based enough to warrant that infobox, then I presume that transclusion of medals probably gives them too much prominence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sillyfolkboy (talk • contribs)
We could then use that parameter to customise the header of this template. After this edit, we could try merging all the alternative MedalTop templates using this header switching (except for MedalTop - bigger integration issues here).
I did the first request. (By the way, it is often easier to update the template's sandbox and request sync, rather than describing the code on the talk page.) I don't have any opinion on the other issues because I am not familiar with these templates, but they are not protected so if you know what you are doing then go ahead :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:38, 29 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Apologies for the second request, but can you do another update from the sandbox. I have moved the image and caption above the "Medal record" header, which is more appropriately placed directly above the medals themselves. To bring this template into line with other infoboxes, I have made an option where this template automatically closes if the medals are inserted into a "medals=" field (template remains backwards compatible). I have also increased the caption size because this was unusually small (around font size 70). SFB12:21, 30 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Can I assume that this change is why medal tables are now showing the athlete's name at the header by default? Because it is rather ridiculous to reiterate an athlete's name, yet again, in the middle of an article. Resolute00:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it's an issue, but uses such as that on Barry Bonds are in a vast minority compared to Olympic-style athletes which have this as the primary infobox. The best outcome would be incorporate the "medaltemplates" feature into the main infobox at Template:Infobox MLB Player. This is already done for the generic Template:Infobox Sportsperson and Template:Infobox football biography etc. I'm trying to normalise MedalTableTop as a stand-alone infobox because it's much needed for the vast majority of the 20,000 transclusions which use it in that way. I'll begin clean up on the mid-article uses now. SFB14:11, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've created Template:MedalBox so that we can definitively separate the two usages (lead infobox and mid-article box). That new template also has easier "sport" and "country" fields. SFB13:19, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
in the cases that it's the primary box, we should just embed it in {{infobox sportsperson}}, which will allow more information to be added as it is found (e.g., birth_date, death_date, ...). so, the long term solution is not to have the athlete's name showing here by default. Frietjes (talk) 19:52, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Harmonising templates
A large number of templates (45 as of 30 June 2012) have amassed in Category:Medal infobox templates since their creation in 2006. I think it is a good time to harmonise these templates seeing as they provide pretty much the exact same functions.
In addition to the changes I have requested above, I have created Template:Medal. This not only serves as a way to add the MedalGold/Silver/Bronze aspects of the medal tables, but also replaces the Sport, Competition, and Country templates. The only difference in execution is a single ("|") separating the descriptions. For example, {{Medal|Bronze}} instead of the old {{MedalBronze}}, {{Medal|Sport}} instead of {{MedalSport}}, etc.
Question: Are there many athletes out there that have disambiguators other than (athlete)? It should be possible to use Lua to remove any disambiguators, not just that specific one. — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪15:27, 23 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info Stradivarius. It looks like I've started using Lua directly without even realising it! Thank God we're moving towards a better programming language. I'll see if I can write a disambiguator remover module first then I'll request it within the change. SFB10:24, 24 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
User:Rauzaruku recently went on to implement a new order within the medal template box, without previously looking for consensus for change. Therefore, I'm now starting this discussion on his behalf.
As far as I remember, the order in medal box has been (1) date/year (latest on top, earliest at the bottom), and (2) order of event as used by the IAAF. Which then looks like this:
Rauzaruku now suggests a new order (he might explain his reasons here, later), which orders by "importance of medal" (i.e. Gold highest, then Silver, etc.), and then by year (earliest on top, latest at the bottom). It would look like this:
I find his suggestion confusing, since medals won in the same year aren't aligned together. I prefer the old consensus. Any other opinions? --bender235 (talk) 00:43, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Gold medals are the most valuable, and the reader need to see them first, to do a organization into their minds (order of importance: gold, silver and bronze). It's useless to put medals in order that the athlete won, or "IAAF site order". That does not matter to the reader. The reader wants to know the golds, silvers and bronzes the athlete won, and starting from the first to last, put on the contrary just leave everyone confused (its an anti-natural order). It is not possible for the reader to make a decent compilation of his head, with everything so messy. This order I have suggested is the most logical and intelligent for the reader of the article, he can count the quantities of medals just by the color more easily, you can see when the athlete started winning medals and when finished winning easier. Everything gets easier. And this order is already used in a lot of articles, precisely because it is the better way. Just take a look at Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte articles to realize it. Rauzaruku (talk) 00:48, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, editorial judgement of importance should be used. I think competitions should be grouped, so all Olympic performances are covered together. Within that group, I would rank a gold medal ahead of a stack of bronzes, no matter where it came in the sequence. The first thing you see is Olympic Gold medal. I would group the lesser medals first by value (Silver ahead of Bronze obviously) then chronologically. I like having the bar separating groups. I would put the Olympics group first, World Championship second, lesser World Championships, World Athletics Final third (yes this means editorial judgement). So in Athletics I would rank an Indoor Championship would be below an Outdoor World Championship, same with Cross Country or Road Running. Next I would rank Continental, Area and Category Championships (Europe over Jeux de la Francophonie), followed by Age Group Championships (youth, junior, masters); Paralympics. Major Marathon runners or one off winners of major event, it that is all they have, might need a mention. At some point you need to make a cut off. Carl Lewis doesn't need more medals added and is on the verge of having to pare down. Fortunately, his article has a lot of prose to balance it. A stub with a ton of medals doesn't look right (though we really should fill out the prose). Trackinfo (talk) 02:39, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think either method is fine as long as you are consistent on the article. Personally I use the chronological format as it demonstrates a career progression (one can still easily count the number medals by colour irrelevant of their order, but working out the chronological order of an unsorted list is a much greater mental feat). I don't mind if people use either but I think it is a complete waste of an edit to go around just "fixing" these to your preferred style. We have much more pressing issues to be getting on with. SFB09:19, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Where can I find a list of articles that are current using these old templates? Give it to me, and I can make these changes. I will assume that the Usain Bolt article has an updated medal table, and copy the base of it. Rauzaruku (talk) 16:00, 21 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I always liked the second method more and changed it on the articles i came across when updating the won medals. As a reader, i want to know how many gold medals the person has won, the most important stat. Kante4 (talk) 14:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think we can provide that information in a much better format using the {{MedalCount}} template. Then the user does not need to count how many medals there are. See Carl Lewis for example. SFB09:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The medal overview should give a chronology of events, not just a medal count. For the latter, we have a separate template. Which is to say I still prefer the original order we have used here for years. --bender235 (talk) 16:12, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to put the medals in the order they were taken, well, this is already done by the timeline that is placed in the middle of articles, that huge frame. The medal table was a mere repetition of the timeline, so it has to be even modified. I see "achievements" being a timeline and "Medal Table" putting it in the order of importance and first-to-last date, to be easier to read. You can create other tables into the article, like "personal records", don't have any problem to have 5 tables or more, but they need to do different tasks. Rauzaruku (talk) 17:58, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think the best idea is to just have the most important medals in the lead table (global/continental ones), but this hasn't been followed by a large number of editors, many of whom prefer an exhaustive list of medals in the lead box. Other ones, like the World Athletics Final used in the example above, aren't appropriate either – these are particularly misleading as they aren't international medals. The lack of consistency in the medal templates usage has been their downfall. Maybe the MedalCount template is the way forward for highlighting medals in the lead area. This seems to work well on the French Wikipedia. SFB22:05, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I also find it absurd to have so many lesser value medals at the Medal Table. Obviously it has to be placed the most important medals only: Olympics, World Championships (outdoor and indoor in athletics, long and short course in swimming), continental games like European Championship / Pan American / African / Asian, and then just more 1 or 2, as Universiade, Commonwealth, Pan-Pacific and stuff. Need to be the important and big competitions, and not everything that exists. If the person has few medals, then yes, put up the (few) most important medals they won, as a Youth Olympics and stuff. A proposal that would work, is to limit the number of competitions listed in Medal Table to 7 competitions, so we would not have medal tables with 12, 15 competitions, as I have found here ... big sportspeople can win medals at 7 different important competitions and Medal Table needs to show it. I think 7 would be the ideal number. People greatly exaggerate. But it's just a matter of common sense and organization. However, the Medal Table remains the best way to see the medals. I think the format of the other tables more incomplete or more complicated to check. I don't like the MedalCount very much, and I think French Wikipedia is so much incomplete without a Medal Table. I see all the tables as complementary, not exclusionary. Well, I wish I was allowed to keep changing tables to the format that I'm making it up, because I believe that is the best for the readers. You allow me to do it?Rauzaruku (talk) 00:07, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
So you are saying we cut off a couple of Carl Lewis' Olympic 9 Gold medals, much less his silver medal, much less his 8 World Championship Gold Medals, or the two other medals from the World Championships to adhere to your suggested format? Or look at Merlene Ottey. She has a proclivity for collecting Olympic bronze medals. Will 7 of her 9 non-gold Olympic medals cover three Golds (2 individual) at the World Championships? Just to adhere to a format rule? I say no to that. Superior athletes will show a lot of medals, some of them important. Olympic Medals and World Championship medals should show no matter what. We should limit our discussion to lesser medals. World Indoor, Area Championships and the like. Trackinfo (talk) 01:48, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I said that would be applicable to limit competitions, not the medals. Have some athletes with 12, 15 different competitions listed on the medal table. Usain Bolt for example, do we need to list 6 youth / junior competitions? For me, I do not even want to touch that, but if a lot of people feel the need to reduce MedalTable, my suggestion would be to limit to 7 competitions listed. It's not very easy to discuss the kind of competition to be listed, because each athlete wins medals at the level that they are able, then the most we could do would be to limit to the greatest competitions in which athletes won medals. So it is difficult to discuss this subject. Rauzaruku (talk) 01:58, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer to order first by color (gold first), then by year (earliest first), and then by event, in the way they are officially ordered (e.g., 100 m, 200 m, 400 m, ..., in track, and freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, IM, relays in swimming). In my experience this is the order commonly used. Is there any official consensus on this by now, or should we obtain it? Gap9551 (talk) 20:59, 3 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have tested the addition of "sport" and "country_code" parameters in Template:MedalTableTop/sandbox. Please can Template:MedalTableTop be updated with the sandbox version? This will allow easier inclusion of the sport and country information. Most transclusions are for an athlete who has competed in one sport for one country, but we can still retain functionality for athletes who have competed for a multiple of countries/sports by use of the current {{Medal|Sport}} {{Medal|Country}} usages. SFB10:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not done for now:@Sillyfolkboy: After looking at the test cases, the main template version is aligning to the right, and the sandbox version is aligning to the left. I don't see anything obvious in the code which could be causing it, but I'm hesitant to update the template as it is. Maybe you could add a few more test cases and try and find the cause of the problem? I'll be happy to update the template once we've worked out what's going on and have found a fix. Best — Mr. Stradivarius♪ talk ♪05:04, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
@Mr. Stradivarius: That issue is within the current template too. If you remove all but the current template test case in the testcase page then it exhibits the same behaviour. This seems to be something to do with the way it is enclosed in the {| | |} table wikicode on the test cases page. It doesn't right align in the mainspace because this template isn't used in that manner, hence it hasn't cropped on the thousands of active transclusions. I've tried out this this test on an old February 2012 version of the sandbox and the 28 July 2009 version of the active template and both have that behaviour too. The latest updates will not affect alignment. I've updated the test cases page to reflect how the template is used in the mainspace. SFB09:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Why have the headers in medal templates shifted to the left? They used to be Centered. Was there any discussion of this before the change?--MorrisIV (talk) 22:32, 23 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As this template produces the same output as {{Medal|Country}}, I've converted it into a wrapper for the base template. This means that functionality and maintenance is now located in one place (Template:Medal). I've checked it on a sample of "what links here" articles and haven't found any difference in output. Naturally, if I've broken anything, please feel free to revert me and I'll do my best to fix any problems that I've missed. --RexxS (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In recent edits on Justin Gatlin I noticed that someone added his disqualification from the 2016 Rio 4x100, but then another user removed it stating "Disqualification removed as he was never awarded the medal". Is there precedence for this, that it is typical to only list DQ if done later (such as the drug example given in the template documentation)? If this is indeed the consensus style position, it would perhaps be best to indicate this in the documentation to make it clear.
Thanks, JeopardyTempest (talk) 06:01, 23 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am seeing this more and more often. I go to pages with medal templates constantly, its kind of my territory. I keep seeing these blue boxes with a question mark inside instead. Other times its just blank. The templates even failed to resolve on this page. Templates are supposed to speed server performance. In this case, its not working. Trackinfo (talk) 07:04, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Trackinfo: Would you be able to upload the screenshot again? From your description it sounds like the images aren't loading but as the screenshot hasn't been uploaded it's hard to tell. Many thanks, User:GKFXtalk07:51, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The idiots over at wikimedia commons deleted it, over my reply, because they said I had no license to post it. I will be happy to send it in a private email or I can post it on my own website, just not a wiki branded host. Trackinfo (talk) 23:56, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Fix for columns of medal items
{{editprotected}}
These templates may have problems that make all three columns not in the same width, I've seen that on this article. To fix the problem, I suggest adding table-layout:fixed; property to them, which let browser automatically calculate the width of columns in average. -- Great Brightstar (talk) 13:21, 6 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In the {{Documentation}}, please set the first unnamed parameter to Template:Medal templates documentation (as in {{Documentation|Template:Medal templates documentation}}). Doing so will set the documentation to the centralized page, rather than needing this to have a subpage to translcude the other page. Thanks. SWinxy (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Are the sports in this template supposed to be national team titles (like FIFA World Cup or Olympic) only? I don't see club titles (such as FIFA Club World Cup) mentioned in any wikipedia pages, from tennis players to football players. Is there an exception? Ctdbsclvn (talk) 16:45, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]