Template talk:Sports links

I strongly disagree with the recent change S.A. Julio (talk · contribs) has just made limiting the number of links this template shows to just 5 (from 10). By doing so, I noticed that this template runs into potential issues.

Using a gymnastics example, Mary Lou Retton does not currently have this template on her biography. However, if utilized, that's when I noticed the issue. By limiting to 5 links, this hard stop becomes more noticible. Using this template with no cap, Retton (I believe) would typically show the following:

The resulting 5 limitation would mean that Mary Lou Retton's entry for the United States Olympic Hall of Fame would not be displayed in favor of the earlier 5 entries. A more outlandish, theoretical baseball player could have:

  • Played in MLB (prop='P3541'), the Japanese league (prop='P4260'), the Korean league (prop='P4370'), and the Australian league (prop='P4476'), while having an a profile linked at Baseball Reference (prop='P1825'), and this would result in a 6th entry that this person was in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame (prop='P4164') not being shown.

For me, the issues here are two-fold:

  • This arbitrarily puts a hard number (currently 5, could be 10, could be 1,000) on links displayed. Initial reasoning was per WP:LINKFARM, but this limitation does nothing to address that. A better resolution would likely be for the community to be more selective about the links selected for this template.
  • This limitation has no way to select which links are shown. Not all links are created equal. In the hypothetical arguments above, I'd argue the United States Olympics Hall of Fame profile is probably more noteworthy/important than Olympedia, but if all 6 of those fields are utilized then the USOPC HOF profile will never be shown. In the baseball example, the MLB HOF would be excluded because the player played and had profiles in 4 countries and 1 external website. It is simply the order in which we arbitrarily added lines of code into the template.

GauchoDude (talk) 15:52, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I understand your point, but having 10 external links on some articles is quite excessive. I agree a more selective criteria for inclusion is necessary. However, more prominent sportspeople will always have more profiles in these databases, bringing the articles into conflict with WP:LINKFARM. Also, what might be too many links on one article might be okay on another, but unfortunately this is a "one size fits all" template. For such edge cases it would probably be better to use individual external link templates instead of {{Sports links}}. S.A. Julio (talk) 15:53, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can appreciate an attempt to limit the number of links shown, however a hard cap on the template itself should not be the solution for the reasons above. The links are stored at, and can be found in, WikiData and certainly don't have to be shown via this template.
If you want to meaningfully limit what is shown, that's done by inclusionary/exclusionary criteria to be added to the template itself. It likely would be best for each sports community to figure out what that is, but would go a long way to limiting cases where "too many" links are shown.
Additionally, WP:LINKFARM makes no mention to how many are "appropriate" vs. "excessive", which we're trying to police with this cap. For those that hit that cap, it's potentially doing even worse things by showing less relevant links as currently constructed.
tl;dr - I think we've done more harm than good with this hard cap limit.
GauchoDude (talk) 21:30, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well the hard cap limit had already existed before, I just reduced it. Until a more thorough cleanup of the links in this template is completed, this seems like the best "quick fix". And as I mentioned, some of the more prominent sportspeople will have a plethora of database links. Even after the cleanup, displaying all of them would be excessive and in violation of WP:LINKFARM. In these cases it is better to use editorial discretion to individually choose the best links. S.A. Julio (talk) 01:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Again, per the points made above, by reducing the cap we've negatively impacted these articles which have links between 5 to 10 listed. This is an arbitrary number not based on anything in policy. We continue to reference WP:LINKFARM, but it says:
"There is nothing wrong with adding relevant, useful links to the external links section of an article;" - Again, an argument for inclusionary criteria for this template. If the link is relevant and useful, it should be included. If it's not, then it shouldn't.
"however, excessive lists can dwarf articles and detract from the purpose of Wikipedia." - No mention as to total number of links, but moreso a potential call to action to improve the article size. Again, if the links were relevant and useful per above, I don't see why that shouldn't be shown.
As a view into "how many is too many", I looked at some featured articles of sports biographies, none of whom use this template. Thierry Henry has 10, Wayne Gretzky has 11, Michael Jordan has 8, Stan Musial has 10, and Babe Ruth has 10.
As far as I can tell, we've had this initial cap of 10 links since the template's creation 7 years ago, so it feels at best hasty and rushed to implement a global change without any conversation. If it's been just fine and well for 7 years, we should revert back to the 10 links as we discuss a path forward more thoroughly.
GauchoDude (talk) 17:34, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe this has been resolved nor fully discussed so I'm still calling for a rollback to the original 10 links in the interim. @Zyxw:, @S.A. Julio:, @Trappist the monk:. GauchoDude (talk) 13:03, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No idea why I've been pinged into this conversation. I care nothing for sports; have never edited this template; have no opinion on the matter to hand.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Trappist the monk: Apologies, I thought you had. I could have sworn I went into the history and pinged the most active editors. Sorry! GauchoDude (talk) 16:10, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@S.A. Julio:, I am still in objection to this bold edit. As the template is locked, I am unable to revert. As there still has been no further discussion, the status quo of 10 links shown should be reverted back to default. Additionally, this puts this project in line with every other project this one is based on, which has seen their default set to 10 (or have actually increased):
• no:Modul:External links (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Sport (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Arter (11)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Astronomi (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Autoritetsdata (25)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Film (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Filmperson (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Musikk (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Offisielle lenker (10)
• no:Modul:External links/conf/Spill (10)
Of course, with the exception of Module:External links (5) which you also took the liberty to reduce yourself. It is quite clear that the running consensus, both here prior and currently at the sister project on Norwegian Wikipedia, is a much greater number than you've tried to implement. GauchoDude (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The limit of five links is sensible. In most cases anything beyond five external links is excessive. If the limit means "important" links are not shown, the solution is to specify links manually, without using the template, as S.A. Julio has explained: For such edge cases it would probably be better to use individual external link templates instead of This article has no link in Wikidata., In these cases it is better to use editorial discretion to individually choose the best links.. Robby.is.on (talk) 19:04, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Robby.is.on: Thank you for your participation. Again, in my opinion, the 5 link limit is absolutely arbitrary in nature and not based on any Wikipedia guidance. As has been shown above, the only impact this change has is on the profiles we can least afford it to.
The most used external link template for MLB players is Template:Baseballstats, which for MLB players at minimum lists 5 to 6 external sources immediately (typically MLB, ESPN, Baseball Reference, and FanGraphs with RetroSheet sometimes appearing), which doesn't take into consideration any outside leagues or Halls of Fame. It's a similar story with all NHL players via Template:Ice hockey stats (NHL, Elite Prospects, ESPN, Hockey Reference, and Hockey DB with Eurohockey and TSN sometimes appearing) and all NFL players via Template:Footballstats (NFL, ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, Pro Football Reference), not to mention the huge amounts global soccer players could accrue.
This arbitrary limit effectively kills the overall reach of this template for an overwhelming amount of players, not just "edge cases", and stops dead in its tracks what could be an incredibly powerful, far-reaching, and impactful template. GauchoDude (talk) 20:40, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the 5 link limit is absolutely arbitrary in nature and not based on any Wikipedia guidance. Well, Wikipedia:External links states: "Links in the "External links" section should be kept to a minimum." At footballer articles, I have very rarely come across articles where more than three or four, let alone five, links were useful. MLB players, NHL players […] WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. stops dead in its tracks what could be an incredibly powerful, far-reaching, and impactful template. or spammy, depending on how you look at it. Robby.is.on (talk) 21:06, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why this bold, apparently undiscussed edit was not reverted, but I have done so now. The limit has been restored to the status quo of 10 links. There appears to be consensus above, and at the guideline, that "too many" links are undesirable. Ideally, this template can provide a way for editors to choose how many links to provide, which links to provide, or both. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:59, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Tennis Abstract?

Wikiproject Tennis never agreed to include Tennis Abstract as an automatic external link. It's no better than a couple other websites and should be removed. If an editor wants to include it on a particular bio that's one thing but not automatically. Fyunck(click) (talk) 07:17, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Diff:

−
{ prop='P10028', message='[$2 $1] at tennisabstract.com$3', short='[$2 tennisabstract.com]', langcode='en' },
+

Joeykai (talk) 12:18, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how tennisarchives.com got an automatic entry either. I can see links to the governing bodies, olympics, hall of fame, and ESPN, but archives and abstract would need an ok from Tennis Project to be included in every bio of every player. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:15, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Fyunck(click): I had major concerns about the link limits that were arbitrarily imposed without prior discussion above as this had major impact on the most prominent WikiProject Gymnastics articles. It seems like we have just a few people involved with this project in totality, hence changes just *happening* and potentially without discussion. As a result, 1. Don't use this template on anyone prominent (I checked and if used on Roger Federer, Pete Sampras, Rafael Nadal, Martina Navratilova, etc. you'd also have links cut off) and 2. we will likely end up moving gymnasts completely away from using this template similar to how it's not used on any NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, etc. players. GauchoDude (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The thing is, with almost all tennis players, we would always have the templates WTA, ATP, ITF, Olympics (if any), Hall of fame (if any), Davis Cup/Billie Jean King Cup (if any). Those would be staples. If all this did was include those basic templates, it would save time to use it. But it has bunches with no discussion. It say they used some Norwegian wiki as a template base. Well that was a big mistake. You need to talk to each project. I'm not sure what you mean "links cut off." Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:51, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to note that WikiProject Football went through a similar issue with unreliable source soccerdonna, the solution was the remove soccerdonna from linking from the "Sports Links" template. I would recommend this be the solution to remove Tennis Abstract or any other link WikiProject Tennis does not approve of, rather than banning the template. As @Fyunck(click): notes above, it WOULD save time if it didn't add incorrect links. Please see discussions here and here. Joeykai (talk) 04:06, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fyunck(click): What I mean by "links cut off" is the template is now hard-coded to stop showing links after it hits 5. And yes, I agree that the links you listed below are probably pretty important, similar to the ones that I listed in my previous argument for gymnastics also are important. What happens is anything after link 6 is not shown (and as far as I know there's no notification that links get cut). Additionally, there is no functional way to choose which links are shown as it's based on the order inputted into the code. Additionally, this doesn't take into account any other sports links a player may have (for tennis maybe like Olympics.com, Olympedia, their respective Olympic NOC pages like Team USA, etc.).
Using the essential basic list you have below, if for example, and I have no idea if she would, Martina Navratilova had links for all of them, they would show the ATP player one as Link 1, (we'll skip the tournament ones), WTA as Link 2, ITF one as Link 3, Davis Cup as Link 4, and Billie Jean Cup as Link 5. Since there is a hard stop at 5 links, any subsequent links are not shown meaning her IT HOF as Link 6 wouldn't show while using this template. If there were any other links (such as the Olympic ones above), they might be placed higher or lower in the code and also affect what is shown from your tennis section. GauchoDude (talk) 10:56, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GauchoDude: That can make it a lot less useful. One thing though. In tennis there are men and women players with their own leagues. ATP is men only and WTA is women only. Davis Cup is men only and FedCup is women only. The ITF and Hall of Fame is for both sexes. So of the list I made below no player would ever get more than 4 of those links. Every female tennis player would have WTA and ITF, some would have FedCup/BillieJeanKingCup, and a very few would have Hall of Fame. The men would have all with ATP and ITF, some with Davis Cup, and a very few with Hall of Fame. I assume that is the way the template would work? Fyunck(click) (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fyunck(click): I just checked using Martina Navratilova as a real-life example. The template as currently constructed would show:
  • Women's Tennis Association
  • International Tennis Federation
  • Billie Jean King Cup (archived)
  • International Tennis Hall of Fame
  • Wimbledon
The following links would be cut off/disappeared due to the limit and placement in the code:
  • tennisabstract.com
  • ESPN.com
  • Olympics.com
  • Team USA (archived)
  • Olympedia
For me, and gymnastics, international appearances especially for the Olympics, are pretty important. Not sure if those vibes are the same for tennis. GauchoDude (talk) 15:53, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GauchoDude: Thanks. Olympics is nowhere near as important in tennis since every event is international for the sport. Someone like Federer's bio at the Olympics would be covered at ATP.com, ITF.com, and probably HallofFame. I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth it to have the link, but the extra coverage the Olympics give a player, which is almost zero for the first few rounds, is minimal. I can see where that would be completely opposite gymnastics or swimming or figure skating. Winning the Olympics is probably number six on the tournament priority list for tennis. With Navratilova I can see adding the Wimbledon link because she pretty much won it more than anyone else, but for most players that's overkill. I also have no idea why the Billie Jean King Cup says (archived). We have one or two editors that are changing all our player bios with a template that was never properly vetted. A template that has limitations and issues that I wasn't aware of till you told me. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:41, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fyunck(click): Yes, but now think about it the other way around. If, heaven forbid, a change *just happens* or it's voted upon that the majority of athletes would be best served by having those Olympic-type entries higher up in the code compared to where they are now and end up above where the tennis links currently are, then it's the tennis links that would be getting cut off and not the Olympic ones. A major downfall of this template with a hard cut line. GauchoDude (talk) 18:46, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GauchoDude: I think I see where you're coming from, but each section should be governed by it's own wikiproject. The Tennis Project should have final say on what goes on tennis player bios and in what order. The gymnastic project should have the say on gymnastic athletes. There is no chance at all that Roger Federer article should have the Olympic template above the other templates. It would get moved down instantly or the "Sports links" template would be banished from tennis players so we could control the order and template removals. Or Tennis Project would create its own "Tennis external links" template and use that. I've never thought it was needed since it's so easy to use {{WTA}}, {{ITF}} {{Tennis Hall of Fame}} and {{Fed Cup player}}, and it's easy to see if one is missing. Thinking about it, having a single "sports links" template is a bit cumbersome and inflexible and individual project created links may be the best choice if it is really needed. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Fyunck(click): I don't disagree with anything you said, which is why I think it probably makes sense for us to ultimately move to a gymnastics-specific template. What you do in tennis is up to you. While you have the majority of it right, and I fully agree with tennis, gymnastics, or otherwise should control the order of the links in their subsection, that doesn't control *all* link output. Tennis is just one piece of the pie. The entire list, in order, I believe is located here. While tennis occupies Lines 487 through 501, there are separate sections for Olympics/Paralympics (Lines 557 through 629), the Commonwealth Games (631 through 643), non-sport specific Hall of Fames (650 through 684), etc. Again, if we used Martina as the example *and* WikiProject Tennis controlled all tennis-section links/output, the whole thing is still pointless if the collective group decides Hall of Fames and/or Olympics/International stuff is more important and moves those sections higher than the sports' sections. This would affect what/if your tennis links are shown if 5+ so Martina would become Olympics.com, Team USA (archived), Olympedia, Women's Tennis Association, and International Tennis Federation while cutting off/losing Billie Jean King Cup (archived), International Tennis Hall of Fame, and Wimbledon. It's confusing, but I've sat on this for months now and I can't see a world in which this is effective for gymnastics while still maintaining a hard cap on the links shown. GauchoDude (talk) 22:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@S.A. Julio: or any other admin who can help complete this edit request, please remove Tennis Archives and Tennis abstract from Module:External links/conf/Sports Joeykai (talk) 04:13, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Essentially just the basics so it should look like this:
  • prop='P536', message='[$2 $1] at the Association of Tennis Professionals$3', short='[$2 ATP]', langcode='en' -- player
  • prop='P3456', message='[$2 $1] at ATP$3', short='[$2 ATP]', langcode='en' -- tournament
  • prop='P597', message="[$2 $1] at the Women's Tennis Association$3", short='[$2 WTA]', langcode='en' -- player
  • prop='P3469', message="[$2 $1] at WTA$3", short='[$2 WTA]', langcode='en' -- tournament
  • prop='P8618', message='[$2 $1] at the International Tennis Federation$3', short='[$2 ITF]', langcode='en'
  • prop='P2641', message='[$2 $1] at the Davis Cup$3', short='[$2 Davis Cup]', langcode='en'
  • prop='P2642', message='[$2 $1] at the Billie Jean Cup$3', short='[$2 Billie Jean Cup]', langcode='en'
  • prop='P3363', message='[$2 $1] at the International Tennis Hall of Fame$3', short='[$2 International Tennis Hall of Fame]', langcode='en'
This is something that could be useful. Everything else would be fluff that would need WikiProject Tennis approval. I'm not sure if tennis editors would use it but it would at least be the standard templates we use. Fyunck(click) (talk) 06:12, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like consensus to me, so I have removed Tennis Archives and Tennisabstract from the code. If further changes are needed, a new discussion is probably in order. If I did something wrong, please ping me or drop a note on my talk page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:52, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with these removals, largely per the reasons provided by Fyunck(click).--Wolbo (talk) 12:26, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed fork of this template to tennis-only template

@Jonesey95: I wonder if you can do something else for us. Since "Sports links" is a bit unwieldy for Tennis Project could you create a small separate list for Tennis project? We were recently discussing it on the project talk page. What we would like is {{tennis links}} to cover the following:

  • { prop='P536', message='[$2 $1] at the Association of Tennis Professionals$3', short='[$2 ATP]', langcode='en' }, -- player
  • { prop='P3456', message='[$2 $1] at ATP$3', short='[$2 ATP]', langcode='en' }, -- tournament
  • { prop='P597', message="[$2 $1] at the Women's Tennis Association$3", short='[$2 WTA]', langcode='en' }, -- player
  • { prop='P3469', message="[$2 $1] at WTA$3", short='[$2 WTA]', langcode='en' }, -- tournament
  • { prop='P8618', message='[$2 $1] at the International Tennis Federation$3', short='[$2 ITF]', langcode='en' },
  • { prop='P2641', message='[$2 $1] at the Davis Cup$3', short='[$2 Davis Cup]', langcode='en' },
  • { prop='P2642', message='[$2 $1] at the Billie Jean Cup$3', short='[$2 Billie Jean Cup]', langcode='en' },
  • { prop='P3363', message='[$2 $1] at the International Tennis Hall of Fame$3', short='[$2 International Tennis Hall of Fame]', langcode='en' },

and that's it. I just used the coding from "sports links" so change it to something that works. We would want the template to answer to {{tennis links}}. I don't know how to code it from scratch so need help creating the template. Then the Tennis Project could see that it works and go from there. Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please link to the discussion. I think this would be technically possible by copying part of the /conf file to a new file, but creating a forked template in addition to the main one poses some maintenance burdens down the road. It would be nice if this template could accept an argument that limited it to one sport, but I don't know if that is feasible. – Jonesey95 (talk) 12:48, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with Jonesey95 here. The more forked, or smaller splintered off projects, the higher likelihood of things going wrong or being abandoned in the future. I think, as WikiProject Tennis, your WP should collectively come together to identify what those links are for your specific project and the rest of us should have to roll with it. If you're saying those eight ones are them, then let's roll with it.
In a similar vein, I would posit that future links shouldn't be immediately accepted into the project and maybe undergo a review/approval process? This would help keep the "tennisabstract.com"s of the world from cluttering up the project. GauchoDude (talk) 12:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's a big big problem with these sports links that goes against Wikipedia MOS. MOS tells us "Normally, only one official link is included. If the subject of the article has more than one official website, then more than one link may be appropriate, under a very few limited circumstances. More than one official link should be provided only when the additional links provide the reader with significant unique content and are not prominently linked from other official websites." And, "Choose the minimum number of links that provide readers with the maximum amount of information." Now if someone adds {{sports links}} to a tennis player bio it not only adds tennis links, it adds {{ESPN}}, two or three Olympic links, etc... The {{WTA}}, {{ATP}}, and {{ITF}} links are very extensive in their info and the Olympics and ESPN links take their info from those links... but a tiny fraction of it. They are actually bloat links we do not need. Sometimes barely a name and record. The ATP already tells us all that and more. And if a player plays in the Olympics and is routed in the first round they do not need that fact from an Olympics link it's already in the bigger links. If a player medals we would include an Olympic.com link but then not a pretty much duplicate link form Olympedia. All these links were taken from a Norwegian Wiki that didn't think it through. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:00, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What we need at WikiProject Tennis are the basic links in a single template that all players get. Right now we do them individually and it is not a problem to do so. At world No. 1 Jannik Sinner's article we have:
  • {{ATP}}
  • {{ITF}}
  • {{Davis Cup player}}
  • {{Olympics.com|jannik-sinner}}
We can continue to do them individually or we can create a new template that can handle all of them. Men have different links than women, so an all-encompassing template needs to check on that. Not every player is a member of the hall of fame, so that template shouldn't be inserted unless the hall of fame has an id number for them. Same with Davis Cop, Fed Cup, and Billie Jean King Cup. The Olympics we'd probably only use if they medaled or were in a medal round, even if they have an ID number, so we'd leave that out of the template and only add it separately when needed. If a template like this can't be created then we can do without because the "sports links" template is useless to us as is. Fyunck(click) (talk) 18:40, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is unclear to me from this template's limited documentation how the links are selected for a given article. Normally, with an article like this, an editor would choose the links to display, using something like {sports links|ATP|ITF|Davis Cup player}, but I don't see any options like that here. Do they exist? If there are no such options, then the editor presumably does not control what displays on a given player's page. Instead, the links that are displayed depends on something external to the page, I presume. I'm not sure what: changes to Wikidata? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:01, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Correct, as I understand it. If an item is stored for an individual in WikiData and it's called via this code, it will display. GauchoDude (talk) 21:18, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, we have no control at all. If you place "sports links" on Martina Navratilova's article you get all the following added:
  • Martina Navratilova at the Women's Tennis Association
  • Martina Navratilova at the International Tennis Federation
  • Martina Navratilova at the Billie Jean King Cup (archived)
  • Martina Navratilova at the International Tennis Hall of Fame
  • Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon
  • Martina Navratilova at ESPN.com
  • Martina Navratilova at Olympics.com
  • Martina Navratilova at Team USA (archived)
  • Martina Navratilova at Olympedia
We need to be able to control what goes on and in what order. Serena Williams article gets an extra link to "Serena Williams at AS.com (in Spanish)". No idea what that is but the link leads to a broken page. How did that get added to the list? Sports links appears to check every category for some sort of id, and if it has one, it gets added. The documentation also says the default cutoff is five entries, but that sometimes is true and sometimes not. We can control the amount of links using the maxlink parameter, but we don't even know the order it chooses. And if we could even do what was suggested with "sports links|ATP|ITF|Davis Cup player" what are we saving as far as typing? It's almost faster to add each link individually at that point like we already do now. I'm not sure what the Norwegian Wiki had in mind when they created this, and who brought it here without input. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:27, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"We need to be able to control what goes on and in what order."
You won't be able to with this as it's currently coded. You're bringing up many of the same issues I had previously. I'll try to answer them as best as I can, without having actually edited the code itself.
"We need to be able to control what goes on ..." You can't, sorta. The links that are shown are determined by 1. If data is present at WikiData and 2. If it's included in the master code for the template. I linked it above, but it's here again, currently from lines 1 through 742. That said, editors can determine what is included or excluded from the template's code, which in turn effects what is shown.
"We need to be able to control ... in what order." You can't. The code shows the links in the order that it's placed in the code. For example, prop='P536' for the Association of Tennis Professionals will always and forever without change be ahead of prop='P3363' for the International Tennis Hall of Fame when both WikiData fields are filled because, as far as I know, ATP is on line 489 and Hall of Fame is on line 496. Now, you could decide you wanted to rearrange the order of the tennis things shown, but then you'll hit other things you'll think are weird like the Olympics or if someone is a part of a different hall of fame, or as you saw Serena Williams' AS.com bit.
"How did that get added to the list?" A little further up the page, someone proposed and it was accepted that it be included. So it was. From what I can gather, the links are up for discussion for inclusion and/or exclusion.
"The documentation also says the default cutoff is five entries, but that sometimes is true and sometimes not." The limit was previously set at default 10 links, which had existed for quite some time. A bold edit without discussion changed it to 5, but it was recently restored back to 10. The code will display as many links (up to 10) that are present in an individual's WikiData for parameters contained within the template code.
"We can control the amount of links using the maxlink parameter, but we don't even know the order it chooses." The order is described above.
I'd say "hope that helps", but I doubt it does. There are definitely some flaws with this, and tbh I'm not sure how to fix. The only thing I could think of would be to have "iterations" of some sort, sort of like how there are little Workforces within larger WikiProjects. The tennis iteration could be customizable to just your section whereas a baseball one could be relevant to those players, etc. Something to the effect of {{Sports links|Tennis}} or {{Sports links|Baseball}}, then it refers back to chosen links, number of links shown, etc. GauchoDude (talk) 22:31, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@GauchoDude: Thanks for all that. Having something like {{Sports links|Tennis}} could work if it could be done and only the items under tennis would be included. As for the maxlink parameter it can help a little. It could be set to =3 and would almost always show only the tennis links. But the 10 limit now probably goes against WikiMOS with overlinking those external links. Can't we just create a brand new template with just the tennis items the Tennis Project wants, and link it to the wikidata? If not I can't see WikiProject Tennis ever approving this template. The tennis items might as well be removed since the template won't be used on tennis bios. Fyunck(click) (talk) 23:45, 29 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, no idea. The max parameter, in theory, would help some projects like yours, but without the ability to arrange which order links showed up, especially if they're pulling from the project as a whole, it's a bit pointless. If we were able to, and I'm not a coder and have no idea if this is even possible, it feels like it would make sense if one of the following was doable:
1. Keep everything fairly centralized, but have a mechanism that adjusted what is and how many are shown, organized and administered by projects, a la the {{Sports links|Tennis}} idea.
2. Have everything a bit less centralized, but roll up into the overall project. Something similar to this, I think, would be like how {{Infobox person}} is the main template, but {{Infobox artist}} can use all those same parameters and it works similar, but separate?
3. I think the worst idea would be to have everyone copy/paste this template to 75 different places, then *something* happens somewhere that wonkies up the code/output/whatever and it breaks. Instead of breaking and getting fixed in one place, now it needs to be fixed across all 75 of those different places independently. I think the challenge here is that this template is fairly complex as it requires connection outside of just the en.wiki environment to work. More moving bits, more things that can go wrong.
My two cents, at least. Whether anyone does anything about any of it obviously is out of my hands. GauchoDude (talk) 11:12, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, until it gets changed it's useless for many projects and likely against Wikipedia MOS. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:52, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, old conversation I know, but found an example of property/link exclusions as I was working through gymnastics which may be applicable for you. It appears as though if you use * {{Sports links|properties=-X}}, it looks like you're able to exclude certain properties from showing. If you'd like to exclude multiple properties, it would be * {{Sports links|properties=-X,-Y,-Z}}
A tennis example would be * {{Sports links|properties=-P3363}} if you did not want to show a player's entry for the International Tennis Hall of Fame, but you wanted all of the rest of the links to show. GauchoDude (talk) 18:40, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Add football.aek.com identifier

Description of suggested change:

adding football (association football, soccer) database on line 251 : { prop='P13894', message='[$2 $1] at football.aek.com/$3', short='[$2 football.aek.com/]', langcode='el' } BEN917 (talk) 09:19, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Too long execution time

This issue was originally pointed out on ja:Wikipedia:修正依頼#ウサイン・ボルト、Template:Sports links, but since I confirmed it can be reproduced on enwiki as well, I'm consulting here.

When you add {{Sports links}} on Usain_Bolt#External_links and preview it, you'll see error messages "The time allocated for running scripts has expired." According to the profile data in the preview screen, the Lua execution time has indeed exceeded the limit.

One possible solution is to stop referencing Wikidata property pages, and instead manage all URL formats and identifier check patterns locally, as done by Module:Authority control. Are there any other options? 本日晴天 (talk) 08:01, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sports_links