Yeah, three might be a better call if you're planning to that many more already, plus accounting for the natural expansion over time.
The page is nearing its length limit. There are still easy ways we can reduce the length (moving LeBron and Steph's entries to their own pages for a start), but I knew Beer Baron and I both have plenty of ideas of other notable players we would like to add. We could always just keep the current team-based format and split it in half, but I'm not sure how we would title them ("Notable Players of the NBA, Atlanta-Memphis" would be super clunky). Other options are to do away with the team format and sort the players alphabetically, potentially by position (though that category is almost as fluid as the teams).
Edited by Claystripe Hide / Show Replies
Moving the entries of players with their own pages to those poages should be step one regardless.
After that, yeah, it gets tricky. The "split by team" always felt clunky to me anyway and there are a number of guys that got awkwardly placed. And since positions are so much more fluid here than in other sports, that doesn't seem like a good way to go.
Overall alphabetically, split into two pages, makes the most sense to me. We'll see if anyone else feels strongly otherwise, but that's my recommendation.
I'm down with that, but I would like to wait a few days to see if anyone else chimes in.
Are we going ahead with this re-org? I wrote up my last couple of entries with that in mind (avoiding mentioning folders or anything like that for example).
No one else has chimed in here, so I guess we can go ahead with the re-org. However, I'd still hold off until we reach the page limit. Even when we reach that point, I'd still heavily consider giving a few players with long entries and fame outside of basketball like Magic (an actually important historic figure in the history of HIV/AIDS), Kobe (Oscar winner), and Barkley (frequent SNL host and one of the funniest people ever) their own pages before doing the drastic rebuild.
With the recommended page length being reduced by the recent database overhaul, it is now time for that full re-org. BB and I are both really busy over the holidays; if no one else takes up the task, I can start making the new pages in the new year.
That seems reasonable.
Some of the entries will need some wording cleanup as well if we move to alphabetical vs. by team, as they reference players above/below them. Minor, but worth noting it will need to be part of the effort eventually.
Edited by BeerBaron
Looks like the site has reverted to the old page length standard, not getting the alert anymore. Glad we weren't too hasty. We'll return to this if the issue returns.
I'm thinking of doing one last Useful Notes page for Bill Russell, as well as some edits to try to reduce the length of some of the entries. However, I also have another dozen players at least that I'd like to add to this page (guys with retired numbers, franchise records, multiple All-Stars), so at this point I'm thinking the page split is inevitable. I'm swamped this week, so I don't think I'll be able to start on that for awhile, but if someone else wants to, please go ahead.
Something else that could reduce some write-up clutter would be to adjust how we write out draft day trades. Right now it's "So-And-So was selected #10 overall by Team A then immediately traded to Team B". Except in a few rare cases, Team B was always "picking" that player, the NBA just doesn't allow actual draft pick trades like the NFL, so Team A still needs to make the pick then trade the player's rights. (It's annoying.)
Something I've seen done elsewhere woule be to instead write it like "So-And-So was selected #10 overall by Team B (via Team A)". Much clearer and less wordy to me.
Like I said, there would still be a few cases where we want to do it the old way because the player actually did join Team A first. Andrew Wiggins comes to mind, being selected by the Cavs and signed to a contract but traded before his rookie year.
Thoughts?
Edited by BeerBaron Hide / Show Replies
Be my guest to make those changes where you see them. I'm gonna work at migrating everything from Shaq and Kareem over to their own existing pages, but I think moving Le Bron and Steph has already cleared up enough space on this page to add some more entries if you'd like to move them out of your drafts
Other thought: I feel like guys like Magic and Kobe have enough contributions and fame outside of basketball to warrant creating their own pages, but I'm not sure if there's a process that we need to go through first. I seem to remember Giannis having his own page at one point that got taken out, and I want to make sure I don't overstep.
Howdy folks! Thanks for those who contributed to the alphabetizing project in the Sandbox.
Before finalizing the split, I wanted to check in to check whether we think splitting the page in two is enough for now? Or do we think that a three-four page split might be closure to a permanent solution?
Some numbers: A-L is currently sitting around 225k characters. I've got a list of ~50 players that I'm considering adding entries for under what I perceive the current threshold to be (others might have more), and there will obviously be more players and updates to existing bios in the next couple of years. Think two pages will hold all that for at least a few years, but probably/possibly not much longer than that. I personally feel like a three-page split might be a better compromise solution that would ensure not having to ghost or redirect these pages again in the near future, but would like to have everyone's thoughts before proceeding.
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