Template talk:AT&T

This template was considered for deletion on 2020 February 2. The result of the discussion was "simplify".

should ATT mexico go under ATT mobility or under a different section of the nav box? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.184.122.160 (talk) 07:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

should sky mexico be added? ATT owns about 40% of it — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.184.120.76 (talk) 07:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cox Communications is listed in the subsidiaries section, mislabeled as Cox Communication. However, I can't find any article that has any mention the any part of AT&T ever owned any part of Cox Communications or Cox Enterprise, which currently owns Cox Communications. I believe it should be removed from the list. ARK ALPHA (talk) 18:49, 5 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding this revert by Steven (Editor), I wanted to visually show the difference between the two versions.

Original: File:AT&T Nav Template large group labels.png

Reduced width: File:AT&T Nav Template smaller group labels.png

It isn't major, but the smaller size does make a difference, especially with the board of directors section (it goes from 4 lines to 3 in the "smaller" version). The improvement can be even larger if we change AT&T Latin America to Latin America, reducing the group label width even further, since that link is piped to a section header on AT&T anyway. Can I ask what the objection is other than not personally seeing a difference? It seems fairly obvious that the smaller labels allow more content per line, especially on smaller screens. Is there a downside that I'm not seeing? What do others think? - Paul^T+/_C 03:25, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Paul, based on those screenshots you provided, I'm seeing completely different. For me, with the original labels (large in your screenshot), for building and facilities section for example, here's the difference in number of lines I see compared to yours: Current; 7 (yours) 4 (mine) / Former; 5 (yours) 3 (mine). For the group label width in general, that reduces a little bit but doesn't make any difference to the number of lines. Hmmm Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:48, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Steven, the screenshots are just an example to illustrate the difference between the two versions. (And sorry about the vague labeling above, I think I made it a little more clear now.) The number of lines will vary greatly based on the width of the window and the smaller the window, the greater the impact a reduction in the group label sizes will have. You can try it out by loading the old versions, playing with the width of the window, and then comparing it to the current/original version: current/original, 1st reduced width version, 2nd reduced width version (with the "Latin America" change mentioned above).

Also, regarding my additional change to the "people" section, I saw your edit summary about the AT&T#Corporate governance link having additional information beyond just the board of directors. If the link were to Category:AT&T people or something similar where there is some ambiguity that could create WP:ASTONISHment I would agree, but the section has a clear list of the board and is an apropriate destination for a link from "Board of directors" in this context. Removing the unnecessary child label makes the template clearer and cleaner. Now, if there were additional sections under "people" like other executives/selected people in Category:AT&T people or historically important figures like Alexander Graham Bell, it would be a different situaiton and obviously the child section for the board would make more sense. But, barring an addition like that, right now the 2nd level distinction for this section is unnecessary. - Paul^T+/_C 04:54, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Paul, yeah I forgot to mention that, resizing the window affects the template, I have mine in full screen most of the time. But even then, resizing the window for each of the versions above, I'm not seeing much difference. If I resize so they are the same width, the building and facilities section for example, Current increases to 7 lines, Former increases to 5 – this is for both the current/original and 1st reduced width version. For the 2nd reduced width version, Current decreases to 6 and no change for Former.

I prefer to use the full AT&T Latin America rather than simply Latin America as this is the full name of the division, but as this is the AT&T template, should be ok keeping this simplified. But I would also simplify AT&T Communications to Communications so there is consistency (also noting the two other divisions do not have the preceding AT&T). Regarding people, I'm a bit unsure on removing this, I think linking to the section is a good idea and with a link to the people category which is also much bigger now after AT&T acquired Time Warner. We could remove the board of directors entirely, and just have "People" at the top next to "History"? Steven (Editor) (talk) 17:07, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Steven (Editor): I took another stab at condesing the template based on your comments above. See this revision. I think the board of directors section is very useful and ultimately makes sense to keep as a parent grouping with the link to AT&T#Corporate governance. If there are other people-related sections, they can also be added at the parent level if it makes sense. Or "People" can be the parent for both/all of them, but as the template currently stands it doesn't really make sense to have the additional level above "Board of directors". For some other company navbox examples that have board sections see {{Facebook navbox}}, {{IBM}}, or {{Apple}} (I'm sure there are others too). - Paul^T+/_C 20:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I did a quick preview of the template after removing the board of directors entirely and having "People" at the top next to "History" so I could see what the template would look like – it doesn't look good haha. Definitely keep the board of directors, and it also helps to provide a bit of a balance in the template with it being at the top and the dropdowns underneath. I agree with your suggestion of having the board of directors as the parent grouping instead, makes sense. I'm not sure about having History as a new subsection with the Bell System template, also some of the bells are already in the Mobility and Entertainment section. I think these changes and keeping the "History" text at the top sounds good to me, what you think? We could still add "People" at the top next to "History", but if it's linking to the same section as the "Board of directors", duplication is a problem unless this is ok, or board of directors can be unlinked, or not have "People" at the top? Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:00, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The history section at the bottom was mainly to see if it made sense and, surprisingly, there was very little overlap. The only duplicate link I found was Bell Labs! (The other "bell" articles aleady present in this template for some reason are not in the {{Bell System}} template. Werid. If I missed links please let me know.) I think we are in agreement about everything at this point and we can see if there is a good fit for a separate history section in the future. I'm going to make the change you suggested above and we can go from there. - Paul^T+/_C 00:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Psantora I see and there is more than one duplicate link haha – Pacific Bell, Illinois Bell, Indiana Bell, Michigan Bell, Nevada Bell, Ohio Bell and Southwestern Bell. Sounds good, awesome. What are your thoughts on having People next to History and Board of directors unlinked? If not that's alright, without this is good too Steven (Editor) (talk) 01:59, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Woah. I did a search for "Bell", but only on the rendered template and didn't think to check the code directly. Thanks for setting me straight. Weird that those labels don't include bell somewhere. A link to the divestiture would make sense too. Also, it wouldn't be unprecedented to have both links in the same template, especially if there is a historical name and a modern name for the same article like with Southwestern Bell and AT&T Southwest. - Paul^T+/_C 02:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging nom and those involved in the TfD that resulted in simplifying: Alucard 16, Tom (LT), Trialpears, Bsherr

Gonnym (nom) has simplified this template by removing the WarnerMedia section, I've restored this. If you go on the WarnerMedia page, it's terrible, two templates now: WarnerMedia Entertainment and WarnerMedia News & Sports (newly created template by Gonnym). Can we please discuss going forward, I've started by removing the acquisitions section that I mentioned in the TfD or should this be kept? Thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:18, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Also removed links to generic articles such as mobile phone for wireless services Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:28, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Please don't cause us to take this back to TfD. The consensus was that the template is too big. You can't decide you don't like that and restore it back. If you think that all 3 WarnerMedia sections should be merged, that's another discussion. I'll wait your revert of the restoration so I don't have to escalate this issue. --Gonnym (talk) 20:30, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You've done this in your favour Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That makes absolutely no sense. @Primefac: please elaborate on your close note. The proposal specially mentioned splitting using the current sections and it seems "simplify" to Steven means only removing some unrelated links while leaving 95% of this monstrosity in place. --Gonnym (talk) 20:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, you are pretty much the only one that had a preference for splitting which is what you did. You didn't reply to Alucard's comment? Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:53, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• The consensus from the discussion was clearly to downsize this template as it appears on articles. There are two ways to do this:
  1. Split the template into new templates. For example, fork off the "Communications", "Warner Media", and "Buildings and facilities" subsections into their own templates.
  2. Keep the template as-is but add in conditional parameters that will allow the template to only display what is "relevant". An example of this is {{RTD stations navbox}}; on the template's page it looks huge, but on pages like 41st & Fox station it only shows two of those lines.

If there's a concern that splitting the template will create too many disjointed (or too many) navboxes, I think option #2 is the best way forward. Primefac (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Primefac's second option is more of what I had in mind actually. It keeps all the necessary bits in the same template then on other pages it can be set to show only relevant sections. Give me a few hours and I will create a sandbox example of how this could work. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 05:05, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So I have a sandbox version of the AT&T template here. In my sandbox version I moved the articles AT&T satellite fleet and DirecTV blimp to the Communications section beside DirecTV. My reasoning is these articles only apply to DirecTV and the "Buildings and facilities" section wouldn't need to be displayed on the DirecTV article and these articles wouldn't have two sections (Communications & Buildings and facilities) displayed. In a subpage of that sandbox I have various examples of how this template would now work displaying relevant sections on various articles. I also gave an example with notes for DirecTV, AT&T SportsNet, MLB Network and Audience (TV network) as to why they may need two sections visible. Comments on this effort would be appreciated. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 06:50, 24 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the proposal above by Primefac. Quite a nifty suggestion! --Tom (LT) (talk) 10:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Apologies for the delay, things are a bit hectic at the moment, not having much Wiki time. I don't see anything wrong with the template but Primefac's option 2 looks good and which would address nom's issue. Alucard 16 I was looking at the Communications section which is made up of Mobility and Entertainment, Business, and Technology and Operations — having looked at the articles listed, some are generic links such as Ethernet and some are different names that link to a page already listed such as AT&T Voice for Business to AT&T U-verse — Wikipedia doesn't have articles on every service AT&T offers (the same for other companies). I think it would be a good idea to get rid of all these and the dropdown sections, and group the communications section as one, what you think? Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In light of WarnerMedia’s recent reshuffle, I’ve managed to transfer most, if not all of the WB properties onto the main AT&T navbox. This in turn renders the standalone Warner Bros. navbox, with all due respect, a bit unnecessary to keep. - BiggieSMLZ (talk) 18:27, 8 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have reverted this pending the outcome of this discussion. The AT&T template before your edits has the Warner Bros. template embedded as a child template which makes things easier to edit — an editor simply has to click on the "E" to edit that template separately. If we were to merge the Warner Bros. template, we would end up with a huge list when editing the main template as you can see in your version. The other thing, if you look on WarnerMedia's Business Units page, it says "WarnerMedia is made up of the following business units: WarnerMedia Entertainment, WarnerMedia News & Sports, Warner Bros. and WarnerMedia Sales & International" which is how the WarnerMedia section of the template is organised. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:21, 9 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Right, I've just checked back at WarnerMedia's page, and the changes have indeed taken effect. The businesses are now as follows: HBO Max, WarnerMedia Commercial, WarnerMedia News & Sports, WarnerMedia Studios & Networks, and WarnerMedia International. Hopefully, this should serve as enough evidence to safely integrate this in navbox form. - BiggieSMLZ (talk) 19:43, 22 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]