Talk:Suburban League

Division colors

I have removed the blue/red color combination for the American and National divisions from this article. As far as I can tell, there are no known colors used to represent this league or its divisions. The colors in this template appear to have been added arbitrarily with these two edits, and there doesn't appear to be any reliably sourced basis for including them. Levdr1lp / talk 07:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Nope, no sources for the colors, though their presence is hardly problematic. As far as I understood, they were generic colors, similar to the setup at Portage Trail Conference (I believe the membership table there was copied to this article), just to provide visual breaks. Neither color had issues with contrast as far as readability goes, on top of a break in the monotony of the typical light blue, present on virtually every Wikipedia template and chart. That's why I used the same colors when I made the SL template. They matched the article, but also to avoided having the standard light blue dominate.

In searching for a Suburban League logo, Copley High School has a page (though I'm assuming it's not official...the text on the page largely uses the Wikipedia article). They use the AFC and NFC logos for each division and the red and blue respectively for each division in later text. The divisions were clearly inspired by the AFC and NFC and/or the AL and NL and in both the NFL and MLB, the "American" is typically represented by red and the "National" by blue. My personal opinion is it doesn't matter either way for Wikipedia purposes (i.e. it's not a controversial topic), though I obviously prefer some color variety. There is no requirement that Wikipedia templates and charts be the standard "Wikipedia blue", as long as the colors don't interfere with being able to read the text. MOS:TABLES#Accessibility, MOS:COLOR, and WP:COLOR do not prohibit using alternate colors in templates and tables as long as they have proper color contrast. --JonRidinger (talk) 13:26, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Adding colors in the absence of a reliable source potentially misleads readers who might conclude these divisions have official colors when really they don't. The division names may very well be inspired by the MLB and/or NFL, but inserting colors on this basis alone feels somewhat like WP:OR. I also don't find the Copley page entirely convincing -- given the Wiki-like wording of the text, one could imagine the site's webmaster(s) took it upon themselves to add their own images/colors. The fact template colors are permitted is not an argument for adding them; template colors are mostly limited to organizations w/ clearly defined official colors, like pro sports teams and universities. Levdr1lp / talk 15:08, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Eh, I think you're making a far bigger deal about this than it warrants. In the end, we're talking about the colors of headings for divisions of a low-notability high school athletic conference. Also a good example of spirit of the law vs. letter of the law. In this case, though, there is no letter of the law prohibiting use of alternate colors to the default.

"Adding colors in the absence of a reliable source potentially misleads readers who might conclude these divisions have official colors when really they don't." Again, bear in mind what we're discussing here: a low-notability high school athletic conference. So what if they do? What does that affect if a reader comes away thinking that the American Division of the Suburban League uses red? How do you know they might not think the colors are light blue and white?

"template colors are mostly limited to organizations w/ clearly defined official colors, like pro sports teams and universities." Could you please reference the Wikipedia policy or rule that comes from? The MOS examples I found (and linked in my previous comment) place no such restriction on the reasonable use of colors in tables and templates. I could understand if the entire template was colored and/or was hard to read, but a colored heading? Hardly unreasonable and well within the requirements for proper contrast for readability. Heck, using the official colors of an organization isn't required either. Most editors choose to do so for the purposes of differentiation and easier identification among other templates.

The use of red and blue was my guess as to why they were used in the first place (on top of them being primary colors) and why the CHS page also uses the same colors (though I don't consider that a reliable source). That in itself isn't OR. The reality is that there likely aren't any official colors (the league does not have a website), but again, that in itself does not restrict us to default. Colors can be used to show differentiation without any deeper meaning. That is why they were used: to separate the divisions visually. Those colors were carried into the template for some visual separation of the header and subsections. --JonRidinger (talk) 16:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I found MOS:NAVBOXCOLOR where it says "In the case that no properly identifying, accessible color exists; or the subject of the navbox should not be identified with a particular color (e.g. an average biography), the default navbox color should be used." So I can understand not wanting to use the colors in the Navbox (even though I don't think it is "misleading" to use red and blue given the context), though it does not prohibit the use of color in the headings of a table. I do think even if red and blue aren't used in the table in this article, there should be two different colors as the headers for a clear visual separation. --JonRidinger (talk) 17:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, for a more practical reason, I restored the colors for the table since the adjacent map uses those two colors as markers for each school (depending on division) in addition to the arguments for a visual separation in the table. --JonRidinger (talk) 17:11, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I have updated the map and table colors to address your concerns while keeping the overall color combination fairly neutral. Per WP:CONTRAST, silver (#C0C0C0) and black (#000000) have substantially greater contrast w/ each other than the blue (#3C3B6E) and red (#B22234) previously used; black and silver also have greater contrast than either blue and white (#FFFFFF) or red and white (#FFFFFF); and black/white has by far the greatest contrast in the group. Also, I was never citing any policy or guideline regarding the common navbox color examples -- it was simply an observation. Rarely do such templates use colors when the subject itself has no officially defined colors. So given the absence of a reliable source on the Suburban League's division colors, I can't really support substituting the default template color scheme (and no, I really don't think users will confuse the common neutral blue/white combo with anything else). Levdr1lp / talk 10:31, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

I found other instances of the use of red and blue for the divisions here and here, though neither are "official" in my opinion, they still show a general widespread use. The Aurora Advocate story and graphic was run in most other Record Publishing newspapers in the area. Even so, for the map and table it's a matter strictly of opinion and preference. From a design issue, the map had too much gray, white, and black, so I created a new map using red and blue icons that are larger and the map is clearer (using Photoshop instead of what appeared to have been done on MS Paint). Since there is no requirement we must use black and gray and we have outside usage of red and blue for the divisions, it's not out of reason to use them here, on top of the visual aspect. As for contrast, the shades of blue and red are in full compliance with WP:CONTRAST (checked them on here and here). While I don't think the use of red and blue in the navbox is really that much of an issue, given the policy I quoted above, I'm OK with leaving as is for now. In the end, though, this is all minutiae in terms of advancing the topic. --JonRidinger (talk) 05:45, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the red and blue in the table and map do not comply with WP:CONTRAST -- they each comply with white, but not with each other. So color blind users can read the white "National Division" text against the blue background in the table, but they cannot differentiate between the blue "National Division" background from the red "American Division" background, nor can they differentiate between the red and blue squares in the map. So to increase accessibility (given the lack of a reliable source on the division colors, which we've agreed there are none at present), we're left to pick another combination. I chose black and silver (or gray) because they are not only neutral, but also very much comply w/ contrast guidelines per WP:ACCESS. If the map has too much gray for your taste, you could always change the color of the surrounding counties (green might work as Lake Erie has already been colored light blue). I also think the phrase "general widespread use" overstates the fact that a handful of sites have used red and blue to illustrate these two divisions. Red and blue are primary colors, as you pointed out, so it could simply be a coincidence. And maybe the Revere site has borrowed the Copley site images (or vice versa)? Levdr1lp / talk 10:56, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem is the color contrast tool is for two colors on top of each other, which isn't happening here. I would never have red on top of blue or vice versa, not only for potentially color blind readers, but it's harsh viewing regardless. But having red and a blue icons separately? The contrast tool doesn't illustrate that and it's no different then say, the blue and green used on Mid-American Conference, which also largely fail contrast on top of each other. The Contrast Check Tool specifically says :"The Colour Contrast Check Tool allows to specify a foreground and a background colour and determine if they provide enough of a contrast "when viewed by someone having color deficits or when viewed on a black and white screen""

And no, using black and gray for the same map does not make it "higher quality". --JonRidinger (talk) 17:46, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I altered the colored version of the map to have the National Division icons as blue diamonds and kept the red squares for the American Division, so the map has both color and shape variation to prevent any potential color confusion without sacrificing aesthetics. --JonRidinger (talk) 21:07, 13 October 2015 (UTC)