Template talk:SABMiller

The template is confusing and not accurate

Is this template about breweries or about beer brands? Pick one or the other, but not both. It is WAY to busy. Ajh1492 (talk) 23:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

In what way is the template inaccurate? Rangoon11 (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Dojlidy Brewery is part of Kompania Piwowarska. Ajh1492 (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

The template doesn't say that it isn't. It could easily be added to the Kompania Piwowarska sub-section, the only reason that I didn't do this was that I was unclear exactly which brands are associated with it. Rangoon11 (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I have now moved Dojlidy Brewery to conform with the other breweries in the template. Rangoon11 (talk) 01:22, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding your second point I strongly disagree that the template should not include both subsidiaries/joint ventures and brands, both are absolutely integral to SABMiller and its business. It is not 'way too busy', it is as simple as it can be whilst conveying the necessary information. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Because you're missing another level of subsidiaries in Poland, Romania and a few other countries. Please make it just about the breweries owned by SABMiller. Then make templates for each of the subsidiaries to list each of the brands. You are trying to boil the ocean with this extremely busy template. It tries to cover everything but only succeeds in proving confusion. Ajh1492 (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Regarding your point about subsidiaries, the template does not, of course, contain every single subsidiary company within the group but principal ones used for management purposes, most of which have their own WP articles (although important I have not included the Chinese joint venture and the Indian and Russian subsidiaries as they do not currently have their own WP articles). Kompania Piwowarska S.A. has been created by SAB as the overarching subsidiary in Poland, with management control of all other SAB Polish subsidiaries, and is included in the template. Ursus Breweries now fulfils the same role in Romania and is in the template.

SABMiller is a single group and it is of great use to readers to have both its brands and principal subsidiaries/joint ventures together in a single template, particualrly as the group has devloped via acquisitions and the great majority of its brands are not global but regional. There are many far bigger and more complex templates in WP. I am also a strong believer in keeping things as simple as possible, but there is a big difference between simplicity and simply removing valuable information. Rangoon11 (talk) 01:12, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I should add that I have now made an adjustment which does make the template somewhat cleaner whilst not losing any info.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:02, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Your format alignment is off with the subsidiaries. Ajh1492 (talk) 00:55, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A lighter version of the template

It's not absolutely complete (especially with the smaller African breweries), but it is a little less complex than the monster template. Ajh1492 (talk) 14:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Strongly oppose. This would remove a large amount of very important and highly relevant content for no good reason. SABMiller's business is its brands and an SABMiller template without them is quite ludicrous. Rangoon11 (talk) 15:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A template should be the appropriate length to include the relevant articles on a topic in a logical fashion, and also serve as a visual introduction to a topic. I have created templates for other companies and organisations which are far smaller than the SABMiller one, but content should not primarily be determined by arbitrary considerations of size but by what the template needs to include. The Template:United States Congress is far larger, as are many others, but the focus should not be on size per se - unless this becomes completely unwieldy, which the SABMiller one is in no way - but on the inclusion of appropriate and relevant content in the most logical fashion. Rangoon11 (talk) 15:54, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It is because of the complexity that simplicity is a requirement. Each of the subsidiaries would then have their own template that links back to the main SABMiller template.

Psychologically people are hard pressed to understand more than 7 items on a chart at once without going into information overflow.

Simpler is better so that a complex subject can be presented in an understandable manner. Ajh1492 (talk) 17:01, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that most readers are so limited in intellectual capacity, and see nothing particularly overwhelming about the current template. SABMiller is a complicated business because it has been created through the merger and acquisition of a large number of companies which each had their own family of brands. I have done templates for other far larger companies in terms of revenues but have not felt their businesses to be anywhere near as complex. However the answer to that complexity is not to simply ignore it on the basis that readers are incapable of understanding it, but to present it to them in the clearest, most logical and yes simplest manner possible. There is no unnecessary complexity in this template but it serves as what I feel to be a very helpful visual introduction to SABMiller, as well as organising the large number of SABMiller related WP articles, which are currently highly fragmented. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:59, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that including subsidiaries is not useful as many large listed companies have hundreds of subsidiaries but I do not see that listing all the brands does any harm - in fact it is positively helpful. Dormskirk (talk) 19:57, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

A couple hundred brands? The template will be larger than most of the pages that the template is on. better to break it into a series of templates that have information on each to the subsidiaries. Then it is a manageable and understandable amount of information. Ajh1492 (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

That is counter-factual as the majority of SABMiller brands are actually already in the template (just over 130 - to include every single variant of every single SAB brand would only take the number to 200): [1]. All brands with WP articles are included, as are all which SABMiller designates as 'Flagship' or 'Global', and which constitute the overwhelming proportion of its sales.

Splitting the brands into templates for each subsidiary means firstly that readers are denied the very useful feature of having them in one place. Secondly, many in fact almost certainly most readers will not approach the topic in that manner, but will be interested in the brands of SAB Miller rather than the brands of CR Snow, Ursus Breweries or Cerveceria Hondureña. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:48, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I should add that I have nothing against the creation of separate templates for SAB subsidiaries, which can include some additional information. What I am wholly against is the mass removal of information from this template, which is of potentially great use to readers, simply out of an arbitrary sense that templates should be of a certain size. Rangoon11 (talk) 23:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

So which half is worthy of inclusion? It does a reader a significant disservice to have half-a-loaf of information. The template misses a great number of Eastern European brands (Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, Czech), ALL the Russian brands (what about SABMiller RUS?), all the Ukrainian brands. I haven't even gotten to the African brands yet. I'm saying that it is better to have something real simple as a "root" template and then have it break out into a series of branch templates.

The new root template should have only a few categories. Ajh1492 (talk) 00:25, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Once again your comment is counter-factual. The Russian beers Zolotaya Bochka Klassicheskoye, Zolotaya Bochka Svetloye and Zolotaya Bochka Vyderzhannoye are all included, as are over 20 other eastern European beers. However the template as created was not a finished or perfect product. Literally as soon as it was created you were on this Talk page pushing for its contents to be bulk deleted. I was well aware that a number of African beers still needed to be added. Rather than doing that however, or discussing it, my time has instead been wasted on this discussion.

Let me say again in case I have been ambiguous: I am very happy for there to be articles and templates for all of the SAB subsidiaries and joint-ventures, and strongly support the project of developing and expanding them. And I do accept that there may be the opportunity to include detail in subsidiary/joint-venture templates which is not in this template. However I strongly oppose the bulk deletion of SAB brands from this template, and the fragmentation of its contents into separate templates which will remove valuable information from readers. Look at the templates for some major FMCG companies, such as Template:Nestlé, Template:Kraft and Template:Kellogg's and you will see that brands figure very prominently. Brands are ultimately the business of SABMiller, not subsidiaries, although the subsidiaries are important and in many cases interesting because of their histories as independent companies prior to their acquisition by SAB.Rangoon11 (talk) 00:43, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Update: the template now includes all of the SAB African brands, and a total of 168 brands out of SAB entire portfolio of 200 (many of which are simply varieties rather than actual brands per se). Rangoon11 (talk) 01:26, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

You're still missing the Ukrainian beers, the Slovakian beers, SABMiller RUS, and the contract bottler relationship with Pabst. Oh, and keep the whole template up to date while you're at it. It sure sounds like you're taking Ownership of the template. Ajh1492 (talk) 12:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I find my self agreeing with the assertion that a template that seeks to present SABMiller in the simplest and most direct form possible should focus on the Brands that the company owns and not so much -if at all- on the breweries. I do however feel that it would be very nice to have both in the same template (so long as it is in a very well organized fashion) but I can see how that could get complicated quickly and possibly be quite contentious. My reasons for the Brands taking presidence over the breweries are as follows. One, as has been previously mentioned brands are 'the business of' SABMiller and it is (to the best of my knowledge) basically how the company defines its self. Two, when I -as a lay person who admittedly knows very little about beer other than as a South African I have very little choice then an SABMiller beer to drink when I want beer- think of a massive beer company I am not interested in all the joint ventures and breweries that make up that company but its brands. I (again as an ordinary consumer) want to know how it impacts my life through the brands that I am familiar with and encounter.--Discott (talk) 20:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Update: the template now includes all of the brands as listed on the SABMiller website. Pabst is not relevant to the template as it is not a part of SABMiller, SABMiller acts as a supplier to Pabst. I should make one important point of distinction. This template includes the brands of SABMiller, and where appropriate key subsidiaries and joint ventures. However it does not include 'breweries' in the sense of specific buildings or sites where products are produced. This misunderstanding may have come from a few incorrectly labelled sub-headings in the template, which have now been fixed. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

How about brands by type of beer? Ajh1492 (talk) 21:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

That is an interesting idea. Why can't that be information be included in the individual subsidiary articles (as created)? I propose that details of breweries i.e. speciific locations and site for production (both current and historic) also be included in those templates but not this one. This provides an additional mission split between the sets of templates. Rangoon11 (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Improperly created duplicate template

I should add here that, despite this discussion being ongoing, user Ajh1492 has gone ahead and created the duplicative template Template:SABMiller Breweries (and added it in place of this template to the articles relating to the Polish SAB subsidiary (Kompania Piwowarska, Żubr (beer), Tyskie and Dojlidy Brewery). My attempts to add a speedy deletion tag to that article have, inevitably, simply been reverted. Rangoon11 (talk) 00:10, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

The template covers just the breweries, and there is a template for Kompania Piwowarska that covers just the breweries and brands associated with KP. I thought you didn't object to subsidiary templates? Plus who are you to decide if a template is correct or not? Ajh1492 (talk) 00:28, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

That template is a clear cut out from this one minus the brands (and plus Pabst Brewing Company, which isn't even part of SAB). In my view it serves no purpose alongside this template and subsidiary/joint venture templates (as and when created).

Yes I completely support templates for the subsidiaries and joint ventures (including the new Template:Kompania Piwowarska which you have created), and accept that there may be the opportunity to include some detail there which cannot be included here. However this template and the subsidiary/joint venture templates is sufficient, a template purely listing the subsidiary/joint ventures is unnecessary alongside this one, and your creating it whilst this discussion is ongoing and then adding it to multiple articles in place of this template looks like a fairly naked attempt to pre-empt this discussion or render it impotent. Rangoon11 (talk) 00:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)