Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion/Archive 8

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Quotation templates

If you look at Category:Quotation templates, you'll see a slew of templates with the exact same function, and only minor stylistic differences separating them. For example Template:", Template:Quotation, Template:cquote, and Template:Q are all almost exactly the same in purpose. Then, there are Template:Rquote, Template:quotebox and Template:Quote box, which show the quote in a right alligned box (which may be useful at times I suppose). I would like to propose that we pare down the regular quotation box formats to one standard format and one right-aligned box format. However, I didn't know which templates to nominate. Has any prior discussion happened on this? --DDG 21:17, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Let me suggest that it be pared down to three different forms: Template:Quotation(edit talk links history) for the formal style of block quotation, Template:Cquote(edit talk links history) for an informal style of quotation, and Template:Rquote(edit talk links history) for right- or left-aligned quotes. (Maybe some Wiki-markup master can roll Cquote and Rquote together, for a universal "floating" quote box?)
My reasoning is that the formal blockquote style is just that — formal. I believe that informal quote blocks can also serve a purpose as pullquotes (also known as liftout quotes or drop quotes). These are already common in modern encyclopedias, both in print and on the Web, and — like graphics — they attract the eye and help to make large blocks of text easier to digest. Please consider their usefulness before deciding that they are expendable.
As far as removing "templates with the exact same function", I agree:
All the Quote templates should carry the same order of parameters (as most of them are currently undefined).
—Quoth Down10 T / C 06:15, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
That sounds great. Is there a place to bring this to a wider audience though before listing the other templates for deletion? --DDG 17:50, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Tfd Guide

In the guide for listing a template for deletion it says to place the {{tfd|TemplateName}} or {{tfd-inline|TemplateName}} tags in the template and asks politely to not obstruct use of the template. Instead of requesting it to be placed in a non-obstructive location, can we just stick <noinclude></noinclude> tags in the "How-to list a template for deletion" box, so that users who just copy and paste the syntax, will automatically not cause harm to the template?--SomeStranger(t|c) 01:08, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I went ahead and added it to the explanation box. If anyone objects, let me know.--SomeStranger(t|c) 12:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
    • yeah, I think it's better that the templates continue to have their deletion notices appear in their articles (as they have done since the dawn of time). This is so that those who do not watch the template but frequent the articles it affects can still spot the debate. Given that templates are often lightly watched, this page lightly trafficked but templates often widespread nevertheless, it's fairly important. -Splash - tk 13:15, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
      • I see what you mean. Nevertheless, is it possible that the part of the template which appears be less intrusive? For those templates which are highly used having a deletion tag placed inside of them can ruin pages, maybe instead of a giant marker a small line of text with a link?--SomeStranger(t|c) 13:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Template:YouTube

From a WP:EL topic I created, what do people here think about Template:Youtube? I believe it is not necessary, and may bring unwanted links (in example, encourage people to point to videos with copyright problems). Should it be brought to TFD? -- ReyBrujo 18:14, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

It's an external link, and Wikipedia shouldn't be responsible for its content. I don't see the problem with it as long as it's still relevant to the topic. But it might be better to place as an external link, or to modify the template to make it clear that it's not a Wikimedia link. That's my take. - Gilgamesh 18:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

User Hauptmann

I noticed this was protected and deleted. As the creator of the template, I have curiosity in why it was deleted; however, a cursory search of the May logs havent provided me with any information. Can someone point me to the discussion? Thanks --Osbus 20:30, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

ESRB Templates

There are some templates that have never been used since March 30. What would people here do with them? They may be useful, but need some work. They are Template:ESRB E, Template:ESRB AO, Template:ESRB T, Template:ESRB EC and Template:ESRB Eplus. -- ReyBrujo 01:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposed modification to TfD process.

All members are invited provide comments on a proposal that may impact the current TfD process. The proposal is posted at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Wikipedia jurors. Folajimi 04:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

daily pages by hand

While Crypticbot is down these past few days, I'm doing it by hand. I'm trying to emulate exactly the same boilerplate for continuity. Please bear with us during this time of need, and have patience where I'm late. Thank you.

--William Allen Simpson 17:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Why are the templates added to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 July 7 not included in this page? Afonso Silva 17:34, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

See above. --Usgnus 17:58, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought that the bot was starting up again....

Since we've lost the bot, I'm going to make some minor modifications to the page listings to parallel WP:CFD, as I'm doing that by hand, too. I'll make up a weeks worth of boilerplate days in advance; even when the new day rolls over, everything will be in place.

With the minor automation, now the new day will appear, and it will be the previous day that is missing. So, there are 3 places to edit:

  1. The project page, where the lists of current and recent discussions are updated. I just duplicate the old previous day line, and adjust day (and month and year as needed), and roll down and/or delete the other daily listings.
  2. Yesterday's page (easily accessed by edit of the previous day's NEW NOMINATIONS section), where the NEW NOMINATIONS section header is deleted and the boilerplate comment replaced by "Please do not add new nominations to this page, as this day has concluded. Put any new nominations on the current day's page instead. Thank you for your cooperation. "
  3. The /Holding cell, where there is a new listing of pages to work on. Just copy in yesterday's page there, too. This is really the only new thing, as it helps administer the working pages. Another way might better, such as bolding the recent discussions entries that still need work done.

I'm still only human, so I do occaisionally leave town, or become too busy. Thanks to Usgnus for picking up the slack yesterday!

--William Allen Simpson 05:17, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

daily pages should adjust automagically

This page is now using Template:Year Month Day from day offset (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), and should adjust to the next day without intervention.

I've added a link at the top to purge the local cache -- just as CfD uses -- for those times that an old version is stuck in an apache or squid cache. This has happened from time to time ever since the change to daily subpages in January.

I am still generating the daily pages by hand in advance, as the template is not subst'able. I've written code for Mediawiki to handle offsets, but it has not yet been accepted. http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6692 and http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6693.

I am still updating "Closing in progress" each day, and removing the previous day's NEW NOMINATIONS section.

--William Allen Simpson 01:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Can we please be certain to retain any unclosed days in full visibility on the main page? Debates remain open until they are closed, and there is no reason to hide them away in the "completed discussions" section when they are no such thing. -Splash - tk 15:43, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Oh hell, hang on a second. We're using abstruse templates that make this hard work, we're not displaying the holding cell for people to find out what happened, we are displaying a tangentially releveant centralised discussions behemoth of a brute, we're labelling incomplete discussions as complete, we're not making admins' lives any easier by making them hunt through the not-really-closed-but-anyway list to find those that really need doing....this is a mess! Can we please return this to a semblance of humane operation? Like, immediately? By a reversion if necessary? This was so easy last time I looked! -Splash - tk 15:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
And, just for clarity, I entirely understand and appreciate what you are trying to do. The loss of Crypticbot about 3 weeks ago is bad, and daily human intervention is unreliable and imprecise (though you've done a good job). Even so, the use of the date math stuff to move things out of sight automagically is not the right way to go; some means for having open debates remain clearly and plainly open needs to be found. The best solution is to find someone's bot to do it: there are many fo them around, and people always seem to be looking for (usually pointless) things for them to do. -Splash - tk 16:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I second the notion that this is an admirable attempt to automate this process, but also have concerns about doing it this way. In particular, I think since this method ends up not changing the source for the article on a daily basis there's no stimulus for the software to rebuild the revised page (I suspect this is what's causing the "stale cache" issue). I've suggested to Brion (user talk:Brion VIBBER#Daily bot tasks) that we have a more or less official "daily bot" with a (protected) tasklist on some page, but he doesn't quite see the need. I've also started Wikipedia:Maintenance/tasklist in hopes that we can at least keep track of these sorts of tasks so if someone who regularly does one of them goes missing we know what isn't getting done. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
(post edit conflict) Yeah, I couldn't get Brion interested, either. But Rob Church had offered to help, and then went on wiki-break.
About the stale cache, we've always had this problem. It has to do with notification of changes to transclusions. There was a tiny purge button located under the debatebox, I've moved it back into clear view (like CfD) at the top, where it was once upon a time (6 months ago).
--William Allen Simpson 19:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

When I began poking at this July 1, there were unclosed debates running back 3 weeks, all displayed on the page. By the time that a couple of us wrestled it into submission, it took another couple of weeks. The page was several hundred K long. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was working down the massive page to find unclosed debate holes. The existing scheme was unworkable when folks are on break.

Debates are over after 7 days, although folks coming late can still comment. When you and others are active, there are only 7 days on the page. All I've done is automate the best practices.

There is a new feature of the Holding Cell, where the unclosed days are listed. Closers can easly find the days, and easily determine which ones still need work. It's easier to maintain, and easier to understand. And it's the same as CfD, so easy for folks to work both.

Yeah, it would be handy to have a bot to add the link each day in the Holding Cell, and maybe I'll have a bit of time to write something next week.

--William Allen Simpson 18:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Splash's reversion to ancient pages

It is not acceptable to have 2 week old partially closed pages visible on the main page. It is a waste of everybody's time and bandwidth. It is useless.

Unless Splash is committing to personally keep the closing done within 7 days, s/he should let those of us actually doing the work maintain the page.

--William Allen Simpson 19:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
I am a volunteer, and I do not respond to orders. It is entirely necessary to have partially closed pages visible for 2 reasons:
  1. They are not closed, so people may participate in them until they are;
  2. A passing admin (e.g. me) thinks that there is nothing to close until they hunt around links at the bottom of the page, and then discover that, actually, there are three week old debates that didn't get closed yet.
The convenience of those who frequent TfD is secondary by far to the usual functioning of all the deletion debates everywhere. (And, if some other process has decided to hide its continuing debates, calling them closed, please do let me know and I will go and fix the problem.) I have no problem whatever with (semi-)automated updating of the page, but it cannot and must not hide continuing debates from the main page. And, you know very well that I used to be the sole admin dealing with TfD for a period probably spanning a number of months, so telling me to get lost because I have nothing to do with what you seem to be describing as your fiefdom is a bit rich. And, in case your interested, the reason I stopped closing debates was the encrustation with clicks and edit conflicts and generalised c*r*a* that made it so much harder than "cut-paste" that it used to be. Making it harder still by hiding it all away from willing victims who glance at what appears to be an up-to-date TOC is simply not the right thing to do. -Splash - tk 19:51, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I am a volunteer, and I do not respond to your orders. I know that you used to handle TfD a lot, as I used to help you from time to time. To a certain extent, you pulled yeomans' duty, and we all appreciated it. But you disappeared....

CfD has taken its completed discussions off the main page after 7 days since long before I've been active. And some months ago, completely eliminated its /unresolved discussions page, as they are now simply relisted on a new day for continuing discussion under the new rules at Deletion process.

The reason that we have documentation, documentation templates, and document the final results is for future references by previously uninvolved parties. Yes, it's a bit more work, but it saves everybody else time.

You frequently forgot to document, and the rest of us had to clean up after you. I don't know why you think your time is so much more valuable than mine (or anybody else) -- especially as I was one of the founders of this Internet thing you seem to like, I founded an ISP, and my consulting rate has been $180+/hour for some years. (I think I deserve a raise.)

I don't have a lot of time here either, and I'm trying to make it as quick and easy as possible for all of us. That means automation.

One of my recent enhancements to avoid the edit conflicts is the addition of the daily NEW DISCUSSIONS section, patterned after previous work at places like CfD, WP:AE, etc. Everybody can edit other sections while a new one is being added. It's helped me a lot.

Another way to avoid edit conflicts and slow reload times is to use the /Holding cell to do all our cleanup. I'm pretty sure that you were around during that innovation. But there's no need for passing viewers to watch the cleanup happen, and it invalidates the caches on these very large pages! Passing admins will "know" about the /Holding cell, have it in their watchlist, or otherwise click on its link.

Coming back, and trashing weeks/months of other folk's work is not helpful.

Things change. Some folks thought they were better that way....

--William Allen Simpson 23:12, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
None of which has the least to do with the fact that this new way would still hide open discussion underneath a "closed discussions" link, and not have them on the main page. CfD has removed its closed discussions because there was a time when those discussions were closed "on the spot" and there was never a backlog of more than, literally, a matter of hours. That this is no longer the case (though actually it seems pretty up to date) is unfortunate, but does not excuse hiding open debates from peoples' eyes. (I do not believe I regularly forgot to document; I just left the orphaning to other people sometimes.) Your/my valuable time has little to do with this; what matters is providing a process that i)people can participate in and ii)admins can be persuaded to close. If no admins are closing it, then something is wrong with the closure process. Automation needs a bot, it does not need the hiding away of active discussions. I believe I trashed a sum total of about 3 edits spanning a matter of hours or minutes. -Splash - tk 23:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Look guys, it's just common sense. Until they have been closed they need to remain displayed. If you hide them there's going to be less impetus to get them closed and it's going to take much more time overall to finish the closures. --Cyde↔Weys 23:17, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. -Splash - tk 23:23, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. If you don't see it, how are you going to close it? Titoxd(?!?) 20:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Splash (talk · contribs · count) and would like to add and example. Template:Yoshi characters has still not been closed; the TFD notice links to the main page. After seven days were up, it was moved into the holding cell, thus breaking the TFD notice link and leaving me wondering where it went. Now that still-open discussions are back on the main TFD page, I (and anybody who runs across the Yoshi characters template) can easily access the ongoing TFD debate. Hbdragon88 01:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The top navbar

I've noticed that July 21, July 22, and July 23 do not have that friendly top navbar (yesterday - blank sapce - today). I just added the navbar to July 21, but shouldn't it be automated? Wasn't it automated before? So why is it no longer being appended? I think it's a very useful little navgiation. Hbdragon88 01:46, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Just added it to 90% of the log pages from July 21st to July 31st, where it wasn't included. Is there a template that's used as the dummy for new log pages? I didn't see one, so I created Template:Tfd log similar to Template:afd log. -- nae'blis 17:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Category:Templates for deletion

Category:Templates for deletion was created over a year ago, but quickly deleted when it was realized that adding that to {{tfd}} would put all the pages that any TFD'd template was used on in the category as well. Now, parser functions allow us to get around this problem, so that only templates are categorized. As a result, I have recreated the category and would encourage people to use it to find lost TFDs. Dragons flight 19:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)