Template talk:Article history/Archive 8

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Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10


Add DYK as an action?

Now that DYK provides a separate page for discussion on each nomination, would it be possible to give ArticleHistory the ability to list DYK under the other article milestones, rather than as a unique event? I've put together a rough idea of how this would work, logically. I think this would benefit the template by:

  1. Most critically, preserving a link to the DYK nom page, something the template isn't set up to do.
  2. Allowing the preservation of the oldid of an article when it was showcased at DYK.
  3. Listing whether an article had a failed DYK.
  4. Preventing text (the DYK hook) from being collapsed within a template that is already collapsed. The hooks wouldn't need to be recorded anymore, because the relevant data would be on the nom page.

--Gyrobo (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

plus Added to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
Any status update on this one, MSGJ? I think this is a great idea to help preserve history of what is often the first stage of quality review for an article. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
I've had no time for this, sorry. I think this template is a great candidate to be written in Lua, so it would be better to work towards a new version which incorporates this I think. Harryboyles was working on one earlier, but I don't think he is too active just now. Mr. Stradivarius might also have the skills and inclination to help out here. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:34, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
This one will take a while to code up, and there are a number of other things I'm working on at the moment as well... so, maybe sometime. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 13:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay thanks Mr. Stradivarius, keep us posted, — Cirt (talk) 18:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Mr. Stradivarius any updates on this? — Cirt (talk) 20:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Nothing from me, sorry. I did find Module:Sandbox/Harryboyles/Article history, but I have no idea what state of readiness it's at. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 23:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Okay, please do keep us posted here, — Cirt (talk) 05:53, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Speedy deletion

I am bothered that on Talk:Seamus (dog), the first milestone listed is "deletion review -- overturned" with no indication of what was overturned, because there's apparently no way for this template (or any other template, as far as I could tell) to show that the article was speedy-deleted before the deletion review. Yes, you can obviously click on the deletion review discussion to figure that out, but isn't the whole point of the template to allow you to review the article's history at a glance? (I thought that maybe it could at least say, next to the deletion review, "overturned speedy deletion", but nope -- all you can say is "overturned" but you can't show what the hell was being overturned.) Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

This template originally developed to collect the various content reviews into one place (FA/FAR, FL/FLR, GA, Peer review). Deletion discussions were soon added, but since there is no discussion associated with a speedy delete, it was difficult to see how it could be incorporated. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
I don't see why the lack of discussion would make it "difficult to see how [the speedy delete] could be incorporated." Can't it just be listed in the same way as the other deletions, but without a link? Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

plus Added request to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:39, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

DRV options

Can "Overturned to no consensus" be one of the options for DRV? In the cases where that has happened - while rare - what you see on article milestojnes is basically

  • AfD - kept
  • DRV - overturned

...which isn't exactly obvious as to why the article is still there. 86.** IP (talk) 10:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

The official answer to the request is: please put the code you require in Template:ArticleHistory/sandbox and re-activate the request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Added request to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)

Result of overturned deletion review

Merged thread with similiar issue. — Martin (MSGJ · talk)

If a Deletion review results in the original AfD being overturned, shouldn't the template list the new result? i.e. Overturned to Delete|Keep|No consensus. --Merlinme (talk) 11:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Multiple "| maindate ="

I know this is rather a niche request, but could the function of having more than one "| maindate =" to display "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 7, 2005 and June 5, 2012" be somehow implemented. The anomalies are Barack Obama and Transit of Venus. --Inops (talk) 14:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Named parameters cannot be used more than once; if used two or more times, all except the last instance will be ignored. Therefore, this would require a different parameter such as |maindate2= But I was under the impression (WP:TFA/R) that an article could only be TFA once? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:09, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, usually, but Barack Obama and Transit of Venus are articles featured more than once. --Inops (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
If it were a common occurrence we might need such a mechanism. But with only two instances, I don't think that any change to this template is needed. After all, the template does not complain if there are two different |actionn= parameters set to WPR, so both dates can be (and in fact are) shown.
Extract from Talk:Barack Obama:
{{ArticleHistory
|action2=WPR
|action2date=18 August 2004
|action2link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 18, 2004
|action2result=Maindate
|action2oldid=5294576

|action7=WPR
|action7date=4 November 2008
|action7link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 4, 2008
|action7result=Maindate
|action7oldid=249529065

|maindate=November 4, 2008
}}
Extract from Talk:Transit of Venus:
{{ArticleHistory
|action2=WPR
|action2date=7 May 2005
|action2link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 7, 2005
|action2result=Maindate
|action2oldid=13363422

|action4=WPR
|action4date=5 June 2012
|action4link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 5, 2012
|action4result=Maindate
|action4oldid=496011002

|maindate=7 May 2005
}}
We do have an inconsistency in that the |maindate= is set to the later of the two dates on Talk:Barack Obama, but to the earlier of the two dates on Talk:Transit of Venus; that can be resolved easily by adjusting one to harmonise with the other. Personally, I choose the later of the two dates, for two reasons: (a) it shows the most up-to-date situation at the top of the banner; (b) that's what was done the first time that this happened. Thus, on Talk:Transit of Venus we just need to amend |maindate=7 May 2005 to |maindate=5 June 2012. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Below, at #maindate2 this issue is solved. I've added it to both. Hanif Al Husaini (talk) 15:56, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Merges from other pages

I know that the AFD supports a "merge" result, but one think I noticed this template is missing is merges. When one article is merged into another, usually a notice is placed on both pages denoting that one was merged into the other. Shouldn't that be included in ArticleHistory? Maybe I'm wrong, but I figured I'd suggest it. — Parent5446 ☯ (msg email) 15:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Request for |collapsed= parameter

Please add |collapsed= parameter, to allow short histories to be seen by default (|collapsed=no), rather than obscured. --Lexein (talk) 18:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Sorry, but could you get this working in the template sandbox first? It's pretty hard to know what to change without some code to go by. You can test the sandbox code using the test cases page. Once you have the code working, please reactivate the edit protected request. Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 15:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
This is a very good idea, but would require rather a large investment in time and quite possibly a complete overhaul of the code for this template. I will add it to the to do list for this template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Request for |display_title= parameter

Could a |display_title= parameter please be added to this template, the same way it has been to {{talk header}}? I envisage that it would be used when the article's title has been altered somehow (e.g. with a {{lowercase}} template), so that its talk page's templates refer to it in the same way. Thanks in advance. It Is Me Here t / c 19:17, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Not done: Could you update the template sandbox with your proposed changes, and set up some test cases per WP:TESTCASES? If everything looks to be working correctly I can update the template for you. Best — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 20:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Lua

Is anyone working on converting this to Lua? -- Ypnypn (talk) 23:40, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Lua version

A while ago, I decided to try my hand at writing a Lua module, and decided to try rewriting this template after seeing User:Ypnypn's message. Now I've got around to getting it fundamentally complete in terms of duplicating the existing template. My version is located at Module:Sandbox/Harryboyles/Article history‎, and there are some test cases at User:Harryboyles/Article history. I've also been previewing Template:Article history/testcases by editing (but not saving) Template:Article history/sandbox with the code:

I'm now putting it out there to see what other people think about this 'first shot". Harryboyles 07:43, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Nice work. The "page milestones" is left-aligned on my browser rather than centred. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:18, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
Fixed. Needed to close the left span tag straight after the images, but Firefox left-aligns the text anyway so I couldn't tell visually. Thanks. Harryboyles 05:24, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

New action request - Restored upon administrator review

Sometimes things get deleted and you talk to an administrator who sees fit to restore the content. Can I request a new action. Right now at Template talk:Kansas cities and mayors of 100,000 population, I am using a highly inaccurate next best action.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 03:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

That is probably a rare situation, so there may be little need for such an action. A much better approach would be to allow a "custom action" where you could enter whatever you like to describe the situation. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:42, 1 June 2013 (UTC)
Think about all the things that get deleted in a day through WP:CSD and various WP:XFD. The first thing you are suppose to do is ask the closing admin to reconsider. Sometimes they change their mind for a reason after you present a good argument. This is probably more commmon than the more high profile WP:FAC. I had a second thing restored upon admin review in the last week as well. All 9 seasons of All in the Family such as All in the Family (season 2) were restored based upon User_talk:Darkwind#April_TV_season_AFD.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 12:53, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Multiple On this day listings

Any chance this template can be updated to support multiple (more than one) OTD listings? E.g., Talk:Gamal Abdel Nasser. czar · · 15:20, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Harvard University has documented three On this day main page uses, and {{Article history}} only handles one; which is what generated my ToDo requests at To do list has a lot of work needed.. — Lentower (talk) 14:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Incorporating WEP/WAP assignments

I think it'd be a good idea to incorporate Template:WAP assignment into the template, especially once an article is no longer adopted by an educational course. AH would show that it was once part of a course and, ideally, link to the course's wikipage. I am watching this page for the near future—no need to whisperback czar ♔ 13:08, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

"Copyedited"

Could there be a way to note "Copyedited" in the article history process, but for just a really good copy editor coming by and doing it on their own volition, and not part of Guild of Copy Editors?

For example sometimes during FAC you get really helpful copy editing or just if you ask someone individually who you know is really good --- and then you want to mark that in the article history, you know?

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 21:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I use the GOCE flag for this template whenever I copyedit. GOCE is a loose affiliation anyway—it just means someone who ostensibly is versed in copyediting has given it a look. czar ♔ 22:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
Ah. I see. Okay then, will do. — Cirt (talk) 17:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Still, on the other hand, it'd be nice to have a way to differentiate from a formal request for copyediting from the WP:GOCE requests page where somebody came by, and simply a "Copyedited" version from an experienced editor. — Cirt (talk) 18:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Error check

I just caught an instance where |current status= was listed twice, first with an old value (DGA), the other time with the correct value (GA). The old value was driving the articlespace display, while the current value was driving the talkpage banner. Very confusing. It seems this error is something that should be caught in the code, no? LeadSongDog come howl! 23:09, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree that it should at the very least throw an error in the event of multiple |currentstatus= values; will add to the todo list. However, not sure what you mean by "the old value was driving the articlespace display"? Maralia (talk) 05:34, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
For your information, when a parameter is defined twice, the new definition will overwrite the old one. So the old value would not have been "driving" anything. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:56, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
@LeadSongDog:, when you put "driving the articlespace display", I assume that you mean some informational text or icon shown on the article Birth control. It is not possible for the display of an article to be influenced by the content of its talk page, except in a very convoluted manner that treats the talk page as if it were a template. This is not a good idea because it is dependent on many factors, potentially very slow, and could easily be broken by the innocent act of raising a new talk page thread. The shown upper right of the article is generated by the {{good article}} template on the article page itself, and that template contains nothing that is talk page dependent.
Returning to the {{ArticleHistory}} on the talk page: the |topic= parameter was also given twice - first as |topic=Natsci second as |topic=biology and medicine. The Natsci one would have been ignored for the same reason that |currentstatus=DGA was ignored, so I have removed that one too.
It is not possible to code a template in such a manner that it can detect if a parameter has been given twice. I don't think it's even possible if the template has been converted to a module, otherwise {{cite book}} would throw a lot more errors than it does (multiple instances of |author=, etc.) --Redrose64 (talk) 09:54, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
@Martin:Prior to the difflinked edit above, the article status displayed atop the article showed it as a Former good article, while after the edit it shows "A good article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", with the associated green icon. Both before and after the edit the article status in the talkpage banners showed as GA-class. If you like, feel free to revert my edit and see the change for yourself.
@Redrose64:If the template can't do its own check, would a bot or AWB task be more appropriate? I'd think there's first a need to identify the affected articles (a subset of those using this template with more than one currentstatus value). If it's a rare problem, we can just manually fix it. In the meantime, perhaps just a /doc note? LeadSongDog come howl! 18:56, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
You say 'it shows "A good article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia", with the associated green icon' - all I see is the standard text "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (which appears on every single page), plus the green icon. If I hover the mouse over it, it shows the tooltip "This is a good article. Click here for more information.. That icon is generated by {{good article}}, and there is nothing in that template which examines the talk page. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:06, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Sounds like he has the metadata gadget enabled (it's shown in the gadget list as "Display an assessment of an article's quality as part of the page header for each article."). I can see how the gadget might return a different result from T:AH, since the gadget uses string matching. Maralia (talk) 20:04, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
OK, so since JS is not my strong point (although I can see several of the aforementioned strings in that .js file), I've left a note at MediaWiki talk:Gadget-metadata.js#Gadget is misinterpreting the parameters of Template:Article history. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:20, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
@Maralia: Right. I'd forgotten that was what produces that status hat on the article page. @Pyrospirit: Can the gadget do something about such cases to fix or flag the errors? LeadSongDog come howl! 20:25, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Today I located and fixed ~150 instances of duplicate AH parameters. Many were duplicate |currentstatus= and |topic=, but there were a significant number of duplicate actions as well. The latter is actually a bigger deal because, for example, action1=GAN along with a later action1=FAC results in displaying only the latter set of actions in the articlehistory. Glad you brought this up; I will be sure to include a task for this sort of periodic cleanup when I spec out a request for a new AH implementation bot. Thanks. Maralia (talk) 01:58, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

TFAR discussions

Perhaps we could add a way to archive and link history of WP:TFAR discussions? — Cirt (talk) 18:27, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

GOCE category

The GOCE entry should also add Category:Articles copy edited by the Guild of Copy Editors, no? czar ♔ 15:04, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Adding new functionality of {{DYK talk}}

I'd like to suggest that the parameter |nompage= of {{DYK talk}} be added to this template. — SMUconlaw (talk) 22:46, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Multiple "In the news" listings

Could this template can be updated to support multiple (more than one) ITN listings? E.g., Talk:Arab Spring has four. — Lentower (talk) 17:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Template:Vital article

Would it be possible to incorporate the parameters at {{Vital article}} into {{Article history}}? It Is Me Here t / c 15:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article discussions

  1. These days Today's Featured Article nomination discussions have their own dedicated separate subpage per article request.
  2. Could that please be added as its own separate entry in Article history ?
  3. For now I've been adding it with the "WikiProject approved revision" parameter and you can see an example of how that looks here, that way it helpfully links to the article's state at that time, and to a link to the discussion subpage.
  4. Is that an okay entry in the Article history for now?
  5. But I think Today's Featured Article nomination discussions are quite important parts of an article's history and could be added as a separate parameter.
  6. In the meantime, hopefully ideally these sorts of entries in article talk pages about their history shouldn't be a big deal and non-controversial. :)

Thanks for your input, — Cirt (talk) 16:15, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Now that discussions are recorded on sub-pages for the 45% or so of TFAs that are chosen by WP:TFAR, it make sense to have a new TFAR parameter in the article history. Otherwise Cirt will continue using parameters that were not designed for this, which looks odd and may cause confusion. BencherliteTalk 16:19, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
I thank Bencherlite (talk · contribs) for agreeing that my idea is a logical suggestion. But the 2nd sentence in his comment is unnecessary and I wish he'd adjust his tone a bit to be a bit more kind and polite in discussion here about this. — Cirt (talk) 16:29, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Bencherlite's response and tone look polite and correct to me. And, from the example you provide, it looks like ArticleHistory is getting pretty far afield of its purpose (GOCE listed in AH is absurd). I don't think this continual puffing up of ArticleHistory is called for. Bencherlite might convince me otherwise, but for now, I do not agree that TFAR discussions belong in AH. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Strongly but respectfully disagree, there's no need to focus on the contributor here as opposed to the suggestion itself. — Cirt (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
As for GOCE listed in AH, it's not "absurd". I've asked about this one (1) year ago. I only got one response. From Czar (talk · contribs), who said: "For what it's worth, I use the GOCE flag for this template whenever I copyedit. GOCE is a loose affiliation anyway—it just means someone who ostensibly is versed in copyediting has given it a look.". — Cirt (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Yep, that's absurd. A parameter was added to AH based on minimal discussion, and based on *one* person "copyediting" the article. AH should record community, not individual, events. That one editor (of any skill level) has gone through an article means nothing.

On TFAR, whether an article is chosen to be featured any given day is not part of the evolution of the article and its content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

No, the GOCE parameter has existed in this template for some time and it always records when one (1) editor has copyedited the article. — Cirt (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
On TFAR, it's an important point in the article's history to note its state on the date it was chosen after a significant amount of discussion about it has taken place. — Cirt (talk) 16:48, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
If you can produce the discussion that resulted in an event about *one* editor (GOCE) being added to evolution of content and article milestones (community processes), I'd be happy to review that discussion; I'm thinking I might put my money now on where that came from.

On Bencherlite's "tone", I agree that you should avoid "using parameters that were not designed for this, which looks odd and may cause confusion", until you have consensus to add it. I might be convinced; so far, I'm not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Especially when during the WP:TFAR discussion more of the community participate and the discussion itself may be as long as or longer than the original WP:FAC discussion, yes, they are at least both worthy of including in the Article History template. And about GOCE, it's been in the template itself for quite a while now. By the way the WP:GA history is also in the template and that's also a review by one editor. — Cirt (talk) 16:54, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Cirt, there already is a "main" field that goes into article history. In that, you list the date it appeared as TFA. Therefore, no additional parameter is needed for TFA's. Snuggums (talk / edits) 16:58, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
@SNUGGUMS:, this is about WP:TFAR, not the date it appears at TFA. For example, WP:TFAR discussions can at times have more participants and more input and more size of discussion, and length, and time, than the WP:FAC itself. — Cirt (talk) 17:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
(EC x 3) That's true, and sometimes it results in changes being made to the article if it's deemed not currently fit for TFA, though not often. I guess I'm neutral on the matter, but would like to remind everyone that personal attacks are not in the spirit of helpful discussion. Tezero (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Agreed, and thank you. — Cirt (talk) 17:04, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
(ec) @ Cirt: On TFAR, Hard cases make bad law. It seems you want exceptions to be made rule based on a few tough cases.

On GA vs. GOCE, GA is a community process, with established criteria, whereby a GA promotion can also be demoted, and that should be noted in history. Bad reviewers at GA may also be shown the door. On GOCE, anyone-- of any (or no) skill level-- can edit, and their edits can be reversed. No criteria, no process for indicating how bogus or not the CE was. No reason to memorialize in AH.

@ SNUGGUMS, you aren't understanding Cirt's proposal. Cirt wants all TFAR discussions in AH, not just the date featured. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) To clarify on the comment above (as done here), I've used the AH parameter to mark full copyedits in lieu of using the dedicated GOCE template. For what it's worth, I find this brief AH listing more useful than multiple talk page templates (and would say the same for linking TFAR discussions), but I'm also not familiar with the consensus that only community/group events belong in AH. czar ⨹ 17:02, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
And, it appears correct that GOCE has been in the template for a very long time (at least 2007 as far as I can tell). I disagree that it should be there, but if it is to stay there, that might sway me on the relative importance of having more significant discussions added as well. I'm still unconvinced, though, that we should be adding "tough cases to make bad law". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for acknowledging that I was correct. Yes, I recall commenting about the usefulness of having the Guild of Copy Editors in this template at least as far back as two (2) years ago. — Cirt (talk) 17:17, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
In that case, I feel that such a parameter is unnecessary. Snuggums (talk / edits) 17:03, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think this should be such a big deal anyways. There's really no harm in including an extra parameter or two in the template, and it only helps to give more information to future readers and editors, alike. — Cirt (talk) 17:12, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Just a reminder that this is not an RFC on removing the GOCE parameter from the template, and we should limit this discussion to Cirt's request for an additional parameter. FWIW, though, I agree with Czar that although {{GOCE}} is more frequently used, embedding a GOCE-member copyedit in the template takes less room. As for problems with a copyedit by a single editor, promotion to GA is usually done the same way. All the best, Miniapolis 17:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
Miniapolis, I've noticed your competence in copyediting over the years and commend you, but it's not up to you to say what is and is not to be included in any given discussion :) At any rate, since GOCE has been in the template for eons, I'm not going to further pursue the matter. Although I disagree that it belongs there, it is there, and that informs the merit of adding TFAR discussions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Multiple reasons Today's Featured Article request should be added

Multiple reasons Today's Featured Article request (WP:TFAR) should be added to Template:Article history:

  1. Link to subpage: Helpful link to independent subpage, example at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Manhattan Project.
  2. Community input and review: For whatever it's worth, WP:TFAR often turns into another review of the article, and certainly the WP:LEAD of the article which becomes the blurb text.
  3. Input from multiple editors: TFAR usually has at least a nominator, TFAR director, and one other editor commenting, which is more input from the community than for WP:GAN or WP:GOCE, both already included in Template:Article history.
  4. Changes to article occur during community process: Whether or not the request ends up being successful or unsuccessful, oftentimes the result is changes to the article itself. These changes should be reflected in its Article history.
  5. May result in improvement in quality and avoid Featured Article Review: Sometimes this leads to Featured Article Review (WP:FAR), but I've seen multiple instances where articles of questionable quality are improved back up to satisfactory quality for the Main Page while still pending as a nomination at TFAR. This improvement as part of this community discussion process should be reflected in its Article history.

For all the above reasons, Today's Featured Article request (WP:TFAR) should be added to Template:Article history.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 18:57, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree with virtually all of the above. TFAR rarely turns into a review of the article, rarely has meaningful input from multiple editors, rarely results in changes of note in the article itself (and any such changes can of course be found in the editing history), and rarely results in improvements saving an article from FAR (off-topic, but I'd be particularly interested in seeing the "multiple instances" where this happens - I cannot remember any off-hand). More often than not, all that happens is someone puts forward an article and if we're lucky one or two people might stop by to say "support". I agree that the article history template should not become unnecessarily bloated e.g. with records of minor copy edits, but the reason I support including TFAR discussions in the template is that, in cases where there was a TFAR nomination, this would allow a quick answer to the question "why was this chosen for TFA?". Perhaps, though, there is a way to build on what we already have, rather than adding an extra line to the history for an extra parameter. Might the best way be to use some {{#ifexist:}} magic to detect the existence of "Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X" in the |maindate= parameter? Then we can get, for article X:
  • "This article will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on..." (no TFAR nomination, TFA day in future)
  • "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on... " (no TFAR nomination, TFA day in past)
  • "This article is currently on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article." (no TFAR nomination, TFA day today)
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|has been selected]] and will appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on..." (TFAR nomination exists, TFA day in future)
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|was selected]] and appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on..." (TFAR nomination exists, TFA day in future)
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|has been selected]] and is currently on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article ." (no TFAR nomination, TFA day today)
Thoughts? BencherliteTalk 09:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Good suggestions, thank you. — Cirt (talk) 11:58, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Few grammatical suggestions, but I support the idea in principles:
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|has been selected]] to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on..." (TFAR nomination exists, TFA day in future)
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|was selected]] to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on..." (TFAR nomination exists, TFA day in future)
  • "This article [[Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/X|was selected]] to appear on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article today." (no TFAR nomination, TFA day today)
Hmm, not quite sure about the last one though. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:57, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Agree with these recommendations by MSGJ, as well, thank you. — Cirt (talk) 14:59, 2 December 2014 (UTC)
Agree with whatever way is found to include a TFA nomination in the Article history, and support to see the same for a DYK nomination. Above it says: "Allow multiple DYK nominations and link to nomination page", marked "not started". (More than one DYK nomination is a rare exception which perhaps doesn't need to be implemented.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
On reflection, I think "was nominated" is better wording for a link to a TFAR discussion that "has been/was selected". I also think that #ifexist is not the best way of doing this - perhaps a new parameter, |TFAR=y, for cases where there's a successful TFAR nomination, otherwise we could end up linking to an old, unsuccessful nomination when a TFA coordinator has subsequently taken the article from the pot of possibilities without a further TFAR nomination. Such a link would be more confusing than anything. I don't see a need to link unsuccessful TFAR nominations in article history. @WP:TFA coordinators pinging the TFA crew to see what they think. BencherliteTalk 19:50, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm trying to get my head around the basics of TFA scheduling, and at present I don't have the knowledge or the capacity to contribute to this decision. Brianboulton (talk) 19:56, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Lua version now ready

Hello all. Today I have been making some final tweaks to Module:Article history, a Lua version of this template, and I think it's just about ready. I have tried to make it mostly faithful to the template code, although there are a few differences and improvements:

  • You can now specify an unlimited number of actions, DYKs, OTDs, ITNs and featured topics.
  • All errors will now trigger a big red error message at the bottom of the template, with a link to extra help. I have made a draft of the help explanations in my sandbox.
  • The "article milestones" part of the template is not collapsed if the total number of actions, DYKs and OTDs, etc. is three or less. This number can be easily changed, or perhaps even made into a parameter if that is desired.
  • Action codes, current status codes and result codes have been simplified with a system of canonical IDs. For example, you no longer have to check all of "FAR", "far", "FARC", and "farc" to find out if something has been at featured article review; you can just check "FAR". This removes a couple of errors in the current template that I spotted where some values weren't being checked.
  • The only multiple status that is now possible is FFA/GA. In the current template it is possible to have both FFL and FFA rows, and maybe a few other combinations, but these have been removed in the module. (If there are any other status permutations that we need, I can add them back in.)
  • I have standardised the parameters in the format abc2def, abc3def, etc. So now DYK, OTD and ITN parameters work the same as the action and ftname parameters. Parameters that used to be in the format abcdef2, abcdef3, etc. still work, but they output a warning. If you use the "itndate2" parameter, for example, you get a big red warning saying "Warning: the 'itndate2' and 'itnlink2' parameters are deprecated; use 'itn2date' and 'itn2link' instead". My idea is that we can fix the old-style parameter names after we switch to the module, but I'm open to persuasion as to what exactly to do.

Apart from those things, it should work the same as the template. You can see the module in action at Template:Article history/testcases, and you're welcome to add more test cases if you want. Please test it out and let me know what you think. And if everything looks ok, I hope to make the switch to the template some time in the next week. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:33, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Very nice indeed. As far as I can see all the changes are improvements, so well done. I have the following comments on further improvements that may be possible. Some may require further discussion, but it might be a good opportunity to make some of them now.
  • Could "Article milestone" be placed on the template, even when there is just one action. I feel the template would benefit from a title even in this case.
  • Is the current status line actually useful, as the information seems to be repeated from the top of the template anyway. Could the current status be intelligently determined in most cases? (E.g. if promoted at FAC and not later demoted then current status should be FA)
  • Are the small versions really useful? How widely are they used? In the interests of consistency could this functionality just be removed?
  • The alignment of columns is improved in some cases with the new version.
  • The automatic collapsing is working well, and I think the current threshold is appropriate.
  • Will rows automatically sort themselves chronologically? (E.g. if action2date is earlier than action1date) If not, would it be reasonably easy to implement this?
  • There is a discussion above about linking to the TFA nomination. Could this be implemented in the new version please?
  • I still have an issue with how this template is laid out. We have some information which is given in a table, and some information given in prose. There doesn't seem to be a good reason why these differing methods are used. For example:
    January 2, 2007     Peer review     Reviewed could easily be replaced by "This article was peer reviewed by an editor on January 2, 2007"
  • and conversely
    "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 1, 2007." could be replaced by "January 1, 2007     Did you know?     Featured"
  • I would prefer if one method (preferably the tabular method) would be used more consistently with all actions on this template.
  • The orange pencil has no tooltip. What is the meaning of this icon?
— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:41, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
@MSGJ: Thanks for the comments.
  • I can put "Article milestones" back in, sure. (Probably it should still be plural even when there's only one action, like we do for "external links" sections?)
  • Rows don't sort automatically at the moment, but making that happen would be easy, at least for actions where the date is specified. It raises the question of what to do where we don't have a valid date, however. Also, perhaps this might affect the bot? (I'm thinking probably not, but it can't hurt to check.)
  • The proposal to link the TFA nomination didn't look like it had consensus in my reading of the discussion. But it would be easy enough to implement if a consensus was found for it.
  • I don't know how much the small parameter is used, but I've never actually seen in in use myself. I could write a quick script to find that out, though. I agree that just removing it might be the best option.
  • The orange pencil appears to mean "peer review, or no other status", which I agree is vague. I wouldn't mind removing it, but we would need a consensus for the change.
As for the other things, they are all good suggestions. But initially I'd like to concentrate on just getting the module rolled out successfully. I'd rather leave improvements until after we're sure that it's working properly, especially if they are things that would deprecate or change existing parameters. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
@MSGJ: I've implemented your request to have "Article milestones" display on templates with just one action or one DYK, etc. However, looking at it again, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I think it looks too different to the current template, and will lead to people complaining. My instinct tells me that this sort of change is best done after we roll the module out, with a clearer consensus that we can point to. I think that Maralia is right below when they say that visible changes to the output will be blamed on the module. It will be hard to win editors back if they make a snap judgement that their problem is caused by Lua (and therefore all Lua is bad). — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:46, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict):Thanks for doing this. Is there any particular reason to rush on this? We need to make sure that moving to the new version is not going to unduly impact the operation of the FAC closing bot, which implements T:AH. We are on our third replacement bot since Gimmebot, and it is critical that we not alienate our new bot op. I'd like some time to carefully review, well, everything.

A couple of questions at first glance:
  • The Lua version catches non-fatal errors like deprecated parameters. Does it funnel all errors into Category:Article history errors? If so, can we funnel non-fatal errors into a separate error category, so the main cat remains a category of errors that must be fixed for proper display?
  • Can you elaborate on your error message on the gacat parameter here? I've heard no discussion anywhere about deprecating this parameter.
More to come as I work through this. Maralia (talk) 21:14, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia: I agree, there's no need to rush. I thought a week was plenty of time to work through any issues that might crop up, but we can of course take longer if we need to. Good point about the bot. @Hawkeye7:, are the parameter changes I mentioned above likely to break anything? The old parameters should still work, but I can remove the warnings for them if that would be better. Marialia, about your other points:
  • You're right, all warnings and errors cause the page to be added to Category:Article history errors. (The name can be easily changed. Perhaps "Article history templates with errors" might be better?) And no, it shouldn't be too hard to add the warnings to a different category instead. Let's wait to hear what other people want to do, and I'll make the necessary changes when we've worked out what the consensus is.
  • I based the gacat error explanation on two discussions I found in the archives.[1][2] It looks like people have been thinking of deprecating gacat for a long time, and that's why it's not in the documentation. But no-one ever actually finished doing it. I think we should keep it around for now and then remove it after we have updated all the relevant transclusions, but others may have different ideas.
Best — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your comment above: it would be wise to focus on implementing the module first, to ensure that it's working properly, before implementing changes in function and parameters. I would take this a step further, though: any visible change implemented along with the module is going to be blamed on the module, so I would prefer to avoid that by implementing any visible changes (new error messages, new parameters, deprecation) in a second phase. That being said, though, I would argue that dropping |gacat= could be implemented in phase 1, as I don't see it in use anywhere (my query about it above was based on a misunderstanding; I confused it with |topic=). Maralia (talk) 07:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

@Maralia: You've persuaded me, and I've changed the module not to display a warning for the parameters "dykdate2", "otddate2", etc. Instead the page is added to a tracking category, Category:Article history templates with deprecated parameters. We can turn this into a hidden category before we make the switch. I've also made the switch from Category:Article history errors to Category:Article history templates with errors, purely because I think it makes more sense. (If people don't like that, I'm not 100% set on it, though.) This category can also be turned into a hidden category, as the big red error messages at the bottom of the template provide plenty of notification on the page itself, so there's no need to keep it as a red link like Category:ArticleHistory error. Also, at the moment, only "xdate2" parameters are supported, not "xdate3", "xdate4", etc. This is because only "xdate" and "xdate2" parameters are supported in the current template. However, "x2date", "x3date", etc., are still supported. I hope this is kind of along the lines you were thinking. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I think avoiding substantive changes in this step will help the switch to the module go through smoothly—we all know how well change is accepted here :) As to the name and structure of the error cats, I think you will find that SandyGeorgia and I are probably the only ones who will care much, as we use the cat to fix errors in implementation; end users are (if they bother to check at all) merely looking for a red category to show up on preview/edit as an indication that they've made an error.
I am going to read through the code, look over the error message explanations again, and do some testing. In your sandbox with the error messages, could you indicate which messages are temporarily disabled? Once I've been through everything more thoroughly, and we've heard from Hawkeye, I think we should draft a very simple notice to users, to let them know (1) what will look different when the module is implemented and (2) where discussions will take place concerning substantive changes for a second phase. Maralia (talk) 16:02, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia: Sorry for the delay in replying. I've removed the messages from my sandbox that were removed in the code, and I've also left a message on Hawkeye's talk page asking him to comment here. As for the notice, where were you thinking that the notice should be displayed? On the template itself, in the docs, or somewhere else? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 03:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
I don't foresee any problems. The FACBot does not use "dykdate2", "otddate2", etc. (How does an article appear on DYK twice?) I will keep an eye out for unforeseen problems, and wish you all the best in this endeavour. Hawkeye7 (talk) 08:40, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: Thanks. :) As for your DYK question, once in a while you get an article that went through DYK when it was created, then again when it was 5x expanded. Even three might be possible in theory - the first time the article would be 1.5 kb, the second time 7.5 kb, and the third 37.5 kb. I don't think I've ever seen that in practice though. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 09:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
That would violate Did you know supplementary rule D1: Items that have been on DYK before (pre-expansion, for example) are ineligible. The only case I can think of is if it were pulled and re-instated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:06, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Good point. Perhaps the dykdate2 parameter was added for articles that managed to get two appearances on DYK before D1 came into effect? The supplementary rules page was created in 2008, and D1 isn't in early versions of the page, although I don't know if the rule was codified anywhere before that, or unwritten but still enforced. Anyway, I imagine the dykdate2 parameter must have been added to the template for a reason. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 23:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Feedback on testcases

While reading through the current version of the testcases page, making a mental note of situations where the new template's output deviates from that of the old template, I noticed that the current status line is not displaying in quite a few seemingly disparate cases. The testcase titled “From Talk:Alphabet” was a real stumper, especially when compared to the immediately previous testcase "From Talk:American football". I tested everything I could think of to explain the oddity—various action types and currentstatus values, etc—and found nothing. It was only when I started testing quantities of actions that I got somewhere: currentstatus would only start displaying when there were 4 or more events (actions/dyk/itn/otd/maindate/etc). Then—and only then, for some goddamn reason (RTFC Maralia)—did I look at the code.

If I'm reading right, we're collapsing if there are more than 3 collapsible rows... 

-- If this number or fewer of collapsible rows are present (including actions
-- and collapsible notices) they will not be collapsed. If this is set to the
-- string "all", all rows will always be visible. Otherwise, the input must be
-- a number. The default is three rows.
uncollapsedRows = 3,
	-- Find out if we are collapsed or not.
	local isCollapsed
	if self.cfg.uncollapsedRows == 'all' then
		isCollapsed = false
	elseif noCollapsibleRows == 1 then
		isCollapsed = false
	else
		isCollapsed = noCollapsibleRows > (tonumber(self.cfg.uncollapsedRows) or 3)
	end

but we're only displaying statusText if we're collapsed... 

		-- Current status.
		if isCollapsed and noCollapsibleRows > 1 then
			local statusText
			if statusObj then
				statusText = statusObj.name
			end
			statusText = statusText or self:message('status-unknown')
			collapsibleTable
				:tag('tr')
					:tag('td')
					:attr('colspan', 3)
					:wikitext(self:message('status-blurb', statusText))
		end

therefore it seems we're only displaying statusText if there are at least 4 collapsible rows. This is unintended, yes? Appreciate if you could you would take a look. Maralia (talk) 21:00, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

@Maralia: Hmm, you might have a point there. That code was meant to be the equivalent of the template's current status code:
{{#ifeq:{{{currentstatus|}}}|{{{currentstatus|¬}}}
 |{{#if:{{{action2|}}}{{{action3|}}}{{{action4|}}}{{{action5|}}}{{{action6|}}}{{{action7|}}}{{{action8|}}}{{{action9|}}}{{{action10|}}}{{{action11|}}}{{{action12|}}}{{{action13|}}}{{{action14|}}}{{{action15|}}}{{{action16|}}}{{{action17|}}}{{{action18|}}}{{{action19|}}}{{{action20|}}}
  |<tr><td colspan="3">Current status: '''{{#switch:{{uc:{{{currentstatus}}}}}
   |FA=Featured article
   |FAR|FARC=Featured article review candidate
   ...
I was trying to think why the checks started at action2 and not action1, and the explanation that I came up with was that the current status was only supposed to be displayed when the table of actions was collapsed. It might not be the correct explanation, though, and it may be desirable to do something else anyway. What do you think the best thing to do would be? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 23:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia: I've edited the module to output the current status row if there is a current status specified and if there is more than one action, regardless of whether or not the table of actions is collapsed. Does that look more acceptable to you? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 05:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Wow, has it really been 5 days since you asked me to look at the old code? Sorry; I started wading through it and got bogged down, then distracted. I'll take a look at your changes tonight or tomorrow. Maralia (talk) 05:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
I looked at the testcases and I'm satisfied that they are now sufficiently consistent with the 'old' ones. Since there will be almost no discernible difference upon moving to Lua, I no longer think we need to post a big notice anywhere. I would say notify Hawk for FACBot, and start a new thread on this page for any feedback/issues resulting from the change. I will be mostly offline for about 7 hours, but can be available after that to help address any concerns that might crop up. Thanks for all your work on this! Maralia (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Error: Invalid time"

Why do I get this error message at Talk:Rainbow trout? I don't see anything wrong with my formatting in the template. Jsayre64 (talk) 03:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

There was a left-to-right mark (an invisible control character) at the end of a couple of the timestamps. This can happen when you copy/paste a timestamp. The best ways to avoid it are to be careful to copy only to the end of the timestamp (don't copy the space after); to try backspacing after you've pasted (if you hit backspace but the cursor doesn't move, you just deleted a control character); or to use wikEd with syntax highlighting enabled (the control character will show as a bright red square in the editing window). Maralia (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. I guess I didn't see that because it was invisible. Jsayre64 (talk) 04:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
Not just invisible, but zero-width too, in most browsers. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Lua version now live

I have just switched this template to use the Lua version at Module:Article history. The output should be mostly the same, but there are some slight differences:

  • The "article milestones" part of the template is not collapsed if there are three entries or less.
  • You can now specify an unlimited number of actions, DYKs, OTDs, ITNs and featured topics.
  • All errors now trigger a big red error message at the bottom of the template, with a link to extra help.
  • Errors are now tracked in Category:Article history templates with errors, which is a hidden category.
  • Pages using parameters like "dykdate2", "otddate2", etc. are now tracked in Category:Article history templates with deprecated parameters.
  • Parameters like "dyk2date", "otd2date", etc. now work. These will be phased in to replace "dykdate2", "otddate2", etc.
  • FFA/GA is now the only possible multiple status combination. (Previously an article could be both FFL and FFA, along with a few other probably unintended combinations.)
  • Some missing alias checks in the template have been fixed.

Let me know if you spot any issues with the new version, and I'll investigate. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I've noticed that there are several new errors in Category:Article history templates with errors. These weren't picked up by the old template code, but are now detected by the module. (I like the one on Talk:Mauna Loa: "Warning: invalid date '1:00 A.M February 27, 2014... You suck...' detected in parameter 'action1date'.") I can start cleaning these up later on today, but if anyone wants to start on them straight away, you're more than welcome. :) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:12, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I've fixed about 25 just now, all legitimate errors (mostly due to stray characters tacked on to dates/oldids). I haven't fixed a handful where users tried to assign status=DGA on articles that were also FFA; starting to see this as a viable option on articles that were demoted from FA so long ago that it's barely relevant (forex Talk:Cold fusion). Will think on it. You should take a look at the error at Talk:Nuclear weapons testing though; no idea what's going on there. Maralia (talk) 06:51, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Hmm, that one looks like a bug. I won't be able to look into it for a few hours, though. If lots more of those turn up, you should get someone to revert the Lua conversion until I can fix it. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 06:58, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I have template editor rights, but I'm also falling asleep at the keyboard. Not too worried though—the queue is so slow these days that I doubt the category will be inundated before I drag my cranky self out of bed in a few hours. Maralia (talk) 07:12, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
Should be fixed now. The module was assuming that all status config tables had a "text" field, but PR and NA don't. The error on Talk:Nuclear weapons testing was triggered because |currentstatus= was set to "PR", and presumably the same error would have appeared for anything with a current status of "PR" or "NA". — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:38, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
I've now fixed about 30 more articles with errors, but I've left the DGA/FFA ones alone. It would be pretty simple to make DGA a valid status for use with former featured articles - it just depends on what we want to do. Also, should the error category only apply to pages in the Talk namespace? I don't think we should be patrolling user pages and sandboxes for errors... — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
A former featured article is implicitly also a delisted good article (see WP:WIAGA#What cannot be a good article?, third bullet), it needs a fresh WP:GAN in order to climb back up the ladder. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:17, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
If desired, we can alter the module so that if an article has been delisted at featured article review and has its current status set as a delisted good article, it is just treated as a former featured article. We already do something similar with former featured articles that have a current status of GA - they are automatically switched to FFA/GA status - so the infrastructure is there already. (The code is at line 596 of the config module.) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 14:51, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict)That—while true—is not what we're talking about here. As an example: an article attains FA in the early days, later gets demoted, then later still attains GA, then loses GA. Under our current scheme, this would get currentstatus=FFA. While it remains a former featured article, the fact that it lost GA status in modern times might arguably be as relevant as its having attained FA back in the days of brilliant prose, or more so. Maralia (talk) 15:02, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
For now, I've changed former featured articles with a currentstatus of DGA to be automatically changed to FFA status. If we end up deciding to do anything different, I'll be happy to do whatever needs doing to the module. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 12:17, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
We do need a namespace check—but not just wrt application of the error category. Rather more importantly, implementations of articlehistory in userspace should not put userspace pages into mainspace categories (see User:Akashr007/sandbox for an example). I don't know why people copy article talk pages into their userspace in the first place, but it's been happening off and on for years, so I guess we just have to deal with it. Maralia (talk) 16:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, a presumed unintended effect: any article that was ever demoted at FAR appears to be getting Category:Wikipedia former featured articles now, even if it's a current FA. Pretty sure we didn't do that before. I suspect the same might be happening for formerly delisted GAs that have since been relisted. Maralia (talk) 16:48, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Pages are now only added to any categories (error or otherwise) if they are in the Talk namespace. I'll have a look at the FFA category problem later on when I have a little more time. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 00:44, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
Actually, it turns out that the old template did add all articles that were demoted at FAR to Category:Wikipedia former featured articles, even if they were currently featured articles. See my sandbox for a demonstration. We can change this behaviour if desired, but it seems that the module is doing the same thing as the old template in this situation. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
That was the intended behavior to keep track of articles that should be listed on WP:FFA. There was no WP:DGA page. A FFA that is GA could have status-FFA/GA or status=GA. The result text was displayed a little differently but the template code still generated the FFA categories. Gimmetrow 02:50, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Talk: Space Only Categories

What was the intent of limiting categories to the Talk: namespace? This has caused some havoc. See Category:Wikipedia former featured portals for an example. This used to be populated but now is empty. -- JLaTondre (talk) 19:29, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Have reverted this for now --— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 23:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)
Sorry about that. It was to prevent user pages from being included in categories, and also the template test cases page. It looks like a better way would be to categorise on all talk pages, but not user talk or draft talk. I'll add the code to the sandbox now - if anyone has any objections or suggestions, let me know. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:02, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Ok, the code is now ready. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:15, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
Should be fine I think — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)
I just made the change. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 18:41, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

What to do with the BP action

There is an undocumented BP (Brilliant Prose) action in the template, which I've been wondering what to do with. I set up a tracking category, Category:Article history templates with BP actions, to track pages with BP actions, and it turns out that there are only three of them: Talk:Execution by elephant, Talk:Franks and Talk:Race (human classification). According to Dr pda's comment from 2007 in archive 1, BP can be replaced with RBP (Refreshing Brilliant Prose), with 19 January 2004 as the date. However, I don't find any of the articles in Wikipedia:Historical archive/Refreshing brilliant prose - Science or similar pages, and it looks like all three of them were later demoted at FAR rather than at RBP. I think that it might be best to keep BP as a valid action for pages that were nominated for Brilliant Prose but were overlooked at the RBP votes, and to document it properly. The alternative would be to replace them with RBP, even though they technically weren't looked at there. What do others think would be the best solution? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:48, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I've now done what I suggested above - the BP action is now properly documented, and the tracking category has been removed. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:48, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Featured portals not showing the full star?

How come for "FPO" status, it's showing the "Former" star and not the full star?

Example at Portal talk:Geography uses image File:Cscr-former.svg, when it should use the full star?

How to fix it?

— Cirt (talk) 18:16, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Just a mistake—have changed the icon. Thanks for pointing it out. Maralia (talk) 19:31, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Merge

Could we add the results from merge discussions? {{Old merge full}} essentially has all the same perimeters as am AFD. Mkdwtalk 15:02, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Category:GA-Class Good articles is being deleted

At Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 January 25#Category:GA-Class Good articles it was decided to delete Category:GA-Class Good articles. {{ArticleHistory|currentstatus=GA}} currently adds this category. Vegaswikian has already edited {{GA}} to no longer add the category.[3] PrimeHunter (talk) 00:57, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Removed. Thanks for the heads-up! — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 10:04, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Deprecating small=yes

What do people think about deprecating the |small= parameter? It is only used on 49 pages, and doesn't really look very good due to the large anount of text this template uses. We could make it better by creating small versions of all the blurbs, but I think it would be easier and would result in more consistency to just remove the parameter altogether. If you want to see what the small versions look like, I've compiled a list below of the pages that are currently in Category:Small article history templates:

List of article history transclusions with small=yes

Please let me know what you think. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:56, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Keep 1) When I add this parameter, I also move the {{Article history}} template to the bottom of the header section, so it lines up with the Table of Contents. Makes the template much more noticable.
2) We should let editors have the flexibility to format talk page header sections, as is wise for each article, depending on what is in each header section, and the editing history/needs of that article. — Lentower (talk) 18:47, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, the small format is beneficial for talk pages with too many notices; it helps conserve space. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 02:57, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

ITN and OTD parameters

I could not link one of old revisions of ITN and OTD that featured one article. How would you insert "oldid"? --George Ho (talk) 21:38, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

@George Ho: I would tell you, but I can't. The template has been Lua-ised, and is now Module:Article history, which is impenetrable. Nobody, despite pleadings from myself and others, has yet explained how one may examine a Lua module to determine a list of valid parameters. I can't even find parameters like itndate or otddate which are both documented and known to work. I had hoped that if I could locate the code for those, there would be something nearby what would reveal the name of the associated oldid param. Nor can I find the three-letter combinations "itn" or "otd". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:05, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
You could, you know, read the documentation? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:50, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
  • @Mr. Stradivarius, did you write the module? If so, can you help us here? – czar 22:54, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
    Sure. The oldid parameters are only currently available for actions, e.g. action1oldid and action2oldid. There isn't an equivalent oldid parameter for itn or otd. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:50, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Documentation is not always up to date. There have been many cases of a parameter being added or removed with the doc not being suitably amended. When somebody says "what's the param to do such-and-such", I first look at the doc; if it's not there I look at the template code. If it's three lines with the first one beginning {{#invoke: I think "oh shoot, not again" and then have another bash at understanding Lua. But if I can't find anything that resembles the parameter in question - in this case a simple case-insensitive text search failed to turn up "itn" - I think "WHY do they make it so darned difficult?" and it's very annoying. So come on: why can't you show me how to extract a valid parameter list? Is it really so difficult? --Redrose64 (talk) 07:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it really is a hard task. For one thing, this module accepts an infinite number of parameters. For example, you can have action1, action2, ... actionn, and n can be as high as you like. Another reason is that Lua has variables, and you can store a parameter name inside a variable rather than having to explicitly declare the parameter name every time. And of course, you can load other modules without having to pass all the parameters through explicitly, which is the thing that has tripped you up this time (a search for "itn" in Module:Article history/config will give you better results). Getting an automatic list of parameters would require writing a Lua-parsing program in something like Metalua, which would be a big project, although there are some parsers out there already which you might be able to steal code from.

As for why I made this module so "difficult", there are two main reasons. The first is so that the code is easy to maintain. In this module, as far as possible, everything is defined only once. For example, if you want to change the name of the error-tracking category, all you need to do is change the "error-category" message in Module:Article history/config. Compare this to the old template, where the category name is repeated about 50 times. The second reason is to make it easy to move the module to different wikis. All of the content is in the config module, and if someone wants to use this module on another wiki, they can copy the main module as-is and they only have to edit the config module. The config module we use here is long and complex, but for other wikis it would probably be a lot simpler. (It might be a good idea to move some more of the logic from the config to the main module if other wikis might use it, but that's a project for another day.) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 08:34, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Would anyone mind if we removed OTD from this template? Since there is no more oldid link for OTD, it's not particularly useful to just list OTD dates without the corresponding history link. Thanks. —howcheng {chat} 16:16, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

How about adding otn1oldid, otn2oldid otd1oldid, otd2oldid ... parameters instead? It shouldn't be too hard to add the code for it. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 17:37, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
If you do that, you'll have to get AnomieBOT to fill that data in. —howcheng {chat} 19:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, could an otdoldid parameter please be added? It would enable merging all data from {{On this day}} into this template. – Editør (talk) 11:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Another request for this please! I want to add the four OTD links to the Talk:Charlie Chaplin article history but it isn't possible. --Loeba (talk) 13:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
Ok, I've started the process of coding this up. I've added code to the module to populate Category:Article history templates with linked otd dates to see whether it would be better to switch to an oldid-based system only, or whether we need to grandfather in the old link parameters. After it has finished populating we can fix any pages that need fixing add then add the code proper. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 00:05, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
That's great. I don't watch this page so would you mind letting me know (via ping or talk page) when it is sorted? Big thanks! --Loeba (talk) 13:14, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
@Loeba and Howcheng: I've just added them - check the template page for the new documentation. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:49, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Anomie so that AnomieBOT can correctly populate the template... —howcheng {chat} 01:19, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Deletion to Quality Award

I've created the WP:Deletion to Quality Award.

This recognizes editors who've taken a page previously considered for deletion — to Featured Article or Good Article quality.

The award is inspired by the Wikipedia:Million Award, the Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron, and the Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality Article Improvement.

Please see Wikipedia:Deletion to Quality Award.

Thank you,

— Cirt (talk) 00:49, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

How to find intersection of FAs that were previously at AFD ?

I thought the technical minded people here might be able to help me with this:

See above notice about new award, WP:Deletion to Quality Award.

I'd like to somehow find Featured Articles and Good Articles — that were previously considered for deletion at Articles for Deletion.

Is there a way to use the Template:Article history or categories some how to do this?

Thank you for your help,

— Cirt (talk) 00:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

@Cirt: You could do it with this template if AfD is recorded as an action, yes. I'm not sure how widely recorded AfD actions are with this template, though - there are bound to be some that aren't picked up. Do featured lists also count towards the award, by the way? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:10, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
@Mr. Stradivarius:Yes, this template does record AfD as an action, frequently. Yes, most definitely Featured Lists count towards the award. So, how to find the intersection between AFD and FA / FL / GA as two actions, together? — Cirt (talk) 01:12, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
@Cirt: It would involve adding code to Module:Article history/config that searches through the actions to find an AfD action, checks to see whether the current status is FA, GA or FL, then puts the page in a category. (Maybe Category:Possible Deletion to Quality Award candidates, unless you can think of a better name?) — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:16, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Rather keep it simple and just call it same name as award, Category:Deletion to Quality Award candidates. But yeah -- can you do that, please? — Cirt (talk) 01:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Ok, the code is now deployed. I'm guessing that in time you might want something a little more complicated, maybe similar to what is done at Category:Possible Wikipedia four award articles. Let me know and I'll code it up for you. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:41, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Also, maybe we should exclude discussions that were closed as speedy keep? — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:42, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Speedy keep is okay to keep. Just wouldn't want to award it for "April Fools" nominations, and maybe other silly stuff like that. Could certainly be fodder for discussion at WT:DELQUAL. — Cirt (talk) 02:06, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
I've changed the detection so that as well as having to be a GA, FL, or FA, the article must also have been through GAN (for GAs only), FLC (for FLs only) or FAC (or FAs only), after it was nominated for deletion. That should cut down on the April-Fools-type false positives. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 02:19, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Wonderful, thank you, I was just thinking of the same idea, and you did it !!! — Cirt (talk) 02:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Rfc action parameter?

Would it be possible to include RfC as an action parameter, to include major RfCs in the life of the article? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 02:55, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Edit request 12 July 2016

Please wikilink "Guild of Copy Editors" to WP:GOCE. Example of this in use (w/o wikilinking) is located at Talk:Fallout 4: Far Harbor. Anarchyte (work | talk) 06:33, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

This involves some updates in Module:Article history. There appears to be queued up changes in its sandbox, so you might want to ping Mr. Stradivarius about this. (FYI, tried a very quick change just to see what would happen, and this isn't it.) — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 07:08, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
@Anarchyte: Actually, adding |action1link=WP:GOCE Solves the problem. Special:Diff/729808165. So there's no change necessary. — Andy W. (talk · ctb) 18:03, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
The sandbox code is nowhere near ready, so it would be fine to sync to the main module to test small changes out. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 04:21, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Failed GTC

How would I show a failed WP:Good topic candidates nom in this template. - Yellow Dingo (talk) 04:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC) I worked it out. - Yellow Dingo (talk) 04:53, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Remove DYK box and replace with article history statement

Hi, should I removed the DYK box (as on Hull Creek (Lackawanna River) at the bottom of the talk page templates because it is listed in the article history template, or should I keep both of them on the talk page? Icebob99 (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

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