Template talk:DYKsubpage

Documenting proposed changes to DYKsubpage, DYK top, and DYK bottom

This post is to document some changes to DYKsubpage, DYK top, and DYK bottom which I've made in their sandboxes that I hope to implement soon, especially if the bot request is approved.

Previous: Each DYK nomination is discussed on its own subpage of Template:Did you know which contains {{DYKsubpage}}, and that discussion is transcluded on the nomination page. When a DYK nomination is closed (promoted), {{DYKsubpage}} is substituted which substitutes {{DYK top}} and {{DYK bottom}}. Those two templates add <noinclude> tags around the whole nomination so that the closed discussion does not show up on the nomination page. This means that if the subpage containing the nomination discussion is transcluded anywhere, once the discussion is closed those transclusions will not show the discussion anymore.

Proposed: When {{DYK top}} and {{DYK bottom}} are substituted by {{DYKsubpage}}, instead of adding <noinclude> tags, they now wrap the discussion in a parser function which checks what namespace the discussion is being transcluded into. If the discussion is transcluded on the talk page of an article, it displays the entire discussion. If it is transcluded anywhere else, it does not display any text. Thus the behavior of the nomination subpages does not change on the nomination pages, but it does change its behavior in the Talk namespace where the discussion will now be viewable after the discussion is closed.

Testing: If you would like to see examples of the proposed behavior, a series of test pages have been set up in my userspace. User:Wugapodes/DYKsubpageTest is a mock discussion subpage. It shows the results of {{subst:DYKsubpage/sandbox}} which implements the proposed changes (the only change is that the parser function now tests for User talk rather than Talk for the purposes of testing). Like current behavior, the discussion subpage still displays the discussion wrapped in an archive box. User:Wugapodes/DYKsubpageTest/NomPageTest is what will be displayed if the discussion subpage is transcluded outside of the Talk namespace; nothing will show just like the previous behavior. User talk:Wugapodes/DYKsubpageTest shows the behavior when the discussion subpage is transcluded in the talk namespace (in this case, user talk, see above). It displays the entire nomination discussion, unlike the previous behavior.

These changes probably won't be implemented unless and until the bot is approved since, without it, the use case doesn't really exist. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 04:27, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

• Remind me why we're not just scrapping the whole noinclude thing. I suspect it was there because of some ancient problem with expansion limits being exceeded. Is it still needed for anything? EEng 04:55, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm not scrapping it mostly out of caution; I tend to prefer the smallest changes necessary to get the needed functionality. Since it's substituted rather than transcluded, it's hard to test if there are bugs. That said, I don't think the noincluding is needed for anything and would be fine removing it; it's an easy enough change. I don't expect any action on the BRFA for a couple days, so there's plenty of time to make a decision. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 07:39, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Edit request

Despite the edit request template, {{DYK bottom}} is template protected at the moment so I need a template editor. So that these templates do not go out of sync while this edit is done, I have set {{DYKsubpage}} to call the sandbox versions of {{DYK top}} and {{DYK bottom}}. Per the above I would like the current sandbox of {{DYK bottom}} moved to the main template (I have already done {{DYK top}} since it's not protected at all for some reason). Once you have moved the sandbox version into the main template, please undo this edit so that {{DYKsubpage}} calls the main templates again. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 20:15, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• note: I've adjusted the template to move this request out of Category:Wikipedia semi-protected edit requests as it requires a template editor to review and/or implement. NiciVampireHeart 21:35, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

  @NiciVampireHeart: you seem to know what you are doing on this one, I've added you temporary template editor access to fix this; please deactivate the edit-request when done. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:59, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Very kind, but eh, no, no I don't. I genuinely have no idea what the request is for and don't understand most of the section above this. I know just enough to know that this request didn't belong in Category:Wikipedia semi-protected edit requests and I knew enough to remove it from said category, while leaving it in Category:Wikipedia template-protected edit requests. I've no intention of messing around with templates, so you can remove the access. Thanks anyway, NiciVampireHeart 22:05, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Wugapodes: I lowered the protection level, you should be able to do this now. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:03, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 4 September 2020

Please merge the fix Special:Diff/976752348 from the sandbox. This fixes the issue of article talk pages being erroneously categorised in cats like Category:Passed_DYK_nominations_from_May_2020 and Category:Failed_DYK_nominations_from_May_2020.

I've tested and this appears to work, though I wouldn't mind a second look.

CC Wugapodes and Mandarax.

– SD0001 (talk) 19:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done Behaves as it should in template space and when transcluded, LGTM. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:10, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes and SD0001: could you actually... undo that change for open nominations? I'd like to be able to cross-reference open DYK-nominated pages with other categories, and the transcluding a category for open nominations onto article talk pages would be super helpful for that. something that wouldn't be limited by month, though; just all the open DYK-nominated pages in one category. As a prep-builder, it's really nice to be able to keep a finger on the pulse of how many U.S.-related nominations there are, how many bios, etc. and this would be a godsend. Thanks! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 07:44, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

something like {{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Talk|[[Category:Articles that have been nominated for Did you know]]}}, although I'm not sure where it should go in the DYKsubpage template. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 07:53, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron: Done in Special:Diff/1062940043. – SD0001 (talk) 08:21, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

thanks so much! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 09:27, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 10 March 2022

Instead of adding the {{REVISIONUSER}} template from {{DYK top}} when the subpage is closed, can the template please add the signature in the form of {{subst:4~}}? Mostly a stylistic thing, but I think it's still a good idea. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 23:20, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made or where you want to make them. The {{REVISIONUSER}} appears to be passed by the DYK top template, and so it's not found in this DYKsubpage template. Please give specific instructions as if you were giving them to a four-year-old. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 23:16, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

btw, theleekycauldron I tried to sub your suggestion, {{subst:4~}}, and it didn't work, so be sure you test your proposed edit thoroughly either in the template sandbox or in your user sandbox. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 13:38, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

P.I. Ellsworth: You'll want something more like this sandbox edit I made, I believe. For the four-year old in the room, you'll want to replace {{safesubst:User0|User={{safesubst:REVISIONUSER}}}} {{safesubst:#time: H:i, j F Y (e)|{{safesubst:CURRENTTIMESTAMP}}}} with {{safesubst:4~}} in {{DYK top}} (this is the discussion page for that template as well). theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 17:07, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

To editor ­theleekycauldron: okay, now I see where I went wrong, I just replaced the {{REVISIONUSER}} magic word with {{subst:4~}} and got all sorts of garbage when tested. Good that you placed the change in the sandbox, thank you for that. Now, just curious, why do you suppose this is "still a good idea"? P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 18:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Paine Ellsworth: well, if you'd like the selfish reason—it's because I put my pronouns in my signature, and I'd like that to be visible when I close a nom. But, more broadly, it seems to be pretty much accepted practice that closes are signed off on with the closer's personal signature, and I don't see why this should be the exception. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 07:34, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, that places this out of my hands, because it seems that while your "selfish" reason is in my humble opinion a good one, it is something that consensus should decide. The magic words were added with this edit in January of 2020 with the edit summary by editor Wugapodes of "Fix bug where use of ~~~~ would ping people". So this would be a good time and place for the discussion to begin, yes? I'd like to hear more about the "ping" issue. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 08:07, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron & Paine Ellsworth: IIRC, there was a problem with the Echo extension where closing the discussion ended up pinging every participant which was unwanted. Echo only triggers on signed posts, and the function that looks for signatures searches for strings which match the editor's ~~~ expansion. The simplest workaround then was to just not use a tilde-based signature so that Echo never finds one and therefore never triggers. Whether that bug is still present in Echo, I don't know; probably something to test. There might be other workarounds that are possible, but I'm not familiar enough with Echo to come up with anything more clever. mw:Manual:Echo is a little out-of-date but the broad strokes are still reliable. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

@Paine Ellsworth and Wugapodes: well, the easy workaround would be to create a {{DYK subpage end}} or something like that, so that the content of the discussion is moved outside the DYKsubpage template. We could also use regexreplace strings to display user signatures as nopings. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 19:51, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

@Theleekycauldron and Paine Ellsworth:I guess I should clarify that other workarounds are possible, but they come with serious implementation and maintenance costs. While I agree with Paine that your reason for wanting signatures in the template is a good one, the consequences of it are non-trivial. Signatures as a class frequently break things, not just at DYK but for most automated tasks, and reintroducing signatures would add a huge amount of variability into an already fragile system of templates. Workarounds which make the templates more complex also make them more fragile, and in general I'd like to move the DYK infrastructure towards a less fragile state. The "username (talk) timestamp" gives the necessary closer info without introducing much complexity and eliminates a source of variability which would lead to potential bugs. It's a robust solution to the ping problem and the effects on the rest of the system are minimal.

The two alternate options don't strike me as particularly easy, and I'm also not really sure that they'd work. All I know is that Echo triggers when it finds the added text matches a user's signature, so a sure-fire way to prevent Echo from triggering is to make sure the format used doesn't match. Any solution which reintroduces signatures runs into a lot of unknowns. I never learned what about the page caused the pings, so whatever caused Echo to trigger last time might still be there and the reintroduction of signatures would make it possible to happen again. Since I don't know what the cause of the bug was, I don't know what other workaround would fix it. The bug might not even be there anymore if devs changes something in the last 2 years to fix it. If we're going to accept those unknowns, then it would be better to avoid added complexity, revert to the ~~<noinclude />~~ version, and just wait to see what happens. As for regular expressions, they are a fragile solution which would require rewriting this template in Lua and converting all userpage wikilinks to external links. To get everything to work like {{noping}}, we'd need to either add tons of extra HTML to the source (making the wikitext a mess) or use the template directly (making DYK's problems with the transclusion limit worse).

So with all that in mind, I'd suggest starting a discussion at WT:DYK about whether custom signatures or default signatures should be used in {{DYK top}}. If there's a consensus for custom signatures, then we can just restore the old revision, see if the bug returns, and take it from there. — Wug·a·po·des​ 06:15, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

That does sound like the most plausible way to progress. This is definitely a controversial issue that begs for other editors' inputs and consensus. P.I. Ellsworth - ed. ^put'r there 02:19, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Hey, @Wugapodes and Paine Ellsworth: I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to this; the page's status as "off the beaten path" meant that it kind of dropped off my radar screen. Wugapodes, thanks as always for an incisive and well thought-out response. I think there might be a few other benefits in splitting the top and bottom parts of the template—it can allow for use of the reply-link in discussion (instead of viewing the wikitext) and removes the burden of everyone in the discussion to make sure to write in the template (the prep set builder can just add the bottom when promoting). To be honest, getting WT:DYK to agree to small technical changes sometimes feels like pulling teeth; not sure I want to put my hands in the jaws again at the moment. So thank you both for the refreshing nuance, and possibly to be continued :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/they) 05:44, 6 April 2022 (UTC)