Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Plastikspork (talk | contribs) at 20:42, 6 January 2010 (→‎My problem with dates: re). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


Category

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was consensus for move to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Per below, I am not moving any of the log pages (and glad to not even have to think about the Herculean task) and to sum up for future TfD discussion log creators and bot masters, from now forward the logs should be at Templates for discussion/Log/YEAR MONTH DAY. Because requested moves and WP:CFD are separate processes, please list the category renaming there and reference this discussion.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Wikipedia:Templates for deletionWikipedia:Templates for discussion

For the time being the Tfm templates add tagged articles to Category:Templates for deletion. I'd like to raise the question now, should we rename that to Category:Templates for discussion perhaps, or should we make a separate Category:Templates for merging, or should we use the general Category:Items to be merged. Debresser (talk) 05:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps rename this page Wikipedia:Templates for discussion? And make a Category:Templates for discussion including Category:Templates for deletion and Category:Templates for merging, or just Category:Templates for discussion for both? Debresser (talk) 17:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support I would be in favor of a change to 'Templates for discussion', and redirect all 'Templates for deletion' to 'Templates for discussion'. Someone should figure out how much work would be involved, in terms of bots, and how many redirects we are talking about. The disadvantage to splitting is that TFD doesn't have that much traffic and splitting would create additional overhead. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No work at all. A simple redirect and time will do all that is needed. The bot owners should be watching here, if they are conscientious. If you know of any, they can be notified. Debresser (talk) 19:56, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support changing the overall name of the TfD process to "Templates for Discussion", as previously discussed at the village pump and elsewhere. One suggestion in the village pump discussion was not to rename the past discussion logs, both because it could create confusion for people reading the archives and because it would greatly expand the amount of work needed for the transition. But I support renaming this page, the log pages from the change date forward, and the category. I don't see a need to subdivide the category unless the number of discussions grows. --RL0919 (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jafeluv has also expressed his support on my talkpage, but recommended to list the discussion at Wikipedia:Requested moves also. Which I do by this. Debresser (talk) 09:10, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's right. I'd also like to point out the earlier discussions here and here, both of which seemed to favour moving the main TfD page but leaving old subpages where they are. Jafeluv (talk) 09:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - it's clear that TfD deals with a lot more than simple "delete and delink" operations, with people proposing mergers, redeployment, deprecation, etc. I think it would be beneficial to centralize such discussion in the hope that people stop treating this like AfD and remember that TfD is more often a technical discussion than anything else, even more so after this change. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 16:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have unanimous consensus for the move. Please notice that all deletion and merge templates use the term "Templates for deletion". It would be proper to change that. A complete list of all deletion templates is found on any of them, and a complete list of merging templates on any of them. Alternatively, I can fix all of them, apart from the editprotected {{Tfd}}. BTW, nobody wants to make it semi-protected? It is not really that heavily in use, now is it. Debresser (talk) 11:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitly a WP:HRT. The transclusion count will be low since it's a fast-moving template - it sits on a template for a week or two then goes. 81.110.104.91 (talk) 08:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Wow

I wasn't aware that this was being considered. This totally should have been posted at Cent. I mean I would've supported it, but this seems so monumental, and has been discussed ad nauseum before... I don't know how well this decision will hold up with such a tiny little discussion. Equazcion (talk) 02:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC) Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Templates_for_Deletion_is_now_Templates_for_Discussion Equazcion (talk) 03:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Totally disputed

Template:Totally-disputed was nominated for deletion in Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2009_January_22. The result of the disussion was delete. It has since been redirected, Tdeprecated, and in general kicked and beaten. I say it's time to delete it. Debresser (talk) 13:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Somebody seems to have reacted to this post with swift and deadly force. :) Debresser (talk) 13:37, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question about appropriateness of Public Finance template and others of its type

I am concerned about Template:Public_finance. It is billed as grouping "a series of related articles". The template, which includes a picture, is placed prominently at the top of many articles included in the template. I have only seen this type of template on articles that have some relation to law and economics, and I don't like the effects or the precident they set. They seem to say that this is a "law article" or "economics article" and frame the approach that the article will take to the topic. They are created by Wikiprojects-- the public Finance template even has a link to the wikiproject. Aren't these things really a navigation templates, and don't they belong at the bottom of the article without a picture, and without a link to a wikiproject? Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These are often called "sidebars". They exist for a variety of different subjects, not just law and economics, although they do seem to be most common for humanities and social science topics. There are sidebars such as {{Jews and Judaism sidebar}}, {{Psychology sidebar}}, {{Feminism sidebar}}, {{Liberalism sidebar}}, {{Transgender sidebar}}, {{Snooker tournaments sidebar}}, etc. Some have pictures and some don't. If there is a bad effect, it is widespread. --RL0919 (talk) 18:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the explanation. These templates are in some more places than I knew of. Still, they still seem to be in a small minority of all articles or topics, the overwhelming majority of articles in the encyclopedia don't have them. It looks to me that they are usually added to controversial topics (I consider economics and psychology to be controversial, too, because their scientific bases and the conclusions they reach are questioned). This backs up my theory. Diderot's dreams (talk) 16:52, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transition for log naming

Now that the page name has been changed to "Templates for discussion", I'm wondering exactly how the transition for the logs will work. The current day page (Oct 14) is still under the "deletion" naming, but the consensus above was to move discussion logs to the new name going forward, without changing the old ones. To complete this transition, I believe all of the following need to be done, but rather than just doing them I'm listing them here, partly because I can't do all of them and partly because I don't want to break anything by missing an important step:

  • Starting as soon as possible, the new TfD log pages should be created at [[Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/<date>]]. These are created by User:Zorglbot, so I assume it will need to be reprogrammed.
  • The previous day/next day links at the top of the pages at the transition point (e.g., October 14 and October 15 if the bot is reprogrammed today) will need to be manually edited to link to the correct pages from the other naming scheme.  Done Plastikspork
  • A new Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/Archives needs to be created.  Done Plastikspork
  • The existing archive page at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Archives should be updated to note the transition to the new system.  Done (updated calendar links and created redirects for all days in October) Plastikspork
  • The redirect for WP:TFD/L needs to be updated.  Done Plastikspork
  • The search box for the archives needs to be fixed. Currently it automatically bases the search on the pagename, which means it now pulls zero results because there are no archives under the new name. I'm not sure if the search can be fixed to search both naming schemes, or perhaps we will need two search boxes?  Done (Remarkably, it works to just shorten the prefix to "Templates for d") Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:06, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please feel free to add or delete from the list above, or mark any items complete that have already been done. --RL0919 (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I ended up moving all the October logs to make the Archive calendar work without redirects. I don't think we need to move any logs earlier than October, but it's nice to have a clean break at a month boundary. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 03:07, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In case no one's paying attention above, I wanted to inform you of this ANI thread, regarding this move decision. Equazcion (talk) 03:33, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is still {{Tfdend}}. If changed to discussion it will break a lot of links. I guess it first needs to be subst everywhere before it can be changed. Garion96 (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I added some "ifexists" logic to {{tfdend}}, so there should be no issues? Let me know if you see one with a broken link. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 22:52, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did not even realised you fixed it already. It seems to work. Garion96 (talk) 23:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help explain

Could anybody here help me give an answer on Template_talk:Merge#Instruction_creep? Debresser (talk) 22:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help

I have tried to nominated templates for deletion, but for some reason, it keeps failing to post on this page. Could someone explain or fix the problem? Thanks. Wildhartlivie (talk) 07:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Answered on user talkpage. Debresser (talk) 10:41, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Navigation header

Anyone know what's up lately with the day before/day after navigation header not appearing on some of the log pages? I've placed it manually three times in the past week, most recently today. From the page histories, it appears that the header was missing when these days were first created. But on other days it is there from the start. Is it just the editors who create the pages forgetting to include it, because they aren't being created by the bot since the name transition? Or is something else going on? --RL0919 (talk) 15:18, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The bot has been not operating as expected. It as as you ascertained; "the editors who create the pages forgetting to include it". The latest problem is that it appears the bot is running an hour late (daylight saving time). The bot operator has been alerted to the problem. Thanks for helping sort out the glitches! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:30, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Making anchor links work at TfD

It seems links that point to a specific section of a TfD log page don't work. This is primarily a problem for me because I frequently use the "→" links displayed in the watchlist, which are normally supposed to take us directly to the section that was edited. This functionality appears to have been lost at TfD. Try this link, for instance, which I copied from my watchlist, and is supposed to take you directly to the Template:Outdent discussion in the middle of the page.

I believe (but could be wrong) that the problem has to do with the standard of naming TfD section headers using the {{ucfirst:}} magic word. I'd like to know among other things why this is important, as from what I've read all it does is make the first character uppercase. If it is important, is there a workaround to get anchor links working again even with this magic word is being used in header names? Equazcion (talk) 19:19, 7 Nov 2009 (UTC)

Looks like manually-created anchor links work. Only the automatically-created "→" links don't work, such as in the watchlist, history, etc.

Again I'd like to know if ucfirst is actually of any importance, or can it possibly be scrapped to bring back this convenient function. Equazcion (talk) 19:42, 7 Nov 2009 (UTC)

Templates redundant to "better" templates

One of the reasons listed for deleting a template is if it is redundant to a "better" template.

Here are the following issues I have with that:

  • How is it determined which template is "better?" Can it really be safely determined in just a week that an existing template that has been around some time is "better" than one that has been around for only one day?
  • Why does it have to be deleted? In main namespace, if two articles are redundant, the practice is to merge the two article, thereby retaining all useful information in both, as well as the edit histories of both.
  • The average deletion discussion gets comments from only a handful of users (typically 10-20). When there are perhaps millions of users of Wikipedia in all, how can this safely be determined to be a "consensus?" If you let something be around for more than just a week or a day, you can get a lot of comment, which would enable others to see what works and what doesn't.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hellno2 (talkcontribs)

  • That is "better" in the eyes of the nominating editor.
  • In practise often enough a template is completely replaced by another template. If need be it can be tagged for merging as well.
  • An encyclopedia (in bookform) is read by millions of people also, yet only a handfull of editorial staff decide what consensus is.

Debresser (talk) 21:51, 12 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

category:Templates for deletion

Something is screwed up with placing this category. It is transcluded into thousands of articles. - Altenmann >t 21:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is due to the nomination of {{City-state}}. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way we can modify {{Tfd}} and {{Tfd-inline}} so they place the nominated template into this category without placing every page into which it is transcluded? I assume the purpose of the category is to be able to quickly see what templates are up for deletion, not to see all the affected pages. --RL0919 (talk) 00:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In some cases, I would say it is appropriate to put the {{tfd}} inside a <noinclude>...</noinclude>. The idea is, of course, to balance the need for notification with the drawback of excessive tagging inside the article text. I think this particular case certainly qualifies for a noinclude (and I will perform the necessary modification). Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine for this case, but I was hoping for something that could be implemented within the code for {{Tfd}} and {{Tfd-inline}} that would allow the notifications to appear on the articles without the articles also being added to the category. But it may be that it can't be done that way. --RL0919 (talk) 00:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We could add a "nocat" option that would put the cat inside a noinclude? Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:57, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But wouldn't that keep the nominated template from going into the category also? I think the ideal result is a combination of three results: 1) notification appears on articles that use the nominated template, 2) nominated template appears in Category:Templates for deletion, 3) articles that use the nominated template do not appear in Category:Templates for deletion. I can think of various ways to accomplish one or two of those, but not all three at once. But I'm not a template-coding expert, so maybe there is a way I don't know of. --RL0919 (talk) 01:03, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In case you cannot easily combine all three, please notice that the list of all nominated pages may be found by "What links there" from {{Tfd}}. Please also notice that as it currently works it is completely useless for search. - Altenmann >t 03:05, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe we can accomplish all three by putting a namespace restriction around the Category (e.g., {{ns0}}). Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 16:07, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I added logic to restrict transclusions of the category to the template namespace. This isn't a perfect fix, in that if another template transcludes a template being considered for deletion, then they both appear in the category. However, that shouldn't happen very often. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 16:17, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Templates for deletion looks way better now. Thanks. - Altenmann >t 17:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just created this template and Template:Procedural policy after agreement here that Template:Official policy is inadequate as a nutshell on relevant policy pages. I just made the appropriate changes to the text, and it seems to work, but maybe more needs to be done, I don't know. I didn't create /doc pages. - Dank (push to talk) 16:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

While working on recoding the unified template {{Xfdl}}, I noticed that TfD has been moved from Wikipedia:Templates for deletion to Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Unfortunately, this is going to cause a lot of problems with the template along with {{Tfdl}} and {{Tfdl2}}, which are used by some project in their deletion archives. The latter two templates currently links to logs at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/. However, new TfD will now be logged under Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/. I can't think a good way to approach this problem eloquently without some sort of ugly hack. I've already had to use a hack for the old Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. But at least there, the whole structure of the deletion logs changed, making a hack justifiable. —Farix (t | c) 03:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We solved this problem by using some 'ifexist' logic (see {{being deleted}} for example). If there is an existing template which is broken, let me know and I can help fix it. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 15:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with using 'ifexist' is that these templates are transcluded hundreds of times on the deletion sorting page. This causes the the transclusion limits to trip and breaks down. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Anime and manga/Deletion Archive for an example. It's easier to simply create redirects, which is what I'm in the process of doing for the 2009 logs. —Farix (t | c) 19:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've finished creating redirects to the past logs. So there should be no need for 'ifexist' anymore. —Farix (t | c) 16:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See more discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#XfD logs. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 16:09, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That thread is about a wider discrepancy in naming schemes for the logs. WP:SfD and WP:FfD being the most prominent. —Farix (t | c) 19:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TFD Helper bot

Hey TFD,

I wrote a simple python script to do duties (such as substitution and orphaning) on-demand. I was thinking the bot would work like this.

A TFD discussion ends in delete, or substitute.

An admin goes to the bots control page, (here) and request that the bot start.

Automatically, the bot starts, and logs what it does. (Note that there can be more then one request going at a time) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tim1357 (talkcontribs) 21:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My problem with dates

So, I just realized that I efficiently and thoroughly closed a day's worth of discussions ... one day early. Apparently I need to look at my calendar more closely. I doubt I've changed the outcomes by doing it early, but if anyone wants a specific discussion re-opened (and the associated template undeleted, since they all closed as delete), I will obviously do so without even a peep of protest. --RL0919 (talk) 20:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They all appear to be relatively uncontroversial closes, so I don't foresee a problem either. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 20:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]