Wikipedia talk:Non-admin closure

Should Template:nac (and variations) be substituted?

{{nac}}, {{nacd}}, {{RMnac}}, and {{RMpmc}} all have {{always substitute}} on their documentation. However, they are often not substituted, with transclusion counts near or in the thousands (except for {{nacd}}, which has 5). Should they be substituted? This appears to have been mentioned previously (e.g. here), but no definitive consensus was ever formed. I do not really have an opinion, other than we should either update the documentation or substitute the transclusions, because templates should follow their documentation. HouseBlaster^talk 03:12, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:Requested moves, Template talk:Non-admin closure, Wikipedia talk:Deletion process. HouseBlaster^talk 03:26, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

• I don't see what benefit would substituting 1000s of these templates would bring. I think documentation should reflect practice, and so transclusion should be optional. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 12:02, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
• Why are these templates meant to be substituted? I'm assuming that's because, given how very widely used they are, transcluding them would put some easily avoidable strain on the servers. These template have been themselves about 4,000 transclusions, which isn't that much as far as the servers are concerned, and I'd be surprised if that number goes up significantly in the future: most closures are done with the automated tools, and I'm assuming these will already correctly apply substitution (well, at least XFDcloser does). – Uanfala (talk) 12:08, 5 March 2023 (UTC)
• I don't really see a reason to force it. That just creates extra edits with no benefit. I don't see any harm in substituting it either though so perhaps just remove the {{always substitute}} tag and call it a day? I've heard that the reason for this may originally be PEIS issues, but given the size of ~just 66 that wouldn't be a problem if you don't have thousands of nacs on one page. --Trialpears (talk) 15:27, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

  I imagine the main technical reason to be something else: without substing, the template will have an ever growing number of transclusions, so any change to the template will force the mediawiki to re-render all the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of pages that use it. And there's probably a non-technical aspect as well: this template produces a boilerplate text for closed discussions: there's little need here for minor improvements to the display, while substantial changes would actually be disruptive, as they would alter the text and so change the message (that's similar to why user warning templates are always substituted). For these reasons, I think substing is still best practice, so the template's documentation should continue recommending it. – Uanfala (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

  If that's the case, why does it have the option of substing? Why not just set |auto=yes and have the bot fix any un-subst'd versions? Primefac (talk) 13:15, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

  Just a note about the implementation of autosubst'ing: all but one would need to go on User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force. HouseBlaster^talk 14:55, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

  Right, but that has nothing to do with this discussion. Primefac (talk) 09:46, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion regarding NACs at VPP

There is a discussion regarding this essay at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) § Taking the temperature on NACs in CTs. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

New template for recusal

I have created {{Recuse from closing a discussion}} for the benefit of closers who later decide to withdraw or recuse, and want a quick way to comment while removing the {{Closing}} message.

— Jruderman (talk) 03:30, 4 August 2024 (UTC)