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July 10

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Template:Spotlight working

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was keep. JPG-GR (talk) 06:11, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Spotlight working (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Looking for further comment on the necessity of this template. It's the same thing as {{under construction}}, except personalized. –blurpeace (talk) 15:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep I see this as fulfilling a useful role, specific to the WP:SPOTLIGHT concept; it a) indiates a very short-term edit in progress, b) helps make this clear to others who are collaborating, and c) also serves to show spotlight in action to other users. Of course, it is up to individuals whether they choose to use it, but as for its deletion, I see no policy reason that it should be removed.  Chzz  ►  20:57, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment, shouldn't the {{under construction}} template fulfill "a" and "b," as to why it was created, and "c" is notified through the {{spotlight}} template issued to all articles being working on by Spotlight (and through the history tab)? ACID only uses a talk page template, and has no "specialized templates" that overlap the function of others. –blurpeace (talk) 21:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment well, I've always disliked {{under construction}} personally - it looks like very old-fashioned websites. It's a wiki, if course it's under construction, all of it. But other people seem to like it, so I have no problem with it being there. I don't see WP:IDONTLIKEIT as a good reason to TfD it though.  Chzz  ►  00:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment, isn't it a bit hypocritical (if it was true) to say that my argument is based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT when yours is the same? My argument is based on the idea that it is overlapping in function with another established template, thus making it unnecessary. –blurpeace (talk) 05:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per chzz.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 21:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment, though I dislike doing this, for the closing administrator, this can be categorized as a sheep !vote (has a history – on IRC – of mostly agreeing with Chzz outright, no questions asked). –blurpeace (talk) 20:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As the template creator I saw the usefulness of this template explained by Chzz, especially points a and b. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 18:17, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Top ten female golfers

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete. JPG-GR (talk) 03:37, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Top ten female golfers (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

The template for male golfers was nominated for TfD and the concensus was delete (see Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_July_21#Template:Top_ten_male_golfers. It seems that the same rationale should apply to both templates. Deville (Talk) 02:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is similar and is allowed I don't get it? Explain Please!98.240.44.215 (talk) 03:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Ref indent

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete, with no prejudice toward any adjustments made to integrate it into {{refbegin}} if the community can agree to them. JPG-GR (talk) 22:50, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Ref indent (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
Template:Ref indent end (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This template, in wide use in articles on South American history, appears to be an arbitrary deviation in style from the normal reference markup provided by {{refbegin}}, and apparently has display issues on different browsers. If the indentation it provides is desirable then it should be added to {{refbegin}} itself rather than having two templates with slightly different formatting. Recommend that this is redirected to {{refbegin}}. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Unless and until this "hanging paragraph" format is added to {{refbegin}} template, this template series is necessary; it is the way of producing hanging paragraphs in "Bibliography", "Works cited", "References" or "Further reading" lists (not notes lists), and it results in separating alphabetized bibliographical entries so that they are easier to perceive (pick out) of a list. Use of asterisks producing bullets is neither conventional bibliographical format nor easy to read and is unfamiliar format for many readers who are not Wikipedia editors. Bullets are suitable for External links sections, but not for bibliographical lists. Unless the hanging paragraph (indent) feature is available in the {{refbegin}} (which is probably unlikely, since it does not work with bullets properly and most Wikipedia editors may still want to use bullets), deleting this template series and redirecting to {{refbegin}} will leave Wikipedia editors with no way of creating hanging paragraphs, and all those articles already using the template series, will lose their hanging paragraph format. --NYScholar (talk) 10:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FYI: Here's an example of my usage of it in Bibliography for Harold Pinter. --NYScholar (talk) 01:53, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Given that there is currently discussion regarding a motion to topic ban you from that subject specifically because of your refusal to keep to Wikipedia's accepted refencing styles, I don't see that as a positive example. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:44, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That is not an argument. NYScholar being banned for his bad conduct does not reflect on the template that he and other editors use.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary: it seems very pertinent to note that NYScholar's opinion on referencing above is incongruous with that of the wider community to the point where his continued insistence on using it actually led to a site-wide ban. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it isn't -it is the logical Fallacy of association. And furthermore NYScholar's ban wasn't carried out because of his ideas about citation styles specifically. His personal misconduct was a much larger issue. Frankly I find it insulting that you seem to put other editors in favour of the template in the same category as problematical editors merely on the grounds of preferring a hanging indent. ·Maunus·ƛ· 14:54, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's misdirection. having several different citation styles for no particularly good reason is a bad idea. It's a bad idea when NYScholar did it, which is one of the several reasons he was sanctioned, and it's a bad idea when other people do it. I'm not implying cause and effect so much as simply pointing out that this conclusion was already separately reached outside this TfD. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:19, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe that the use of less common citation styles is so undesirable as to merit disciplinary measures (you actually seem to imply that it was an important part of the decision to ban NYScholar) then I think you should start by gaining consensus for this opinion and inserting it in the MOS. Currently the manual of styles allow any number of different citations styles as long as they are consistent within the article - it even states that other editors should use the citation style used by the main editor of an article (NYScholar was quite possibly the "main" editor of Harold Pinter). In short you are fudging the issue by suggesting that NYScholar's ban shows a consensus for allowing only one kind of citations styles while the fact is that no such consensus has ever been reached and that multiple citation styles are explicitly allowed by the MOS. There is no valid reason in policy for deteling this template the use of which is currently sanctioned by the MOS. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[Point of information:] I am not currently banned. Your statement is irrelevant to the consideration of this particular discussion about a template. Whether or not you see it "as a positive example", any trained bibliographer will. Please stop injecting unresolved "Wikipedia politics" pertaining to a contributor into a discussion of "Templates for deletion"; to do so is disruptive, in my view. (cont.)
My point is to provide an illustration of the use of the template in Wikipedia. It is appropriate for me to provide a current example of a usage of hanging paragraphs in this discussion. I provided the link to a bibliography that is not the subject of disputes as a bibliography. Many other bibliographies in Wikipedia still use the hanging paragraph/template under discussion here. (cont.)
Please see the rationales for the template by its creator (directly below), the use of it in "See also" sections pertaining to such highly developed lists in WP:MOS, where it remains an option to use (especially if one takes into account the statement at the top of the page of WP:MOS, and the "comment/question" provided and raised by cjllw, which are entirely reasonable and which provide links to Featured articles in Wikipedia that currently use this template. Those comments are in the spirit of this template deletion discussion. Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 17:10, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. When I created this template over a year and a half ago now, it was designed to address a specific problem of usability and readability. It has a practical intent, not an arbitrary or purely stylistic one. The issue concerns how alpha-sorted bibliography lists such as references (not "Notes" or inline cites produced by {{reflist}}) are most often used and read. Bibliographies are consulted, not read like normal text—that is to say the reader turns to the section in order to look something up (namely a specific reference or source). The reader needs to be able to pick out the keywords—usually author(s)' names, publ. year—from the bibliographic list in order to find the reference work sought.

    Unfortunately the default (read: absence of any) presentational style for bibliographies in wikipedia is in undifferentiated bulleted-list format. When the length of the biblio list grows beyond a few entries, and individual entries start to word-wrap over two or more lines (as they are easily wont to do when the references are to scholarly publications in many fields, eg a chapter by multiple authors in an edited book or conference proceeding), then it becomes increasingly irritating & tiresome to pick out what you are looking for from the undifferentiated mass of text, or even to tell where one reference finishes and the next begins. By using a hanging indent, this template rectifies both: individual entries can be told apart at a glance, and the keyword/s (authors' names) being looked for stand out, easily identifiable by running your eye (as it is naturally inclined to do) down the left-hand side of the list.

    If this approach seems novel or 'nonstandard' in wikipedia, might I suggest that this has more to do with the majority of articles paying little-to-no attention to the readability or functionality of their bibliographies/references sections. The formatting provided by this template is not really deviating from some consciously applied and thought-out presentational standard; the default is an absence of any standard. It also has to do with many/most articles' references containing only the bare minimum of information to identify a specific work cited—quite often, less than a bare minimum. If an article's given references are no more than A.N. Author, Some Book then this template prob doesn't help much. But for those editors & articles that do provide a fuller description of the work cited, it is useful.

    It also has the advantage of mirroring more closely how the vast majority of real-world bibliography listings (print & online) are presented. Take at random and non-fiction work that may be to hand, look at its bibliography. You can be practically guaranteed that it will employ some kind of typographical device to separate its entries and highlight the keywords, eg. indents, other offset spacings, bolding, caps, etc. It's all done essentially for a common reason—the reader's eye soon grows tired when confronted with masses and slabs of text. Try reading a mediaeval manuscript or an 18thC newspaper, & one can readily appreciate why innovations such as spacing between words and paragraphs caught on. It's bad enough when you're just reading, but exacerbated if you're looking for something specific in a sea of letters.

    I do not think this template should be merged or incorporated in {{refbegin}} either. This latter template (which I wouldn't describe as 'normal reference markup'), has a different function, primarily all it does is reduce the text's font size ("references-small"). As refbegin is already deployed at who knows how many articles, I doubt it would be appreciated if all these unexpectedly started indenting the text as well.

    Not everyone will find the hanging indent style useful or warranted, and nor should they be forced to use it. Others, besides myself, evidently do find it useful, and there's no reason to desist. It doesn't contravene any policy, nor any MOS guideline. As noted it is used in 100s of articles by now, without any ill-effect. I know of at least 4 Featured Articles that use {{ref indent}}, its presence during FAC did not provoke any apoplectic comments from the FA reviewers. It is no more unnecessary than any of the hundreds other formatting templates and code options available, tidily formatted infoboxes, and the like.

    One last comment, the so-called browser display issue is not really the template's issue, it's a minor glitch in the way MSIE treats bullets, differently and counterintiutively to other browsers. All that happens is the bullet marker in MSIE shifts to the right (ie is indented as well), and so looks a little untidy. The issue is trivially solved however, by using invisible bullet markers—a colon (:) instead of an asterisk (*)—in front of each entry, just how it's done on a daily basis on talkpages, when indenting one's comments beneath another's. I should prob update the doco to make this clearer.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    The {{refbegin}} template does not have a different use: its purpose is to format the references section for readability. If you believe that indentation is desirable then the best thing to do would be to argue to have it added to {{refbegin}}, as it is far more widely deployed. Currently, the effect is that a certain portion of our articles (mainly the ones under your purview) arbitarily deviate in their style of referencing from the rest of the encyclopedia. Whether the MoS dictates one style or another or not is a red herring; it should be obvious that a basic level of consistency is desirable even if it is not stringently enforced by policy. Most of the keeps so far have completely ignored this basic point in favour of the "I like the way this one looks better" argument, which was not the reason for nomination. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Per CJLL Wright. It is the best style for readability of references.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Very easy to find the author and distinguish between works when this template is used. Simon Burchell (talk) 17:54, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The result looks awful. MOS prescribes a bulleted list for references, and that is a better format than this one; it is just as readable even in a long reference list. I just discovered this template while looking up Robert Brown (botanist) (mentioned in a book I am reading). It is used to format the Publications section, and it just looks like a mistake: a huge hanging indent, like nothing in any publication I have seen. I was going to go in and fix the formatting, then I saw that it was a template nominated for deletion, so here I am. Finell (Talk) 21:29, 29 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The way in which the template is used in that Robert Brown article (without the authors' names + publ. year keywords) is not quite how it was envisioned. For some examples that are more representative and closer to intended usage, try looking at Ciconiiformes#References, Mesoamerican ballgame#References (this one accommodating text flow around images), Church of Divine Science#References, Trepanation in Mesoamerica#References, Mayan languages#References or Sylvanus Morley#References (these last two are Featured Articles). See if you think these look any better, and consider whether they achieve the stated purposes above of readability and enhancing visibility of the very keywords one looks for to locate an entry in the list. Would it be said that the hanging indents obscure the content and appearance of the reference, or would it not be that it makes each reference entry a little more distinct and easier to pick out as a unit block?

      Re whether MOS prescribes bulleted lists (and I would sincerely argue that it does not), bullets are not part of the template or under discussion, it's the indentation that the nominator appears to be objecting to. And I don't believe the MOS says anything specific about hanging indents in references, one way or the other.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. I agree that the hanging indent style looks awful. The bulleted list for references is more compact and much easier to follow; it is also consistent with the way the wiki software displays the footnotes. The whole point of having the MOS is to try to have some consistency from one article to the next on Wikipedia. Individual editors should not be able to design their own non-MOS reference formats. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment/question. As I mentioned in the edit summary of my previous posting here, I would like to consider and address some of the additional points raised by Chris C. , but am running short of time right now. That will have to be for another day or hour, as soon as I get the chance. However, in the interim I wonder whether the nominator or someone else might care to explain something to me. If the effect produced by this template is so deviant and contrary to MOS sensibilities that it demands deletion, then how is it possible that on at least four separate occasions articles using it have passed Featured Article review? The articles Nahuatl, Mayan languages, Rongorongo and Decipherment of rongorongo were all using this template at the time of their respective FARs (a fifth, Sylvanus Morley, also uses it but this was added after reaching FA. I would have added it before if only at the time the template had been available. And in case you're wondering, I only collaborated on the first two of those four). And yet, despite the rigours of FAC and the minute examination for MOS compliance that FAs endure, the reviewers happily assented to promote them to FA ("wikipedia's very best work" and all that) in the conscious knowledge that this references style was being employed. Once might be a fluke perhaps, but four times now different sets of FA reviewers evidently agreed that this template, when correctly used, is in compliance with MOS considerations—or at least poses no threat to the well-being of an article.--cjllw ʘ TALK 16:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Much like everything else on the project, FA review is highly dependent on the specific people involved. On three of those FARs (the failed nom and another two), the referencing style was brought up; indeed, it appears that the primary reason that the issues was allowed to stand was because our guidelines on presentation of Harvard referencing are less clear (because comparatively few articles use it). Given that, I would expect that should this template survive it be restricted solely to articles using Harvard referencing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The template should be allowed to be used wherever it provides value. It should not be restricted to "Harvard referencing"; many articles in Wikipedia already use many other optional kinds of citation styles; it is obstructive to remove an option that is already so widely used in Wikipedia. Everywhere it is currently used and where, in my view and that of other professional bibliographers, it makes the lists more readable, would become unnreadable if the template is deleted. The example I gave (at top) is only one instance of that. The use of this template was suggested to me by another editor, who enabled me to use it. I was not able to construct hanging paragraphs until the editor alerted me to the template, which I subsequently also see is listed in the "See also" section of parts of WP:MOS pertaining to layout of lists and lists. Please see the guidance provided to all editors at the top of that style guidelines page. One is directed to use "common sense". Thank you. --NYScholar (talk) 17:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Link: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) is one of these subsections of the WP:MOS, which refers editors and other readers to this hanging paragraph template. --NYScholar (talk) 17:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:MOS makes it clear that those bulleted lists are bare-bones type bibliographies (see others' "keep" explanations above, including that of the creator of the template). "Full citations" in Wikipedia (including even those provided by citation templates) produce more information than the bare bones lists; when full bibliographical entries are given, and the lists are alphabetized, the correct format is a hanging paragraph, so one can see the first line of each alphabetized entry. When bullets are used and lists are not being alphabetized by the last name of the author/compiler/editor(s) or the first letter of the first main word of a title (defaults in bibligraphical formatting), then hanging paragraphs are not needed. But when lists are alphabetized and there is more than one line in the items included, then hanging paragraphs increase readability. The choice is currently up to the editor and compiler of the bibliographical list (e.g., References, Works cited, Further reading, etc.). These are options currently in Wikipedia. [I will not be working on articles in Wikipedia in the near future due to time constraints; so I do not expect to be able to participate further in this discussion.] --NYScholar (talk) 17:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can only comment, in response to Chris C's remark "FA review is highly dependent on the specific people involved", that if so then this is doubly true for XfD discussions like this one here. Like it or not, whether reviewed by two or two hundred people, the FA process is the highest level of quality review we have on wikipedia. If some aspect of content or style survives—several times—the FA process, then surely one is entitled to infer that its fitness for articles and compatibility with MOS has been actively reviewed and found acceptable.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: ugly and unnecessary. Bulleted lists are the convention throughout wikipedia (including in the documentation for this template), and render this template superfluous for separation of list items. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 02:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC) Further, I see no basis in WP:LOW for this ugly variant style. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Hrafn. I wrote those template instructions, and I can categorically affirm that my intention was not to demand the use of bullets in bibliographies, either with the template or without. I wrote them up when I was first developing it, and the usage examples I provided at the time pre-dated me working out the better solution to the MSIE peculiarity by using invisible bullets (as we all do on a daily basis in talk pages, even this one). Rest assured, if this template is retained I will update the documentation to reflect its intended usage better. I had just not got around to it.

      You are free of course to have your own opinion on whether this (or any other) template results in an ugly, or an attractive, presentation. That's a matter for your own taste. Others, such as myself, have different opinions. But WP:IDONTLIKEIT or WP:ILIKEIT are insufficient grounds for XFD discussions. Instead, if there is a particular instance (presumably it was Church of Divine Science that led you here) that you're involved in and don't think the presentation is suitable, then like anything else the first step would be to sort it out on the article's talk page with any other interested parties. In that particular case, if you want to take it out then go right ahead, if it's ok with other major contributors there. But personal dislikes on one page should not spill over into other articles where contributors are happy with and agree on it being used.--cjllw ʘ TALK 06:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • A few points for your consideration CJLL: (i) it is up to you, as the documentation-writer, to explain in your documentation what valid purpose (if any) this template serves. If your documentation fails to articulate this, then it is your problem, not ours. (ii) Your characterisation of my comment as "WP:ILIKEIT" is inaccurate. I did not only describe the style that this template imposes as "ugly" but also as "unnecessary"/"superfluous". I will also make the further comment that the indentation creates a disjoint in the middle of the entry, that in fact makes it more difficult to scan (as it makes subsequnt lines look like they are part of a different entry). (iii) You failed to address my point that the style that this template imposes has no basis in the appropriate MOS: WP:LOW. I would strongly suggest that acceptance there as an (alternative) standard should be a prerequisite for inclusion as a style-template. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
LOW uses for its examples bullets and no indentations, but does not prescribe either of them. Personally I like bullets for most purposes, and use them when I make a list, but there are other ways. I don't want to assume that guidelines deliberately left ambiguous are intended to follow my one preferences. As it happens, I like hanging indentation also, but did not realize we had an easy way to do it. I should point out that the basic principle of our underlying default handbook, the Chicago Manual of Style, is that there is a general style, but it is not compulsory--just like our guidelines. This flexibility is what makes Chicago so useful in the first place. (and they do not use bullets--it's widespread use is a web convention dating from html 1.0, at a time options needed to be kept as simple as possible. DGG (talk) 13:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LOW opens with the statement "This style guideline aims to create a consistent method of displaying lists of works..." It thereafter gives examples that are consistently delimited by bullet points, not indentation. It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that the "consistent method" involves bullet-points rather than indentation. A style guideline whose stated object is consistency should not be read as being "deliberately left ambiguous are intended to follow my one preferences". HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well Hrafn, after introducing itself the top-level MOS page begins with the statement, "An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be consistent within a Wikipedia article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole. One way of presenting information may be as good as another is, but consistency within an article promotes clarity and cohesion." If used this template fully complies with internal consistency. As for WP:LOW, it is apparent that it was not written with the specific type of "full" bibliography in mind, that we are talking about. It is directed more towards internal lists such one of author's works, in an article about that author. And not, reference bibliographies. Still your point about updating the style guideline is noted, and it may be well to seek more explicit mention of this template's style alternative in the relevant MOS sections.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not seeing the case for having a separate template when one already does the job. If the other one needs to be fixed in some way, better to make proposals to change that one (without making it non-standard). I just don't like the idea of having two templates which do basically the same thing and which evolve and change separately, because redundancy becomes a major problem. Orderinchaos 05:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment. There seems to be some confusion here. First Eleassar, and now Orderinchaos, are commenting on the grounds that this {{ref indent}} template has the same function as, and is redundant with, {{refbegin}}. But this is not true. All that {{refbegin}} basically does is to make the apparent font size of the bibliographic references smaller (to match the output size of {{reflist}}). It is only a wrapper for the code <div class="references-small">. It also sets the left margin to 1.5em, and apparently has the optional facility to display output in multiple columns (but this functionality does not work in MSIE browsers). That is all.

    By contrast, what {{ref indent}} does is to apply a hanging indent if the reference's text wraps over more than one line in the browser window display. That is a different visual effect to reducing the font size; if one template was just redirected to the other then its functionality would be lost. Ref indent does not do the job of refbegin, or vice versa. In what sense are these 'doing the same thing'?

    Although Chris C. has advanced the argument that these templates basically have the same purpose, ie apply formatting to references (actually they'll apply their formatting to any text that you wrap them around), it does not automatically follow that all templates used to format references should be merged into one all-purpose template, or that any one's function should subsume the others'. There exist scads of Biographical infobox templates around for example, all with a common purpose and many with similar or identical fields. It would be technically possible to merge their functionality together into one template, but is it necessary or a good idea?

    However, I don't think the option of incorporating the hanging indent functionality into {{refbegin}} can be decided upon in this TfD. It would require some discussion and consultation with the maintainers and users of {refbegin} first, as the unexpected introduction of functionality and appearance change would likely cause some alarm. It would also take some template coding nous to implement, probably outside of the responsibility of this TfD's closer. By all means, raise a separate discussion on it somewhere. Personally, while I do appreciate there can be value and savings in maintenance in some template mergers, it needs to be properly considered (look at how long it's taken to unite some of the main {cite XXX} templates to a single code engine). {Refbegin} and {ref indent} both function perfectly fine as independent templates, and they can also very simply be used together (by stacking one after the other) to produce both their effects. If you want to see smaller-text references, use {{refbegin}}. If you want hanging indents for multi-line references, use {{ref indent}}. If you don't, then don't. How could it be simpler?

    In any event, I think the main bugbear for the nominator is the principle of whether editors should be allowed at all to apply the minor styling change to references that this template supplies. As I have tried to explain, this indent styling has a function and specific purpose, it is not purely cosmetic. It is a simple solution intended as an enhancement and visual aide for identifying entries in bibliographies. In particular, for bibliographies that may be lengthy and/or contain elements that wrap over multiple lines, where the denseness of text acts to camouflage the keywords that the reader is looking for.

    Now I think that it is highly probable that the nominator, or probably most folks, has not experienced or noticed this to be an issue. Most articles' bibliographies are short, and most contain abbreviated references that take up only a single line each. This template is not for those cases. But just because someone has either never thought about, noticed, used, or imagined that this can be an issue in articles with 'fuller' bibliographies, does not mean that such issues go unnoticed by others.

    Let me provide an example, hopefully this will make the intent clearer. I invite any/all of you to look for a specific reference, say Suárez 1977 or Flores Farfán 2006, in this list first. Then, try looking for the same references in this one, which uses ref indent. Can you see any difference? (NB, this is not a contrived example, it's the bibliography taken from the current Nahuatl article).--cjllw ʘ TALK 09:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why not add code to refbegin to do that, and have an "indent=yes" type option turning it on? For example {{Census 2006 AUS}} which I designed a while ago has options which, depending on what you select, links to a completely different page depending on whether the "quick" variable is turned on or off. That way we get the functionality without having to keep two quite different codebeasts consistent over time. Oh, and those instances of it which do not link the attribute work the same way that they always did, as the extra code hinges on a conditional. Orderinchaos 11:05, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep , but consider the coding that Orderinchaos suggests. There are advantages to bringing options together, but also strong advantages to keeping templates simple. This particular template's format seems like a good idea in principle: there is no need to be perfectly uniform, but we should recognize the needs of different situations. I am very glad we have this option, which I intend to use--I think for long lists where the entries are multi-line, that it is a much clearer style than our present usual one, particularly in the very wide column general format of web pages. We will of course have the problem of deciding which style to use, and the general rule for references should hold, not to change the style established in an article with necessity and consensus. (a very good rule--we should be devoting most of our efforts to finding references where we need them; arranging them is secondary)DGG (talk) 13:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ok, thanks for the suggestions and constructive comments, DGG and Orderinchaos. I would be prepared to consider migrating this hanging indent functionality into {refbegin}'s code, if that can be done as an optional switch, turned off by default/if not selected. It would have to be debugged first naturally, & I'm pretty sure it won't display properly if refbegin's multi-column option is used so maybe there'd need to be some circuitbreaker for that (though I don't see advantage in using multicolumns for full biblio list). Really, both templates are little more than wrappers/shortcut for div coding statements, so in that respect they are quite simple and once set up it is hard to see that they would require much maintenance. I personally think they could go on living as separate templates, but if it is thought more convenient to bring these reference formatting templates together into one then wld be glad to discuss options. --cjllw ʘ TALK 15:29, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment To the comments about the style being "ugly" it would serve to look at the styles used for bibliographies in APA[1], MLA[2] Chicago[3] styles require the use og hanging indents in bibliogpahies. It would seem weird to discourage it here. ·Maunus·ƛ· 15:37, 1 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    What works in one format does not necessarily work elsewhere. The whole point in having our own MoS is that if people simply chose to follow the guidelines of whatever work they pleased, we'd have an "ugly" encyclopedia because of significant inconsistencies. This template exacerbates that. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the current MOS does not discourage the use of different styles for citations and references. If you wish to enforce uniformity the right place to start would be to change the MOS - currently the MOS does not provide a rationale for deletion of non-standard reference templates.·Maunus·ƛ· 23:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it would seem to me that arguments advanced against this template's usage run counter to the spirit, if not the actual letter, of the three Wikipedia:MOS#General_principles. Strict style consistency between articles is neither demanded nor expected; internal consistency is the recommended goal (Wikipedia:Cite#How_to_present_citations explicitly allows for half-a-dozen or so distinct cite/ref methods, "Editors are free to use any method; no method is preferred" etc). If major contributors are happy with and agree on some given style, it's inappropriate to change on basis of stylistic preference alone. And in the absence or ambiguity of specific MOS recommendations, it's quite permissible to see "what other writers do about the problem", which would include pointing to widely used conventions such as MLA, APA etc.

The regrettable episode surrounding NYS' recent ban is a complete red herring; I can see no mention of this template anywhere in the disputes that led up to this (IMO, disquieting) turn of events.--cjllw ʘ TALK 00:52, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JPG-GR (talk) 19:22, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per cjllw. Sheesh, DRAMA. Are we really running so low on space that we need to worry about this? Oh, no, we can't be, because this discussion is probably OVER 9000Kb.  Chzz  ►  00:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment (?) Heh, Chzz. Unless we're going for some sort of record, I don't see how relisting could generate "a more thorough discussion" than what has already taken place. If the TfD discussion listed just after this one back on 29 Jun could be closed as 'no consensus to delete' with only 4 brief comments, I can't see the logic in relisting this one that had triple the number of participants.

    Can we get a speedy close as default keep/no consensus to delete here please, or at the very least some explanation as to why it would make any sense to go through all this again. I've always thought double jeopardy to be a sound legal principle.--cjllw ʘ TALK 02:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • It was -I- who relisted it and it is because I think the issue needs more discussion. No two TfDs are alike and this has nothing to do with setting records or double jeopardy (which is quite a jump in logic). JPG-GR (talk) 16:29, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Can you be more specific please. Presumably you don't mean, it needs more of the same discussion. If after almost two weeks of discussion there's clearly no consensus to delete (if anything, closer to explicit 'keep' by balance and effectiveness of argument), is it at all likely another week or longer will sway matters? Or, do you see there is some main argument that has not yet been advanced, but might be influential if considered? And by "issue", do you refer to whether or not the functionality of the two templates ought to be combined? If so, I suggest this would be a matter best left to later consideration and discussion at the templates' talk pages, and not in this TfD discussion.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete - looks absolutely awful and is a seemingly random deviation from the standard reference formatting. Inefficient use of space for smaller articles. The stated purpose of making references easier to read doesn't ring true to me as ref-tags make finding references in the list trivial. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:27, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just to clarify, it isn't used on the output generated by cite.php (ie, <ref></ref> ---> <references/>), it is used on alphabetical bibliographies. There is no hyperlinking between citations generated by cite.php and entries in the alphasorted bibliography, unless you were to hand-code anchors for every entry and cite, or require the use of {harvnb} for every instance. Both of those options require a lot more effort, continual maintenance each time a new cite or source is added or changed, and take up a lot more space, than does this once-per-article, simple set-and-forget template. Far from being a 'random' deviation, it is a recommended way to format bibliographies in Chicago, MLA, APA, etc citation/reference styles.--cjllw ʘ TALK 02:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It's harder to read on a computer screen than the MOS-recommended formats. Additionally, it's just an effort to make Wikipedia work like a printed page -- right down to the old-fashioned 5em/one-inch indent (which went out of style on printed paper about the time that Adobe issued PageMaker version 4) -- and Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and therefore shouldn't ape the typographical conventions of paper. Contrary to the unsupported (and unsuppportable) above assertions, professionals in the field don't recommend the same format onscreen as they do on paper. The template is used in a tiny fraction of articles (about one out of every seven thousand), so it's loss is easily fixed. And, BTW, if you want to see the worst possible use of it, it's combined with {{Smallcaps}} at Juan Diego#References, which renders both first and last names of all authors nearly illegible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; in the absence of specific prohibitions against it in the MOS, this seems like a reasonable and widely used style to employ. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I prefer the wiki bullet style rather than this style which you find on paper. Qwerty786 (talk) 15:51, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Certainly had its advantages before people began to use the combination of bulleted lists and small-caps author names though. But as the same purpose (visual separation of individual refs in long lists) is achieved by bulletlist+smallcap with no special template, which also gives a "smoother" look (particularly if you mix very long and very short refs e.g. as in Passerine#References), refindent probably ought to be deprecated if not deleted. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 10:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for showing there is a problem out there with multi-line references that it is worthwhile to address. I get the impression from some of the preceding comments that many folks, perhaps habituated to seeing only brief one-liner refs in bibliographies around here (or perhaps unused to see bibliography-style citation at all), have not really considered the readibility and functionality issues that arise from cramming together multi-line refs without differentiation.

      So while I'd agree that putting authors' names in smallcaps is a better solution to the problem, than doing nothing at all, I think hanging indents make the distinction and focus upon the sought-for keywords even sharper, and clearer. Before I worked out how hanging indents could be done I myself experimented with other methods, including using smallcaps on authors' names (note that using bullets for entries in bibliographies was not a conscious stylistic choice in wikipedia MOS; it's merely a legacy arising from wikicode itself, that had limited native options for separating list entries and text lines. I've hardly seen it used anywhere online outside of wiki). But the result still did not seem to quite do the job, hence the development of this hanging indent style option, closer also to the recommended style of many many MLA, APA, Chicago etc citation style implementations.

      It (indenting) also has the advantage of remaining in place if you resize your browser window on the screen (so you can look at other windows, or documents, simultaneously, for comparision purposes say). If, as I often do, you resize browser window to occupy only the left-half of the screen, so another document can be displayed on the right, those multiline references wrap over even more lines, and any visual advantage in using smallcaps to highlight becomes diluted. By contrast, the hanging indent stays in place no matter how narrow or wide you make your browser window, or no matter what size font or resolution you use for screen display (and some people need to use larger fonts as visual aides, the larger the font or magnification, the more there will be a tendency for the refs to wrap over more than one line). Given on-screen multitasking is a la mode, I don't presume everyone reads wikipedia with full-screen browsers.

      Hanging indent is at no disadvantage when a biblio list is a mix of one-line and multi-line refs. They still line up, anything you see on the left-most side of the text block must be a keyword/author's name. Your eye does not have to scan and skip over any lines that are just overflow from the rest of the ref's details.

      I'd also note there are a few editors out there (I am not one of them) who apparently deprecate the use of smallcaps or allcaps this way as well; I have run across several discussions in the past and some of the comments above seem set against any variation they are not familiar with or do not use themselves. I think such objections are unsound, particularly given MOS principles specifically allow for variations to happily coexist within wikipedia—it's only when within an article that internal conformity becomes an issue.

      We are at liberty to either use Cite XXX templates, or not; to include bibliography components in the chosen reference system, or do without. Or any of multiple other choices that may be made, and are probably best left to those editors who are concerned to actually work on and improve it, both in content and appearance. Taking away editors' options when they solve a need that is not or only partially met by other means, do no harm and conform with MOS principles, does not make much sense to me. It should be enough that a number of reasonable editors find it a useful, and not duplicative, facility, regardless of whether some others have no use for it.--cjllw ʘ TALK 15:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I'm not convinced that we lack a consensus here. We pretty much have a single editor arguing with almost everyone that recommends deletion, and his/her arguments are 100% WP:ILIKEIT. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Only a "single editor arguing" for its retention? Sorry, but that statement is patently untrue. Pls (re-)read the entire discussion, not just the last few days' worth. There is no basis at all to discount the viewpoints and arguments of those folks who contributed to the earlier stages of this TfD chat, even if they were made up to abt a month ago now, or even if some have not since returned to comment further. Others besides myself have been making multiple comments here.

      In any case, the whole point and process of trying to establish Wikipedia:Consensus#Process is to engage in discussions that are "attempts to convince others, using reasons". That is exactly what I, and some others, have been doing. It is entirely appropriate behaviour—do you not agree? How else might it be done?

      If you do look again through the discussion, you'll see that several of those 'deletes' are not necessarily or explicitly against the hanging indent format per se; instead they wonder whether it might not be better to combine {ref indent}'s functionality with {ref begin}. Even the original TfD nominator was not averse to that outcome. I have discussed that point and remain open to that being resolved in one way or another if anyone else cares to continue it. Declaring 'consensus is reached' by ignoring these and the earlier 'keep' contributions does not make any reasonable sense. Presumably, if there was such a clear consensus [to delete wholesale], then this TfD would've been closed as such long before now.

      Characterising my (and by implication, others') arguments as "100% WP:ILIKEIT" (an essay, not policy or guide, btw) does not stand up to scrutiny. On the contrary, numerous arguments advanced in favour appeal to demonstrations of practical use and benefit, compliance with policy, standing guidelines (& specifically a lack of prohibition thereunder) and respectable external style guidelines (Chicago, MLA etc) that also inspire wikipedia's, examples of successful use in FAC, and so on. Such arguments are not based on anyone's personal preferences. Some of the delete/merge arguments have also raised substantive comments for discussion, which is what I thought we were doing. Others have just said "I don't like how it looks", words to that effect. You do realise, you are tarring comments such as this with the same brush, don't you?--cjllw ʘ TALK 06:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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