Template talk:How-to

Removing merge

This was previously a re-direct page to another template talk page, but obviously there is not going to be any merge of these two templates, so I am removing the redirect and making each of the templates have their own talk pages.

Howto page will not have references to transwiki:ing, unless the (minor) content dispute can be solved. Message box that implicitly suggest transwiki:ing should be used for that purpose.

Santtus 12:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know who died and made you god on this point, but it has been a rather routine process of moving Wikipedia articles to Wikibooks. I wasn't the one who brought up that this should be merged with Template:Move to Wikibooks, but instead simply wanted to make sure that if this content was moved that the editors who were going to try and clean up Wikipedia were aware of the issues in doing such a move.

Clearly there is a need for a How-to cleanup template. If the content does need to be moved to Wikibooks, then perhaps the Move to Wikibooks template should be used instead. Certainly a few very, very stubby paragraphs that discuss some "how to do something" should not be transwikied, especially if those stubs are in theory to become a full book on Wikibooks, or even a fully documented textbook. Unless you are willing to at least put some effort into writing such a book, don't move it to Wikibooks. Just delete the content that violates Wikipedia policies.

I'm sorry that I ruined your precious template, but I do hope that you have learned a little about inter-project issues and can appreciate my point of view at least. --Robert Horning 12:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Not attempting to use any godly powers whatsoever, but I do personally feel strongly about substituting the meaning of a message after the message have been communicated with different intent. In this case, I refer to the template tag as the message, and the content of the message box as the meaning. I have also contemplated the issues with Wikibooks more carefully now, thanks to you. I do understand that I can't write such message boxes that would suggest greater possibilities elsewhere (i.e. in Wikibooks) than actually possible; that would be an attempt to just move the problems elsewhere. So, have my thanks on informing me about this issue. 193.166.173.23 13:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC) Santtus 13:01, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point out that most howtos transwikied to Wikibooks can be added to existing books. Only a few have been deleted because they couldn't be expanded into books due to the nature of their subject. I recommend that Wikipedia transwikies howtos rather than simply removing them from an article. At the very least, can a short "consider tranwikiing this section to Wikibooks" message be added to this template? --Hagindaz 00:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Sure! The reader can be hinted about the possibility in some unobtrusive way, and directed to another place where they can read more. Santtus 07:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to see the plug for Wikibooks be much more prominent - perhaps including the WB logo, and a more forceful statement like "Wikipedia doesn't allow how-tos, but Wikibooks does!" instead of the rather vague and half-hearted "If you feel like thinking about maybe a transwiki, that'd be nice" – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 01:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, we have the template {{Copy to Wikibooks}}. But back to the issue: many of the articles tagged with "howto" are indeed predominantly howto articles. Some articles contain only small howto sections, so that the articles could be described mostly encyclopedic. In this situation, it seems reasonable that both options should be given balanced weight in the template. One option to suggest editing, other to suggest transwiki:ing, and concise criteria to help decision what to do. But what is that concise criteria? I.e. so that the explanation does not go into exceeding length, so as to make the template intolerable. Santtus 18:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Citing relevent policy

I have reworded this template to cite WP:NOT#IINFO, because it previously did not make explicit why "how to" content is inappropriate according to Wikipedia's content policies. Please feel free to revert or reword if this edit was in error. --Muchness 07:03, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikibooks as a predominant solution

For how-to materials, or anything that is predominantly instructional, I think we should make it much more clear that Wikibooks is the correct destination. I would like to make the reference to Wikibooks in this template more prominent. I would also like to include mention that authors who are interested in writing instructional material may accompany their articles to Wikibooks as well. What I dont want to see is valuable instructional material get deleted, or authors of instructional material get disenfranchised, just because Wikipedia is the wrong place for it. --Whiteknight (WB:Whiteknight) 01:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Currently this template is mostly used to mark articles with only small how-to sections. If you see the previous discussion about this subject, it was discovered that at least two different templates are needed for two kinds of articles: one template for the articles where minor editing is the best option, and another template for articles where transwiki:ing seems to be the best option. This is so as to be more helpful in directing the efforts of contributors. Santtus 11:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

That's fair enough, If this isn't the correct template then there is no sense begging to change it. I'll try and find the right template for the job. --Whiteknight (talk) (books) 20:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Dont be discouraged. There are two main templates now. This can be made to suggest transwiki:ing more. I just think that the templates should have different emphasis, the templates should suggest different actions with different weight. Santtus 00:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Advice

can someone create an {{advice}} page to do the same thing. It's more intuitive for those who don't have all the templates memorized. 165.21.154.93 (talk) 11:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Howto tag for sections

I often find that only one section of an article has how-to content, but the current Howto tag only really covers the whole article: it reads "this article contains instructions..." etc. There is also a Howto-section template, but this is a redirect to Howto itself, so does not solve the problem. There are two obvious solutions:

• Make Howto-section a template on its own, worded appropriately (see for example Template:Cleanup and template:Cleanup-section).
• Change the wording of the Howto tag to cover both situations: "This article or section contains..." etc (see for example template:Contradictarticle).

Any thoughts? Richard New Forest (talk) 21:12, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

This is already possible. Just use {{howto|section}}. . Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 23:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant, thanks, that's useful. Is this already explained somewhere, or do we need it mentioned on the template front page? Richard New Forest (talk) 09:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Done. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm still confused. The template page says "Add {{Howto|date=January 2015}} to the top to the article in question. If the problem only related to one section, add {{Howto|section}} to the top of the section." But it appears I cannot use both "section" and "date" (when I tried, the message said article instead of section). And if I add {{howto|section}}, then do I need to add {{howto|date}} at the top of the article also? Thanks. Paleolith (talk) 19:32, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Bug

NightWolf1223, pinging you to let you know that the recent change causes some potentially undesired effects, making "no" display in place of "section" in places such as Isometric video game graphics. Not sure what is the correct solution, a code change or a bot run to update code in cases like this. YuriNikolai (talk) 23:56, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@YuriNikolaiThank you. Reverting now NW1223 <Howl at me•My hunts> 00:32, 3 April 2022 (UTC)