Template talk:Person categories

Requested move 29 September 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) (t · c) buidhe 20:47, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Template:L → Template:Person categories – Expand extremely confusing name; I honestly have no idea what "L" is supposed to mean. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:10, 29 September 2020 (UTC)—Relisting. St3095 ^(?) 07:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

L stands for Lifetime, and has done for eleven years since this edit at 03:06, 16 September 2009 (UTC) by Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs); prior to that, L stood for Lagrange. See also Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 May 12#Template:Lifetime and several threads at User talk:Rich Farmbrough/Archive/2009 September from the period 2 September 2009 - 17 September 2009. Perhaps it could be round-robin moved to Template:Lifetime. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:18, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Lifetime" is in my opinion still to generic of a name, although it is preferrable to the current one. I would be fine with Template:Lifetime categories, or Gonnym's suggestion below of Template:Birth and death year categories. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:25, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support a change as L is such a meaningless name here and oppose leaving it as a redirect to it after the move. Since the only categories added are birth and death years, maybe "Birth and death year categories". --Gonnym (talk) 13:00, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - this is a "Subst: only" template, therefore a short name is useful without being obscure. You can still use "{{Lifetime}}" or "{{Ltm}}" if you wish, or add additional, potentially much longer, redirects. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 15:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC).[reply]
- Since this is a subst only template, what exactly is the negative in giving other users, not familier with this template, a more clear name of what it actually does? As stated in WP:TPN... --Gonnym (talk) 00:45, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Support - the short name can still be used when substituting after this page is moved, so doesn't seem like a reason to oppose. "L" is not very informative. --IWI (talk) 16:16, 22 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Followup to move

I've updated the first line of the description, which was otherwise puzzling, but left all the examples as using "L" because any editor, once they've learned what this template does, is likely to appreciate the saving in keystrokes. I also explained where "L" is from, to satisfy editors' curiosity and make it more memorable. PamD 18:55, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Importance of the shortcut "L"

I didn't notice this RM, I think I was trying to take a Wikibreak at the time. I use this template regularly, as the quick way to add a lot of information for a very few keystrokes, often to improve a random article I've come across while stub-sorting. The brevity is important. While I recognise that "Person categories" gives a better idea of what the template does, I sincerely hope that the abbreviation "L" will always continue to be available. I regularly advise other editors to use this, perhaps little-known, template - I've got a chunk of boilerplate text which I added to a talk page just a few minutes ago:

There is a very easy way to add the DEFAULTSORT (so the article files by surname in lists), and Category:Living people where appropriate, and any birth or death date category: {{subst:L|1882|1984|Brown, Annie}} would create {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Annie}}, Category:1882 births and Category:1984 deaths, while {{subst:L|||Smith, Jane}} would create {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Jane}}, Category:Living people and Category:Date of birth missing (living people). Lack of death date implies "living" (or you can add "unknown" or "missing" as the death date to suppress this). You get a lot done for a few keystrokes: I think it's a great little template. Happy Editing.

I realise that the RM has closed, and that there is at present no proposal to do away with the shortcut, but it seemed useful to put a marker down here to remind people that the brief version is very valuable. I think I was involved in the discussion way back when, if I remember rightly, "Lifetime" was done away with but we kept "L" as long as it was substituted. PamD 18:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_May_22#Template:Lifetime and Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_May_12#Template:Lifetime show some previous discussions. PamD 18:40, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Template flaw

{{subst:L|||Surname, Name}} is causing the template to populate Category:Deaths, at least on non-article space. Please can someone fix this ASAP. Thanks in advance. Timrollpickering (talk) 10:36, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Timrollpickering: Example pages please. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:39, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Pages now edited include [1], [2] and [3]. Timrollpickering (talk) 19:33, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The template doc says This template should always be substituted (i.e., use {{subst:Person categories}}). Looking at your three examples, the first two both have {{Person categories|1975||Womack, Marian}} instead of {{subst:Person categories|1975||Womack, Marian}}, and the third has {{Person categories|1978||Awosusi, Tayo}} instead of {{subst:Person categories|1978||Awosusi, Tayo}}. If clear documentation is being ignored, there is no need to "fix" the template, just the places where it is being misused. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:48, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adapt for use in Drafts?

It has been suggested at WP Talk:Women in Red that it would be useful if this template could be modified for use in Drafts. Perhaps it could be given a 4th field which, if present and set to "s" as in {{subst:L|1952||Jones, Jane|s}}, would produce modified categories with colons (eg [[:Category:1952 births]] and [[:Category:Living people]] rather than [[Category:1952 births]] and [[Category:Living people]]). This would not affect people using the template in mainspace.

Would this be a good idea?

If so:

Is there a template editor around who would like to implement it?

I've posted a note about this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography with the heading "Could {{Person categories}} (aka {{L}} ) be adapted for Drafts?"

PamD 09:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I really like the idea of adapting this to draft pages (and thanks to @PamD as I definitely did not know this existed). Another format option would be to set it up within Draft categories

:{{Draft categories|[[Category:Living people]] :}} DaffodilOcean (talk) 20:51, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]