Template talk:Refideas editnotice

Feedback

Hello, and thank you for your input! I proposed this template to make the refideas template more accessible to both people who want to improve articles, as well as people who are not sure if a page should be deleted; when this is implemented, everyone who clicks "edit" on a page with the refideas template on the talk page will get this editnotice. I am leaving this here until the end of October for testing, as per the suggestion here. Let me know how this is working for you, and if you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve this idea, this is the place to suggest them. :) BOZ (talk) 14:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

@BOZ and Firefangledfeathers: Are you aware of Wikipedia:PAGENOTICE? This template can only be placed in page notices by admins, page movers, and template editors. Which also means, once the refideas have been used, only an admin, page mover or template editor can clear the notice. -- ferret (talk) 23:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

I'm aware. Thanks ferret. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Is the goal to place this everywhere {{Refideas}} is in use? That's 17995 edit notices at this particular moment. -- ferret (talk) 23:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

The goal would be to have it show up automatically on any page where the refideas template is on the article talk page, much like how you get an editnotice when you edit a BLP, or when you try to create an article where a draft article exists. I'm not too clear on how that implementation would work. BOZ (talk) 23:48, 29 September 2023 (UTC)

Right now we're just testing it on a few. If you're interested, ferret, the VPP thread where this came up was here Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)

Handy, but i'm a bit bothered that I see this only IF I am editing the article. If I'm simply reading the article, I don't get that notice. Would it be permissible to add that notice in the article following the "Reception" subsection? That way, if I'm reading the article, I'd see the prompt.Guinness323 (talk) 05:33, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Just making note of some positive feedback at User talk:Alexandra IDV#Editnotice and User talk:Haitch2PointOh##Editnotice, and some technical challenges on User talk:Ira Leviton#Editnotice. BOZ (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers, thank you again for your assistance. I think there should be two days left in the trial? I've gotten a little feedback but I was hoping for more. BOZ (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Just about two and a half days left. I think the next step would be to see if any of the ref ideas were used in the articles. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:54, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Gotcha. I don't think any were, but then again it was a small sample size. I'm sure I could have chosen articles more likely to be edited that way if I had any idea which ones to pick from. :o If the trial needs to be extended, is there a way we could get a list cross-referenced between which articles that have the template and are most frequently edited? BOZ (talk) 16:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers, I nearly forgot about this. :o OK, so the trial is over. What is the next step? Is testing on a wider sample of articles necessary, or can the template just be activated site-wide? BOZ (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

BOZ, tough times IRL and I'm having to pick my on-Wiki commitments carefully. I'm happy to brainstorm with you later, though you should feel free to work with others without me sooner if you'd like. Could you ping me in a week? It would also help if you could confirm that the edit notices all expired as they should have. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:19, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

OK, I can ping you next week (if I don't forget), and I did check manually on all the pages and verified that each of the editnotices are expired. Most of the articles were not edited, but the ones that were I noted above on how I reached out to the editors who responded to my query. BOZ (talk) 21:40, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Hey there @Firefangledfeathers, how are things going for you now? Is this a good time to look at the template? BOZ (talk) 04:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers if now is a bad time, I don't want to keep bugging you, but can you please suggest the best place I can go for assistance with implementing this template? VPP technical maybe? BOZ (talk) 15:30, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Hey BOZ! Thanks for the reminder. First, I definitely think we need more technical assistance, and VPT seems a good place to go, though I'm not super familiar with norms there. My hope is that the edit notice can be made to:

• detect if there is a ref ideas section at the associated talk page
• be blank/invisible if no such section is present
• if there is such a section: display the edit notice and include a link to the section

All of that is beyond my technical skills, but some work spent on that part of it will save work on the implementation side. If we're asking for someone's help to work some tech wizardry, I do think it would help to have run a trial that shows some positive results. I don't know of a way to get the cross-categorization you mention above, but here are all the talk pages with ref ideas and I spot some high-traffic articles like Jazz and Puerto Rico and Star Wars (film). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:10, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

OK, that's brilliant. :) I will ask there. BOZ (talk) 20:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Before implementing this anywhere, please make sure the template page has good documentation. It's currently empty. Gonnym (talk) 05:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym thanks, but I have no idea what documentation would be used on the template page, as I've never made one before and did not know that documentation needed to be included. BOZ (talk) 06:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

A documentation should explain what this template does, how to use it, where to use it, etc. Since you are the one that created it, I'm sure you can explain these things. See Wikipedia:Template documentation. Gonnym (talk) 06:08, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

So just a simple "We use this because of X"? BOZ (talk) 06:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I'm not great with complicated tasks, which is probably why I haven't done this before and am not likely to do it again. :D BOZ (talk) 06:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Feedback 2

This appears to be entirely unready. I noticed this over at Dennis Rader. There is zero explanation what the message is (it is a page notice, but not the normal kind but something autoinjected by an "unrelated" template). The documentation is miserable.

Please hold off deploying this until MUCH MORE quality of life improvements have been made.

The notice needs to explain its presence depends on the refideas template. Basically, add a link from the page notice to refideas' documentation, once it is no longer of subpar quality like now. How do you add the notice => you add the refideas template. How do you get rid of the notice => will removing refideas remove the template? (if not, how?)

The notice can't just point to a talk page with zero explanation. Talk pages can be HUGE. I can easily see editors tearing their hair out scouring dozens of talk sections looking for discussions on how to improve articles, not realizing they should be looking for a particular template often part of the talk header.

The notice should specifically call out where the editor should look for those references. The notice should specifically link to documentation that explains why the editor is seeing this page notice, and how to remove it.

Refideas should DEFINITELY have an option for "no page notice please". In fact, how about making that the default?

(I'm not sure adding page notices in this indirect fashion is even a good thing, but here I'm assuming the consensus won't simply be "let's forget the whole idea".)

CapnZapp (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. I think that while this undocumented, uncategorized template is still in the testing phase, {{Refideas editnotice if exists}} should test for {{Refideas/sandbox}} only. Pinging Pppery. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

We were in the testing phase for 6 weeks already (starting when Firefangledfeathers deployed it to individual articles's editnotices on September 29) and got no negative feedback. Of course now when I actually deploy it I start getting complaints. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 20:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Hi CapnZapp. Technically this template is not displayed on any article. The result of this test and other discussion is that Template:Refideas editnotice if exists, which does have some documentation, was added to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. Many of your other points stand, but they should probably be taken to that other template talk page. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

This was partially wrong. This is a good place for at least some of this discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

On "can't just point to a talk page with zero explanation": it's supposed to point users directly to the refideas section. Is that not happening for you? It works for me at Dennis Rader. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Add class for styling

I suggest to add a class name like | class = refideas so it can be styled with CSS, e.g. hidden with .refideas {display:none;} in your CSS. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Link to the edit notice itself; way to opt-out of the edit notice

First off, please add a link to the edit notice itself. It's always intensely frustrating to encounter bits of wiki code where you can't (easily) figure out what page you're actually watching. One example is the "inner" documentation page of some templates; where a link to itself goes a LONG way in helping editors reach the page containing the actual text they're seeing on their screens.

Anyway, in this example I understand that most users won't be able to edit the edit notice. But that's a poor argument for not providing the links promised by Wikipedia:Editnotice#Editnotice links.

To be specific, please add a blue link to the bottom right corner of this template that links any user back here. Explain that the reason why this appears is because of Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main, that is, answer "how can this template magically appear on hundreds of wiki edit pages? It doesn't seem to be copied as an edit notice to all these pages??"

Secondly, I agree with Template talk:Refideas#Parameter to hide the edit notice template. Since Wikipedia sitewide scans every talk page for a Refideas template, there must be a way to add that template WITHOUT triggering this magical edit notice. If nothing else, people will create a Refideas copy that's identical to the original except it isn't found by the Namespace edit notice functionality, or possibly make a manual copy of its code and just pasting that into their talk page for pretty much the same result.

Both approaches are obviously deeply flawed and to be avoided, which is precisely what a parameter that says "no thanks" to the edit notice will accomplish.

Cheerfully informing the user If you do not want this template to display in an editnotice, remove the refideas template from the associated talk page. comes across as obnoxious and unhelpful. This suggestion is much like "if you don't like the bathwater you can just throw it out, baby and all".

Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 16:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the link, Wikipedia:Editnotice#Editnotice links doesn't promise a link for any user, just those able to edit the editnotice. Overall, I find editnotices a useful tool and wish that we did a better job of allowing everyone to modify them (so that people wouldn't resort to hidden comments, which are more easily missed, as often). But I understand there are technical limitations to that currently.

Regarding opting out, can you specify the circumstances in which it'd be appropriate to have the template on a talk page but not displaying as an editnotice. Finding (and documenting) consensus on that seems like a necessary precursor to introducing an opt-out mechanism. Sdkb ^talk 18:23, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

It already is technically possible to opt out by using a redirect to {{refideas}} that the template doesn't find, such as {{Suggested sources}}. But the fact that my past self didn't handle that eventuality does not mean exploiting it is a good idea. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:04, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for replying. Regarding the link, Wikipedia:Editnotice#Editnotice links doesn't promise a link for any user, just those able to edit the editnotice. I'm not arguing we should include a link because some page "promises" to, I am arguing we should include a link because it is the user-friendly way to go. Encountering a page on Wikipedia you can't understand where it's coming from and how to edit it (or not edit it, as it were) is very frustrating and completely unnecessary - just add a backlink. Me mentioning Wikipedia:Editnotice was mostly only to provide a handy example of what sort of backlink I was talking about.

Sorry but I don't accept that the burden of responsibility should fall on me. You know as well as I do it is a large undertaking to form a consensus of that sort, and indeed, how often making such a demand is mostly to not have to actually engage with a request. It would be equally easy to require the editors that changed the template to always add an edit notice to prove the need to make this a mandatory change. Instead of trying to hide behind procedural matters I would instead like to simply ask you to make the change, or at the very least, change the documentation to more honestly say "no, there is no way to feature the refideas template without this triggering an edit notice" and also explaining why this is deemed a good feature. After all, everyone ignored Favre1fan93 when they suggested an opt-out back in December last year.

But let's discuss why or more to the point why not an edit notice should be mandatory. Why can't we add refideas without the fanfare of an edit notice? Far from always are your reference ideas of such a high quality that you want to bother every other editor every time with them... unless they really are that good, but... in this case you are likely to just add the info to the article instead of just leaving reference ideas. More generally: displaying an edit notice to every edit, most of which likely aren't related to and served by it, is wasteful and spammy. And most generally of all: forcing the edit notice upon users of a template exhibits a way of thinking where "we know what's best for our editors"... I would argue the only reasonable stance is to make this edit notice opt-in: only a few choice reference suggestions where the editor actively feel their suggestions are so exceptional every editor needs to know about them should use such a mechanism. One final thought: if the original problem the auto-editnotice was intended to solve was "nobody cares about refideas" then I really disagree flagging their existence on every edit was the right way to go. Refideas just isn't the kind of high priority issue that warrants an edit notice, at least not without a specific user actively making that decision (and thus presumably ready to discuss). CapnZapp (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it'd be good to have more backlinks in editnotices; that's a part of the making them easier to edit that I endorsed above. That issue isn't specific to this editnotice, though, so I'd suggest raising it at WT:EDITNOTICE so that the solution can be rolled out for every editnotice rather than just this one.

Regarding your concerns about the editnotice, I actually also agree with you that there are some banner blindness concerns here. It looks like the discussion that initially resulted in its creation was here, and I'd be interested to see @BOZ's defense of it. One possible angle might be that this template should only be used when the refs are strong enough that we'd want to show them to everyone editing the article, and that for less strong refs it's better to just put links them in a talk page section than to use a template. (Also, there's room for design improvements. It'd be better if the notice displayed the actual refs being suggested, but if not it should at least provide a link directly to the talk template.)

Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 19:30, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I just thought this would be something helpful for people that like to build articles, or want to build a specific article, and needed some help finding sources, and might not have otherwise realized that someone added them to the talk page. I hadn't considered that this editnotice might do more harm than good. BOZ (talk) 19:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

BOZ, I fully believe you acted in good faith and would like to thank you for your contribution. Would you be open to further improving your functionality, that'd be great. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 11:50, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not really my template anymore, so I'm not opposed to alterations that improve functionality. I am curious about wider community feedback now that it's been around for a year; do more people find this helpful, annoying, or are people more likely simply unaware? BOZ (talk) 16:30, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Back to my previous point of wondering about community feedback, since it's clearly only a handful of people watching this page, where would the best place be to go to hold a wider discussion? I figure if the majority of respondents like this the way it is then a change may not be necessary (or could be more limited) while if the majority of respondents do feel a change is necessary then a decision there should supersede any discussion here. I'm also not sure how generally aware people are of this template, so bringing it to a wider audience may help with that as well. I can write up an introduction sometime in this coming week if we have an appropriate venue. BOZ (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Thinking more about Pppery's hack: maybe a very simple solution is to create a new template, for example {{refideas-notice}} (currently a red link); identical to the current one except it does invoke the edit notice, whereas refideas goes back to not invoking the editnotice. To my untrained eye that would avoid the need to change the coding to recognize a parameter, and it would also satisfy the request to make it opt-in (since every legacy {{refideas}} would go back to not advertising their existence - an editor would need to actively change "refideas" to (in my example) "refideas-notice" for the edit notice to be triggered, which is good. (I personally believe there are many more instances of ref-ideas created before this edit notice was even a thing than the number of recently created ref-ideas where the creator actively wants the editnotice) The only change needed at Module:Mainspace editnotice would then be the name of the template (code line 47)? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 11:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

User:Pppery I agree it's not a good idea for the documentation to mention that hack of yours; that doesn't sound like a sustainable solution. CapnZapp (talk) 18:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Regarding banner blindness, I would like to raise the possibility of a bot changing old refideas to not invoke the edit notice (however that gets implemented). I would argue that any ref ideas that's over, say, one year old should no longer announce its existence. (I know this can be implemented by the template as well, and that's also fine by me. Not wedded to the bot idea) The likelihood that editors are going to use the reference ideas have by now shrunk significantly, and more importantly: the argument these ideas are so important an edit notice is warranted seems much weaker when nothing has happened in an entire year. (If you feel another time span is more appropriate, sure) Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 12:15, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

So what's the next step? CapnZapp (talk) 23:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed implementation: Refideas and Refideas-notice

This in regards to the second of two suggestions; for the self-referential links the discussion has moved over to WT:Editnotice#adding a backlink to edit notices

So unless somebody's got a better idea, I'm going to go ahead and create {{refideas-notice}} (it should be red presently). The intent is for the code over at Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main to look for that template instead of this one, making the editnotice functionality opt-in rather than mandatory (or opt-out). If you want your refideas template to trigger an edit notice, the idea is for you to simply edit the talk page to use refideas-notice instead of refideas. Exact same appearance only the edit notice gets triggered. And by "creating {{tlx|refideas-notice}}" I really mean only creating a redirect here. There's only two steps to this solution: 1) creating {{refideas-notice}} and 2) changing Module:Mainspace editnotice, possibly only tweaking line 47 (but I'm no expert). One of them I can do, one of them I wouldn't want to try even if I had the permissions so I'll have to post an edit request of some sort. But first I need to let this proposal stew for a week; if there are no objections then that counts as consensus per usual. (If you do have objections, don't forget to offer up your alternative solution.) Regards CapnZapp (talk) 11:41, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with the opt-in idea — it means I have to go to each article individually and manually change the template. Really? We're all volunteers, who has that kind of time? Guinness323 (talk) 17:15, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree, needing to go and edit every talk page template for it to show would be a good amount of work. BOZ (talk) 18:25, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The point is: the editnotice shouldn't show for every talk page. Arguably it should only show for the select templates where the editor really feels an edit notice is timely and genuinely helpful. Probably 90% or more of these are already (or will turn into) detritus; annoying remnants that keep drawing unwanted attention even years after nobody used them to improve articles...

Anyway, the actual main point remains: there should definitely be a way to add a refideas without adding the editnotice. There should be a way to get rid of the edit notice that is not the wholesale removal of the refideas template. We've been over this already.

I phrased my proposal expecting you guys would agree with me that any "automatic" editnotice needs to be opt-in, or at the very least auto-disappear after a set period of time. (Either because of some wiki code magic, or simply because a bot switches off the edit notice after a set period of time)

But that fight can wait. What I'll do in the short term is add {{refideas-nonotice}} as a redirect (whose use flags that no edit notice is wanted, unless regular redirects), so I can at the very least turn off the editnotices that I come across that annoy me (mostly older ones where the usefulness of an editnotice is zero or lower).

CapnZapp (talk) 21:52, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Again, I'm not the first one reacting to the edit notice. Everyone ignored Favre1fan93 when they suggested an opt-out last year. CapnZapp (talk) 22:06, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Where did Favre1fan93 suggest that? They haven't commented anywhere on this page, and I certainly don't recall seeing such a comment.

I don't think {{refideas-nonotice}} will work - the code looks for wikitext matching the pattern %{%{[rR]ef ?idea, which that will match. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 22:44, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I've updated the code so {{refideas-nonotice}} now works. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 16:26, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Template talk:Refideas#Parameter to hide the edit notice template. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:28, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Warm thanks to you both, User:Pppery and User:Firefangledfeathers! CapnZapp (talk) 16:01, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

When updating the documentation I have assumed neither shortcuts nor redirects trigger the edit notices. If this is not correct, please tell me here or look over the documentation yourself. (Arguably the advertised shortcut should function identically to the "longform" template name, or it shouldn't be advertised as such, but what do I know) Thanks CapnZapp (talk) 16:18, 10 November 2024 (UTC)