Template talk:WikiProject banner shell/Archive 2a

Purpose?

What's the purpose of the banner and task force parameters? If it's to advertise and attract more interested people, then obvious display on the talk page (or even on the article) is desirable and hiding would dilute the effect. If it's principally to bring articles to the attention of task force members, and/or prompt rating, than hiding is a much preferred option. Apologies if this has been covered but I've only skimmed the above discussions, which appear to be techie and need time to absorb. BTW, as a compulsive adder of tags, should I hold back, now? Folks at 137 09:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, but too long a display is bad, too. We need to reach a compromise between attracting users and lenght of the wikiproject ads. Personaly I think that multibanner should combine small versions so that they stack horizontally first, verticaly second.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

BLP banner

Can someone look at the problem occurring, for example, at Talk:Angelina Jolie? When putting the bio Project inside the Banner, the BLP warning template is lost from the talk page - it needs to be outside of the banner. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to post a note about this, too. That BLP banner is I believe a legal requirement (though I might be wrong) and therefore it has to be visible. The problem is the banner is tied in to the Biography Wikiproject banner. Short of having to recode thousands of biographical articles, I think the simplest solution would be for the creator of this catch-all banner to make an exemption for the WikiBio banner. 23skidoo 16:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, there's nothing the catch-all template can do, since it's a single box; the only option here would be to simply not include the Biography banner in it.

(The other alternative being discussed above—having project banners shrink themselves down to one line—could handle this rather better; the BLP tag could be placed outside the banner's block, and would remain visible even when the banner was collapsed.) Kirill Lokshin 16:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not a legal "requirement", just something to tell people that we take articles on living people very seriously. Fall-out from the whole John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy thing. -- Ned Scott 05:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly not a legal requirement. There are probably thousands of stubby articles on living people without that banner on their talk pages. I try to add it where I can, and scans of the birth date categories probably help (those adding category:living people should already know to add the WP:BIO banner), but it is not always there, though it should be. Not a legal requirement, but it is Wikipedia policy. Carcharoth 10:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't we have a trigger so that when this multibanner includes BLP banner it will display the warning itself?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  22:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not a fan of this template, but you can have the BLP banner independently and not have it display with the bio wikiproject banner. -- Ned Scott 00:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Like this. --HailFire 14:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

But that's an extra step that most people won't think to follow. Most are used to the BLP warning appearing automatically when the WikiBioProject banner is added. 23skidoo 17:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please no. I've worked hard to get acceptance of WPBiography|living=yes, and occasionally run through what transcludes here for {{blp}} with my bot changing that template to {{WPBiography}} where the article in question is a bio. As a result only say 200 articles use it, whereas 200,000 use WPBiography. If this template can't cope with the issue then this template is the problem, as I argued at MFD. Encouraging folks to use blp directly harms WPBiography, and makes my life harder.

Note that there does appear to be some way of forcing certain divs to appear outside a container. See User_talk:Kirill_Lokshin#WPBannerShell_and_WPFilm. --kingboyk 19:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

The good, the bad, and the ugly

On the good side, it's possible to pass a template name as a parameter, as here. This has a "full" and "bar" option - generating a link to the template for "bar". If the project templates were to support a global "bar" option (similar to the global "small" option) each could generate a one-line form of their own design.

On the bad side, I hope people are aware that this container box increases the space used on the talk page for people who browse without javascript.

Finally, some of the templates look worse forced to render inside this box. If someone wants a task, perhaps fix the way the extra two flag icons are displayed in relation to the portal box in {{WikiProject France}}. Since the container has the same background color as most template, they are rather lost in the sea of color. Gimmetrow 05:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a needlessly convoluted way of doing it. If templates are going to be allowed to support the bar option independently anyways, why not just encourage that from the start and avoid the parameter pass-through business? It's not like we have a deadline here; a few weeks for a critical mass of templates to pick up the new code (similar to how the small option spread) doesn't seem like a big deal. Kirill Lokshin 06:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to make it so that when browsing without javascript, the template can still be rendered in the bar form only. I would also like to be able to specify the bar option once rather than for each individual template. This was just an example of a way to do that. What's your approach? Gimmetrow 12:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no response, I guess this needs further explanation. The current implementation of this meta container looks worse than just having the project templates. If this is going to be an improvement, the wikiprojects must support a "bar" option in their project templates, and there must be a way to call the bar option for any project template placed inside this box, without using javascript. I would like any project templates put into this box get called, by default, with the bar option, and generate a javascript button which can turn on the full versions. The PoC above was one way to add a parameter inside a template call. There are other ways, and while they all involve fancy coding, this should be hidden to anyone on the talk page. Gimmetrow 01:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Err, maybe I'm just not understanding what you're arguing for, but...

You can't have a template that allows the reader to view it at different sizes without using javascript. There's simply nothing available in normal HTML or MW coding that allows post-rendering layout changes. If you don't use javascript, all you get is a template that's permanently fixed at a trimmed-down size, losing all of the functionality of the full version; I view this as quite unacceptable.

The reasonable way to do this would be to have templates support an option for rendering as a collapsed, javascript-enabled bar (as here), and then either (a) have the surrounding template display things called with that option, or (b) simply use that option natively on the talk page itself. But there's simply no way to do it without javascript. Kirill Lokshin 01:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If the rendering is controlled by an option, then that option can produce a "bar" summary style, permanently fixed for non-javascript reading. If that loses the "full functionality" of the full version, so what. The bar should contain the essential information - a link to the project, the class rating, and *maybe* a very terse encoded version of any other info that can fit on one line - and this should be available in that form for non-javascript users. Gimmetrow 02:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The number of non-javascript users is very low, and WikiProject tags—unlike actual article content—are not something that is essential to view "correctly". If a few people don't see them in quite as pretty a layout, so what? It doesn't justify hamstringing the WikiProjects by breaking all the functionality built into their templates. Kirill Lokshin 03:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If the layout doesn't matter, then why does this project exist? Gimmetrow 03:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Because we'd like a better layout (but not at the cost of simply breaking the templates!). Kirill Lokshin 03:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason this needs to "hamstring" wikiprojects. All you need to do is render a simple bar version, with a javascript button (available only in javascript...) that creates the full version. Do I really need to spend an hour making a mockup of the MILHIST template for this? Gimmetrow 03:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The concept of "backward compatibility" should probably apply here. As we "upgrade" to the new multi-project box, the baseline is what we have now, no matter how pretty or ugly it is. The upgraded version should be the prettier (and shorter) version - if that isn't available to some users, then they should get just what they get now. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 03:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Obviously I'm not getting across here... there is no such thing as "available only in javascript" from the template's perspective. We cannot design a template that detects whether a viewer has javascript enabled and renders itself differently. Obviously, if we use javascript-dependent features, they'll only work for a viewer that has javascript support; but for a user that doesn't, they'll simply be nonfunctional.

In other words, we can create something like this via javascript support for collapsing tables; but, for a viewer that doesn't have it, the template will be shown uncollapsed. The site javascript can't generate template code that doesn't exist in the rendered page; our only option is to collapse what's generated by the MW engine, not to expand it with new material. Kirill Lokshin 03:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thought: what you're asking for can be done via the ugly hack of having the template's contents all set to display:none when rendered, and depending on javascript to actually display them (as, e.g., here). This has the obvious unfortunate side effect that non-javascript users can no longer get at the "hidden" contents of the template. Kirill Lokshin 04:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess that's one approach, but not what I was thinking. If a project template is on its own, it can stay the same for "backward compatibility" per SatyrTN. A project template inside this new container is a something new, however, and there is no reason to make it more ugly for some users. The current container makes it more ugly. I'm not going to argue how many users don't have JS, but should the project really depend on all this JS? Gimmetrow 05:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If it doesn't use JS, it's going to be displayed at a single size for all users, and that size will largely be governed by the amound of material that's in the template. This is basically true regardless of how the template is displayed; you can fiddle with the exact layout, but there are limits to how flexible it is, and they're well short of what you seem to have in mind. (In particular, it can't be reduced to a single line—or even a few lines—without losing much of the functionality of these banners; there's simply too much data to condense it that far, even if you trim enough words to make it completely meaningless to the uninitiated.) Kirill Lokshin 06:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

More ugly?

So maybe you could be more specific about the "more ugly" part? From reading through all of the above, I noticed

• a comment about the extra flags on the {{WikiProject France}} tag (which seems to have been fixed)
• a comment about the color scheme - since the background of the WikiProjectBanners is the same as (most? all?) individual WikiProject banners, it is a bit overwhelming. Personally, I prefer the color scheme (and layout) of the second option Kirill Lokshin has in a sandbox.

So are there other comments about "ugly"? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Outside the container, all WP templates appear with breaks between. Inside the container they 1) take up more vertical space, 2) have no break in the current color scheme, 3) render in less horizontal space than (some) were designed for. So far, I'm not seeing any improvement. (While the second point would be easy to fix, I'm suprised it wasn't different to begin with.) This is rather different than {{ArticleHistory}}, which condenses templates. Gimmetrow 15:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Concerns about WikiBiography

The warning about bios of living persons on the Wiki Biography banner is useful, but on pages like Talk:Arsène_Wenger this thing, while useful, would hide it. If Wiki Bio isn't placed into this thing, however, it would make the template not very useful Any ideas? Xiner (talk, email) 01:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Have the banners support the "hide" option instead? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there really isn't much to hide on those banners. I was thinking more of an "exclude" option for this template, but the living bio thing is the only one I can think of that'd need it and that seems a bit overkill. Xiner (talk, email) 01:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I meant that, if the project banners were set up that way, there would be no need for an overall template to hide them all. This would allow the BLP warning (which would, presumably, be outside the show/hide block) to show up properly. Kirill Lokshin 03:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

This is awful

I am pretty sure that there must have been some discussion before this thing began to be implemented, but this simply annihilates the purpose of WikiProject banners, which is to recruit new members. The WikiProject Guide clearly states that "One of the most basic aspects of keeping a WikiProject active is recruiting editors. A WikiProject must recruit new members to make up for attrition; any project that fails to do this will eventually collapse" (emphasis not mine). This template hides WikiProject banners under an unnecessary layer, as IMO, WikiProject banners are not the problem they're made to be. That said, Kirill's solution in his sandbox is a much more adequate compromise than this template, and should be implemented; This template should then be deprecated and deleted. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Is the main point of a talk page to talk about the article or to recruit members to WikiProjects? There are cases in which there are so many project banners that they overwhelm the talk page, which was part of the motivation behind introducing the small templates, and this is simply another manifestation of that. The compromise is fine, too, but I don't find the current implementation to be at all contrary to the real purpose of talk pages. Dekimasuが... 08:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

A talk page is not to "talk" about an article; WP is not a forum. It is instead intended to find ways to improve articles, and that includes "Hey, there's other editors that specialize in these subjects, so maybe I can go ask them as well". In my experience, the vast majority of talk pages are unwatched, so adding a question there is like throwing a stone into a pond. It makes waves for a bit, then everything goes back to the way it was. However, if it is asked in a more visible place, by asking a WikiProject, for example, it is much more likely that someone will actually do something about it. I don't see how adding complex code to talk pages helps anyone, and I do see how it can make WikiProjects less visible. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

To talk about the contents of an article. We do call them "talk pages", and it was in that sense that I was using the word "talk". Dekimasuが... 08:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[An article's talk page] is instead intended [to be used] to find ways to improve articles, and that includes "Hey, there's other editors that specialize in these subjects, so maybe I can go ask them as well".

Except that's exactly what they are *NOT* used for. In reality, they are used as a free place to advertise wikiprojects that, in almost all cases, have made no effort to improve the article they are advertising on. I've seen this personally on the FA's I've gotten up to FA status -- I'll work hard to get an article up to FA status, and after it's promoted, people from one wikiproject or another come along to slap their advertising on top of the talk page for articles they did not lift a finger to improve. In other words, these wikiproject banners are nigh unto talk page spam. Raul654 04:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way about some WikiProjects. I'd mention a couple things, though, that you might think about. 1) Tagging an article with a WikiProject tag does not mean the articles is owned by the Project - simply that it "falls within the scope of..." the Project. 2) Perhaps the project is still in its beginning stages, and if you give it a chance, the project will be able to contribute. 3) If you are running in to a specific project that seems to be acting this way, consider joining the project - there are probably editors there that will be able to contribute to something you're working on - or vice-versa.

And finally, that issue relates to specific WikiProjects, not to this template, or even to the reason for creating this template. If the template is working properly, both sides of your issue will be addressed - the project(s) will be able to attract members, and there will be much less "talk page spam". -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm well aware that tagging a talk-page with a wikiproject template does not imply ownership. But, frankly, I find it both brazen and insulting to have other people advertising their wikiprojects on articles they have not made an iota of effort to improve (especially on ones that I *have* devoted such efforts to). As to your second and third comments, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I'm talking about a few bad apples spoiling the bunch. This is not the case. In fact, as I pointed out weeks ago, most projects tags posted by virtually all wikiprojects go onto articles that no one from that wikiproject has ever improved or will ever improve. (And the response to my assertion was effectively - yes, so what?) In fact, discussion by the Wikiproject Council makes it *QUITE* clear the primary purpose of Wikiproject templates is shameless advertising. Or, just look up to Titoxd's very first comment in this thread, which says this template "annihilates the purpose" of the Wikiproject templates. So by his very own words, we know the main/primary/only purpose of the wikiproject templates is to advertise.

As for your assertion that these issues do not relate to this template - I am at a loss for how to respond except to say - yes, they obviously do. The purpose of this template - to clean up talk pages, and make them more usable to the user - runs directly counter to the purpose of the wikiproject template, which is to advertise various wikiprojects. (Or, as project-supporter Ned put it, this template "misses the point" [1]) This explains the very vocal opposition on this page stated by various wikiproject proponents. Raul654 05:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not a black-and-white issue, obviously; not all WikiProject "proponents" are in vocal opposition. ;-)

More generally, the basic qutestion is this: how much "spam" are we willing to tolerate as the price of keeping WikiProjects functional? Obviously, giant flashing banners at the bottom of every article are out; but so is the total removal of the banners, unless the desired result is killing off most of the projects through attrition. This template probably goes a bit farther towards the no-spam end of the spectrum than I would prefer; but it's not so far along that the general function should be unacceptable to the projects, I think. Kirill Lokshin 05:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Raul654, when I said it misses the point I did not mean that. I mean that the real issue is that we have too many "minor" WikiProjects (for most of these situations) that don't actually need to be individual WikiProjects. Also, it's well known that the point of the banners is to advertise, that's never been a secrete. Guess what, to advertise is not a bad thing. Commercial advertisements are bad on Wikipedia, especially ones that don't relate to improving the articles. These are not commercial advertisements and they directly relate to article improvements. Advertising editing collaboration is no different than "advertising" a new policy for comment. If you are trying to relate WikiProject advertising to commercial advertising then you are out of your mind. -- Ned Scott 07:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I should clarify, "too many minor projects" is one possible reason, but there are others, and addressing those issues is a better way of dealing with this. -- Ned Scott 08:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Advertising a wikiproject is not an end unto itself. If wikiprojects only tagged the articles they actively improve and take care of, this would be a moot issue, as:

(A) There would be a hell of a lot fewer banners (I would say - conservatively - less than a hundreth of compared to now), and

(B) Their presence on an article that a project is actively taking care of would not be so objectionable, compared to the situtation now where they slap it on tons of articles they have never touched.

But the fact of the matter is that Wikiprojects tag everything under heaven that could possibly be related. Thus, the point I am making is that these templates serve almost no purpose BUT to advertise the wikiproject, Titoxd's comment above about their potential uses not withstanding. For the most part, they do not benefit talk page visistors, or the articles tagged with them, or Wikipedia as a whole. They do have an immedaite, demonstrable and detrimental effect on the usability of talk pages, which is why, wikiproject boosters not withstanding, people want this template kept. Raul654 16:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Raul, I believe you are painting with too wide a brush - no doubt based on your own experiences, so you're probably not being intentionally anti-WP. When you say "If wikiprojects only tagged the articles they actively improve and take care of", it sounds like all wikiprojects plaster their tags around and don't take care of the articles. I'm sure there are projects like that, but there are also projects that do take care of articles they've tagged. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 18:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I love this template and talk pages are definitely not billboards for advertising Wikiprojects. I am an extremely active member of the NBA Wikiproject and a semi-active member of the NFL Wikiproject so I'm not anti-WikiProject. If you want members to join projects simply invite them, in addition people can still see the Banner give them some credit. Quadzilla99 20:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to reiterate what I said earlier, this edit from two days ago is a perfect example of the problem. You have an article that has already been edited heavily, gone through featured status, is on the main page, and then someone from a wikiproject comes along and slaps their advertising on it, without ever lifting a finger to improve the article. Raul654 06:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

1) I wouldn't think an article about "a series of four printed engravings published by William Hogarth in 1751" would belong to the Comics project - I'd delete the tag on that basis alone.

2) I don't disagree that tags are slapped on articles - at every stage in their development.

3) Do you realize that it sounds like WP:OWN when you say that?

4) The tag says "this article falls within the scope of (project)." It does not say "(Project) helped elevate this article to its current state."

5) Have you ever contacted a WikiProject that has "slapped their advertising" on an article to get help?

6) What does that have to do with a template that combines WikiProject tags to make the talk page of an article less cluttered?

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 07:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

3) Actually,slapping an article is closer to WP:OWN than protesting unused talk page clutter.

6) Because it's edits like these that increase the clutter the present template aims to eliminate??

Circeus 13:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, it is far, far more efficient to recruit by leaving polite notices on new editors' talk pages than by slapping banners willy-nilly. WP:TOL and WP:PLANTS are fairly active wikiprojects, none of which uses banner. Circeus 13:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(1) I already have.

(3) What Circeus said.

(4) The template creates an obvious (false) impression that the wikiproject edits the article. And if they don't edit the article, they should not be tagging it.

(5) While I personally have not, the FAR people do it on a daily basis in the regular course of buisness there. The results have been virtually nill, as Sandy has already said elsewhere on this page. This suggests that the vast majority of wikiproject tags are gratitious.

(6) What Circeus said. Raul654 15:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Question number five, for about six months I have been regularly notifying every WikiProject I could find about every article that comes up at WP:FAR. I notify the Projects which have tagged the article, and I used to also notify every Project which could be remotely related in any way to the article, in the hope of casting the widest possible net to find editors willing to help maintain the article. I could probably count on one hand the number of times a Project has actually marshalled resources to help maintain the featured status of an article (and that may be an overestimate: I'm giving the benefit of the doubt). Most often, when I notify a Project of an article up for review, I find that most of the messages on the Project talk page are my old notifications. I have also notified Projects in advance of articles that would eventually come up for review, hoping an advance notice would result in improvements without review; this approach has yet to bear fruit even once that I'm aware of. IMNSHO, and based now on six months of experience, most of the Projects are essentially useless in article maintenance (with a few exceptions; for example, MilHist has a very good peer review process, etc.). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

We're actually trying to get more attention directed to our articles on FAR now, by actually transcluding the reviews directly (here); I have no idea how helpful it'll be in practice, though. Kirill Lokshin 16:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree that most WikiProjects aren't effective. Last night I went through 380 WikiProjects. I'd say 80%+ have fewer than 1000 articles tagged. Given those numbers, it's surprising this template is needed at all. And I also wonder what the WikiProject Council does about inactive projects and/or promoting activity by projects. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

3) Tagging an article does not assert ownership. It says "this article falls within the scope of". It's like a category with benefits. It's simply a tag that promotes the particular project and provides information *to* the project about what articles are within their scope.

4) If the project is active and effective, tagging an article should be the first step. The project(s) I'm involved in are fairly new, but the stated goal is to improve articles within the scope. The next step is to promote (within the project) editing articles to improve them. I'm sorry if you haven't seen activity that suggests that, but that issue is best directed at the project involved.

5) If the project isn't active, take that up with the project - it's not a reason to condemn projects and tagging. And if anything, that should be a reason to support this template.

6) I'm not sure how an edit showing a (single) mis-tagging relates to this template.

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(3) This is the same argument used to justify the "This article is maintained by" tag, and frankly I find it hollow. Yes, it is true that it doesn't explicitely say "This article is owned by _____" -- it just implies it very strongly. And you did not reply to my comment that "And if they don't edit the article, they should not be tagging it.", so I'll presume you agree with this.

(4/5) Once again, you are incorrectly characterizing my comments (and Sandy's) as applying to a specific wikiproject or small subset of wikiprojects, when in fact we characterizing virtually all of them. As Sandy just said, over the course of many months, she has (on a daily basis) notified wikiprojets of impending FAR nominations, and almost without exception those wikiprojects have done nothing. If tagging an article is only the first step and improving it is the second, then I want to know where all these second-stage articles are. Per my other comments on this issue, I would optimistically guess 1 in 100, but I suspect even that is a huge overestimate. Nor do I believe your "it's not working, so let's do it more often" argument - it just doesn't hold water. If already-heavily tagged articles do not benefit from improve originating from a wikiproject, there is no reason to believe that employing them even more heavily would fix it. If your roof is on fire, you don't set fire to the rest of the house just because the smoke hasn't killed you yet. Or, to put it another way - let us assume for one moment that talk page templates causatively corrolate with article improvement (when in fact there is not a scintilla of evidence they do). You would then be arguing that they should be deployed more widely. But since, in reality, there is no evidence these tags lead to improvement, you simply argue they haven't been used wiedely enough. Tell me - are there EVER ANY circumstances where you would not support deploying them more widely?

(6) Uh, as Circeus just said - this template is designed to solve talk-page clutter. Talk pages are cluttered because of gratitious talk page tagging. The edit I cited is as crystal-clear an example of gratitious tagging as I have ever seen. Therefore, it (and the many edits like it) are the reason this template has been created and deployed. Raul654 18:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Evidence of article improvements due to wikiproject and tags and here.

But I'm going to assume nothing I say will change your mind that wikiprojects are useless and banners are nothing more than clutter. So, while I disagree wholeheartedly, I'm done. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The pages you cite indicate that the number of featured articles with wikiproject tags is increasing. They do not, however, indicate causation (which is what I explicitely said there is no evidence for). I suspect the reason those numbers are going up is because of edits like the one I just cited - people coming along and tagging an article *after* it has been featured. I grant there are some exceptional wikiprojects, but these are rare indeed. How many wikiprojects can honestly claim they have produced a featured article? A half-dozen? Maybe a dozen at the outside? Raul654 20:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

And the ones that have are, of course, being as thoroughly affected by this as all the others; the approach taken here makes no distinctions among projects based on their success or lack thereof. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I have an idea that would address both your concerns (that useful wikiprojects would be hurt by this template) and my concerns (that talk pages are becoming too cluttered, due primarily to the fact that wikiproject templates are being used gratuitously). I propose that we institute a rule that that *all* wikiproject tags are to be removed from *all* articles, and may only be put on an article *after* the wikiproject has made substantial and significant contributions to that article. (or it stays in place if the Wikiproject has already made such contributions) I'll leave defining what 'substantial' and 'significant' are to others, but it should be assumed to be a high bar. This would solve the clutter problem, and eliminate the need for this template. Somehow, though, I don't think this would fly.

So, in lieu of that perfect solution, this one will have to do. Or, to paraphrase Mr. Churchill, it's an absolutely horrible solution, except for all the other ones that have ever been suggested. Raul654 22:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, there are plenty of other solutions possible—assuming, of course, that one takes the stance that WikiProjects are fundamentally a good thing, and should be encouraged to become more active. We could, for example, institute a system of "accreditation" for projects; projects judged by the community to be sufficiently productive could be rewarded with additional priveledges—in this case, more prominent banner placement—beyond those available to their kin. (Such an approach would, incidentally, substantially reduce the proliferation of projects, as there would be significant benefits to trimming down infrastructure and becoming a task force of a larger and already accredited project.)

But, of course, the underlying idea remains that productive projects should be given a somewhat longer leash than unproductive ones; if the point you're arguing for is that they should all be muzzled, then this obviously won't be a very attractive idea. Kirill Lokshin 22:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they should *all* be muzzled. I just think that if they want to advertise, they should have to earn it. To wit - they can advertise on articles they substantially improved. (And, incidentally, if they want the most people possible viewing their articles, they would do well to improve the articles with the greatest viewership - shifting the onus towards improving our most prominent articles. Hence, everybody wins).

I don't think wikiprojects are fundementally good or evil, per se; I don't think having lots of Wikiprojects is a problem; I think that the practice of peppering hundreds of otherwise-untouched articles with advertising is a huge problem. A wikiproject isn't an end unto itself - its purpose should be article improvement. I have no objections to rewarding wikiprojects that do improve articles (and I think the reward should be proportionate to the work). Raul654 23:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) WikiProjects don't write anything, editors do. As I'm sure you know, most decent articles are written primarily by one person, occasionally by two. Projects provide resources, among the most important resources being a group of editors who have a stated interest in a related topic, who are moderately likely to be willing to read/review and suggest things about an article. Members of the group may have access to relevant reference material. None of these wikiproject resources are used, however, if some particular editor isn't interested in improving an article. It seems a little reversed to talk of wikiprojects improving articles; they help editors improve them. This is in my opinion one main reason for the lack of wikiproject response at FAR - if some particular editor doesn't take it upon themselves, a large group of people with a passing interest isn't going to accomplish anything. But that some group of mildly interested people can be a good resource if one editor takes the lead. And all that one editor really needs is a link (to the project or portal) to find the resources they need. Gimmetrow 02:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well said. Something that bothers me about the idea that projects can only tag after they've edited an article is that we shouldn't think of WikiProjects like that. Of course, there is some appeal in the form of a "community", but that's more of a side effect of projects. They shouldn't be seen as groups of people as much as being seen as places of collaboration. Centralized talk pages, deletion sorting, article requests, article stubs, article assessments, keeping track of those things help us to improve articles. I've always tried to promote the idea that the only reason we call some people "members" or participants is to help show how active a project is, or to help participants find each other (for collaborative editing). But at the same time anyone who's edited an article within the scope was just as much a participant, because the "WikiProject" is simply an effort to improve the articles, and they are apart of that effort. There are many WikiProjects that I have used in the past without ever tagging myself as a "member", but I was still apart of the effort and used those tools set up by the project.

The idea that projects have to earn the right to a banner isn't completely bad, and some form of approval might be a good idea. -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ned Scott (talk • contribs) 03:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

TfD nomination of Template:WikiProjectBanners

Template:WikiProjectBanners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -- Ned Scott 08:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And it was kept. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Kiril's option

Is there any objection to changing this template to reflect Kiril's option of showing a header line for each project, with the "show" button to see the full banners? Personally I think that version addresses many of the objections raised recently - and may even make the TfD moot. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are still unresolved technical issues with that version. It's unclear (to me, at least) whether the implementation should be done through a common option in the banners themselves or a central template responsible for the bar display; but, in either case, substantial coding is still needed before the thing will actually work. Kirill Lokshin 16:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The TFD is already failing. It's clear that most people support this template as is. Meanwhile, setting aside the technical problems, Kirill's soluion is simply not scalable - it makes the problem smaller (each wikiproject only gets one line of advertising on the talk page instead of N lines, where N=the number of lines in its wikiproject template) but the problem is still there. In time (with the proliferation of wikiprojects) we will start seeing the same problem over again - this time with huge lists of wikiprojects claiming each article. And, this is not even considering the problem of wikiproject templates (e.g, this article was featured on the 'marine biology portal in the did you know' section template I saw recently). Raul654 16:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't solve all of the scalability problems either, though. The length of time to load the page will increase with the number of banners, whether or not they are shown, as has been pointed out at the TfD debate. I also wondered over there if Kirill's suggestions could be implemented by changing the default "hidden" text of this template to show text links to each hidden WikiProject (within the same box). Dekimasuが... 17:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See below. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Question: This would be an "option" as in some editors could display it that way? Or it would be a new format? Quadzilla99 20:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See, this is my whole point. I like the idea but this fix is sloppy and can be done so much better. -- Ned Scott 08:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well bring it on :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I object to "Kiril's option" (whatever it may be - he's got several of them) on the simple basis that this template works pretty well. It is Good Enough, and doesn't need to be Better. RossPatterson 13:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer, and others are concerned that it defeats the purpose of attracting users to the WikiProject and leading them to other articles where they can contribute. I think the multiple box template (which is here btw, Ross and others) is a wonderful comprimise, and another way to save this from negativity at TFD (I have also put the suggestion forth there). -- Reaper X 22:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to the current suggestion! I could live with it, but as long as a template exists in this one's form, I wouldn't use Kiril's. I'm not anti-WikiProject, but I am anti-compromise — in-between positions often seem worse to me than what they're trying to mediate between. If we're going to hide the banners, let's hide them, and if we're going to show them, let's show them. Nobody is forcing articles to adopt this template, so there's no need for a middle ground. Oh, and Kiril's option has some odd behavior with the hide/show "buttons" — sometimes they do what they say, sometimes they don't. And, of course, the colors violate WP:TPT. All that stuff's fixable, I'm sure. But one thing that isn't fixable is the need to list every banner twice, once by template and once by the name to list it under. I suppose that's a small price, but things like that rankle nonetheless. RossPatterson 00:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer - I dispute this assertion. Some people have said this. Most have not. Most do support this template as is. Kirill's multi-line box takes up too much space. And it's difficult if you want to see all the templates, you have to click again and again. Raul654 00:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Some people may not like "the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer", but some certainly do, as is obvious from the TfD page. Those that don't shouldn't use templates that hide banners on the articles they work on. Those that do, should. Nobody's proposing that all banners everywhere be wrapped in some enclosing template, at least not that I've seen yet. RossPatterson 00:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Most WikiProjects don't even know about the TfD, so if you want to make this about numbers then I'll be glad to prove you wrong. -- Ned Scott 02:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about numbers, or at least I don't think it should be. I'm just pointing out that when Reaper_X said "it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer", that was only one point of view. A quick check just now found several statements that clearly support putting the banners in a drawer: "I think it is helpful to have some organization"; "seems the best option for solving talk page clutter at the present"; "a good way not to clog up talk pages"; etc. I don't care how many are pro-drawer and how many are anti-, but there are obviously some of each casting TfD votes. RossPatterson 04:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What a difference two silly letters make. I meant to say "it appears to me that people do like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer". I do apologize! You know, sometimes your so rushed to get your opinion up there... Sorry guys! Thanks for pointing that out Ross. -- Reaper X 20:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering that the TfD has been written up in this week's issue of the Wikipedia Signpost, I'd say it's pretty well publicized. --Elonka 02:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As cool as the Signpost is, the majority of editors don't read it regularly. You seem to have missed my point, in that numbers (hello voting) do not always reflect how things are actually turning out. Not only that, but many of the keeps and deletes don't conflict, meaning that someone supported keep and used the same rationale as someone who supported delete. Some editors seem to think the TfD is about if we are going to have the talk pages be bloated or not, rather than it being about which solution we use. I'm finding myself agreeing with a lot of the keeps, and I'm the one who nominated the template in the first place. Specifically going back to what Ross said, many of those supporting keep do not like "the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer". -- Ned Scott 03:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup, you're right. Some of the keeps are clearly laissez faire opinions, wanting to maintain the option for others of using a template they themselves would not. That sounds right neighborly to me :-) RossPatterson 04:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you wish I can start posting diffs that show that most don't have any objections to the alternatives, and many strongly prefer them, from both keep and delete supporters. They're not just saying it to be nice. -- Ned Scott 06:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yet another version

This combines the general idea of the current implementation with some of the various suggestions made for linking to the projects in short form. The underlying functionality is done through a template that recognizes banner template names and spits out appropriate project links; the major drawback is that each project must be added to it individually, or it won't get a link. (The possibilities of using this point to keep a check on the proliferation of useless WikiProjects are left as an exercise to the reader.)

Comments? Kirill Lokshin 17:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Great. Support this entirely and wholeheartedly. Thanks for making an example that shows what I was finding it hard to put into words. Dekimasuが... 17:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If I understand this, it requires specifying the title as a parameter separate from the template itself? There must be a way to avoid this, even if it doesn't use the technique demonstrated above. Gimmetrow 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The name of the template has to be passed in as a distinct parameter (whether separately, or as part of a broken-up template call) in order to be used in a switch statement; to do otherwise would require a general pattern-matching function, which the devs have said they don't want to do. Kirill Lokshin 21:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

String functions do exist, they just aren't installed on enwiki (and probably won't be). With present technology, I had in mind an option the WP templates would support, title=yes, like the small option. When this parameter is present, the WP templates would generate a link to the project (and possibly, the article importance code). This seems like the more object-oriented approach, but it would probably take a few months to get (most of) the project templates coded. A big monster switch would be implemented faster.

This still doesn't fix my non-javascript issue, and an ultra-light one-line rendering with just the project name and ratings would be nice on dialups. Eventually I'll experiment with the WP:HV template.

If we *must* have the name as a distinct parameter, then could we at least have a fall-through in the switch so projects can "opt-out", get called with a "title=yes" option, and do their own rendering? Gimmetrow 22:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That would still require two parameters, no? The simple link would need to render separately from the main template, so instead of

|1={{WPMILHIST}}
|1_n=WPMILHIST

you'd have

|1={{WPMILHIST}}
|1_n={{WPMILHIST|title=yes}}

which doesn't seem like it would really gain anything (except for a neater handling of redirects).

Another point to consider: the centralized template approach ensures that individual projects don't do anything bizarre with the rendering; leaving each banner to render the link means that we have to deal with whatever it spits out (which may not be the link we're expecting at all) gracefully. Kirill Lokshin 22:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, the way I'm thinking of it, the code in the talk page would still look something like:

|1=class=B|taskforce=WWII|importance=Mid|peer-review=yes|infobox=good|images=good
|1_n=WPMILHIST

(Assume the syntax for splitting the template this way would work.) All the options would have to be present in the your version anyway. However, for some WP who have an alternate rendering, the switch would call them with {{{{{template}}}|{{{1|}}}|title=yes}}. Otherwise, it would render with the hard-coded link as the switch does currently. Only those projects with this alternate call would have the alternate rendering, nothing bizarre could happen without approval. Does this make sense? For the alternate rendering, I'm basically thinking the project link and a rating code like (B/Mid/WWII). I mostly had in mind the one-line bar versions, and if that doesn't happen, this is probably too much fuss for the benefit. Gimmetrow 23:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Color scheme

There's something else that I asked about a while ago with no response. Could the container background (aside from the header part) be a lighter color so the templates are set off, and it is not one huge block of color? Something in the vicinity of style="background: #ffffe6;" perhaps? Gimmetrow 07:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be trivial to change the background, but it would contravene the standards for talk page templates. :-\ Kirill Lokshin 13:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What standards do you mean? I'm not aware of prior discussion of the color scheme for container templates. It would help here if the other templates were rendered against a contrasting background, somewhat like this; the top part of the container background would be the standard color. Gimmetrow 15:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page templates still applies regardless of whether it's a container, no? Kirill Lokshin 16:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it indeed does. Raul654 22:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the background for the container remains the appropriate color, it's just the background for the cells in which other templates are rendered I want to change. A wikilawyer might say that's not directly addressed by WP:TPT. Gimmetrow 18:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

If the template calls are not going to be split up to allow for small options, is there any reason to have multiple parameters for the templates themselves? The alternate use here doesn't need them; this puts all the templates into one cell, so it also doesn't break up the background color.

A bot could rather easily go through all current instances of the Banners template and add the template names as separate parameters. Gimmetrow 13:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If we're not going to be doing anything clever with each call, then I see no reason why they can't be combined. (In fact, that's precisely what I did for {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}.) Kirill Lokshin 13:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)