Jump to content

Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 September 12

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

September 12

[edit]
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).

The result of the discussion was Delete {{Cartoon Network programming}}. Other templates mentioned in the discussion should be nominated separately if desired. ~ RobTalk 04:34, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Per concerns discussed at WikiProject Television, the chief concern being that it doesn't serve any real useful purpose. ElectricBurst(Electron firings)(Zaps) 23:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That being said, if the others at {{U. S. network show templates}} can exist, the nominator would probably gain from broader consensus. 23W 05:09, 13 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was Delete and replace with either {{Pull quote}} or {{Quote}}, with attention paid to whether the use of a pull quote is appropriate in this situation. ~ RobTalk 05:51, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant and serves no purpose. All of its features are in {{Pull quote}} already. The only things this does that the parent template does not are a) abuse tables for layout, and b) try to vertically center the giant quotation marks to the side of the quote, which only works well for medium-length quotations (they show up below the quote for short ones, and for long ones the first one is too far from the top to visually set off the pull quote as a pull quote.

This is blecherous.

Its parameters are all supported by {{Pull quote}}, so this Relic from Ye Ancient Wiki Tymes of Yore can simply be redirected there, after its parameters are all named (not numbered or unnamed; the numbered ones are in a different order). A bot should probably do this, as there are a lot of transclusions; in the interim, it can be replaced with a call to {{pull quote}} that does nothing but put the parameters in the right order; that code can be found already in Template:Pull quote2/sandbox.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  22:58, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Followup observation: Probably 98% of these uses actually need to be replaced with {{Quote}}, not {{Pull quote}}, as they are misusing the template for block quotations, not actual pull quotes.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  17:59, 14 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was Delete. ~ RobTalk 05:55, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

duplicates template:geographic location. 98.230.192.179 (talk) 22:52, 12 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was Delete. ~ RobTalk 04:32, 28 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Created out of process and not transcluded on any articles. — JJMC89(T·C) 17:07, 12 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was keep. The template has been converted to a {{cite journal}} wrapper, with parameter pass-throughs for the page variable. This alleviates part of the concerns of the delete !voters. Arguments that this template forces a particular style of citation for this source were rebutted by the fact that people could just use cite journal or another template directly. Arguments in favour of flexibility were rebutted by arguments for correctness. Rob's claim that hard-coded citations are never appropriate was not backed up with policy.I think the prevailing sentiment is that this template serves a useful purpose. (non-admin closure) BethNaught (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Specific source citation template that is just hard-coded text. In particular, it's hard-coded text of a range of pages. I see from User:Slambo/Railroaders that the range is a very, very useful source and while it is six pages and that's not particularly difficult, the fact that no one can edit this without figuring this out if they want to be more particular is not helpful in the long term. This template is called on a number of pages but it seems to be in the references section as the editor didn't use in-line referencing. Suggest that it be userified and User:Slambo can substitute the citation manually to save themselves time but someone else may prefer to break out the specific page number especially if there's an article that involves multiple references to the range. Ricky81682 (talk) 21:54, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • keep – Thank you for notifying me of this discussion. This is one of the templates that I started way back in 2005 before we had {{cite journal}} and the references extension (the <ref> tools were added in 2006), which is the main reason why it wasn't used as a footnote reference in many articles that were also created around that time. I have a copy of the journal noted in the template in my personal library, so I can go back to the pages that call it to make more precise use of it with current citation tools. In 2007 the template was updated to use the citation template for formatting consistency with other references. As to it noting a specific page range, I may be biased with a degree in computer science and background in programming, but it's not that difficult to add a conditional parameter for subsequent users to list a single page instead of the default page range for this journal article. I understand that the validity of the source itself isn't under question (the author of the article being cited, John H. White, Jr., was a curator at the Smithsonian for almost 20 years), but I don't see how userfying this template will help to improve it or its use. Slambo (Speak) 22:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, of what use is this template? I have a similar background and I too create my own templates for books I refer to but I also keep those in userspace and substitute them so that the actual text is there in the article. These kinds of templates have been problematic for years here. First issue: do you plan on adding a documentation subpage (which is overkill), even if you do, you require that anyone else who wants to refer to this journal article must also understand how your citation template work. Let's take your current proposed solution: if you plan on adding a page number parameter, I presume you won't go with option (A) some unique, esoteric choice (even if it's {{template:white|2}} that's esoteric but the basic citation templates don't do that). If you want it to keep the current page numbers as some default, that's more complicated. Now, with or without documentation, people are not always going to want to keep citations in the same format forever and people creating templates using their own parameters and other fun is cute but enormously head-aching inducing (and that template had a documentation subpage). Then again, your second option is (B) use page or pages so that it's just further existing as a mere wrapper of cite journal with certain parameters of text hard-coded for your convenience. Great, so you have a template that hard-code some parts of the most common template, has some parameter and has some parameters that do not pass through. And the only way anyone will figure out that someone will figure out that this template (unlike say, Template:White - American railroad freight car, recently of yours) does happen to pass the page parameter while the other one doesn't is by pure trial and error or by learning the particular choices you made in the template at the time you made it. Point being, what is gained by all this? This is literally all text you could copy and paste into a citation, it's all easy for you to understand but if somehow, we find an editor who (1) has the same interest, (2) wants to add to one of the rail transportation articles, (3) sees your reference (4) understands WP:V and wants to help, that's not particularly out there but that person also must (5) must also learn exactly how in the world templates in general work (not just cite journal which many people still have a fit and consider too complicated) but this particular template's formatting. This isn't new, this kind of stuff has existed here for years and at some point, people decide that the formatting needs to be changed and then the editors who created it get their talk pages full of hundreds of notices to be told "we're hard coding this into the article but one person's personal preferences as to what is easier or not is not the way to go." Ricky81682 (talk) 04:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You're forcing Harvard notation through this format. That's fine and all but it isn't in every article and I'm pretty sure the main CS1 template allow for it already. Are we better off with template that force various notation formats? At some point, we may change formatting and then it's another game of finding hundreds of various templates that force one or another and stripping that out. I don't get what is so special about that category. A user comes by and wants to help on rail transportation articles. It's not "here's a list of books, websites, journals that we use for our articles that are good sources," (which the project page could have) it's "here is a list of somewhat cryptic names that refer to templates, go review these templates to see the citation its referring to (and from find the book you want to use? or is it once you find the book, you figure out its template? i don't get it) and then maybe you can figure out how to use the citation (maybe its like this version that hard-codes a particular set of pages, maybe it's like the change Slambo will make that doesn't, maybe it's like Template:White - American railroad freight car that is a call to cite book but if you try to cite the pages parameter, it won't work). Again, you're adding layer upon layer of work for new editors to learn to be able to help. And why? Are citations that aren't in a template worse in some way? If I want to cite a book but the book has a template, must I use the template? If the citation doesn't use the page parameter, can I not use it or do I have to learn about the template language to fix it? Wouldn't a list that contained both the citations in template and the citations with just cite book be more useful? Should every book that is a source be made into a citation? My point is, if someone is referring to this book repeatedly, find, use the thing in their own place like I did with User:Ricky81682/Template:Johnson but don't force everyone else to use the template just because you designed one. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No one's forcing anything. Rather, the standard is to make the ref, page, and pages parameters available as passthoughs so that others may use them as they choose. You'll find if you looked around that a properly formatted template is used with Harvard notation and with direct citation. The primary purpose of this template, as with any template, is to standardize something that was previously add-hoc. I cannot tell you how much randomness I have seen with book citations, particularly in railroad articles. It's of great benefit to have a single template that authoritatively describes a book which is used in dozens of articles. Substing doesn't help that because it opens up that citation to entropy on the individual article. It also makes it straightforward to track down where a book is used if someone needs to check references. Mackensen (talk) 10:55, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that "entropy on the individual articles" as you put it can be also be considered flexibility. I understand the desire to have consistency with the formatting of citations but I'm also of the viewpoint that we should consider the ease of use to the newest editors to the encyclopedia, and someone who is interested in these articles and expresses an interest in the book/citing the book is likely to, the first time, provide an incomplete or semi-incoherent citation. The "randomness" you refer to I assume is basically incomplete citations? Wouldn't it be better if we could complete the citations that exist rather than simply replace the entire string with an entirely separate template that hides the citation inside another cite journal format. The point is, it's still a copy-and-paste job (the text to a reader is the same, in theory), we're arguing about the length of text that needs to be copied-and-pasted (or the length of the text within the code) and my feeling is that I'd rather current users use the most basic citation templates rather than wrappers for those templates to save on the length of the citation as it appears in the wiki text. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:15, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't consider it flexibility. We're talking about incomplete or incorrect citations--missing publisher information, colloquial titles, missing secondary authors. We don't want flexibility in these things. We want the citations, in these aspects which do not change, to be correct everywhere. If we happen to write an article about an author who also features in a cited work (as has happened with John H. White), I want to update the authorlink in once place, not thirty. If the user leaves an incorrect or incomplete citation then that's fine, it'll get replaced by a proper template later. I call it maintenance. It's unlikely someone will want to go back and change it. Book titles do not change, nor do ISBNs. If someone does need to make a change, they'll work it out. This isn't rocket surgery. There are not droves of editors on talk pages complaining that they cannot figure out how to edit citation templates. Mackensen (talk) 01:31, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Hard-coded citations are never appropriate. In particular, the page range could be incorrect when used in an article (i.e. would be more specific if an actual citation template were used). The style of the reference may be inconsistent with the article as a whole. This is also redundant to {{Cite journal}}. This should be re-coded as a wrapper for Cite journal and substituted. Consider what occurs if we do not routinely delete hard-coded references. If we had a template for every reference used on the project a handful of times, they would proliferate uncontrollably. ~ RobTalk 03:53, 6 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    I confess that I don't grok the hatred TfD regulars seem to have for these templates. They're useful, when implemented correctly, as I've noted above. If you're claiming that these templates are *never* appropriate then you should initiate a policy discussion because otherwise TfD is (again) intruding into editorial matters. If you mean that the page range shouldn't be fixed then you're right, but that's a common enough pattern when working with journal articles, particularly if one is accustomed to Chicago-style. I'm aware now that cite journal recommends against it, but the matter wasn't so settled ten years ago. Mackensen (talk) 10:55, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. It's a massive pain in the arsch when someone on a deletion kick nukes one of these things out from under us, and we're back to hand re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-entering the same fargin' citation details over and over again. Just leave them alone. It wouldn't matter if there were a proliferation of such templates, as long as they're simple wrappers that pass fixed data to the standard templates. But there's hasn't been. The category for single-source citation templates is quite manageable, and they're mostly created by wikiprojects that have a number of sources they cite frequently.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:15, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You still have to re-re-re-enter this code citation. Is there something that's going to change? There are a number of issues, namely that it locks the format of how this citation is used in every articles that the citation is used, rather than allowing for some flexibility per article. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's unclear why such flexibility would be desired. In any case, people are free to use or not use these templates. People use them, perhaps because a desire for consistency outweighs a desire for "flexibility." The things being "forced", such as author names, title, and ISBN, aren't likely to change, and there's benefit in having a canonical version. Again, I've seen all kinds of nonsense with partially-entered titles, malformed ISBNs, wrong dates, etc. I'm not aware of anyone who works on these articles having issues with these templates. Mackensen (talk) 04:28, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Either use the standard templates (and derived, source-specific ones like this), or use a specific, externally sourced, self-consistent citation style (which may by now have it's own templates), or (if you really want "flexibility") just hand-format your citations. One's desire to do the third of these things is not a rationale for making it more difficult for people to do the first of them. And you missed my meaning, Ricky81682. The re-re-...re-entering part is all the repeated citation details that do not change between citations of the same source. Every single template in Category:Specific-source templates exists to save the wasted time and effort having to keep re-entering the same details over and over again for frequently-cited sources.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:20, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Alakzi (talk) 09:16, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The point is how many pass-through parameters are needed to make this useful for all instances versus just using cite journal itself? It's just a wrapper for cite journal and the more layers you create, the more things that can go wrong. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 03:41, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
These are all hypotheticals; I'm not aware of things going wrong. If someone needs a parameter they'll add one. The parameters added are standard for many rail citation templates and they've proven fit for purpose. Page numbers and the ref passthrough will handle most referencing use cases which I can think of; most railroad articles either cite directly or use Harvard-style. The original thrust of the nomination was addressed and certainly this template in its present form is no more difficult to work with than cite journal itself. Mackensen (talk) 04:28, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Right. Show us an actual problem, Ricky81682, or just opt not to use a template you don't like instead of trying to take away tools from people who actually use them.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:20, 18 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was Listify if such a list passes WP:GNG. ~ RobTalk 06:02, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I propose this navbox is replaced by either a list or a category system. It does not provide any navigational benefit as currently stands. Tom (LT) (talk) 00:41, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Alakzi (talk) 08:42, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Listify: It's encyclopedically useful and interesting as a list (for multiple reasons), but just distracting trivia as a navbox. Doesn't work as a category, either, since "being named after someone" isn't a defining characteristic of any disorder.  — SMcCandlish ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ʌ≼  23:19, 12 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was Delete. ~ RobTalk 00:24, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Unused. Outer South London Line was deleted in 2014 for being an invented name for a non-notable service routing. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use {{re|Jc86035}} to reply to me 08:09, 12 September 2015 (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).
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).

The result of the discussion was keep and trim/simplify. Opabinia regalis (talk) 21:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This template is not useful for navigation. It is in fact a list. I propose that this navbox is moved to either a list article or deleted entirely in favour of categories. If it is retained I propose almost all the items are stripped except those directly relating to the technologies relating to endoscopy. Tom (LT) (talk) 01:20, 8 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Alakzi (talk) 23:18, 11 September 2015 (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).