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March 24

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Template:Redirect5

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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; deleted as G7 by Sphilbrick (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) AnomieBOT⚡ 16:13, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's used on only one page (Mu (letter)). It was used on ~5 pages when I first looked, but most of those usages proved improper or needless when I checked them, and so I replaced those usages with {{redirect}}. It implicitly encourages people to add needless text to hatnotes (against the guideline). Having fewer hatnote templates overall makes the system simpler, which is desirable. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 15:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. Not only has the nominator not proven its lack of usefulness, but the nominator also admitted to orphaning the template out of process. No redirect hatnote template is similar to this for this specific purpose. The template serves to further explain the readers the distinction when the "...redirects here. For ..., see ..." still isn't enough as proven in Mu (letter)'s current reversion. Steel1943 (talk) 16:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @Steel1943: There are 5 pages on which I replaced the template. On Marriage, its use was almost certainly a mistake or typo (I corrected the mistake by applying {{redirect4}}), and on the other four its use was unhelpful. Those other four hatnotes did not need the extra context, which should not be added in most cases: the Wikipedia:Hatnote guideline is very clear in saying "Keep explanations to a minimum". I mentioned in the nomination that use of the template generally contradicts the hatnote guideline, which ought to be proof of its general lack of usefulness. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 17:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihiltres: I think I see what you mean about the pages you edited as I don't think I placed those templates (please correct me if I'm wrong.) However, on Mu (letter), there really is not a clearer way to distinguish why a character that looks exactly like a letter of the alphabet redirects where it does. If I recall, I created the template specifically for Mu (letter) since no other available options sufficed to explain the situation with the non-alphabetic symbol that looks completely identical to an alphabetic symbol redirects there. To the naked eye, an editor could think that the letter M redirects there when it clearly doesn't. There were no other hatnote templates that could be customized in the way I built {{Redirect5}} to explain the situation. In other words, most likely, this template will refer to symbols that looks like alphanumeric symbols that neither represent a standard alphabet letter or number. Instead of recommending this template for deletion, possibly the documentation should be updated instead to explain when specifically this template should be used. Steel1943 (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Steel1943: Having reflected on it a little, we can probably replace the Mu case with {{redirect-distinguish2|Μ|the Latin letter [[M]]}}, which currently produces as its text "Μ" redirects here. It is not to be confused with the Latin letter M. That seems quite clear as a replacement, given that the user's arrived at "Mu (letter)". {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 18:27, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihiltres: The issue I see with that hatnote that could still cause confusion is that the "...M redirects here" text still looks like the Latin letter M ... since the Greek and Latin letters look identical. Your idea sets the expectation that all readers have an initiate understanding that the 26-letter alphabet is derived specifically from Latin. The hatnote doesn't help the reader understand that there is a specific difference between Latin and Greek symbols/letters to help them understand and locate the proper topic. To kind of put what I'm saying in a bit more context, I don't think that redirects should ever have to specify what character code made them arrive at the destination page if a character looks identical to another (since that would obviously be far to much), but without basic explanation between the two identical but different characters, readers could still be confused no matter which variation of the character they use. The format in this template allows an option to expand on that explanation without having to use {{Redirect}} or {{Hatnote}} since it could serve a specific purpose. Steel1943 (talk) 20:04, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I may see if there are other pages where this hatnote could be valid to better illustrate my concern regarding the "alphabet" issue. If so, I'll place this template on those pages to show its possible usefulness. Steel1943 (talk) 21:03, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nihiltres: At this point, it looks like that the template could be placed on all 26 Greek alphabet pages to distinguish them from their Latin counterparts. (I've already added the template to at least Alpha and Beta.) With that being said, it may make sense to change the wording in this template and rename it something like {{Redirect-distinguish3}} or even {{Redirect-distinguish-alphabet}} since the "Redirect-distinguish" text may make more sense, as you pointed out. Using Alpha for example, the hatnote could be adjusted to say "Α", the Greek letter, redirects here. It is not to be confused with the Latin letter A. Then, it can be changed around to customize what alphabet languages are being distinguished from each other. Steel1943 (talk) 21:20, 24 March 2016 (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).

Template:Unicode

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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. Consensus appears to be that continued use of this template is unsustainable, whether the site actually works in IE6 notwithstanding. Izkala (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm re-closing this as make non-functional. Despite nobody here having argued for deprecation, another editor expressed concern on my talk page that deleting the template would make viewing older revisions of pages where it was used a defollicating experience. This still means the template will be orphaned, its accessory tooling removed and its use appropriately discouraged (e.g. as with {{Polytonic}}). Rob's made a request to add subst'ing the template to Anomie's bot regular tasks, which means new transclusions - should there be any - will be canned on a regular basis. I hope this is agreeable to all. Izkala (talk) 18:31, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This template was used as a work-around for display of Unicode characters in Internet Explorer 6. Discussion on the talk page concluded this isn't useful any more nowadays. This template should be substituted before deletion. —Ruud 21:07, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete after substing. Just to note: IE6 was not the problem, it was XP (affecting also Chrome). With MS having dropped support two years ago, there is no reason to maintain this. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:12, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • MS still support corporate installations of XP. Our article states "As of January 2016, Windows XP desktop market share is 8% (and market share is higher in e.g. China at 26%, India; Asia in general and Africa), making it the fifth most popular after Windows 8.1 and OS X (though some statistics rank it second after Windows 7". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:57, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per my reply to Edokter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:57, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Edokter: Could you clarify which browsers on XP are affected. IIRC Firefox has never needed this hack, not even on XP. Do the most recent versions of IE and Chrome that run on XP need this?
    • @Pigsonthewing: Even if those browsers need this hack, then it's important to consider that:
      1. Keeping this template around is still going to be pretty useless, as no one is bothering to add it to any articles anymore.
      2. Chrome support for XP will end April 2016. So if you're still running XP with anything other than Firefox, then having a few Unicode character not showing up is going to be the least of your concerns.
    —Ruud 09:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep, though I am on XP, my !vote is more about using a documented template rather than raw html markup —PC-XT+ 02:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC) 02:24, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, are you proposing to remove the class, (and HTML wrapper,) as well? In that case, there would be no raw HTML concern —PC-XT+ 02:36, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • @PC-XT: Yes this is about completely removing this hack, so there is not going to be any raw HTML inserted instead of this template. —Ruud 09:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alright. I edited my !vote. This workaround is losing its need as time goes on. It has almost been de facto deprecated by disuse. There are still "many" of us XP users. (I don't use it exclusively, but prefer it for many things. I tend to collect and use old OSes, as my name implies, but I know some who use it almost exclusively.) As argued, most of us tend to have more important concerns than Unicode characters displaying properly. If we do care, we tend to use Firefox or, somewhat rarely, other local workarounds, because unlike wikis, most sites don't let us install such things on them. It is most often just a minor annoyance, now. I still lean towards keep, though probably not for long. Do we have any statistics on what browsers are used by XP visitors? If most are using Firefox, it would strengthen the deletion argument. —PC-XT+ 21:55, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          @PC-XT: The relevant group is Windows XP users that haven't switched to an alternative browser (under the assumption that people that were smart enough to switch to Chrome are also smart enough to switch to Firefox next month). In June 2015 the usage share on Wikimedia sites of MSIE 6.0 was 0.25%, of MSIE 7.0 was 0.63%, and of MSIE 8.0 was 1.28% [1]. But keep in mind that the share for IE7 likely includes a lot of Vista users, and the share for IE8 a lot of Win7 users. This is also for all Wikimedia sites; a disproportional percentage of the those requests may well go to projects other than the the English Wikipedia (as XP is disproportionately popular in Asia as Andy pointed out above). —Ruud 22:24, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          And by the way, this template is (was) only needed for more exotic Unicode characters. Latin letters with common diacritics, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese should all be fine without it. —Ruud 23:08, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          Hmm... That's interesting data, but I'll need to think about it. I'm not sure someone who is still using XP but not using IE would necessarily use Firefox, though if they cared about this issue, they would be more likely to. Some just don't seem to get along with Firefox. Many XP users change the user agent string, especially for older browser versions, to something more common. If they pretend to be a different OS, however, these corrections would be disabled, anyway. Wikimedia sites get a lot of traffic, so a small percentage can still be a lot. The HTML page percentage is 1.75% for the two older browser versions. I expect these include more annonymous usage. I certainly don't mind removing this from any characters that don't need to use it. I might go through some transclusions to see if they are needed, myself... —PC-XT+ 07:34, 20 March 2016 (UTC) 08:00, 20 March 2016 (UTC) Something else to think about... inaccessibility creep: Wikipedia is becoming harder for older browsers to visit successfully, anyway. I don't think I can even load Wikipedia in IE8-, possably due to pushing a kind of secure connection to anonymous users that was not used when the browsers were made. ("Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage") Many other secure sites have that issue, since the older security was found to be flawed. —PC-XT+ 08:00, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          @PC-XT: That's actually a good point. Those browsers statistics are from before we required HTTPS. I think IE6 users won't be able to view Wikipedia anyway today (ssllabs.com). —Ruud 10:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep template still appears to have some uses Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:50, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note that the template has already been disabled and no font is assigned anymore. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 10:16, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ RobTalk 05:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Ruud Koot: Please undo your edit that disabled the functionality of this template prior to the TfD. If the TfD closed as delete, it would make sense to change it to pass through and substitute, but that needs consensus. ~ RobTalk 05:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment neutering of template reverted per Rob's request. It may be relevant to the discussion that nobody else seems to have noticed in the week it was neutered. Bazj (talk) 17:41, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Eh, there's a bit of selection bias going on there. The users that are likely to still be on IE6/Windows XP probably aren't the same users that would be able to find this TfD. ~ RobTalk 17:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • They would probably complain somewhere, most likely WP:VPT. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 18:16, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think it's incredibly likely the typical reader who is using IE6/Windows XP would not know about or be able to navigate to anything outside of the mainspace. At the risk of stereotyping, there's a significant overlap between people who are still using IE6 and people who type "Google" into a Google search bar. ~ RobTalk 18:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • Let's not stereotype then. There is absolutely no rationale behind it and it just makes a very poor argument. The more likely reason for having no complaints is that the XP user base has simply become too small. We can't keep supporting obsolete platforms ad infinitum. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            • There's absolutely a rationale for the stereotype; those who adopt new operating systems more slowly are also likely to adopt other technology (such as the MediaWiki platform) more slowly. We can objectively determine XP user base through various reports, and it's still substantial (over 10% worldwide). See here for the number as of February. ~ RobTalk 22:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. (changed to delete below) While I wasn't going to participate actively in the discussion originally, I've already got myself involved, so I might as well formally !vote. The cost of keeping this template is minimal in terms of page complexity, but it ensures 10% of potential users worldwide can see the unicode text contained within the template. That's clearly worth the cost. ~ RobTalk 22:47, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    @BU Rob13: While you have likely already made up your mind on this issue and—judging by you failure to read the conversation above—are not really interested in the facts, I find this statement to contain too many inaccuracies to stand unchallenged.
    As mentioned above, we know exactly what the usage share of Windows XP visors was on Wikimedia sites in June 2015: 3.88%. Those using IE6 cannot visit Wikipedia at all today (because of the switch to HTTPS). Those using IE7 are not served any Javascript, including the required piece that makes this template work. Those that use Firefox do not need this template at all. Those using IE8 or Chrome must still have Microsoft Office installed, otherwise the required font is not available. So deleting this template means that in all likelyhood less than 1% of visitors will no longer be able to see some uncommon Unicode characters on some articles. They will still be able to see most common Unicode characters on all articles. Even if we kept this template they will still not be able to see many Unicode characters on many other articles (either because of disuse of this template, or the lack of modern fonts with larger Unicode support).
    The use of this template has turned into a cargo cult science: it is used in many placed where it has no effect for anyone, and is neglected to be used in places where it could potentially be useful to some tiny minority of visitors. It's cluttering the wikitext of many articles with no discernible benefit.
    —Ruud 14:33, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Potential users =/= actual users, first of all. I believe potential users (people on the platform) is a better measure than actual users (people on the platform accessing Wikimedia currently), personally, but that's my opinion. I like to keep Wikipedia accessible even to those not actively using it yet in the hopes they'll choose to do so in the future. Second, the report you linked isn't a share of users. It's a share of web traffic, which is quite different. It doesn't surprise me at all that people on more modern platforms are more likely to frequently query WikiMedia sites (or actively edit on them, evenly). See above "stereotypes" on adoption of technology. Your 3.88% is likely diluted by larger numbers of page views per user on more modern platforms. Point taken on how IE6 and IE7 already can't access Unicode, even with this template, but as your report shows, IE8 is more common. Microsoft Office was frequently bundled with XP, so I'm not too concerned that eats into the percentage this is helping too much. I understand you don't think the benefits exceed the costs, but I weight the benefits of accessibility for users on older operating systems quite highly, even if their number is relatively small. If XP was a <1% share of total population, that would be a different story, but it's still at 10%. Let's say the amount we're potentially helping are a small fraction - 2%. That's still worth it to me. And I seriously struggle to think of 12 characters of mark-up as "clutter". ~ RobTalk 15:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but that's twisted logic. A user that views 100 articles is going to be impacted a 100 times more than a user that views 1 article. Page views is the right statistic here. The IE8 usage share also includes Vista and Win7 (as mentioned above), so we cannot directly draw conclusions about its popularity on XP. We're only talking about people that that use XP+IE8 or XP+Chrome. These are not people that are "stuck on an older platform". These are people that are capable of upgrading their browser. They can upgrade to Firefox if they care about Unicode. For people that are truly stuck on an older platform (XP+IE6) the ship has already sailed a few months ago, when we disabled Javascript for them and started requiring HTTPS. Inline template make it harder to edit Wikipedia, especially for new editors, independent of whether they're using the source editor or the visual editor. Readers are not the only people we have to think about, here. —Ruud 15:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obliterate. Whether it's 1% or 10% of readers, this template does not solve the problem of being able to read Unicode characters, because in many or most cases, Unicode characters are present in articles without this template wrapping them. We can deal with this by either adding this template everywhere that Unicode characters appear, or by removing it from the site entirely and finding another way to solve this problem. Given that this templates creates really ugly wikitext compared to bare Unicode characters, and the fact that 90%+ of editors won't even notice that there is a problem with not using it, I don't think this template is a sustainable nor desirable solution. (I mean, I work as a web developer, I actively edit articles describing Unicode characters, and not even I thought I needed to use it.) I think we should just substitute the bare Unicode character and eliminate this wrapper and the associated CSS and HTML. If we think it is important to support readers with older browsers and server-side assistance is needed to do this, a better way to solve it would be in the MediaWiki software, which could dynamically render Unicode characters it finds in wikicode with an appropriate wrapper. This could be done based on the User-agent HTTP header, and it wouldn't require any work on the part of editors. I'm skeptical this is really necessary or a good investment of time and effort, since better web browsers of one flavor or another are available to everyone for free download, which will provide a much better Wikipedia and general web browsing experience for readers on old operating systems. The best thing to do might be to encourage readers to upgrade or install fonts or whatever is necessary if they are experiencing problems viewing portions of articles. We currently do this via templates like {{Contains special characters}}, so I don't see a strong reason not to substitute and delete the "Unicode" template as proposed. -- Beland (talk) 17:49, 6 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I thought about this some more recently and I'm changing over to delete. My main reason for doing so is the concerns that this doesn't actually solve the problem in most articles. While I generally think solving the problem in some places is better than no places, I think it's worth pushing people in the direction of adopting new platforms if we're unable to properly display unicode everywhere. It's impossible to keep up the use of this template everywhere since a very small share of our editors will be aware of its possible necessity. ~ RobTalk 04:29, 11 April 2016 (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).

Template:Pittsburgh basketball

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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 as unopposed. WP:REFUND applies. ~ RobTalk 14:13, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

should not have any current roster templates for college teams Joeykai (talk) 05:42, 24 March 2016 (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).

Template:Virginia Slims of Boston tournaments

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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 no consensus for {{Virginia Slims of Boston tournaments}}, as original rationale for deletion is no longer applicable and opposition has been expressed. Delete for {{Virginia Slims of Albuquerque tournaments}} as unopposed. WP:REFUND applies. ~ RobTalk 14:16, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also propose deleting

Navboxes with just one or two links. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 12:58, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ RobTalk 05:39, 24 March 2016 (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).

Template:Railway line header1

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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. Izkala (talk) 17:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unused and unedited for over three years. ~ RobTalk 05:04, 24 March 2016 (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).
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