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Archive 5←Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10

This page needs editing!

The template formats provided on this page are not clearly organised and presented.

For instance under general templates, a lot of the examples given are "BLP" (Biography of Living Person) templates. Also, the "multiple issues" templates given here do not produce the boxes shown adjacent to them. There must be some way of specifying additional details in the template which would then give rise to the more detailed boxes.

etc.86.42.143.197 (talk) 09:16, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't have the time to work on it right now, but I specialize in this sort of thing. I hear you, and will work on it later.

Also, the "multiple issues" templates given here do not produce the boxes shown adjacent to them. There must be some way of specifying additional details in the template which would then give rise to the more detailed boxes.

In regards to that specifically, it's supposed to be that way. The idea behind it is not that we want to produce those boxes, but rather to show that they can be grouped together. The examples are arbitrary; it doesn't matter what's in them (Correct me if I misunderstood you). More examples of why exactly this page needs work would be beneficial. Too long? Too disorganised? Repetitive? etc. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 09:47, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
meteor_sandwich_yum I find it disorganized too. I come here to look for specific messages I can use, eg inline, section or beginning of article. If for example inline messages were all together (alphabetically?) and not split up, I d not have to scroll up and down endlessly -:) --Wuerzele (talk) 15:41, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
@Wuerzele: With inspiration as a template editor, I'll test this out on this page's sandbox. I have a few ideas. Meteor sandwich yum (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2014 (UTC) Meteor sandwich yumThanks, ping me when youre ready.--Wuerzele (talk) 22:42, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
@Wuerzele: Okay, this draft has them sorted alphabetically and by placement, rather than subject.
What do you think? Looking for looking for constructive criticism (if there's any to be had). A searchbox, maybe...kinda long... Meteor sandwich yum (talk) 01:22, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
@Meteor sandwich yum: thanks, that was quick! yes, I find it easier now. I did further edits it in your sandbox, changing the sequence from micro /word-sentence level then to section (which is less to scroll through) and finally to macro/head of article, because they are the most to scroll through and teh most obnoxious looking- I always like to start with the inline messages if its an active page.. (BTW I have listed the few message boxes for talk pages separately for myself and suggest that too), see what you think. I wonder about the preceding text a little too, the "clean up" section heading. I mean its not clean-up, its just messaging. I think it confuses/crowds more than aides. But I didnt want to change more at one time, so you could look at it as draft 2. Thank you !--Wuerzele (talk) 05:39, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Wasted a long time here looking for template:no footnotes

I thought I went through every citation related item. Maybe I was text searching on "cite" instead of "cita".

In any case, I thought it would help future blue-moon editors such as myself to bunch these closer to the other citation concerned rows, so I resorted the section. — MaxEnt 09:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Inline templates: inside or outside of ref tags?

Should inline templates concerning sources go inside the ref tags, which puts them down in the reference section next to the reference, or outside, which puts them next to the citation in the text? I see it done both ways and I don't see anything on this page to suggest a preference for one way or the other. Rezin (talk) 22:26, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

I checked template:dead link and it explicitly says that it should be included within the /ref/ brackets. Since most other inline cleanup message do not have that instruction, I'll presume that they go outside the /ref/ brackets. Rezin (talk) 20:06, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Buzzword template not displaying correctly

Resolved

Hello to whomever reads this! The buzzword template isn't displaying correctly. Text in the example reads:

This article appears to '. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article if you can.

It should read:

This article appears to contain a large number of buzzwords. Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this template page if you can.

I don't see anything glaringly wrong in the markup, so I'm thinking that maybe there's something within the template that isn't compatible with the markup? This stuff is way outside my wheelhouse, so if someone can help, that'd be appreciated. Thanks, Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:31, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course! I should have spotted that. (Yeah right...) Thanks, T! Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:01, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

″″″== Location of tag ==

There is a dispute (and brewing edit war) regarding the proper location at which to place the refimprove maintenance/cleanup template/tag. Input of others would be helpful.

Discussion is here. --Epeefleche (talk) 22:26, 10 April 2015 (UTC) kaiden dowse

Greetings, The template {{Friendly search suggestions}}

is added to the Links for search section. This is my first ever update here so I'm hoping the wikicode is correct. Regards,  JoeHebda (talk)  14:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Tag for No References

Maybe I am overlooking the obvious, but I have looked at an article which has no references. How do I tag it? (It is a BLP that was written before 2010, so I can't tag it for BLPPROD, and I don' think that it needs deleting. It just needs references.) I don't see the tag in the list. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:40, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: {{BLP unsourced}} is in the list. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:03, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. Is there a tag for unsourced articles that are not BLP? (You answered the immediate question, but sometimes I see an untagged article on history or science (as opposed to a historian or a scientist, or possibly a biography of a dead historian or dead scientist).) Thank you. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:06, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: Yes, that's {{unreferenced}}. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:15, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Copy edit

Went to tag a sentence which was ambiguous/unclear and where I could not make a guess as to the intent - hence the tag. But there is not an inline tag for copy edit or on I could see that would be a suitable alternative? Cinderella157 (talk) 07:35, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

I use {{clarify}}} since {{what you talkin bout?}} doesn't work so well. Kortoso (talk) 22:38, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

user-friendly general templates needed

This long list of templates is useless for most users. It intimidates them into not putting any template on even really bad articles. For example, peon is a total mess, but even as an experienced editor i can't find a suitable template despite looking for a long time. We need a few general templates at the beginning of this list similar to the feedback choices given to unregistered readers:

  • content problems
    • content confusing
    • content incorrect
    • important content missing
  • topic problems
    • topic unclear
    • article needs to be split into separate sections or separate articles
    • dictionary entry
  • language problems
    • language confusing or hard to understand
    • language incorrect
  • reference problems
    • not enough references
    • better references needed
    • too much quoting
    • copyright violation
  • etc. --Espoo (talk) 17:43, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
Greetings Espoo – The only suggestion I can offer is to maybe add a Hatnote to the Cleanup page with links to
Even though I have tagged thousands of articles, I keep it simple by having my "fav list" of cleanup templates in a seperate Notepad file for easy copy and paste wherever needed. I do refer to this page occasionaly only as needed. Regards, — JoeHebda • (talk) 13:47, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Hi, at Potentially unwanted content / cleanup red links, the message starts: "This 's use of red links may not follow ...". I cannot work out how to fix it. Thanks. JennyOz (talk) 23:40, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

incomprehensible "translationese"

§ Off-topic contains two sentences of text, the second of which is an incomprehensible garble of "translationese": the words are good English but the sentence is not. Here are the two sentences - the offending one is bolded:

Articles occasionally contain content which is otherwise valid, but appears unrelated to the nominal topic of the article. However, such stray may be subject of interpretation and must not lead to common understanding.

I am deleting that sentence, which is not necessary to the point of the section. If anyone can figure it out, possibly by finding who added it and asking them, or discovering their native language and asking for translation(ese) help, it might be appropriate to put it back, in English. --Thnidu (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Thnidu - I edited your remark slightly to make it clearer that the indented text was in fact the offending passage. I agree with you that such statements should be deleted. A compromise might be to comment them out so they remain in the code but are not seen on the live page. - Wwallacee (talk) 11:50, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
@Wwallacee: Thanks for the fix, and for your suggestion, which I've implemented. --Thnidu (talk) 20:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Need template for "translationese"

I'd like to suggest the introduction of a new template for writing style. This has to do with articles that have been translated from other-language editions of Wikipedia, or articles chiefly written by people not familiar with the English language. The writing style then becomes a kind of "translationese" which needs to be converted into plain English. - Wwallacee (talk) 09:48, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@Wwallacee: YES!! Enthusiastically seconded. I run into this problem all the time, perhaps (or perhaps not) especially because I'm a linguist. In fact, the reason I'm at this talk page at all is an uninterpretable mess of garbage on the article page; see next section. --Thnidu (talk) 22:42, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Thnidu, I'm going to go ahead and re-post my suggestion at the Village pump. - Wwallacee (talk) 11:51, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
Are you proposing something different from {{Cleanup translation}}, perhaps an inline version for individual passages? --Boson (talk) 14:36, 31 December 2016 (UTC)
@Boson: That would be very useful. See next section, which is about a single sentence in this article. --Thnidu (talk) 20:30, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

How to propose new template messages

There should be instructions telling users how to propose new template messages for article and section cleanup. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:24, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Propose new Translation required template message

I propose a new Translation required template message to highlight the need for translation or transliteration of non-English items that appear in references, most commonly authors, article titles, publication names, and publisher names. I hacked this by hand into this revision of Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. This is motivated by

The template should have a field for entering the non-English language or languages (if known), to help draw in editors with appropriate abilities. Note that {{Not English-inline}} can be used to spotlight individual cases of non-English text, but we also need something for articles or article sections with multiple non-English references. —Anomalocaris (talk) 11:24, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Tag required for composition that is misleading by omission

This may be very specific, but it is something that occurs and doesn't have a proper tag to mark when it does: A sentence or sentences that mislead readers by omitting certain information.

For example, in the lede of Charles, Prince of Wales, a sentence is written thusly: "Charles, Prince of Wales... is the heir apparent to the British throne as the eldest child of Queen Elizabeth II." While that is factually accurate, it still misleads uninformed readers to believe he is heir apparent to only the British throne because the sentence doesn't mention Charles is also, because he is Elizabeth's eldest son, the heir apparent to the thrones of other Commonwealth realms.

Because such a sentence is clear and factually accurate, templates like {{vague}}, {{clarify}}, and {{dubious}} don't work. The sentence is lopsided, but the template {{lopsided}} produces the tag '[unbalanced opinion?]' and the sentence expresses a fact, not an opinion. Similarly, I've used the template {{POV-statement}}, but it is repeatedly deleted by other users who don't understand its applicability; and, admittedly, it isn't the best fit. So too with {{Undue weight inline}}.

What's required is a tag that alerts readers to a dispute at the talk page when a certain segment of prose is suspected of being factually misleading--note: not misleading about opinion(s)--because it lacks additional information. Perhaps if {{lopsided}} produced simply '[unbalanced?]'. Or a template were made for a tag '[facts omitted?]'. Something along those lines. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 18:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

@Miesianiacal:Yeah, I think that POV-statement was not really called for there, neither was "lopsided" nor "unbalanced". "Facts omitted" on the other hand seems like a good choice. Thinker78 (talk) 18:53, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Clarify, are you asking for the creation of a new tag? GoodDay (talk) 18:56, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
PS: Seeing as the NPoV tag-in-question, was reverted by myself, @Surtsicna: & @Celia Homeford:. GoodDay (talk) 19:08, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

I will just repeat what I said in the edit summary. No reliable sources (let alone a required significant number of sources) defining Charles as heir apparent to any throne but the British throne have been presented. WP:NPOV is not about attempting to correct a perceived bias in sources but about neutrally reporting what reliable sources say. For that reason a POV tag is not warranted. Surtsicna (talk) 20:08, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

@Thinker78: I lean toward '[Unbalanced?]', myself. However, I believe either would work. Those were just a couple of suggestions; others may be more creative than I. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 23:28, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
There are already tags like {{lopsided}}, {{data missing}}, {{expand}}, {{Contentious label inline}}, {{Details removed}}, etc. that fulfill this function when a true problem arises. There is no need for a new tag. The tags are being removed in this case because they are all inappropriate. The opening party is using the tags as an excuse to try to insert original research that is not found in any reliable source. Celia Homeford (talk) 09:47, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
I would support a template specifically for "data missing" in addition of the "unknown/missing" one. Thinker78 (talk) 21:14, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
As I said, there's already a template for data missing. Celia Homeford (talk) 08:57, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
But I would support a more specific template exclusively for "data missing". Thinker78 (talk) 20:48, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
@Celia Homeford:@Miesianiacal: Ok, I think you both need to heed Wikipedia:Edit warring. Thinker78 (talk) 21:14, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

RfC notice

There is an RfC at one of the cleanup templates in this group, Template talk:COI, proposing changes to the conditions whereby the template may be removed for lack of discussion. --RexxS (talk) 19:58, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Inline template:jargon

Creating for usage in cases where excess jargon is used. -Inowen (talk) 10:19, 5 March 2018 (UTC) Suggest using template:jargon for what is currently template:technical statement, though the old tags that link to template:jargon have to be updated, there are about forty by count. -Inowen (talk) 10:24, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I propose to delete "Avoid 'drive-by' tagging"

I was patrolling pages for vandalism and I noticed that a page had a lack of citation problem so I was going to tag it but when looking for a template I came to this information page and read the restriction on tagging. I think it would be a good idea to delete that restriction because one might not be familiar with the subject of the article so a discussion cannot really be held on the citation problems. And it seems to me that it makes no sense posting in the talk page that the problem is lack of citations and how to fix it because the template usually states the problem and how to fix it. I'm new to tagging so I wanted to post here before deleting the aforementioned part in the hopes of having consensus with users more experienced in tagging to see if my suggestion makes sense or not. Thinker78 (talk) 00:14, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Please don't do that. The drive-by tagging thing is not really intended to apply to simple "citation needed" tags, but rather to other tags which allege serious overall problems with an article, and which can generate annoyance and frustration if they're not explained in some way... AnonMoos (talk) 23:20, 5 November 2017 (UTC)
Adding a single tag to one article, especially if the tag is self-explanatory or is about a fairly obvious problem, is not generally considered "drive-by tagging". IMO the main reason to keep this line is that we occasionally have an editor who thinks it is helpful to spam tags into a lot of articles at once, rather indiscriminately. That's not helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 22 January 2018 (UTC)
If that's the actual problem, why don't we spell it out in the main text? The flip side of this is that the naked admonition against "drive-by tagging" conveys the impression that less experienced editors shouldn't attempt to make small improvements within their slowly evolving skill set/competence unless they are prepared to stick around and take ownership of bigger changes (neither implication being what we are trying to promote here). For myself, it's impossible to read this admonition out of context and not get the feeling that the damnable offense of drive-by tagging will open you up to a sloganistic, communal taunting one might expect from And the Children Shall Lead. It does not encourage measured growth. — MaxEnt 02:16, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Templates for BCE/CE versus BC/AD dates

In the context of MOS:DATEUNIFY and MOS:ERA, would it be useful to have {{Use BCE/CE dates}} and {{Use BC/AD dates}} templates comparable to {{Use dmy dates}} and {{Use mdy dates}}? On numerous occasions I've reverted edits where an editor, in an article where the dates were uniformly stated in one style, changed some or all of them to the other. (Can we have slashes in template names, by the way?) Largoplazo (talk) 11:33, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Lead does not establish notability

I've found any number of templates to challenge the notability of an article, but none so far to point out the lead entirely fudges the matter (I'm presently looking at Jack Devine, which is a biography in the one-sentence lead, massive "biography"-section style). Clearly notable, but the one-sentence lead sucks.

Jack Devine is a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a founding partner and President of The Arkin Group LLC.

Every former CIA member who later founds his own company? Nuh, I don't think so.

But check out the biography section that follows:

His service on the Afghan Task Force was perhaps the pinnacle of his varied career, and put him at the head of the largest covert action campaign of the Cold War.

Yup, notable.

So what's the template to mark this article for a better lead? — MaxEnt 01:46, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@MaxEnt: {{Lead rewrite|reason=}} should do it. That no one responded to this straightforward question in over three months makes me think that my attempt below to elicit a discussion is likely to go unnoticed. Largoplazo (talk) 11:43, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

RfC of potential interest

An RfC is underway that interested "watchers of this page" wound enhance by participating, I hope that many will! The discussion is located at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle#RfC regarding "Ambox generated" maintenance tags that recommend the inclusion of additional sources. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 06:14, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Can you update the date?

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Template messages#Can you update the date? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:03, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

For other users' benefit: The linked talk page section was eventually archived and moved here: Wikipedia talk:Template index/Archive 6#Can you update the date?. V2Blast (talk) 08:51, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

Tex inline tag for undefined variables in equations

Could somebody create an inline tag for Template:Formula missing descriptions? Something like[clarification needed], but that says something like "undefined variables" instead, to tag equations missing definitions.--ReyHahn (talk) 10:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Nice Template

Is there no nice Cleanup Template ? Something like. Tone and formatting of this article could be improved a bit. Please help to optimize it. Or somthing like that.

Most of the Tamplates i see here they all sounds very hard and offensive and not very warm or constructive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tagging_pages_for_problems#Constructive_tagging says "Constructive criticism given in a civil, respectful manner is a vital part in a collaborative project like Wikipedia, and it should be welcomed rather than discouraged." 178.195.55.26 (talk) 03:00, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Potentially unwanted content

This section starts off with:

See also: Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not

But this is not helpful. I'm not here to learn what is unwanted. I'm here to learn which templates to use on articles with potentially unwanted content.

And I'm afraid the selection of templates offered by this section does not cover these usages.

What template is appropriate to say "Wikipedia is not a technical manual; this stuff needs to be cleaned out", for instance? Or Any other of the things WP:NOT enumerates.

I am really surprised this article links to that policy page without offering a corresponding set of cleanup tags. Perhaps {{NotManual}}, {{NotDirectory}}, {{NotNewspaper}}, and so on for articles with potentially unwanted content.

CapnZapp (talk) 13:53, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

obsolete claim?

Which template do we use to indicate "this claim is no longer relevant, except in a historical sense"?

That is, the claim is verifiably true. The claim is well sourced. But its place in the article should still be questioned, since it has been surpassed by "newer truths".

Obviously, if I were an expert in the field, I would simply (and boldly) remove the paragraph. But I'm not, so I'm looking for which cleanup tag to use to indicate "perhaps the reader no longer needs to learn this, in light of recent developments?"

I've looked for every template involving "obsolete" or "superseded", but no luck. CapnZapp (talk) 04:41, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: I think {{Update}} or {{Update inline}} could do this, with the "reason" parameter filled in carefully. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks. Though wouldn't it be better to have a dedicated {{obsolete claim}} tag (or somesuch)? This is not a matter of the source needing any updates. (The "update" sought after here is "removal" with nothing replacing it... and that doesn't sound like an "update" to me) Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 07:50, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 March 2022

There is a misplaced "either" in the following paragraph:

Don't do "drive-by" tagging.
Tags must either be accompanied by a comment on the article's talk page explaining the problem and beginning a discussion on how to fix it or, for simpler and more obvious problems, a remark using the reason parameter (available in some templates) as shown below. At the very least, tagging editors must be willing to follow through with substantive discussion.

It should be changed, by moving "either", to read:

Don't do "drive-by" tagging.
Tags must be accompanied by either a comment on the article's talk page explaining the problem and beginning a discussion on how to fix it or, for simpler and more obvious problems, a remark using the reason parameter (available in some templates) as shown below. At the very least, tagging editors must be willing to follow through with substantive discussion. DHW1947 (talk) 03:35, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 Not done: WP:AINT. Happy Editing--IAmChaos 06:58, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Template:Sources exist nominated for deletion

Please see Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 June 28#Template:Sources exist. – Joe (talk) 14:58, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Changing redirected templates

{{example farm}} redirects to {{excessive examples}}, but the page here lists/recommends {{example farm}}. I used it once and it later got converted to {{excessive examples}}, so I think the redirected templates like these should get renamed to their targets I had a quick look through the page history and it looks like this is what is normally done already.

I don't know of a programmatic way to check all of the templates listed here for similar redirects but I've changed this one. Darcyisverycute (talk) 03:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

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