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Template:United States topic

Hello WikiProject Templates members. It seems to me that this edit on the {{United States topic}} template should be reverted. It now displays a new Associated States section with links to the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau, that will be red links in most cases. The issue is that there's not a way to exclude the new section. But also, since many other templates are based on this one, the new section, if any, should be excluded by default, I believe -- otherwise all those other templates will suddenly start displaying it, even if there is a way to exclude it. A better approach would be to leave the base template alone and add the new section, when desired, to any inheriting templates, using the "group5" functionality. I'd go ahead and undo that edit myself, but I thought I would be cautious instead of bold and post here instead. Thanks. (Pinging @Wrestlingring: who made that change.) — Mudwater (Talk) 23:19, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

"P.S." Another problem with the recent update is that it breaks the "group5" feature for any inheriting templates that are using it. Their group5 won't displayed, the way things are now. — Mudwater (Talk) 23:28, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

I have reverted the edit, since it broke Template:United States political divisions, among other pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:57, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you. — Mudwater (Talk) 00:05, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
My apologies Mudwater, these countries are still under US compact free of association. Wrestlingring (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2017 (UTC)
To be clear, the error you made was a technical error, not a content error. If you have a proposed change to the template, it should be discussed at the template's talk page or perhaps at the talk page of the relevant WikiProject. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:53, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

Template:Demis Roussos

Does anyone have any comments regarding the formatting of {{Demis Roussos}}? Please discuss at Template talk:Demis Roussos. --woodensuperman 13:17, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

Best practice for musical artist navboxes

Would anyone like to comment at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 13#Template:Katy Perry songs and Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 13#Template:Taylor Swift songs? --woodensuperman 09:27, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Also Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 November 14#Template:Selena Gomez songs --woodensuperman 15:17, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Query about adding hiddentext to templates

Specifically about adding hidden text to template Template:Infobox tennis biography. Adding to the document is no big deal, but Tennis Project is having a lot of trouble keeping editors from updating player rankings until the two major tennis organizations "officially" update their rankings website, which is usually on Monday mornings. To many player articles we have been adding something like <!-- NEVER UPDATE UNTIL THE WTA/ATP WEBSITE IS UPDATED (Usually on Mondays) -->. This usually helps. I wasn't sure how the template would handle the addition of adding this hidden text, and didn't want to screw things up. If you look at the template and label/data 22 can we simply change the data to "| data22 = {{{currentsinglesranking|}}}<!-- NEVER UPDATE UNTIL THE WTA/ATP WEBSITE IS UPDATED (Usually on Mondays) -->", so that it adds the hidden warning to every player bio? Or do we need to create a bot that would add that hidden text to every player infobox? Just trying to find some way to make it an "in your face" warning for editors, especially now that we are in the pro tennis off-season. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:37, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Fyunck(click), the short answer to your question is "it has to be added manually". From my own personal experience in creating/editing/using infoboxes, I find that putting that commented-out note on the "example" code on the template /doc (see {{Infobox shogi professional}}) means it gets copied over when people invariably just copy/paste the whole thing onto an article.
As for getting a bot to add said hidden text - it's unlikely, given that it would fall under WP:COSMETICBOT. Primefac (talk) 12:34, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
My general opinion on things like this is... you will be hard pressed to stop people from doing this, because they WANT to do it. Expecting, or even telling them not to, is therefore like telling a cat not to play with sewing thread, yet putting it right in front of his paws... —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:52, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
Oh well, I was just trying to make it easier on ourselves. I personally think it does help to some degree on the player articles but I guess we'll have to keep adding it manually to each one. I guess if we do it to enough bios, if they just copy and paste it from another player article, it'll get copied over too. Fyunck(click) (talk) 19:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Tangential entries at Template:Phil Ochs

Would anyone like to comment at Template talk:Phil Ochs#Tangential entries? Tangential entries I removed with this edit have been restored. --woodensuperman 10:05, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Misaligned columns in tables

Fix misaligned columns in tables at List of Latter Day Saint practitioners of plural marriage. The tables use templates which use advanced syntax that I don't understand. Waddie96 (talk) 20:09, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

I fixed it in a way that fixed these tables, but these LDS biography templates are used in multiple places, so I may have broken one somewhere else. Please look on related pages to make sure I didn't break anything. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:08, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Discussion regarding template protections

There is a discussion at the Village Pump regarding potentially protecting all of the template space. Please join in the conversation here. Primefac (talk) 18:52, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Removal of historical characters from navboxes

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The general consensus is that while some navboxes/templates have an unnecessary number of irrelevant links, there are also many who have perfectly acceptable links, and that a blanket ban on these links would do more harm than good. Discussions on these links should be held on a case-by-case basis. As always, during such conversations please remember to be CIVIL, as we're all just trying to improve Wikipedia. Primefac (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

After repeated discussions at WP:BIDIRECTIONAL and WP:PERFNAV, there has been no consensus to establish a policy to remove historical figures from navboxes. Woodensuperman (formerly known as User:RobSinden) is the main proponent of this proposed policy. Most recently this topic is at issue due to contentious editing at both {{The Crucible}} (John Proctor, Abigail Williams, Judge Thomas Danforth, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Samuel Parris, Reverend John Hale, Thomas Putnam, amd Giles Corey) and {{Macbeth}} (Macbeth, King of Scotland, Gruoch of Scotland, Duncan I of Scotland, Malcolm III of Scotland, Donald III of Scotland, Siward, Earl of Northumbria, amd King James VI and I). Should we remove historical figures from navboxes of multimedia franchises?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 03:40, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

  • Support removal. Characters that do not originate in a work should not be included as they have much stronger ties to other topics, their connection here is secondary. These seem to be used to flesh out navboxes, and it would be inappropriate to transclude these navboxes at the articles of the individuals involved. Take {{Macbeth}} as en example. Both the Shakespeare characters and their historical counterparts are currently included. This is not appropriate. See a similar situation at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 May 20#Template:La Reine Margot where the navbox was deleted for this very reason. Frietjes notes quite correctly that this "one-way navigation to historical figures should be provided by the articles". Basically, we should avoid any real-word articles in a navbox for a work of fiction (locations, broad topic subjects, etc). However, it may be appropriate to link a biographical work about a real-world subject in a navbox about that subject. For example, you wouldn't include a link to Brighton in a navbox about {{Brighton Rock (novel)}}, but it might be appropriate to link Brighton Rock (novel) in a navbox about {{Brighton}}. --woodensuperman 09:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal, at least as long as the number of historical figures linked on the templates stays a reasonable amount. A navbox about a play about a historical figure should, without question, include the historical figure themselves, and possibly two or three more links to real-life 'characters' in the play. Some readers who look at templates regarding a subject surely appreciate finding out that the play is about a real person. As for templates which include other templates, such as the Shakespeare templates woodensuperman is pointing out, as long as they stay collapsed I see nothing wrong in including all templates. Woodensuperman has a history of deleting things such as categories and sister-project links from templates, either by setting up or advocating strict guidelines to do this or by advocating other deletionist actions. For example, I cannot see any reason to delete category links to section heads (if someone is looking at a section head and clicks a link to "Plays" and ends up in the category "Plays by Joey the Greek", they've come upon exactly what the searched for). Or if someone sees "Quotes" or "Wikisource texts" at the bottom of Mark Twain's template, and by clicking on them enter the treasure trove available on our sister projects Wikiquotes and Wikisource. These readers find exactly what they've searched for, all within Wikipedia or its family of sister projects. The same principal applies here, some-but-not-many links to historical subjects should be fine and helpful to readers and researchers. This discussion once again covers the seemingly age-old topics and arguments of how far to bend in the direction of either deletionists or inclusivists. As it is now deletionists can point to a cauldron of past discussions at individual venues and pages, but those limited discussion and limited decisions have ended up having things like links to categories removed from templates, or saying that individual articles on lists can never include directly relevant templates. There are enough editors around that want a broader definition of what can be included on templates that some compromise should be reached to include such things as links to categories in section heads, or a very limited (two or three) number of bottom-of-template links to sister-projects. These links, and the historical figure links referred to in this discussion, usefully assist readers and the educational scope of the overall encyclopedia project, and they should certainly be encouraged rather than discouraged and hidden from public view. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:36, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
A reader would not find out from a navbox whether the person is a real person or not. They would find that out from the article, where the person in question would be linked. With regard to the rest of your post, which is all completely irrelevant to the topic on hand, see Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates/Archive 9#Category "easter eggs" in navboxes. And you're clearly still refusing to accept the result of this RFC on sister project links. WP:DROPTHESTICK. --woodensuperman 14:49, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Please pick-up the stick and read what I wrote. Some guidelines hurt the project, others help it (for example, an in-house Wikipedia category linked to a section head is not an "easter egg" but is something directly described by the section-head language). Deletionist guidelines may have been "won" in a few discussions but that doesn't mean they don't hurt the overall project. That's why a compromise on these topics would assist the reader, and I'm saying that a limited-small-number of inclusions could be made. As for the sister-city project links on the flawed RfC, you are the only editor I've seen ever remove one. Everyone else leaves them as is, and there are still many out there on very prominent templates with nobody but you having a problem with them. This is a Wikimania 2030 situation, in my opinion, where we should think ahead and find a solution which is best for the reader, not adhere to an in-perpetual mode controlled by strict deletionist viewpoints. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:03, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
Like I said, completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. --woodensuperman 15:11, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support removal, at least from the "Characters" section. "Characters" in this case implies characters in the play / novel / movie, not the actual historical figures who may be depicted in the piece. This is confusing. There may be a case to include a few major historical figures in the "Related articles" section, but I would limit this to a few: three or four at most. The "Character" section should be reserved from the actual characters as portrayed in the fictional piece. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal, I find the links to the historical characters to be very helpful and would prefer for them to remain. Any concerns about the navboxes not being bidirectional is silly. Shouldn't let that get in the way of making the navboxes much more useful to the people actually reading the articles. Dbrote (talk) 16:25, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
If the links are pertinent, they'd be in the articles anyway. A list of characters is not a defining group of articles, when the characters are not originating in the work. This is clearly the case for a list of historical characters, who, while the subject of the navbox may be dependent on them, do not depend on the work of fiction to exist. --woodensuperman 10:00, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Support removal. It might be acceptable if a navbox can be designed such that the "one-way" links are all grouped and clearly identified as such. But in no circumstances should the one-way links be interspersed with other links with no indication that it will take you to a place that is not strictly speaking part of the same series/group as the other links in the navbox. older ≠ wiser 16:36, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal Navboxes should facilitate links to content that helps understand the main topic. In some cases this includes characters not originated in the work and/or its derivatives/adaptations.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 21:44, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose This strikes me as a good example of one of the most egregious problems afflicting Wikipedia: a slavish adherence to guidelines trumping common sense. Literary navboxes have already been damaged exponentially by the ludicrous removal of links to sister projects. Now the same user who spent so much time removing said links wishes to further decimate these navboxes by removing character lists, all because of WP:BIDIRECTIONAL. Apparently, modifying the guidelines to allow for historical figures when they are included in character lists is not an option for some mysterious reason. I'm curious how the removal of these lists aids navigation in any way, shape, or form. Five Antonios (talk) 16:47, 7 December 2017 (UTC) — Five Antonios (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Wow. You've made about 100 edits to Wikipedia, and you're criticising me for following a guideline that we had a conclusive RFC about??? Again, wow. --woodensuperman 09:50, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
@Woodensuperman: Please retract your labelling of Five Antonios as a single-purpose account. They have made a grand total of one edit to this topic, in response to this RFC, out of 108 edits total as a logged in user (but has edited as an IP prior to registering). That their contribution history has relatively few edits, or that they mainly edit within their area of interest, does not make them a single-purpose account and labelling them as such constitutes a personal attack. --Xover (talk) 12:48, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
The editor in question has made zero edits outside of Shakespeare related topics, and about a third of their non talk page edits are Shakespeare templates. Given the low overall edit count, I don't think that it is unreasonable to tag as such, especially considering the tone of their post which was clearly a personal attack at me about a completely unrelated subject. --woodensuperman 12:59, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
Editing primarily within a single broad topic such as Shakespeare articles does not make one a single-purpose account even in the general sense (if so, I would be counted a single-purpose account as I mainly edit Shakespeare articles). And Shakespeare isn't the relevant area to consider for the purpose in this case: this debate is concerning navboxes, and Five Antonios' focus is Shakespeare. That he has participated in discussions regarding navboxes within the scope of WikiProject Shakespeare is mostly beside the point, and even more so considering his participation even on those has been due to other editors sending them a {{ping}} and asking for their input (in the latest instance, it was Bertaut that pinged them; and I believe I have also done so in the past).
In other words, please retract (strike) your SPA tag. I would also strongly urge you to assess your mode of participation on this topic. Your labelling of other participants as single-purpose accounts, dismissing their comments as irrelevant, and generally confrontational mode of discourse is not conducive to good collaborative processes and consensus building (that is, it is disruptive). "Winning" should not be a goal of any interaction on Wikipedia, and differing opinions should be treated with respect and an open mind. --Xover (talk) 19:58, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment Please note that in the case of the Shakespeare-related navboxes (some of which I agree are far too bloated irrespective of the issue under debate), Shakespeare's History plays very specifically dramatise the actual historical people and, to a lesser degree, events. That's why they're categorised as his "History" plays. In fact, Shakespeare was the target of criticism from the "University Wits" for being too populist and insufficiently accurate in his depictions of historical events and characters (and, admittedly, his lack of adherence to classical style, the Unities, and general failure to be a snob). In other words, in a large number of cases the "characters" in the play are the historical persons (one may quibble over the accuracy of the depiction, but that is equally true for several older non-dramatic history sources), and for some portion of them (most?) it would be challenging to produce separate articles on the character for this very reason. To a large degree it is a distinction without difference.
    WP:BIDIRECTIONAL is a good guideline, but it isn't an absolutist policy: IAR and common sense do still apply. --Xover (talk) 10:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Essentially for the reasons already outlined. Whilst there are definite problems with some of the Shakespeare templates ({{Hamlet}} and {{Romeo and Juliet}} in particular need work), the issue of historical figures being included in a cast list section doesn't strike me as one of the more pressing, and instead seems, as both Five and Xover have mentioned, an example of policy butting heads with common sense. The notion of having a template on, say, King John that doesn't link to King John or Hubert de Burgh, or a template on Edward III which doesn't link to Edward III or the Black Prince, seems to me an utter nonsense. Also, as Dbrote testifies above, removing such links would serve to undercut the actual point of the navigation templates, which is, as far as I know, to aid navigation. Bertaut (talk) 02:36, 11 December 2017 (UTC)
As K.e.coffman notes above: "There may be a case to include a few major historical figures in the "Related articles" section, but I would limit this to a few". However, any pertinent character should be well linked in the relevant articles anyway. --woodensuperman 10:00, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is a pretty disingenuous RFC from the start, with Tony clearly misunderstanding the point from the off, and without even mentioning that it applies to navboxes about works of fiction. This isn't necessarily about WP:BIDIRECTIONAL and it isn't necessarily about Shakespeare (although it seems he notified the Shakespeare-related projects). This is about any work of fiction, films, books, TV series, etc, etc. Note how we don't include non-originating characters in most other navboxes for works of fiction. Take a look at {{Smallville}} for example. Note how we only include the Smallville-specific characters there and not just any Superman related character who appeared in the series. See {{Batman in film}} for another similar example. Franklin D. Roosevelt was a character in Annie, but we don't include him in {{Little Orphan Annie}}. Theodore Roosevelt was a character in Night at the Museum, but we don't include him in {{Night at the Museum}}. The only examples where these non-originating characters are included are in navboxes created by Tony. However, to address the bidirectional issue, note that the very first line of WP:NAVBOX states that "Navigation templates are a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles in Wikipedia". This navigation between articles is not achieved when it is inappropriate to place the navbox on the articles in question. --woodensuperman 10:13, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose best not to have a blanket rule as those that edit the articles are much more familiar with what should be in the template. In no way do I believe that template editors should be given a tool that allows them to bypass talking about what is best for our readers. Really need to look at WP:BIDIRECTIONAL as its not followed by academic topics and seems to cause many more disputes then it solves in pop culture articles where it's implemented --Moxy (talk) 22:59, 12 December 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Whether the link makes sense in an individual case is best made as a case by case decision. ChristianKl (talk) 13:38, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Help making infobox embeddable

I am working on Template:Ordination/sandbox to try to make it embeddable. The current sandbox code allows all of the template to be displayed correctly when embedded except for the abovestyle and above parts. It is supposed to display a colored title bar (depending on religion) with "Ordination history" in it, but now this does not display at all. Additionally, there seems to be an issue with calling info from Wikidata when embeeded, e.g. using the QID parameter does not call information from Wikidata. Any help with this would be very much appreciated. Ergo Sum 00:11, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

White space

I don't know why but {{Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment}} somewhat transcluding white space, can someone fix it? --Hddty. (talk) 14:49, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Hddty., I just checked a few pages it was transcluded to and see no whitespace oddities. Could you give us a link to a page where you see it? Primefac (talk) 14:57, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Primefac, Talk:Day of the Dead. --Hddty. (talk) 14:58, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
You'll have to point out what you're seeing (or give a screenshot) because I don't see anything unusual. Primefac (talk) 15:00, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Primefac Sorry, notice the space between this template and table of contents, it shouldn't be that way. Hddty. (talk) 15:02, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Ah.  Fixed. Primefac (talk) 15:45, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Feedback

Hi. I'd like to request some feedback on Template:New Taiwan dollar. Thanks. Szqecs (talk) 13:38, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

What sort of feedback, Szqecs? Primefac (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
How are the features? For example, does it make more sense to convert by default or not? Link by default or not? Should it be written to allow conversion from billions to millions? Should it be written to allow a single parameter to determine output style? Should other currency templates have these features? Szqecs (talk) 14:49, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
I think converting and linking by default are good, especially since you included options to drop them if necessary. It won't take long, but you'll probably have to update the 12 existing transclusions, since some of them might not have the right formatting now. Good job! Primefac (talk) 15:54, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Template:A-Z_multipage_list is broken on the mobile site

On the mobile Wikipedia (en.m.wikipedia.org), Template:A-Z_multipage_list does not appear where it is supposed to, and pages that use it appear broken.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages vs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages

I wouldn't even know where to begin to try to fix that, but I thought I should point it out.

- Dave314159 (talk) 17:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "pages that use it appear broken" - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages:_A looks fine to me. I think it has something to do with the {{TOC top}} being one of those "templates that doesn't show up on mobile". Primefac (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2018 (UTC) (please do not ping on reply)
As I've been looking at it further, I see that the template uses the TOC top and TOC bottom templates, as Primefac pointed out before I could. So I'm guessing that this bug I've identified is actually a feature of those two templates, and they shouldn't have been used.
The article is broken because there is no way to get from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages:_A, or from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages:_A to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_European_cities_in_different_languages:_B. So, more accurately the navigation amongst the subpages of the article is broken.
I'm willing to put in the work to fix the template (something I've never done before) if someone can point me in the right direction for how it should be fixed. - Dave314159 (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Discussion at WT:JAPAN#Date formats

 You are invited to join the discussion at WT:JAPAN#Date formats. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:26, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

Feel free to join the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Television#Navboxes_in_episode_lists.---TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:36, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Succession Boxes

I am proposing a change to {{S-ttl}}, which is highly transcluded. Comments are welcome at Template talk:S-ttl#Add series ordinal. Ergo Sum 01:51, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Templates up for deletion

There is currently a discussion going-on to build a clear consensus regarding sports-people navboxes at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2018_March_12#Template:Argentina_squad_2011_Copa_América. Please participate. Störm (talk) 16:29, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Ensemble cast award navboxes

Any opinions welcome at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 March 8#Template:Satellite Award for Best Cast – Motion Picture. --woodensuperman 16:55, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Template:Concordance

A concordance is a side by side view of a passage of text with the translation appearing adjacent, along with direct word for word relations. There are two basic ideas of how to produce one; a dual pane where translations are done line by line, corresponding horizontally to the other pane, and then some notation on a secondary row underneath each line, or, in side by side panes, text is in rows which correspond to the other pane horizontally, and each word on the left is in a cell to contain each word, and the idea here is to correlate the words in the left with the ones on the right in a direct way, and then color coding could be used to make correspondences from the left column, same row, to the right.

Extra feature: Interestingly, the idea of a single word on the left in a single cell is a nominal way of designing the concordance template, and presumes that correspondence will be either one-to-one or one-to-two words in the left to right direct translation. But then its possible that the one word to two words correspondence goes the other way around, and then knowning that level of translation would require expert editing. The interesing part is that applying the one word to one cell principle to the right hand text pane instead of the left, as an alternate mode perhaps, done by clicking some button on the table as with list sorting (would require some code skills), seems that it would be successful in delivering some meaningful information to the end reader, even though its possible that the correspondences are slightly different, in their finer points, orthographically, though that could be a part of the template's functionality and there could be editor usable syntax for handling that.

The programming for the template could just honor the correspondence principle between template tags and the produced tables, where then the color coding is of automatic apply and standard form, and then its the job of the template editor to just keep track of where the left rows cells words will do something of different word correspondence in the right. Just an idea. -Inowen (talk) 07:46, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Template:Omission

Propose the creation of a specific use "template:omission" for indicating key ideas which are omitted or overlooked from the article. For example, an article on Coca-Cola that might not mention that its a "soft drink", or that Pepsi is a direct competitor. -Inowen (talk) 04:17, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Inowen, how would that work? Primefac (talk) 12:03, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
Primefac, thanks for asking. It would work as a small top box, similar to others, with a space for naming what things are omitted or missing. It probably should be something smaller than the type of cleanup templates used at the tops of articles, maybe something smaller that would work for the tops of sections, including the front matter. It seems there should be something inbetween the larger cleanup boxes and the compact Main article type notes. -Inowen (talk) 07:11, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Hmm... just from an initial assessment, it seems easier for the editor to just add in the information themselves; for example, if they know the article is lacking Fact X, it puts the onus on someone else to find/verify the information. I'm not saying it cannot be done, and it would be relatively trivial to create, but it might be worth asking at the Village Pump for general opinions (i.e. no need for an RFC, just a post). If people are generally receptive let me know and we can start building it. Primefac (talk) 11:52, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion regarding font size in infoboxes

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Observe_MOS:FONTSIZE_in_infobox_templates regarding font size in infobox templates. Your input is appreciated. Primefac (talk) 15:34, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Rapid infoboxes

Noticing a lot of articles that could use infoboxes. And then these would need coordinated editing and pruning from multiple fields of expertise. What are best practices for infobox development? How much do infoboxes help article development? -Inowen (talk) 06:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Inowen, are you talking about developing new IBs, or just using existing ones? We have a rather large number of IBs already, so it might be worth checking out Category:Infobox templates. Primefac (talk) 15:04, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Reality show contestants in navboxes (again)

I thought we'd reached a consensus on this a while back, but if anyone would like to comment: Template talk:RuPaul's Drag Race#‎Unnecessary addition of information in the navbox. --woodensuperman 10:42, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Anyone? We're kind of at a stalemate over there. --woodensuperman 08:42, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Psychology

A psychometrics task force was recently created in Wikiproject psychology, but it apparently isn't possible to tag articles within this task force's scope unless Template:WikiProject Psychology is edited first. I've been asking around for someone who can determine the precise nature of the edit that needs to be made to this template, and I was instructed to ask at the templates wikiproject.

Discussion about the need for this template to be edited is here. Can anyone in this project determine exactly how the template would need to be edited so that it can include this tag? --Captain Occam (talk) 02:33, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Captain Occam, I've added in the taskforce information, but I left a couple of fields filled with ??? because I wasn't sure what needed to go there. You're welcome to finish the job. Primefac (talk) 13:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
The template is protected and I'm not an admin, so I don't have the ability to edit it myself. If there are additional changes that need to be made, can those be handled by a member of this project? --Captain Occam (talk) 14:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Captain Occam, it is no longer protected. Primefac (talk) 14:45, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
OK, thanks for unprotecting it. Can you explain what content still needs to be added there? I don't have a lot of experience with how templates work. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:17, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
There are three fields that need values:

|TF_1_IMAGE = ???
|TF_1_ASSESSMENT_CAT = ???
|TF_1_MAIN_CAT = ???

I don't know which image to use or which categories to place them in. The latter two are optional (see Template:WPBannerMeta#Task forces) depending on if you want cats for the task force. Primefac (talk) 15:24, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. I think relevant category would be Category:Psychometrics task force articles, but I'll need to ask the other editors involved in the task force before deciding on an image. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:00, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

very minor bug in Template:W-informal and Template:W-shout

These two templates have a safesubst at the end of their second line that leaves (or can leave??) an unclosed triple quote, which mucks with edit syntax highlighting. Not sure why/if this needs to be there at all. can anyone assist? Thanks, ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 12:26, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Hydronium Hydroxide, I'm not seeing any issues with the transcluded text, either transcluded or substituted. Where are you seeing these extra brackets? Primefac (talk) 19:39, 31 March 2018 (UTC) (please do not ping on reply)
From what I can tell, the only imbalances are that both have one more </p> than <p>. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Primefac, the extra triple quotes occur if the heading parameter is not set to true.
Correct:
  • {{subst:w-shout|heading=true}}
Bug: Unclosed triple quote at end of first line:
  • {{subst:w-shout}}
  • {{subst:w-shout|Here is an additional message}}
  • {{subst:w-shout|border=red}}
  • {{subst:w-shout|headtext=Here is some headtext.}}
~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 23:09, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Ah, right. For some reason I read that as }}}, not '''. Fixed. Primefac (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 09:39, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

issue with redirected template causing mislabeling of information on Wikidata

Summary: a template directed to another template causes data to be labeled according to the redirected destination target. This mislabeled data is then added to Wikidata.

Template:Event date and age is simply a redirect to the widely-used Template:Death date and age. The redirect was presumably created because both templates calculate the year-distance (labeled as age) between two dates with the starting death date being a more specific type of event date. (Thus, the set of death dates is a subset of event dates.)

Event date and age can be used to calculate other non-death event dates.

Template:Event date and age is used for this purpose in Template:Infobox shogi professional, which also uses Template:Death date and age (for age of person at death) in addition to Template:Event date and age (for age of person when becoming professional). Due to the redirect, Template:Infobox shogi professional ultimately calls Template:Death date and age twice and mislabels the date of becoming a professional as a death date.

Because of this, the Wikidata site has used the mislabeled the date of becoming professional as a death date apparently because it only looks at the final destination of redirected templates. Thus, Wikidata entries that read enwiki template info will be incorrect.

A simple fix would be to stop Template:Event date and age from redirecting to Template:Death date and age. However, this apparently might violate the Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#T3._Duplication_and_hardcoded_instances policy. So, if this fix is good, then the policy should be modified to allow such an exception. If not, then it seems that death dates should redirect to the superset event dates as it would then be correct (but less specific) labeling.

Fixing this issue does assume that enwiki wishes to correctly label data via templates and to have good integration between enwiki and Wikidata in terms of data transfer. And, it assumes that fixing the mislabeling on enwiki is preferable to ad hoc adjustments on the Wikidata end and/or forcing Wikidata to change their approach to gathering data from enwiki. And, incidentally, Wikidata may not be the only other entity gathering data from enwiki, the template labels can be machine-read by anything.

Other discussion on this topic is at the following:

– ishwar  (speak) 21:45, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

An example of the issue is that Takahiro Ōhashi contains:
{{Infobox shogi professional
|pro_date = {{event date and age|2016|10|01|1992|9|22}}
and Template:Event date and age redirects to Template:Death date and age. That caused an automaton to change the Wikidata entry for Takahiro Ōhashi (Q27150864) to include:
date of death 1 October 2016; reference: imported from English Wikipedia
I do not see what can be "fixed" at Wikipedia to stop people making automated edits based on guesswork. Johnuniq (talk) 22:33, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
The problem isn't people making automated edits, it's that the redirect causes Wikidata to mix the two types of data (i.e. date of event vs date of death). I was going to make the point about {{Birth date and age}} technically being another type of "event and age" that simply calculates to the current date for living persons, and I noticed that {{Birth date and age}} implements Module:Age, while {{Death date and age}} does not. Given that both {{Event date and age}} and {{Death date and age}} are separate, valid cases, is it perhaps worth implementing Module:Age for these both? — Sasuke Sarutobi (talk) 16:20, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
I'll look into that. If we have one module for age, there's not much point in having an entire family of Birth, death and age templates that don't use it. Either way, this definitely appears to be an issue with WikiData not paying attention to which template is actually being used. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
Re the module, I am very slowly expanding where it is used. The aim was for it to provide a consistent set of parameters and results, particularly a consistent set of sort keys for sortable tables. Re the Wikidata issue: there is no way to scrape data reliably from an article. I have seen articles which list notable children, each with a birth-date-and-age. Johnuniq (talk) 23:46, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh, cool, if you've got it covered, I'll leave you to it. Plenty of other stuff on my Wiki-Do list! Primefac (talk) 15:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
If it redirects, then it doesn't exist. Just because you have an alias with a different meaning, doesn't mean you can connect that different meaning to the output of the template. If you want it to have separate meaning, then you need to make it a separate template. If you want to reuse logic, you give both templates a common (agnostic) meta-template or module. There is currently only one template "death date and age", and the alias has the EXACT SAME PURPOSE and should not be used for anything that isn't a death. I do note, there are multiple templates for age, many much more generic Category:Date_mathematics_templates. Event date and age seems like something that should be reworked. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:39, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Nizhny Novgorod rapid transit templates

To me, the templates that are in Category:Nizhny Novgorod Metro templates seem to be unnecessary and the content might better be integrated in the articles that are using these templates. But I'm not an expert in templates, so perhaps these templates are perfectly according to the rules while I am not aware of it. Can anyone advise on whether or not action is needed? Marcocapelle (talk) 17:25, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Unless I'm misreading it, these are a pretty standard template family that are used by the Rail transport succession templates. Primefac (talk) 18:28, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Regarding the footer navbox Template:Footer Commonwealth Champions Pole Vault Women, User:CaptainCanada and I have a disagreement in terms of the usage of this template. This has traditionally been used for navigating between article on Commonwealth Games champions in women's pole vault. CaptainCanada has added further links to the events themselves (an article set already covered by Template:CGPoleVault) as well as flag icons and links to national article. My opinion is that the template should remain focused on the champions specifically (previous version). I believe the new version adds links which are not relevant to the subjects; I don't see the value in linking the article on 1998 champion Emma George of Australia to articles about the 2014 pole vault competition, or the article on Canada at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. I also believe the flags serve a negative decorative function in these templates, in which the visual focus should be on champions, not nations. Can anyone provide a third opinion? Thanks SFB 16:33, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

  • For my part, I think including the information on the contest is an additional way for people to find relevant topic information. At a minimum, it doesn't detract from anything. The templates for, e.g., the Olympics have contained that information as well. As for the flags, the previous version of the template already listed what nation they're from; the flags convey the same information in a quick visual manner and, in my opinion, add to the overall visual appeal. The flags also convey the nation's full name if you mouse over them, something the three-letter abbreviations don't necessarily do. I don't see how they distract from the champion's name. CaptainCanada (talk) 17:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
  • The links in the linked form are helpful, not distracting, and add important information to the template. They seem fine. The flags look okay, although maybe the template can lose the flags once four or six more winners are listed, then it can have another look (should be holographic links at that point, both replaying the competition as well as offering the viewer a virtual full-experience point-of-view of all competitors, officials, and fans). Randy Kryn (talk) 17:34, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm with SFB here. The navbox should link the champions only. Not the country or the years, as these are not specific to the topic. There are also WP:BIDIRECTIONAL considerations. Basically the only links that are on the navbox should be ones that are navigable from the articles that transclude the navbox, see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Footer Commonwealth Champions Pole Vault Women. (Per WP:NAVBOX: "Navigation templates are a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles in Wikipedia"). And flags should never be used in navboxes. --woodensuperman 11:56, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
I'd also request that CaptainCanada would stop unilaterally making all these changes to the navboxes without wider input. --woodensuperman 12:07, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
So it's best to impede navigation because of a policy.... that would be the opposite of what we're looking for. Also best to read over MOS:INFOBOXFLAG.--Moxy (talk) 12:13, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Spelling error in a template

I'm not sure whether the template resides in Wikipedia or Commons, but I noticed the template for advising files from DFAT are released under a CC-BY licence has a spelling error in the second line of the template "coypright" (sic). I couldn't figure out how to link to the file, but it can be seen on File:Jim Middleton.jpg. Could a template editor correct it? -- Whats new?(talk) 07:40, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

@Whats new?: The template is commons:Template:DFAT so we can't do anything about it - you would need to ask at Commons. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:54, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
Ah bother. Thanks -- Whats new?(talk) 08:33, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
@Whats new?: I fixed it at c:Template:DFAT/en. Johnuniq (talk) 10:24, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
Yes; this was the fix and that subtemplate turns out not to be protected. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Reality show contestants in navboxes: alphabetical or chronological?

Further input requested at Template talk:RuPaul's Drag Race#Decision?, where there is a debate whether to order the contestants chronologically, alphabetically by first name, or alphabetically by surname/mononym. --woodensuperman 14:01, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, please take into consideration, we're referring to drag names here, not true surnames. Thanks, ---Another Believer (Talk) 14:12, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Embedding categories into navigation templates

I came across Template:Encantadia while checking on some images being used in User:Azuxingmi/Encantadia (2016 TV series) and was wondering if its acceptable to embedded categories into templates so that whichever page the nav template is added to will also have to category added to it as well. This might create a conflict with WP:USERNOCAT or WP:DRAFTNOCAT when the template is added to pages outside the article namespace. -- Marchjuly (talk) 04:26, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Marchjuly: WP:TEMPLATECAT covers this: it is recommended that articles not be placed in ordinary content categories using templates. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:45, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification JJMC89. Any ideas on how to clean this up? -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:49, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
Add the category to each article transcluding the template (if not already there). Then remove the category from the template. — JJMC89 (T·C) 05:52, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
 Done -- Marchjuly (talk) 06:47, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Categorizing infoboxes

There's a discussion at Template talk:Infobox that could use input from this project. It regards the categorization and naming of infoboxes. Primefac (talk) 13:13, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Hunting down source of extra space - possibly in country data

There seems to be an extra space between the flag and the state name for {{flag|North Dakota}}. It produces  North Dakota (two spaces), while for all other US states, something like {{flag|Arkansas}} produces  Arkansas (1 space). I strongly suspect the issue lies somewhere in Template:Country data North Dakota, but I can't seem to notice any difference compared to Template:Country data Arkansas. The extra space throws off the alphabetization whenever I try to copy a wikitable into Excel. Is anyone able to spot what's going on here? Thank you in advance for your help! MarginalCost (talk) 04:03, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

The extra nbsp appears to be inserted by Template:Flag/core because the default |size= in Template:Country data North Dakota is 23x16px. I see possibly relevant discussions at Template talk:Flag#Fix Swiss and farther down, at Template talk:Flag#North Dakota.
It looks like someone tried to use nbsp to manually adjust the alignment of country names in lists, and maybe it worked back in 2013 when it was implemented, but none of the country names are aligned in my browser today. Perhaps some change in the wikitext rendering between 2013 and today has made this hack stop working. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:34, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
It has been discussed before, several times, and not just at Template talk:Flag. Yes, it's a hack; but anything that imposes artificial spacing is a hack that may work in some browsers but won't in all of them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:46, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
So... does anything need to be done? I'm not sure that artificially adding a second space is really the best of ideas, since it's probably better to have uniform code over uniform display (since the latter should follow the former anyway). Primefac (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
It's a hack, and I'm not against hacks, but it doesn't seem like a very good one, given the output on the template's talk page. nbsp is a blunt instrument. Would something like {{Pad}} achieve better results? – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

TemplateStyles

I've got a few questions, if anybody knows the answers.

Will media queries written into external css of a template conflict with the css of the page the template is transcluded to?

Would an external style sheet be able to have parameters from the template written into it? Or indeed have Lua functions invoked there?

Like: 

element#example {
background-color:{{{bgcolor|#FFFF}}
}

Any help would be appreciated. Cheers, Cesdeva (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

As far as i'm aware there are no external CSS uses of templates. Which template are you referring to? Primefac (talk) 18:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
I got the impression from Wikipedia:TemplateStyles that it would soon be possible to write CSS for templates in a separate sheet? Maybe I've read it wrong. Cesdeva (talk) 18:36, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Given that it's not even rolled out yet, I think the Pump discussion is the best place to ask. Primefac (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
It's not super urgent so I'll just leave it. I just wanted to get a head start. Thanks, Cesdeva (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
The CSS included via TemplateStyles will interact with CSS from other sources such as MediaWiki:Common.css in the usual way. Note the TemplateStyles CSS will have all selectors rewritten to scope them to the page's content area. TemplateStyles CSS cannot contain template parameters or parser functions. Anomie⚔ 01:44, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
Ok, thanks Anomie. Cesdeva (talk) 10:24, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
There is also Wikipedia talk:TemplateStyles. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:26, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Need help with an infobox

For the first time in a while, I'm finding myself absolutely at a loss for why I'm seeing what I'm seeing in a template. I've been working on the merger between {{Infobox country}} and {{Infobox former country}}, and while I have all of the content sorted in the sandbox, the formatting is really odd (see the testcases). Somehow I'm getting all these extra line breaks in there, and aside from having some "child" infoboxes I can't see what's causing it (but the child infobox shouldn't be adding a line anyway). Any assistance or advice would be appreciated. Primefac (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Basically, I have no idea why the horizontal lines are showing up; it's not in the headerstyle or labelstyle and other than the abovestyle having a line set I don't see any other mention of it.
I suppose I could artificially use "mergedrow" for if the param isn't there? Scratch that last, none of the label or data values are sent if there's no param anyway. Primefac (talk) 15:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Are there any empty lines at the bottom of the child infoboxes? I have seen behaviour before where a trailing line of whitespace is transcluded into another template. — Sasuke Sarutobi (push to talk) 16:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Strip it down to a simple case, as in User:Jonesey95/sandbox3. Then look at the HTML source to see differences in the output. That might help. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I think this fixed it. You may have to purge the testcases page to see the difference. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:15, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
It wasn't the spaces (but thanks for checking) - template calls and #if statements ignore leading/trailing whitespace. It was actually the subtemplate (which I had originally copied from the main template), which used mergedbottomrow when it shouldn't have. I've tweaked it and it appears to be working; just need to find all the other accidental uses of that param... Primefac (talk) 17:42, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, maybe we were trying to fix different problems. When I look at Template:Infobox_country/testcases#Nakhchivan, I see a line break between the bullet and "Parliamentary Chairman", and at New Caledonia, I see a leading space before "Presidential Head of State" and many other bits of text after bullets. When I eliminated the spaces, those problems went away. They are back after you restored the spaces. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:20, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
I see some extra spaces due to "Dependent territory" in New Caledonia, but I'm not seeing the rest. Then again, you posted this eight minutes ago and I've been fixing things for the better part of the last forty minutes and just purged the cache a few minutes ago. Primefac (talk) 18:27, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Spaces are still there for me. See File:Spaces-in-infobox-country-sandbox.png. They were gone after I removed the spaces from the if statements. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that white space is being preserved because the multirow template is embedded within the if statement. Normally, leading and trailing white space is stripped, but not in this case. Here are examples to show white space being preserved:

Blah{{#if:1|{{green|true}}|{{red|false}}}} → Blahtrue

Blah{{#if:1|{{green| true}}|{{red| false}}}} → Blah true

I see no space between "Blah" and "true" in the first one a space in the second one. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Strange. My concern was with the horizontal lines (which I've fixed), but I suppose the extra whitespace isn't necessary (i.e. I'll clean it up). Also could be a browser difference, because I never saw a blank line next to a bullet. Primefac (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Making Template:Infobox college coach module-compatible

{{Infobox college coach}} isn't currently compatible with use as a module of {{Infobox person}}. I'm not a template editor, so I can't amend it. Would someone be able to take a look at it? Thank you. — Sasuke Sarutobi (push to talk) 19:18, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Turns out I'd forgotten the |embed=yes parameter. Crisis averted. — Sasuke Sarutobi (push to talk) 19:50, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Embedding the track listing template into a wikitable

Hi. I was experimenting with embedding a track listing template into a wikitable (in this case, recording session data for Elvis Presley). This is what I came up with:

Date Type Studio Location
July 18, 1953 Demo Session Sun Studio Memphis, Tennessee
No.TitleWriter(s)MatrixLength
1."My Happiness"Betty Peterson Blasco, Borney BergantineWPA5 2531-NA2:33
2."That's When Your Heartaches Begin"Fred Fisher, Billy Hill, William RaskinWPA5 2532-NA2:48
Personnel: Elvis Presley (vocals, guitar)

Here is the problem: I tried this out in the Wikipedia sandbox using Mozilla Foxfire, Internet Explorer, and Chrome. With the first two everything looks fine, as the track list template spreads across the page. With Chrome, however, the track list template is crunched onto (roughly) the left side of the page. Is there anyway to make it display correctly with Chrome? Jimknut (talk) 20:02, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

A discussion on infoboxes

There is a discussion regarding (blank) infobox usage at the Village Pump. Please feel free to join in the discussion here. Primefac (talk) 16:10, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Discussion about MediaWiki_talk:Movepage-moved

Please someone coding expert could answer here MediaWiki_talk:Movepage-moved#Link_to_the_talk if my proposal is doable or not. Thanks--Pierpao (talk) 11:06, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Pie chart

Is that possible for default on {{Pie chart}} be set so that it started on top and read clockwise. Currently (start from right and read counterclockwise) it's a little bit hard to see. --Hddty. (talk) 13:47, 7 September 2018 (UTC)

Template:Time Team

Any comments gratefully received at Template talk:Time Team#This navbox and WP:PERFNAV --woodensuperman 12:38, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Paywalled articles on Encyclopaedia Britannica

Template:Britannica gives instructions for adding external links to articles on www.britannica.com using the template. However, a large number (though not all) of the articles require a subscription to read, and so are not acceptable as external links per WP:ELNO point #6 and WP:ELREG. If there's no objection, I'll add that information to the template's documentation to discourage further linking to the paywalled articles. I assume there's no problem with linking to those articles that are not paywalled. Is there anything else that should be done? --IamNotU (talk) 19:51, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Struck out some text above - thinking it over, it seems to me that even non-paywalled articles on britannica.com would fail WP:ELNO point #1: "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article. Links for future improvement of the page can be placed on the article's talk page." (emphasis mine). By definition, any information in a Encyclopedia Britannica article should be included in the Wikipedia article, for example by paraphrasing and citing it. I can't think of any reason for an external britannica.com link to be in an article, if it's not cited as a source.
If we accept a general practice of putting corresponding Encyclopedia Britannica external links in Wikipedia articles - let alone encourage it by having a special template to do just that - it has the potential to become yet another ubiquitous link added by default to any and all Wikipedia articles. I don't see why Wikipedia should be helping to promote a commercial and mostly-paywalled site like britannica.com in that way. This is a real concern, as can be seen by this editor who has added such links to nearly a thousand articles in the past year: Special:Contributions/Helgi-S. I suggest now that this template should be deleted, and plan to nominate it shortly at WP:TFD. --IamNotU (talk) 01:32, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Have I implemented this correctly?

I am proposing a significant edit at Template talk:Infobox U.S. federal court#Major simplification of template and, among other things, would like to add alt text parameters. I have added them to the template sandbox, but would like to make sure I have done it correctly. Could someone check to make sure I implemented the alt text parameter correctly? Ergo Sum 21:17, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Looks like a reasonable proposal. Primefac (talk) 10:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Deleted templates

Template like {{*mp}} should be retained and tagged as historical because it left an old revision like this and then a bot would prevent editors from transcluding this "historical templates". Is that possible? Hddty. (talk) 13:50, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

{{historical template}} is there Galobtter (pingó mió) 14:06, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Template:Lm

The template {{lm}} was recently changed without explanation from a template linking to the mediawiki namespace to one linking to the module namespace, breaking any uses of it. I tried raising this with the editor that made the change, BrandonXLF, but they have given no reason for the change, and say that any uses should be 'fixed' by using a different template. See the history of the template and User talk:BrandonXLF#Template:Lm for the discussion.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 22:56, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@JohnBlackburne: I made the change because MediaWiki is two words and module is one word and modules are used WAY more the MediaWiki pages. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 22:57, 6 October 2018 (UTC)
Even if you were correct you would be still wrong. Flitting around the project changing stuff because is not sustainable and will end with sanctions. Boldness is one thing but edit warring on a template or module is really bad. However painful the thought might be, you will need to allow time for others to think about the proposal and to respond. I reverted those undiscussed and unexplained changes. Johnuniq (talk) 23:42, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposal use Template:Lm with modules

JohnBlackburne, I think we should switch {{lm}} for use with modules as 1) More people want to link to modules then MediaWiki pages 2) {{lmw}} exist for MediaWiki pages 3) MediaWiki is two words where as module is only one word 4) Most pages that use {{lm}} as if it's suppose to link to the module namespace. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 00:05, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to update names

I think the above templates (and the whole template family) should be renamed for clarity. For example, {{la}} and {{lab}} should be renamed to {{Link article}}{{Article links}} and {{Link article brief}}{{Article links brief}}. Of course, the existing templates would be kept as redirects, but it would avoid this confusion as to what templates actually do what. Primefac (talk) 03:01, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Agree, it should be noted there's multiple families of these type of template lx and xl. Having full names would really help. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 03:18, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
{{la}} is by far the most used of all these templates and it already has longer names: {{Article}}, {{Article links}}, {{Article-links}}, {{Articlelinks}} and {{Page links}}. If it is renamed then better to one of those, and the rest to a similar name. But it seems unnecessary to me. The full names are there if anyone wants to use them, many editors would still use the short forms. There is no confusion that I can see, just ignorance of policies and normal editorial practices.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 10:54, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
John, while I agree with your last sentence, there has been a push recently to make templates more "obvious" as to what they do. There's nothing wrong with having {{la}} as a redirect template (and I didn't realize that {{Article links}} existed so I've amended my posta bove). People will always use the shortened version (no on really uses {{Interlanguage link}}), but for someone like Brandon who sees an "m" and immediately thinks "module" it might work better to have the root template be descriptive. I know pppery has been one of the major players in this push, so I'll ping them for their thoughts.
And for what it's worth, I don't particularly care if the consensus is not to change the template names, but I thought it might be a decent compromise over someone hijacking dozens of templates because they don't agree with what it "should be". Primefac (talk) 13:24, 7 October 2018 (UTC)
Well, I've gone ahead and put in an RM request. We'll see what happens. Primefac (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC on Template:Article History

Regarding DYK in the template. Discussion can be found here. Ergo Sum 23:27, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

@Ergo Sum: Why have you headed this "RfC on Template:Article History" when the linked thread is not a Request for Comment? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:19, 7 November 2018 (UTC)
I use the term RfC in its literal sense - making a request for comments, not necessarily in the formalized process. Sorry if that threw anyone off. Ergo Sum 15:08, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Not enough template editors working at WP:TPER?

It is 3 days now since I submitted my (fairly simple) edit request, but I have had no response. Could someone take a look at it please? --NSH001 (talk) 07:54, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to SMcCandlish for handling my edit request. But the point about possibly not enough template editors/admins at WP:TPER remains. --NSH001 (talk) 20:29, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
Wikipedia editors are all volunteers, and there's no requirement for editors to be online all the time (or edit TPERs). We get to them when we can, and unless something is being completely broken there's no immediate need to have things changed. Primefac (talk) 20:32, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
That's true, but it doesn't hurt to have a reminder now and again. I did notice that while I was waiting, several other requests were added and dealt with. --NSH001 (talk) 21:21, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
You have a fair point, and I apologize if I came across as being overly critical of your request. You're absolutely right, a polite request for assistance is perfectly acceptable now and again. I tend to find the TPERs that wait around the longest tend to be either something no one wants to deal with (questionable edit and/or consensus) or they just forget that TPERs exist! Primefac (talk) 21:35, 9 November 2018 (UTC)
I handled a couple of TPERs, and I'm happy to take care of them, but I couldn't figure out a reasonable way to get a notification of a new request. I added the transcluded page to my watchlist, but the page is updated only by a bot, and I don't follow bot edits on my watchlist because (for me) that way lies madness. Do I just need to remember with my meat brain to visit the page now and then? – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
How do you filter bot edits? Because the edits aren't bot-flagged specifically so they show up on watchlists. Galobtter (pingó mió) 07:14, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
I exclude bot edits from my watchlist using the Hide: Bots checkbox at the top of my watchlist. User:AnomieBOT/TPERTable, which is the page that shows new TPERs, is edited by User:AnomieBOT, so edits to that page do not appear in my watchlist. Am I misunderstanding something? – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:57, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Having that checked, I can still see AnomieBOT's edits to TPERTable, and you should also be able to. Bots with the "bot" user right can choose whether to flag an edit as a bot edit. Edits that aren't flagged (like AnomieBOT's edits to TPERTable) are not hidden by checking "Hide: Bots". Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:08, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Edits to User:AnomieBOT/TPERTable (also User:AnomieBOT/PERTable, User:AnomieBOT/IPERTable, User:AnomieBOT/SPERTable) are bot edits in the sense that they were performed by a bot; but they are not flagged as bot edits, which means that the little b is not displayed in the watchlist, and the "Hide bots" checkbox is ignored. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:39, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification about this subtlety. I double- and triple-checked that the page was not showing in my watchlist, even after it was edited just two hours ago. I then took a deep breath and thought "what would a smart person do?" A smart person would check to ensure that the page had actually been added to my watchlist; short version, I was not actually watching it (Facepalm Facepalm). I must have clicked the "watch" star inadvertently and stopped watching it, leading to all of my nonsensical babbling above.  Fixed, thanks all! I'll take on some of those requests. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:10, 10 November 2018 (UTC)
Mostly, I think it's just part of our general admin shortage, and can be temporarily affected by various things. If something is happening on-wiki (vandalism wave, etc.), or off-site (big global sports events), it takes editorial attention away from backlogs. October to February are a comparative lull period for many North American editors, due to a bunch of successive holidays that typically involve non-trivial arrangements (then January catch-up on work they were slacking on due to holidays). When it comes to specific requests, factors can be the complexity level of the request, how well the request justifies the change, whether there's clear consensus for it (or it at least looks unlikely to be controverted), whether it was test-cased, and how useful it looks. In your particular case, there were no issues in this regard, so it's not really clear why it took a while.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:19, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

"Important, do not ..."

What caused the hidden text message of "<!-- Important, do not remove this line before article has been created. -->" to appear after {{AFC submission}} on e.g. User:Flickyard/sandbox and User:BlackLotus/ICEY (Video Game)?

I asked the same question at WT:AFC#"Important, do not ..." but did not get a response. Not if the text originates from a template, but I figured someone here might know or be able to figure it out. Warmest regards, — Godsy (TALKCONT) 08:48, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

@Godsy: It's from Template:AfC preload. The last step of the Article Wizard, Wikipedia:Article wizard/CreateDraft, has a button that arranges for this text to be loaded into the new draft page. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:00, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Minor problem with Template:Outline of knowledge coverage

I don't have time to troubleshoot this one for a few days, so if anyone wants to take a look, the #if logic is not quite right. The template is showing this in certain cases:

Outline of Republic of the Congo'Outline of the Republic of the Congo'

(both linked) instead of showing a single link.

Here's how it looks substed, using the current version:

Should be fixed - weird nested ifs were weird. I've turned it into a switch (see below). Primefac (talk) 14:56, 16 November 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Elegantly done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:12, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

{{Chembox}} conversion

Looking for some people to chime in with feedback on converting {{Chembox}} to use {{Infobox}} as a base. I've done about 75% of the initial work. Tons of styling needs to be fixed and I need to generate a ton of testcases, but hoping there might be some folks willing to provide feedback? Anybody interested? Template_talk:Chembox#Convert_to_Infobox_(for_realz_this_time). --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 05:46, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

naming conventions

Is there a naming conventions guideline for template and module names and template parameter names? Couldn't find one when looking. --Gonnym (talk) 18:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't know of one, but the general trend over the past few years is strongly toward all-lower-case parameter names with hyphens or underscores (not spaces) to separate words. I hope that helps. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:52, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jonesey95: that brings up a good point though... We should really get a documented convention going. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:03, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
@Jonesey95:, that's what I also thought (though I also seem to see more underscores and less hyphens) but I couldn't find any guideline to back it up. If this is really the conventions, it should really become an official guideline as that will help in any TfD and merge discussions. --Gonnym (talk) 19:08, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
@Gonnym: I smell a WP:RFC!! I 100% agree with you. Whatever the convention is, I think we need to document it. Not to say that it needs to be strictly enforced across the board on every single template, but at least having a convention in place. If you wanted to write up a RFC I for one would support it! --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)
Just be wary of it turning into a Standards question, because it's bad enough arguing camelCase vs Sentence_case vs lower_case without trying to turn all templates into something specific. If someone wants to make a "convention" or "guideline" page that would probably suffice, but unless it gets approved for the MOS I don't think we can really "force" anyone to use a specific param/template format. Primefac (talk) 16:26, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
As far as I know, naming convention guidelines and MoS guidelines are one and the same, as in, both have equal footing. I was actually asking if there was a standard (aka "naming conventions") as it seems silly to me that we have one for almost any other topic, but we don't have one for this. And as Zackmann08 said, that would obviously need to pass a RfC (as outlined WP:PROPOSAL). --Gonnym (talk) 16:50, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
@Primefac: to be clear, not arguing we try to force anyone... But would be nice to have something of a standard. A best practice to try and follow whenever possible. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:08, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
P.S. Gold star for the XKCD comic. LOL! --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:09, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Neither was I, really, just thinking about previous discussions that have been held at various templates where strong-arm tactics were used to change the style (or otherwise beat it into one set standard). Primefac (talk) 20:25, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

@Primefac: ah gotcha. Again, love the XKCD. Made my morning. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 20:56, 25 November 2018 (UTC)
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