Wikipedia talk:Hatnotes

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I agree with limiting the stuff on top to disambiguations, but disagree with "which should be limited to a simplest possible link —preferably to a standard Article (disambiguation) page." --SPUI (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Examples

In most cases a disambiguation page is the most apropriate location, but not always. A little bit of explanation is useful, e.g. at Union of South Africa:

Union of South Africa is also the name of a LNER Class A4 steam locomotive, preserved on the Severn Valley Railway.

This will tell many people what the other article is about without needing to read it if they aren't interested. It also might draw the interest to one of the linked articles more than For the steam locomotive see LNER Class A4 4488 Union of South Africa. Thryduulf 20:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

To be honest, it is a bit verbose. We know the Union of South Africa part already (both above and below on the page). Speaking as a person that has long been involved with steam locomotive preservation, I think the same interest would occur with:

For historic preservation of a steam locomotive, see LNER Class A4 4488

We need some stronger positive examples. William Allen Simpson 16:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree. "most often" would be a better phrasing than "almost always". WP:D specifically bans separate dab pages if there are only two homonymous topics; rather, the "hatnote" should refer directly to the other page. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Temporary messages

On the main page, I think that while Hurricane Katrina is an ongoing event that the link is absolutely apropriate. It directs people to a central location designed for the purpose, rather than attract potential edits to the article and/or talk page like "Does anyone know if Kevin Smith from Gulfport is safe?", which will get reverted from the article and lost on the talk page. In six months time it would be a different matter, but this is one of the advantages of being a wiki. Thryduulf 20:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I think all the articles should be editted as final, for they get preserved on CD-ROMs and archives. However, I also disagree with the action taken here. A short header pointing to the "External links" would have been better (and timeless). William Allen Simpson 16:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
The concept of using these notes for reasons other than disambiguating should at least be mentioned somewhere, even if we state they should be restricted to "extraordinary circumstances". William, there are no "final" versions of any WP articles. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Quibbling; rather than "final", I could have said "for the ages", I did mention "timeless". This isn't a continuing news desk. And I disagree, on CD/DVD, it's carved in stone, as it were; as final as anything electronic. William Allen Simpson 20:27, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Still, this doesn't seem any more intrusive on a permanent medium than the plethora of NPOV tags, policy proposal tags, needs-improvement tags, and the like, which are intended to be equally temporary. —Wahoofive (talk) 00:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Good point! --William Allen Simpson 00:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Name

Is hatnote a protologism?—jiy (talk) 12:32, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

If this were a legal opinion, it would be a "headnote". Perhaps they invented a new word to distinguish? William Allen Simpson 14:55, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

On WP:D they're called "disambiguation links". I presume it's your intent to condense the content on that page and refer people directly to this page as a subtopic of disambiguation. In that case keeping the word "disambiguation" here might be less, well, ambiguous. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Not convinced that "hatnotes" a sufficiently self-explanatory term – but cannot at present think of any alternative other than "headers", which I grant may be too vague and has other (computing-related) uses. Will wander by again if inspiration strikes. Regards, David Kernow 19:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I like the word hatnote — it has character. It's also short and sweet, and easy to remember.
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 22:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] using technical terms, such as "lede", "headnote"

Not all of you are professional editors (nor expected to be), but it would be helpful to check information when editting somebody else's work, especially where the term is clearly defined in the edit summary.

define:lede
--William Allen Simpson 14:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, contrary to Jiy's comment on the article page summary, a search for "lead paragraph" does not find any uses in (Main). "Lede" is used in many places, see List of commonly confused homonyms.

--William Allen Simpson 14:25, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
You're right, not everyone is a professional editor. So we shouldn't use jargon only understood by professional editors and not found in standard dictionaries. Even News style has lead emblazoned in bold, with lede only as a side note. Of course you won't find "lead paragraph" in the main namespace, when I said used throughout Wikipedia I meant used widely by Wikipedians. Search in the areas outside the main namespace and you will find the phrase is used commonly [1] . "Lede paragraph", on the other hand, generates zero results [2].—jiy (talk) 22:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
The latter result would likely be because "lede" means "lead paragraph", and people are (hopefully) unlikely to want to write "lead paragraph paragraph"; given that they still want to write "PIN number", however, this might be more because they don't know about "lede" than because they know how to use it correctly . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consolidate some Otheruses[N]

I've been trying to update WP:D with good examples, as the old ones have often migrated considerably since originally written. One thing that I did today was use the actual Otheruses templates in place, as the old subst were often obsolete.

But it took hours to find even a few good examples of Otheruses[N], as these are wildly applied. I must have looked at a dozen possibilities (when they exist) for each of the Otheruses templates.

There are too many nearly identical variants, and editors seem confused.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
The major problem IMHO is that they are all labelled with numbers instead of being descriptive. Other templates with more or less the same purpose but different specifics have more mnemonic labels - see for example the various speedy delete templates. Hairy Dude 02:27, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses0}}

1 instance.

The only use could be easily replaced.

A modesty useful idea, that is a duplicate of/redirect to {{dablink}}. Seems to me that Dablink is improperly used, where standard templates apply, and should be replaced.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses1}}, {{Otherusesabout}}

165 instances.

On a page with title "Michigan" it says, "This article is about the U.S. State;" — gosh and golly gee, the very next sentence (the "lede") says, "Michigan is a state in the United States."

On a page with title "Abracadabra" it says, "This article is about an incantational word;" — the next sentence begins, "Abracadabra is a word used as an incantation ...."

Pursuant to WP:STYLE, the lede of every article is expected to have the title as the subject of the first sentence. I have not yet found an example where Otheruses1 is most appropriate.

All instances should be replaced with Otheruses.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses2}}, {{Otherusespar}}

many instances. Useful. Harmless.

Most could be replaced with {{Otheruses}}, as they simply repeat the title in the parameter.

Understandably, somebody created Otherusespar, as "2" is incongruous where there is only 1 parameter. Wouldn't {{Other1d}} (one parameter, "disambiguation" added) be a better name?

Replace and delete the duplicate.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses3}}

300+ instances. Seemingly useful.

However, there is a longstanding WP:D requirement (since 2002) that links to "Generic" disambiguation pages from other pages are supposed to go through a redirect from "(disambiguation)" so that WP:DPL won't list them. My guess is that many/most of these should be replaced by Otheruses2.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses4}}, {{This}}, {{This article is about}}, {{About}}

many instances. A mess.

Otheruses4 might be easier to remember as {{Othertopic}}. The primary use is for disambiguation of only two articles, to point at each other.

Most of the instances of {{This}} and {{This article is about}} are nearly identical to Otheruses4.

Template:This (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) barely survived TfD (3 delete:2 keep) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/May 2005#Template:This.

Template:This article is about (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) barely survived TfD (1 delete:1 keep) Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Not deleted/September 2005#Template:This article is about.

Like Otheruses1, should always check to see whether the "This" is already replicated in the lede.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Ugh. {{About}} has hundreds of uses too, a lot of them probably identical to {{Otheruses4}}. It has the marginal advantage of flexibility in that you can add extra links or non-links and other wording than "{{{2}}}" or "other uses" after the "For". But other templates do that just as well. Plus, this template runs the risk of allowing nonstandard wording and formatting, which kind of defeats its own purpose.
How about a bot to replace usage of these, once consensus has been reached here? Hairy Dude 04:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
User:Ed_g2s just edited a number of these templates to remove the "redundant information". I can see no basis in consensus for his changes, although I agree with his opinion of those templates. Hairy Dude 17:25, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, please see the talk page for {{otheruses4}}. It seems wrong to me to have all these remote discussions (and undiscussed actions) going on where a lot of editors who watch the WP:D page get no notice until their templates break. Is a disambig-fixing editor expected to watch otheruses, otheruses2, otheruses3, otherpeople, and every other template that might be useful? Chris the speller 18:12, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses5}}

2 instances.

Essentially same as {{redirect}}. Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Has been speedy deleted repeatedly.

--William Allen Simpson 02:39, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses6}}

5 instances.

Essentially same as {{redirect}}. Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses7}}

4 instances.

Paired with {{Otheruses5}} minus "(disambiguation)". Requires thought.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses8}}

1 instance.

Paired with {{Otheruses4}} plus "(disambiguation)".

Like Otheruses1, should always check to see whether the "This" is already replicated in the lede. Really not that hard to type the qualifier.

Replace and delete.

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Otheruses9}}, {{dablinktop}}

no instances, should be deleted soon. Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 January 27#Template:Dablinktop

--William Allen Simpson 19:53, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
{{Otheruses9}} now redirects to {{This}}. Hairy Dude 00:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
All gone. --William Allen Simpson 06:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consolidate some Distinguish[N]

[edit] {{Distinguish}}

61 instances.

This is for pairs of articles with confusingly similar names. Very useful IMHO.

Hairy Dude 20:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] {{Distinguish2}}

6 uses in article namespace.

I think this is potentially useful where a brief explanation of the other word seems useful... but this sets a precedent of inserting potentially large amounts of text that are irrelevant to the article. It also needs documenting on its talk page.

Hairy Dude 20:00, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
IMHO, this one is a waste of time. The only difference is that it doesn't link. Well, this is wikipedia, and links are our sine qua non. I'll look at the now 23 uses, but looks like they should all be replaced with {{distinguish}} or something similar.
--William Allen Simpson 06:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, useful only in very few cases, mainly to add the similar link AND a snippet of distinguishing information (or, quite wrongly and annoyingly, a second or third link). For those very few cases, {{dablink}} could do pretty well. When just seeing the other spelling instantly gives the other meaning to most people, such as Salon and Saloon, this form is not needed, but when there are two similarly named people in similar occupations, it is a kindness to add a few words so the reader does not have to flip back and forth. Chris the speller 15:02, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Now I'm starting to lean the other way — instead of trying to suppress or control all editors by deleting or chopping up templates, we should send a polite message to an editor who shows a tendency to use a template inappropriately. A golf club can be used as a weapon, but misuse by one or two people does not result in all golf clubs being melted down. I see some use for distinguish2, and so far I think it has often been used in an acceptable fashion. If there is an example of atrocious misuse, let's fix that case. And clear guidelines (with stellar examples) might help, too. Chris the speller 14:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I think I created {{distinguish2}} rather than use a {{dablink}} as its wording follows {{distinguish}} but the parameter isn't required to be a link and only a link. For the sake of this flexibility (without being as flexible/undefined as {{dablink}}) perhaps {{distinguish2}} should replace {{distinguish}} rather than vice versa...?  Regards, David Kernow 16:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
    • Eh? Nothing needs to replace {{distinguish}}. And flexibility isn't always a good reason to promote a template, as I think is the case here - usually you want to be using that one, not this one. Hairy Dude 00:07, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree that {{distinguish}} doesn't have to be replaced; but rather than foregoing {{distinguish2}} in favor of the (very generic/flexible) {{dablink}} or the like, {{distinguish2}}'s name is a reminder that it shares the same wording as {{distinguish}}. {{Distinguish}}, however, requires the whole of its parameter to be a link, something that isn't always workable (so far as I've seen). Thanks for your input, David Kernow 01:42, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of proper use

The aforementioned section was empty, so in keeping with the be bold directive, I went ahead and added some examples. I also added my interpretation of how these examples apply to hatnotes. However, I may be getting ahead of myself on this. Since there is no definitive standard, I'm not exactly sure which of these examples I should be advocating as proposed policy and which I should leave out entirely. I really need some comments on this.
-,-~R'lyehRising~-,- 17:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguating article names that are not ambiguous

I don't know about this one. If I'm trying to learn about a Scottish clergyman named John Brown, and I don't know if he was an abolitionist or not, I might look up John Brown on Google. One of the top Google links takes me to John Brown (abolitionist), but that's not who I meant. Shouldn't there be a hatnote to take me to John Brown? And it's not just names. I might be brand new to Wikipedia, looking at the Magpie River (Ontario) article. And I think "Hey, does that mean there are other Magpie Rivers?" But to get to that, I can't just click. Sarah crane 13:24, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

  • But why can't the user simply type "John Brown" (or "Magpie River") in the Wikipedia search box? The problem is that adding hatnotes to disambiguated articles only adds unnecessary clutter. Since we should presume that readers are looking for specific things and people, it might cause confusion to include superfluous links.
    ,-~R'lyehRising~-, 21:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
    • The user can retype the name, but that's more work than clicking a link. I don't think a one-line hatnote is too distracting for people who don't care about other John Browns, but it would be very helpful for people who do. The article name Magpie River (Ontario) indicates that there are others, and it's natural to be curious. Shouldn't we link? Sarah crane 12:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
      • Agreed - make it easy. And don't presume that readers are looking for specific things or people - one of the joys of web-based encyclopaedias is the ability to wander to wherever your attention is distracted. Bazza 14:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
        • One should note, however, that the proposed guideline for hatnotes says that they are intended for disambiguation (see Wikipedia:Disambiguation). Thus, hatnotes are essentially condensed versions of disambiguation pages, which means that they should be used for navigation and not exploration. Just as Wikipedia discourages the use of disambiguation pages for exploratory purposes — such as games of free association — I think that a similar rule should apply to hatnotes. In fact, hatnotes should rarely be used, except when absolutely necessary.
          ,-~R'lyehRising~-, 22:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
          • You are confusing how authors should write with how readers might read. I'm not on about what authors might use disambiguation for - I'm talking about how readers might use it. I know that Wikipedia:Disambiguation says authors should not use disambiguation to provide games of free association, but where does it discourage readers from using disambiguation for random exploratory purposes? I say again, web-based encyclopaedias are great for reading about things you never set out to read - whether to do so or not is up to the reader. Bazza 10:08, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that there's such a clear distinction between navigation and exploration. In so far as there is, though, navigation means nothing on its own; we need to ask: who needs to navigate, and to where? Explorers need navigation as much as (if not more than) anyone else, surely. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:46, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
  • I definitely agree that these "non-ambiguous" articles should have dab links at the top that go back to the main page. Some people will end up on the "unambiguous" page without having gone through the disambiguation page, and some of those people will realize that they are in the wrong place. Also, the backlink is the only way you can find out that there are other people or concepts with similar names. That's interesting information which should not be destroyed by adherence to overly harsh style recommendations. -- Beland 16:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I previously would have disagreed with adding hatnotes to even the pages with disambiguation clarifiers in parenthesis, but there are some good arguments for including them. However, I worry that if they are included on all pages that are disambiguated, the pages will become quite cluttered.
A discussion regarding hatnotes has been going on at Wikipedia:Disambiguation in the latter part of Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Is_anybody_doing_it_right, which brings up a few interesting points. -- Natalya 16:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of horizontal line

Why should there not be a line dividing material that is not part of the article from the article? indentation doesn't do this (parts of an article are often indented, such as long quotations), nor does the use of italics. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I agree the italicized indentation does not look very nice. A line might be in order. Though that would involve changing a lot of articles. (Which could be automated by bot.) -- Beland 16:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. Having a dividing line after a hatnote breaks up the article in an unneeded fashion, and really distracts from the article. With an indentation, the hatnote is separate enough while still allowing a reader who does not need to read it to easily move to the article. Adding a horizontal line between the hatnote and the article makes the distinction too noticable. -- Natalya 16:20, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

But this misstates the point; the line can't break up the article, because it's separating the article from non-article. And why shouldn't the distinction be noticeable? It's a genuine distinction (and a horizontal line is thus often used in this way in print works). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

It's likely just personal preference between us, but I feel that hatnotes should not stick out of a page. The whole point of having them be italicized and intented is so that they don't wake away from the nature of the article. The article is there for the article, that is the main point. The hatnote is only there for people who mistakenly come to the article; as dismabiguation practices are improving, the number of people mistakenly coming to an article becomes less and less. For people coming to the article and finding they are at the wrong place, they will soon relize this, see the hatnote, and go to the correct place. For everyone else, they will gloss over the indented and italicized hatnote, and continue on reading the article they were originally looking for.
Here is an example of an old version of a page using a horizontal line with a hatnote. There are so many horizontal lines and other boxes near the top of the page that it is unneedingly cluttered. There is no way that with indentation and italitization, a person at the wrong page will miss the hatnote. But with the horizontal line, many people who are where they are supposed to be will be distracted by the hatnote. It seems to be a question of aesthetics.-- Natalya 22:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd have thought that a note insufficently distinguished from the article was more likely to distract than one clearly set off and separate. In either case, though, the effect is surely minimal. (The example that you give seems fine to me; this is clearly simply a matter of taste.) --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Maybe use preference settings along the lines of...
  • Hatnotes/headers:
  • Refer to these as "hatnotes" / "headers"
  • Always show / never show / use last setting  [as with TOCs etc]
  • Show only on article page / only on talk page / on either ...?  Regards, David Kernow 16:14, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Do you mean this to apply to the whole note, or only to the line? If the latter, and if it's feasible, then it seems like a good approach. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:58, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Either, I suppose. A drawback, however, is that this would demand further work from the seemingly already hard-pressed software developers, so I guess it would take some time to appear. Best wishes, David Kernow 18:24, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
  • My opinion is that having a line looks awful. —Bunchofgrapes (talk) 15:15, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be two issues. The first concerns aesthetics, and that's clearly a matter of taste (discussions at other Talk pages, such as Wikipedia talk:Guide to layout#Horizontal line, bear that out), and there's not much more to be said. The second concerns usefulness. My position is that the horizontal line (used in this way by many print encyclopædias) serves to mark off material that isn't part of the article, and that merely indenting or italicising text is insufficent for that purpose (as other text in articles is also indented and italicised). Natalya holds that it makes the hatnote stick out, and is therefore undesirable (my reponse is that the hatnote is supposed to stick out, so that a reader who has misnavigated sees as soon as possible that that's what she's done).

Are there any other arguments on either side? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:32, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well my view is that the hatnote is indeed part of the article. And if indenting or italicising isn't sufficient, neither is a horizontal line (horizontal lines are also used elsewhere in articles). Also, as a personal point, I find the current formatting of hatnotes to be ideal for my own personal use; I realize that's anecdotal but it's still a data point. Powers 20:37, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't really see how a link that explains that there are other, usually unrelated, articles with the same or similar names can be seen as part of the article. "See also" sections, yes. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
I would suggest posting a link to this discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages), since many people who deal with disambiguation pages every day frequent that discussion, and may not know about the discussion going on here. -- Natalya 21:39, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Mel just removed the restriction on the horizontal line from the Wikipedia:Guide to layout with the edit summary rm line lacking consensus, and I reverted. Clearly, there was no consensus anywhere to remove the restriction. This has been the standard since 2004-05-16. As noted in the edit comment, the existing text was merged there from the long-standing Wikipedia:Section (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs).

--William Allen Simpson 04:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
It does appear that Mel is the only one here who thinks a line should be in there. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 09:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I agree with Mel. But I'm not about to start another style war over it. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 14:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Apart from User:Beland's apparent agreement with my point too, the discussion is fragmented across different Talk pages, and others have agreed with me elsewhere. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template gutting

Is it just me, or have most of the hatnote templates dropped the very useful "This article is about..." clause? Surely I'm not the only one who made use of that. I've been bouncing around among various talk pages (here, WP:D, and the talk pages for the templates) and never once found any consensus to remove that clause. What the heck is going on? Powers 13:48, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the talk page for {{otheruses4}}. There is an editor (an admin, no less) who thinks there was consensus 8 months ago for it, but I see it quite differently. Chris the speller 15:05, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:Otheruses4

Template:Otheruses4 has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

followup The template has survived TFD with consensus of 'keep'. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why templates?

I don't see the reason for "In most cases, a standard Wikipedia:Disambiguation template should be used" at the start of the Format section. Using a template has the disadvantage that it makes the wikitext more complicated and less readable. I have no idea what Template:Otheruses3 says, and I certainly do not feel like looking up the correct template when I want to write a disamb notice.

I don't think we should try to keep the wording of the notice uniform across articles. I do agree that the format should be kept uniform, but that can easily be achieved without a template. It can even be changed without using a template, though that is admittedly more complicated. Finally, if the format is the only reason for using a template, then there should only be one template, Template:Dablink. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The main reason for using templates is that they can be more easily hidden (e.g. in print) using code more complex than that used to make simple wikitext notes. Circeus 17:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, I hadn't realized that there is a class hidden in the templates. I still don't templates like Template:Otheruses3 and the proposal seems to be written to make us use those templates. On the other hand, I'm happy with {{dablink|For other meanings of "foo", see [[foo (disambiguation)]].}} and that's allowed. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 02:55, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

What needs to happen is the disambig templates need to be condensed for comprehensibility. That would make them much easier to understand. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:About

Template:About has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you.

--William Allen Simpson 04:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consolidate some Otheruses again

Again, we have the problem of proliferation of variants. Analysis shows that there could be just {{Otheruses}}, {{Otherterms}}, and {{Othertopics}} with up to 2 optional parameters.

[edit] Consolidate into Otheruses

For other uses, see Hatnotes (disambiguation).
  • {{Otheruses|PAGE1}}:
For other uses, see PAGE1 (disambiguation).
  • {{Otheruses|PAGE1|PAGE2}}:
For other uses, see PAGE1 (disambiguation) and PAGE2 (disambiguation).

That could replace:

Is there support for the simpler and easier to remember syntax?

--William Allen Simpson 04:42, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consolidate into Otherterms

For other uses of "TERM", see Hatnotes (disambiguation).
  • {{Otherterms|TERM|PAGE1}}:
For other uses of "TERM", see PAGE1 (disambiguation).
  • {{Otherterms|TERM|PAGE1|PAGE2}}:
For other uses of "TERM", see PAGE1 (disambiguation) and PAGE2 (disambiguation).

That could replace:

[edit] Consolidate into Othertopics

This article is about TOPIC1. For other uses, see Hatnotes (disambiguation).
  • {{Othertopics|TOPIC1|PAGE}}:
This article is about TOPIC1. For other uses, see PAGE.
  • {{Othertopics|TOPIC1|TOPIC2|PAGE}}:
This article is about TOPIC1. For TOPIC2, see PAGE.

That could replace:

Is there support for the simpler and easier to remember syntax?

--William Allen Simpson 06:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
This can be merged with your otheruses section above as well, into the equivalent of the current {{Otheruses4}}. (You may notice I've already basically done that to the extent I can.) I think dropping the first parameter is easier to remember than the difference between uses and topics when both use the word uses. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 01:09, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
You seem to be concentrating on the output text, I was grouping by the parameter usage that would allow a redirect (or bot) to replace existing instances cleanly. I agree that the text could be changed here to something more like "for other topics". I just used existing language for the examples.
Also, we have these templates like {{otheruses4}} that don't point to a "(disambiguation)" link/page, they point directly to another page, and are used as the example in Wikipedia:Disambiguation. So, we cannot be like {{Otheruses}} or {{Otheruses2}}.
Moreover, unlike the proposed {{Otherterms}}, the PAGE parameter moves over one, instead of having two pages (I don't know why we need two pages for {{Otheruses}}, but somebody has been doing that lately). It's computer science and ease of conversion, not esthetics, driving my proposal here.
Finally, noting that your various recent transclusions work by leaving out parameters ("||" empty pipes), that's really not documentable, and extremely hard to read. Different template names are preferable.
--William Allen Simpson 01:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
"I was grouping by the parameter usage that would allow a redirect (or bot) to replace existing instances cleanly": Well, there's a one-to-one mapping between parameters here, so just editing everything to use a meta-template to something like {{otheruses4}} would work to clean up existing templates. (Ideally a bot would replace them in wikitext too, but this would also be easy.)

"Also, we have these templates like {{otheruses4}} that don't point to a "(disambiguation)" link/page, they point directly to another page": Yes, why is that relevant? All of your proposed templates also drop that bit.

"Moreover, unlike the proposed {{Otherterms}}, the PAGE parameter moves over one, instead of having two pages": That's a silly change people have been making recently. What should be is just that the new templates shouldn't autoadd wikilinks; this gives far greater flexibility to end-users. If you want a link, put a link; if you want two links, put two links; if you want and, put and; if you want or, put or. This would make conversion more complex, but in the long run I feel it's the only sensible course of action, in the absence of StringFunctions.

"Different template names is preferable": Could be. We should have a straw poll once we get some more of the details worked out, I suppose. But if they do have different names, I would suggest {{for}} (which starts with "For other uses") and {{about}} (which starts with "This article is about"); your current division is extremely confusing. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:32, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I cannot fathom your scrunched comments with HTML p paragraphs, so I'll just note that you are wrong. The division is about "Uses", "Topics", and "Terms".
Using "For" because it is the first word in the OUTPUT TEXT (as I mentioned before) is silly! Using "About" because it is the 4th word in the OUTPUT TEXT is even sillier! The output text can change at any time. The parameters and usage should make sense, be consistent, and easy to document.
The (mostly Netaholic) hack that includes bracketed links inside template parameters is non-intuitive, and contrary to just about every other template in the *pedia! (The only ones I know of were all revisions by Netaholic.)
I'm not at all interested in designing arbitrary junk. I'm proposing this as a clean and clear consolidation, easy to implement.
--William Allen Simpson 00:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
The only difference between the template you peg as "uses" and the one you call "topics" is that the first doesn't contain a sentence explaining the content of the current page, and the second does. That is in no way parallel to the difference between the words "use" and "topic"; therefore, the distinction between those two is likely to be lost on many. That output text can change is irrelevant—first of all it's not going to change too much in the foreseeable future, but even if one does, we can just redirect the template. The output is what people remember.

The "hack" that includes bracketed links inside template parameters is not non-intuitive if you aren't already used to the vast majority of templates that unfortunately don't use it. As a matter of fact, most unfortunately don't, but that's not a reason to say that it's better that way. The ones that use the present system are bad and should be changed, because they're much less flexible and so force the use of {{dablink}} more than is necessary. But if you're focused on easier implementation, the extra parameter can be added to my templates as well as yours.

I use the <p> syntax, by the way, because any line breaks kill the current table. That looks acceptable on these tables, which are pretty hacky anyway, but I've gotten used to using it from * and # tables. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 19:35, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion on formatting of references to other articles

I've started a discussion on how to format explicit references to other articles ("see Article") in Wikipedia. Your comments at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Formatting of referrals to other articles is appreciated. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:13, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Village Pump thread on this proposal

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Hatnotes inactive? (continued). Carcharoth 13:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion was archived, so it is being copied by me here below. —AySz88\^-^ 04:15, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Old discussion copied out of archives for further discussion. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Radient placed inactive tags at Wikipedia:Hatnotes, and his comment on my user talk page reveals that he feels the page is an inactive proposal. I disagree (I thought it was an active guideline), but the page hasn't been updated in a while; should this page be rejuvinated and/or perhaps integrated into the MoS? —AySz88\^-^ 15:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Note that the page was never marked "guideline". I would have no objection to it becoming part of the MOS, but must point out that the last serious discussion was in July. (Radiant) 15:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

End of first copied (by Carcharoth) section.

I think this is more a case of a proposal being written to reflect practice at the time, and to help prevent diverging practices. It seems that either people started following it, or they always did follow it (from what I can tell, the hatnote templates are widely used). I suspect the proposal just never got tidied up and pushed forward to being a guideline or merged into the Manual of Style. The absence of anything on hatnotes in the MoS is rather a glaring omission. I would support this loose end being tidied up and accepted, rather than just tagged "inactive" - which struck me at the time as very strange - people add hatnotes all the time - the practice of using hatnotes is not inactive, which is what some people might have thought when they saw the page tagged as inactive (I realise that Radiant was probably tagging the proposal, not the activity, but not everyone clearly understands this difference). Ditto for the recent tagging of the Wikipedia:Death threats proposal as inactive (by me, not Radiant) - some people might interpret this to mean that they can get away with death threats! I think we need to be careful with these "inactive" tags. Carcharoth 13:09, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

  • The obvious solution against death threats would be redirecting it to NPA, which already has a clause on it. I have, of course, no objection to a MOS page about hatnotes, but I have not had sufficient experience with hatnotes to write it myself. Hence, until someone can be found to write it, we don't actually have such a MOS page, and this proposal is presently inactive. (Radiant) 15:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Actually, the rewritten tag I had there was my initial attempt to avoid this, but the redirect you did for 'Wikipedia:Death threats' looks good. I've moved the tag to the talk page to prevent people adding discussion to that talk page, but still leaving the talk there for people to read, plus a link directing people to the talk page of WP:NPA. I've also updated the archives box at the top of WT:NPA to link to the talk page when a subpage has been turned into a redirect. Hopefully people following old links to Wikipedia:Death threats will work out what has happened here! As for the hatnotes, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else wants to volunteer, and then I'll see about setting up something in the MoS. I'll add a note over there. Carcharoth 15:36, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Agree that Hatnotes does summarize current practices and is a useful guideline. older ≠ wiser 16:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

End of copied (by AySz88) section.

[edit] This page

I personally have no objection to adding this page to the manual of style, but I note the lack of recent activity here and the lack of response to a recent thread on the village pump. Therefore I am in doubt as to whether this is consensual, or if people simply are not particularly interested about the subject. (Radiant) 12:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why a page has to have recent activity in order to be considered worthwhile. AFAICT, it describes current practices pretty well. older ≠ wiser 13:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't have to be; I was simply wondering if the lack of response to this page implies assent or disinterest. (Radiant) 13:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It's working, and it's not controversial. That's why my lack of response, up to now, impied Assent. Chris the speller 19:30, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
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