Wikipedia talk:Navigational templates

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[edit] Merge vote: Series templates into Navigational templates

Cast your vote here in regard to the proposed merge. Vote "Merge" or "No Merge". Comments are encouraged. The page "Series templates" is already inactive, so perhaps the message should be removed.

• Merge - I agree with whoever proposed it. The two pages cover the same type of navbox. This would simplify the organization and make it easier to find the desired navbox. Remove merge message. Wyeson 21:15, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template and MediaWiki namespaces

[edit] List of items to update

Why does this page include a list of items to update, when there's already such a list (plus the examples etc) in Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages (and that one has seniority)? I.e. what's the purpose of the duplication? --Shallot 19:21, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Oh wait, I didn't notice that the latter was gutted. Never mind. --Shallot

[edit] Possible merge?

What is the difference between the list of elements on this page and the list on Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages? Furthermore, is there any substantive difference between the second and third kinds of items that are in the MediaWiki namespace? It seems as though the only real difference is one of use -- that the items listed on this page are navigational boxes, and those listed under custom messages are everything else?

Either way, the relationship between these two pages is confusing. It seems that, apart from the different list, there is no useful information on this page that isn't reiterated or expanded by Wikipedia:MediaWiki custom messages. Wouldn't it make more sense to merge the informational sections of these pages, and move the two lists to separate pages? — Adam Conover †

[edit] MediaWiki namespace becomes Template namespace

Now that these custom elements are found in the new "Template" namespace, do you think we should now call this article "List of templates"? Denelson83 16:05, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Classification of templates

[edit] Body

I have just discovered Templates via Template:IRB Unions it is neither a header or a footer. So is there any reason that this list can not be expanded to include a body section as well? Philip Baird Shearer 15:02, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] None Navigational templates

Perhaps this is not the page to ask but if it is not please tell me where I should make this request.

Now that I know about them, I can think of lots of things I can do with templates which are not primarily navigational. For example:

• There are several pages which include information on the winners of the Rugby World cup.
• Paragraphs on the origins of Rugby.

Is there any reason for not creating templates for them and is there a page containing a list of pages for such, none navigational, topic specific templates? Philip Baird Shearer 15:02, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

An overview of most templates (they are diverse) can be found here: Wikipedia:Template_messages. Wipe 12:02, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization of the navigational templates

I'm in the process of reorganizing this list. I suspect the classification into headers and footers (and even body) was created mistakenly. A concept of "MediaWiki headers" apparently existed before. Please correct me if I'm wrong - this is mere speculation. Anyways, I believe some restructuring is in order; there are two basic kinds of navigational templates as far as I can see: side boxes (not perhaps the correct term) and footer boxes. Wipe 12:02, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Now that I've done some work on this, I've noticed that there's more types of navigational templates than I thought. There's side boxes, footers, headers and body templates. Additionally, the footers can be divided into collections of items and succession boxes. There may still be others. I've grouped the few headers together with the side boxes and the few body templates with the footers. I don't know how large portion of the navi templates on the English Wikipedia is actually here or how useful this page is (if at all :-). Still, I'll probably tinker some more in the future.

Wipe 00:03, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Here's a list of non-existent templates I've removed: Template:EUc - supposed to be for EU candidates, Template:Great Philosophers - greatness is a POV measure, Template:King of the Britons - another system already in use, Template:PPROC - don't know what this was supposed to be, Template:MicrostatesE - microstates of Europe (was deleted after my suggestion; unnecessary and unused).

These ones I removed just because I think this is supposed to be a list of existing templates, not a wishlist: Template:La Francophonie - La Francophonie, Template:LiteratureLaureates - Nobel Prize in literature winners, Template:Programming languages, Template:Table Moods - All the grammatical moods, Template:Table Sort Algorithms - Articles on Sort algorithms, Template:Turkish Prime Minister - Prime Minister of Turkey, Template:Turkish President - President of Turkey.

If you feel they should be created feel free to do so, but remember to use common sense and consult Categories, lists, and series boxes. Many templates prove to be useless and end up at Templates for deletion. It's always best to discuss possible new templates at the appropriate WikiProject page.

Wipe

[edit] Many navigational templates in violation of WP:CSL, what to do?

WP:CSL#Article series boxes curently says categories should be used in preference to navigational templates unless the articles in the template form a useful, linear, non-alphabetical series. At least dozens of the navigational templates listed on this page violate this guideline. Is the guideline wrong or should we delete the templates or is there another choice? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:35, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

• IMO, the guideline is wrong. Article series boxes are one form of navigational template, but other forms are equally valid whether or not they are "redundant" with a category. I find geographic based navigational templates particularly useful. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:35, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, WP:CSL presently goes a bit too far in stating which kind of boxes should exist. You're right, many templates that break the "rules" are useful. Not to mention that they are much easier to use than categories. Many boxes that are needed simply cannot be arranged linearily, and even incomplete boxes are often valid. After all, not every page that relates to a subject can be included in an article series. Sometimes it's also useful to give some examples to create a context. This way the templates can be used as a sort of diagram or "textual image". Article series box probably shouldn't be a synonym for a navigational template.

On the other hand WP:CSL is not at the moment considered an "official" policy or guideline and should not be viewed as such. There is no {{policy}}, {{guideline}} or even {{semi-policy}} tags there. Wipe 22:38, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oh no, I just realized that WP:CSL totally contradicts Wikipedia:Article series in terms of what is called an article series! Bad case of inconsistency. Wipe 23:03, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I agree the CSL article is just wrong. Navigational boxes are useful especially for tightly related articles. We should use these were it makes sense, and internet users are accustomed to having related things have links on them instead of having to click on the appropriate category and hope that it is done correctly. Trödel|talk 00:25, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I disagree with the requirement for a canonical linear ordering; tighly related is all that is necessary. However I think we should not create navigation even before there is any content. No wonder we're almost up to 600k "articles". --MarSch 15:00, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• I agree the policy is a bit strong, but we definitely have a problem with too many of these templates. What we really need are some more stringent rules on which articles should have navigational templates. A rule I would like to see is that no template should be larger than the majority of the articles in which it is found. - SimonP 03:37, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Items in template, request for comment

We are looking for expert advice on how to design a nice Template:Patentability. How should items be ordered? According to

• how straightforward it is to grasp them, or
• the sequence in which they are tackled during patent examination?

Please see here for a discussion about this template (and the related article). How would you order items? Thanks for your help. --Edcolins 20:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Any comment? --Edcolins 21:46, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll toss in 2 cents here. Order items by their use, their use from the point of view of a person who is active in the area and using the area the template covers. Parent things go first followed by those things under them. Example: cooking requires pots and other tools, food, and a heat source. those would be equal catagories. But cooking requires a cook which would be a parent catagory. Sometimes a single line of a template could show a parent catagory with several subs like this: Cook: food tools heat. good luck. Terryeo 16:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What should be the purpose of a navigation template?

I'm concerned that the purpose of having a navigational template is unclear, and many of them are being misused. In my opinion, a navigational template should be no more and no less than a navigational aid for users, a collection of some of the links which a user might reasonably want to visit from an article that might not otherwise contain the links. It should not be used as a place to advertise the existence of less-relevant articles. For example, IMHO, Template:Disney should contain links to articles about its high-level business units—not to non-Disney articles (Corporation, Board of Directors, Record label, or the like) and not to every individual company it owns. Throw in all this cruft, and the template becomes huge, unwieldy, overladen with information and redundant links, and serves the same exact purpose as a category already serves. - Brian Kendig 00:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Also templates should be misused as replacement for much more convenient categories. Those large colorful boxes only distract attention of readers. There is no excuse to make life of users harder just because one can quickly hack up something fancy what can be seen in a tabloid. Such misuse of templates should be discouraged and offending ones removed. Pavel Vozenilek 00:39, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Is there a discussion anywhere on the desirability of navigational templates? I personally don't like to see them spread, but I'd like to see a summary of the pros and cons as other people see them. My main problem with navigation templates is that they create huge numbers of back links between articles which are only loosely related. I appreciate this is really a MediaWiki problem, but as long as it exists, navigation templates tend to make the 'What links here' much less useful than it could be. Also, sprawling navigation templates often dwarve the article itself - Crosbiesmith 20:33, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] assistance needed

please lend a hand @ Template:Platonism. Info can be found @ User_talk:Sam_Spade#I_need_help_creating_a_template. Sam Spade 18:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem seems to be related to the page you are putting it on. The same template looks fine on User:CBDunkerson/Sandbox2. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 19:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I have made some changes to the template, and I think it looks way better now. Please see if you agree. --Fred Bradstadt 19:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Sam Spade 21:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link divider

Currently there is a bias towards the use of the vertical line as a separator - " | " - without any apparent discussion of this decision. On this talk page a preference for · - " ˑ " - has been expressed.

As is explained on the talk page above (of Template:Medicine) I have tried to standardise these nav boxes and due to the previous useage of " | " I continued to use this.

The questions are: What do people feel is the most appropriate? Is it important to have a standard syntax between different subject areas? Should this be specified on this page?

|→ Spaully°τ 15:12, 19 March 2006 (GMT)

• I prefer · because, to quote from Template talk:Medicine, "it isn't as obtrusive (perhaps because it doesn't resemble one of the strokes used to form letters)". In other words, when glancing I find it easier to distinguish a (horizontal) list of names divided by ·s rather than vertical-line characters. I wonder how many other folk might do so too.

Meanwhile, however, I rooted about for more information and came by the Help:User style page on MetaWiki, which gave me the impression each user might be able to set the divider character a wiki is to use. Not being sure, I posted a query which to date awaits a reply.

Regards, David Kernow 18:55, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

• My only hesitation for · (·) would be the distinct possibility of that character not being available in the current font for a particular user, and then the links would maybe run into each other, or the irritating square box would show up. Yes, 90%+ of the users would be able to see it, but…. I would think the vertical bar ( | ) would be present in more fonts than the ·. Also, it seems to be a common convention to uses the bar to separate links, but I also agree that could look like a character glyph: "|lI1" is a vertical bar, lower case "ell", Upper Case "eye", and numeral 1. MeekMark 20:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your input, MeekMark, with my apologies for not spotting and responding to it until now.

I suppose this reduces to a Bugzilla request to (a) review the "common convention" (I wonder if/when it received consensus) to use the bar; and (b) program an appropriate response if/when a font doesn't include ·. Furthermore, I'd suggest (c) making the separation character a user preference.

Unfortunately, however, it seems the unrelenting work necessary to maintain the MediaWiki software means that enhancements such as these remain wishful thinking. Thanks again, David Kernow 04:49, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bug in template system?

I've posted this to the page it affects, but that one is little-used, and this might be something with more general import.

There seems to be something wrong with this template's application to other pages that contain it. You'll notice that in the template, the only person who doesn't have an article is Elizabeth of Lancaster. However, if you look at a few pages in the group, listed below, more links than that are red. The destination articles do exist, and are not mislinked, but apparently direct to the edit page of the article in question -- as if the article didn't exist yet.

Isn't this odd? The template system isn't manual, after all; shouldn't it be identical everywhere? Or were the faulty pages generated some time ago and not updated? Most importantly, how is this fixed?

Edward III Edward, Prince of Wales Richard II Catherine of Lancaster Edward, Duke of York Henry the Young King Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany Joan of England, Queen of Sicily Alphonso, Earl of Chester Joan of England

The large group I noticed dropped was the 2nd through 5th sons of Edward III, but some drop as few as one, often Thomas, 1st Earl of Norfolk.

Pardon my inexperience if there's something I missed.

Minivet 22:01, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

Hi Minivet,

I've just visited the page it affects and all links are blue except the Elizabeth of Lancaster you mention. Are other redlinks still appearing at your end?

Regards, David Kernow 04:35, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That's the point. The template _itself_ is fine, but links are inexplicably red in some of the _pages that contain_ the template. Look at the template as used in Edward III, for example. -- Minivet 13:24, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean – sorry not to've read your original message sufficiently closely. Do you find it's always the same links that turn from blue in the template to red on a page?  Also puzzled, David Kernow 02:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Fixed - see below. But yes, it was generally the same group of links, with some variation -- see my original penultimate paragraph. -- Minivet 16:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Sounds and looks like it could have been an odd caching problem. This would have been rectified a short time after any edit or null edit to the template as the job queue caught up with the affected pages and invalidated their caches. Rob Church (talk) 10:34, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Aha! I made a null edit, and the problem seems to be fixed now. Thanks! It is interesting, though, that there was a minor edit made a few days previously that didn't have the same effect. (Or perhaps the problem emerged after that.) -- Minivet 16:42, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that null edits are needed these days: if the job queue doesn't update it soon enough, I think adding "&action=purge" to the URL will work. Ardric47 01:04, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latino template

Please help with the Latino template. --JuanMuslim ^1m 18:51, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NOTICE: New Interwiki Navigation Templates

I've pretty much debugged and put up two classes of interwiki navigation templates See usage: {{Commonscat2}}, and the inadvertant 'missed-by that much' category name category:Wikipedia navigation templates to track which templates have been ported (modifications usually needed) for use within the commons, or (rarely) vice-versa.

I then 'changed the purpose' of the misnamed category (it was already created, so what the heck), since we can use the autotracking it provides... I'm open to a better name, but the templates most wanted to port and adapt there are NavigationAL templates, so I made the one a sub-category, and labeled it well with a purpose statement. The commons has the same setup, as can be seen by the interwiki tag.

The Commons converse set (5 total) is WikiPcat/2, WikiPcatM/2M, and WikiPNo, the later signifying categories out of adjustment in some way... a work list 'in progress' as it were.

The Others Autotag pages (primarily category pages) with cross-sister-Category links and Main Article links (both interwiki links ) as may be apropo. These are primarily being used for organizing the Maps in both sister projects in the same schema, at this time, but also affect other categories like Category:Middle Ages (Which just happens to be a good place to see the examples of usage with a little link clicking.), and other parent categories, though I don't forsee a lot of neccessary changes on WikiP.

See also (utilized)

• Category:Interwiki link templates — Category_talk:Interwiki link templates Note: No 'WP' article page!
• Category:Navigational templates — Wikipedia:Navigational templates
• Category:Wikipedia navigation templates

I have to run. I'm open to ideas on a better category name or two and other suggestions. Best regards // FrankB 19:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

• • Category name Navigation templates renamed on Cfd 15 June to that shown above now. // FrankB 05:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Before or after references?

I've made a couple of footer navigation templates lately and found myself wondering whether to place them above or below references and similar sections (See also, Notes and whatever). Since my idea of using the navbox is to point the reader to related articles on the subject, I've been leaning towards placing them above references. Reference sections can get very long (exceeding a browser page) and some readers may simply not scroll down below them and miss important links. However, most existing footer navboxes are placed at the very bottom of the page. What do you think? Peter Znamenskiy 22:19, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I would say certainly after. Otherwise the notes and references get orphaned. If it’s important to have navigation immediately visible, it’s best not to make it a footer: you can use a sidebox, as in History of Italy. —Ian Spackman 23:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Consider 'customers' and especially default skins

I think with the overall expansion of good footnoting that the standard of placing such at the bottom has become very unworkable in the overall majority of cases in most any article with significant technical content. Perhaps they need placed in their own section 'Internal Links' which is located above the references.

One benefit of that would be to include categories, which are alledgedly for the readership (I say alledged, because there seems to be no tendancy to place them in See also sections, but a definite editor faction with the philosophy of mininimizing category inclusion (and another which minimizes 'category name length', leading to imprecision and vaugeries), which to me seems contrary to WP:Btw!). Assuming for a moment the Internal Links section at the end of the article text proper, and above the External Links section, these guideline satisfying (WP:Btw) cross-links would be where they would be the most visible as well as most useful to the 'customer' reader. (I sure hope we have many times more readers than editors, or we should all just go fishing, boating, climb a mountain, play cards, have sex, or whatnot!!!)

The Categories problem on the 'default skin'

But any and all categories are always well down off the bottom of the default skin ('and so nearly invisible'... iirc, it took me about nine months to finally see them as I progressed from 'customer'-'occ. anon. editing'-'registered editor'-'caught, hooked, and skinned junky') and so well off the 'radar screen' of the (to my mind, likely) 'typical' readers, which to me is a damn shame as they are one really important extra we offer over any dead-tree encyl. AND the other online encyl. that I've seen thus far. So in fact are navigation templates, even the simple {{succession}} and more flexible (but more complicated) {{succession box}} (e.g. see the later in expanded form in Charles_the_Fat; and this for an 'colorized example', albeit, 'not-quite-full-glory').

I have many a fond memory of youthful 'browsing' (five, eight, or ten volumes of dead tree encyclopedia's piled on the library table beside me) going from one article to another following see also references to other articles in my early intellectual awakening. Having Wikipedia allow that (with ease) without all the 'grunt work' carrying those tomes is high on my personal list of why am I donating time here... which even the spouse can't quite understand in her cold, WikiLonley bed. (Perhaps we're all a bit insane??? There are far too many of us working far to late locally to be otherwise!)

That would best be accomplished by developing a template that takes a string of cats, part of which parses the arguments to 'display' like {{see also}}, and part which takes each arguement and inserts the category back onto the page (visible only in effect, not to the readers). Explicit categorization would thus be inside the template CatDisplay, as it were. The better alternative would be for all the references to be in a sub-page, but I'm pretty sure the reference system wouldn't work that way at all—everything would be orphaned.

The proposed 'CatDisplay' template would be better even as a sidebox (Say left justified, 35% of width to avoid right hugging long templates, battle boxes, etcetera on the overused right side), or better yet, the default skin to add the categories under the search window in the current sidebar (Admittedly, THAT is beyond the scope of 'this venue', but... someone may be reading and then reference this section elsewhere.), but that wouldn't address the real problem of the many navigational templates becoming buried as footnoting progresses and matures.

user:Peter Znamenskiy raises a really good and large important issue going forward deeper into good referencing... and much of this CANNOT be implimented using the suggested sidebox template from Italy ({{Italian History box}}), nor the embedded example '{{Middle Ages Tall}}' I placed within above in shorter, and medium articles, in particular.

A secondary problem

All these things (Battleboxes, demographic boxes, etc. implimented as sideboxes) CONSTRAIN what else can be put into an article to make it more complete and interesting. At least including pertinent images seems to me to be a good thing when possible. In many articles, they inhabit (Hog) the whole right margin, and sometimes force things down and off the page away from the text entirely. I've spent the odd hour here and there dealing with some of these problem-articles; it can be frustrating, especially when checked against the other 'browser standard'— IE6 versus most everything else.

There have been several attempts by me to add some good Images or Maps to apropo articles from the commons, where because of such, and the guidelines 'over placing' templates to the right (embedded in their coding), either causes them to interfer with one another, or with some other included media, making the inclusion of other material 'dicey' and 'difficult'. I'd frankly like to see a switch code incorporated into some of the tall one's to left justify them or right by merely changing the (new) first perameter ('R' or 'L' to embrace the KISS principle!). But I'm only one editor with so much free time. I believe we're seeing the begining of a systemic problem that will only get worse as good reference lists grow and get incorporated, and that it will minimize wasted time by addressing it sooner rather than later. What say you all? Best regards // FrankB 14:29, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] My 2¢, fwiw

This isn't really my bandwagon, but my buddy FrankB asked me to comment. I prefer to have boxes, categories, footers, etc. on the outer edges of the layout. Since references are part of a text-only section, and footer boxes can be considered a graphic (in a limited sense), my eye stops at the graphic, since it takes up (usually) the whole bottom of the page, and I might miss the references or anything else under the box.

As for categories...well, I'm kinda used to skipping to the end for those. In library records (my bailiwick), whether online, MARC, or cards, the subject headings always come last (they're the counterpart to our categories). So I don't have a problem scrolling down. I think that putting them anywhere else might cause difficulty for Joe User, because of the necessity to either scroll past them in order to read the article (which is why he showed up in the first place) or deal with a narrower chunk of text (as with a sidebar-type) layout. I don't think I'm much help to you, but that's my take on it. ♥ Her Pegship♥ 17:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

(ditto bandwagon, but I've been meaning to look at these pages.)

Ditto Ian Spackman for Nav Boxes being at the very bottom of the page, or along the right-side if there is no other infobox (which would cause the float-stack problem, and potential page-length issues). eg I quite like Semiotics' navbox at the side. It's an efficient way of presenting a list of vocabulary keywords with basic context for a subject overview. It's a reductionist cross between a portal-page and a list-of page.

Ditto Pegship for categories. Partially because i'm used to them being at the bottom. (relatedly, i've hidden the gfdl/wikimedia sitewide footerbar using usercss, so the categories actually stand out quite clearly at the bottom of my screen). Partially because then the navboxes and categories are next to each other, which reinforces a user's location-memory and browsing-efficiency, and reduces the redundancy potential of navboxes with them.

More once i've read/thought more. -Quiddity 22:37, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Did you two, mired as you are in acedemia (<g>), miss the point that references are a big turn off (save to those few and seldom researching the same topic in contrast to one just reading it.), and assume that readers are going to scan down to them and not past them, or are you just saying tough on them, if they aren't clever enough to have you're training or discover something hidden away. My assumption is most readers will get to References and 'say to self', OK, what do I read next... which is a logical place for them to disconnect via the links of categories and navigation boxes. Then there's the fact that a great majority of people are still on dial-up, not broadband, so things are painfully slow, though one hopes their system buffers stuff up faster than they can read.

The references are great for Wikipedia credibility. The External links for getting people to leave and browse other sites (Not the best outcome, after all, we want them to stay here!), but are now defacto requirements herein. I'm not gonna complain if that's your take, but I find it hard to believe or think of references 'as part of the article'; they're just so much 'text noise' like ads on a commericial site (to me), save when adding them as an editor, then they're usually something to swear at or about.

As a reader, they're just plain annoying. And those are the shoes I'm considering presentation from within. Well... different strokes for different folks, as we used to say in my vanished youth.

And 'Quiddity', I'm not talking about uncongested pages where a navbox fits at the side with room to spare like Semiotics, but in general, long articles with a lot of references, or which will someday have a long list of references if we keep at it. You know, my history and science interests. How about the many 'History of' countries articles, or scads of biographies, especially royal biographies where there sometimes just isn't enough space because of all the templates, sometimes fighting with images. Want to see a bad template: try paging to modern times from Hugh Capet up through Louis_VII_of_France and beyond and watch the page bottom. The poor succession template never has a chance to be prominent! That yuck-ugly navigation template is because someone was trying to conform too closely to a style guideline, I'd guess and 'editorial judgment' allowed for in the guideline (to apply common-sense) went out the door. Things get worse in some ways the more modern you get because there is far more media available that should be included in many articles. Unfortunately, many of those also have to many battle boxes and maps, et. al. monopolizing the right margins.

OTOH, after taking a good look at FDR, Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, there are so many nav templates on the bottom of those articles, there is no simple solution, save I'm still concerned about our default skin all but hiding categories. I can see where such a gaggle would 'Block Her Pegship' from her beloved reference list readings were they moved up. So I confess I probably acted a bit more in haste since I mentally link the two types of navigation. I suspect the lesson is to leave things more up to the editor's judgment involved in a project and less on 'strict' adherence to rigidly applied 'guidelines' when a different arrangement would work better. Alas, the templates are about as rigid as things get in their placement demands. // FrankB 02:15, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I totally understand where you're coming from (especially with that hilarious example Churchill! yow). One of the many limitations of the computer medium, is the "standard" tiny screens we're all used to; Such a small canvas to fit all the potential data into... *sigh*

Personally, i figure situations like this need to go past the problem point before they'll get effectively dealt with. Partially because then the overworked but hardworking devs/beaurocrats will weigh in with insights. Partially because that lets the patterns/possibilities develop further, giving a better dataset to work from in fixing the structure. By which i mean, the nav templates are currently in a healthy state of growth and flux, and something greater than them is likely to emerge in the future. (ditto categories). Thats my opinion today anyway ;) -Quiddity 03:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Navigational templates policy

What the policy for including navigational templates on pages. Recently I've tried to include the green politics and also the christian democracy templates in pages that are mentioned on it, like non-violence for the greens or Abraham Kuyper for the christian democrats. In some cases (non violence, but also sustainability) this was very quickly reverted and people reacted very hostile to the inclusion, (like I was claiming the page for a particular partisan position) and seemed unwilling to discuss the issue, acting like it was logical and that my actions even violated simple policies like NPOV.

I put the templates up under the impression that articles that if an article is mentioned on a template, it should be included on the page. So if I put up the -hypothetical- nazism template up on anti-semitism I'm not pushing a particular point of view but merely pointing out that there is a link between the template and the page. No one seems receptive to that. Is there policy/general rule/rule of thumb to use in these cases? --C mon 18:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple navigational templates design

Hi!
Can anybody provide information on how I can merge navigational templates in an article? Lots of boxes look very bad, indeed (e.g. here: New Zealand). In the German Wikipedia it is easy to merge such boxes to one single block (de:Neuseeland) by using this code:

{{NaviBlock

|...

|...

}}

I'm sure this is described somewhere here, but I was unable to find out where. Thanks for your assistance! -- Henning Blatt 10:28, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh dear, I took a look at those pages you point to and changing to that format for all those pages will be a big job. As far as I know there is no manual in how to code such templates. But there are manuals for the "#if" commands etc one use in them and one can study other such templates and experiment... I too like to put templates together inside the same frame like you say since it looks much better. I coded such a system for the Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography#Navigational templates so I now know how to code such stuff. So may I offer my assistance to you?

There are several aproaches that comes to mind:

1. The simplest solution is to edit the existing boxes so they all have the same width (100%) and has no outer top and bottom margins. Then they stack up nicely against each other. Although this doesn't look as good as the the other aproaches.
2. The German Wikipedia aproach that is very advanced and as I see it a bit overkill and also makes it confusing to editors that want to use and edit those templates.
3. The Wikipedia:Babel aproach where you use a template that really just is an empty frame that can take as parameters the names of other navbox templates. Those navbox templates should then have some magic so they don't get an inner frame when inside the generic empty frame. That generic empty frame is used like the "Naviblock" you mentioned. Like in babel: {{Babel | someboxname | anotherboxname }}
4. The similar Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography#Navigational templates aproach that I designed myself and I have so far not seen any where else. There we have one small main crypto navbox for all crypto articles but on some articles we also want one or more "specialised" navboxes like a navbox for stream ciphers or block ciphers. So I made it so the main navbox as parameter can take the names of one or more specialised navboxes and then inserts them inside the same frame into itself. This looks as we want it (all boxes in the same frame) and makes a very neat syntax for our editors. When you see the template name on a page it is fairly clear what that template does. Like this: {{Crypto navbox | stream }} where "crypto navbox" is the main template and "stream" means the "crypto stream" template. See for instance the bottom of this page: Avalanche effect.

So, lets talk a bit more about this stuff. We should perhaps move this discussion to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countries? Unless of course we first go for the most generic aproach which is number 3 above where we use an empty "Navblock" frame. Then that one should probably first be developed and tested here. And I suggest the name "Navblock" or "Navframe" as name for that empty frame template.

--David Göthberg 17:51, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Compressed templates

I've "compressed" a couple of fairly large navigational templates using a technique that I suspect could be used fairly generally. The two templates I've done are Template:Places in Bedfordshire (compare this version with new version in an article) and Template:Footer Olympic Champions 4x400 m Men (similarly, compare this version with the new version in an article).

The basic idea is to make these large, exhaustively enumerative templates show a virtually scrollable window of articles (scrollable by traversing to other articles using the same template).

Generating the source for such templates by hand is distinctly a pain, but doing it with a script is really not too bad. I've posted the script I used to generate the Olympic 4x400 relay one. I don't think it's currently possible to write these as "native" templates (even using parser functions). If anyone has any comments about this technique (pro or con), please let me know. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:59, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

A clever idea, but it has at least one rather glaring flaw: anybody on a slow connection (or "scrolling" through large articles) will be hammered by the cost of loading X-2 separate pages to scroll X positions in the list. I don't really think that the drawbacks of larger templates are so significant as to force everybody to do that. Kirill Lokshin 22:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

But, in general, there's a "list of" article, linked from each of the articles. So if you really know where you're going and don't want to look at each one you can traverse to the list, and then from there (i.e. 2 pages, not X-2). I think making everyone look at a template that doubles the size of most articles it's on to make it a little bit easier for folks on slow connections is not a good tradeoff. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

In many cases, people have avoided creating standalone lists on the basis that they're adequately represented by the templates themselves, so that option won't be available. (Unless you mean to say that this new format would be followed only where a list exists?) Kirill Lokshin 02:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I mean to say 30-line templates are almost always absurd and we should do something to make them considerably smaller. If this technique is only useful in cases where there is some existing list (or category?), I'm OK with that. If in addition we say "to use this technique, create a list if one does not already exist" I'm OK with that, too. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

At first I thought it looked like a nice idea. But when I tried it out it was confusing for me to navigate among those pages. And of course VERY hard for me to edit. I think I would prefer something inbetween. That is that you split the big template up into say 5-6 smaller ones. Something like this:

                Towns and Villages in Bedfordshire
            A-C  |  D-H  |  I-L  |  M-R  |  S-S  |  T-Z 
Ampthill | Arlesey | Aspley Guise | Astwick | Barton le Clay | 
Battlesden | Beadlow | Bedford | Beeston | Biddenham | Biggleswade | 
Billington | Bletsoe | Blunham | Bolnhurst | Bromham | Broom | 
Caddington | Campton | Cardington | Carlton | Chalgrave | Chellington | 
Chicksands | Clapham | Clifton | Clophill | Cockayne Hatley | 
Colmworth | Colworth | Cople | Cranfield 

And if you click "D-H" it would send you to the first article on D and so on. That would mean just 6 regular templates that wold be small enough to not clutter the page, and easy to edit and administer without using any extra tools. And I think such templates would be easier to navigate for the users. --David Göthberg 04:32, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, how about something like the following (based on template:panorama)? I don't know if this will render properly in all browsers (looks OK in Mozilla on Windows XP). This has two disadvantages that I can think of. 1) it doesn't position at the article you're currently on 2) for someone on a slow link, the entire list is downloaded (although Wikipedia's raw HTML is so bulky I'm not sure this is an actual issue). The MAJOR advantage is that it's just a plain list with some funky CSS styling wrapped around it, so is very easily editable. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:51, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Crap. Doesn't work in IE. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Revised version, below, seems to work in IE. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

And, a template version:

I prefer this new version of the template and it would certainly help to stop people on slow conections having to download lots of pages. To make it automatically go to the current article it might be possible to use some weird anchor trick like in references. Lcarsdata (Talk) 07:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put the template version at template:NavigationBar and converted template:Places in Bedfordshire to use this template. I'll solicit input about this template at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). Please refrain from proliferating its use pending comments from this request. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, this is only the "initial discussion". I'm answering at WP:VP/T. --DLL ^{.. T} 20:23, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Video Game Template Discussion

There is currently a debate at the CVG project (which can be found here) concerning the video game templates. A user wants to standardize the templates by following the {{NavigationBox}} design, remove all sections, trim it down to "notable/important" games and make it English-centric, among other things. However, there is a significant number of people who wish to have the navboxes remain the way they are, or come under {{Navbox generic}} design, which isn't that different from the norm. The conversation was getting long winded, and it was decided that it would be better discussed here. JQF 18:18, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

This is not an accurate summary of that debate. There are many issues that nav boxes need to have addressed, and rather than looking at individual issues we have two "sides" that are forming. There are no sides, do not form sides, that defeats the whole purpose of the conversation, which is to improve these horrible nav templates. It was not decided to move this discussion here, and Navbox generic is not a standard. JQF's attempts to make this into a two sided fight are very counter productive. -- Ned Scott 05:49, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ned Scott. To bring it here would be counter-productive: the CVG project wants to standarize its own navigational boxes, and thus it should be a CVG debate, similar to how all dicussion about {{Infobox CVG}} takes place on there. Hbdragon88 23:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I do think that after some good discussion that we should come back and share what we have on this talk page. It's good to share ideas and to include lots of people, but it's also good to reasonably avoid group think. Of course anyone is welcome to participate in the discussion on WT:CVG if they wish, though. -- Ned Scott 01:19, 29 October 2006 (UTC)