Template talk:Otheruses templates
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[edit] Obnoxious
Most of these otheruses templates are obnoxious and sometimes their use is horribly irresponsible. Someone slaps one of these onto an article without thinking closely and it says, in effect "For other uses of women, see..." or "For other things to use arsenic trioxides for, see..." (poisoning people, maybe), etc. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a dictionary, defining the uses of a word. Rather, an article is supposed to be about the thing it's about, not about the word that names the thing. Conseequently, to say "For other senses of this word, see...", making it clear that you're referring to the word, would seem appropriate. The dablink template is adaptable and can be used intelligently or stupidly; the "otheruses" template are one-size-fits-all straightjackets and can seldom be used intelligently. Michael Hardy 21:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree entirely. Very often, a word can mean multiple things, and we have separate articles on each of those things. It's only logical, in such cases, to have a standardized template with which to refer the reader to the appropriate other articles. {{dablink}} does nothing whatsoever to standardize Wikipedian conventions and make us look professional, since everyone uses their own words. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
"Look professional"??? Does it look professional when it says "For other uses of personal lubricants, see..." and "For other uses of slaves, see..."? I wouldn't mind a standardized template if it were not idiotic and allowed reasonable adaptations. Michael Hardy 20:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
- It would be much more helpful if you'd not make straw man arguments. Your examples above (personal lubricants, slaves) are not actual usage. -- Netoholic @ 22:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
How do you know that? I read "For other uses of Honey, see..." (with a capital initial "H"). It resulted from the use of one of these templates. I've seen lots of pages where the phrase could reasonably be construed as a link to an article about other uses of the thing the article was about, rather than other uses of the term. People who edit this template seem seldom to notice which pages use them, and people slap them on to pages pretty indiscriminately. These pages are inflexible and cannot be judiciously adapted to the pages on whcih they appear. Michael Hardy 03:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
- The confusion about what the link refers to will only be exacerbated by lack of standardization. If we standardize otheruses templates, then we can clarify the formatting of all articles with a single edit. For instance, I've just clarified all {{otheruses1}} templates in response to your issue with their wording. With just dablink, the misuses would have had to be hunted down and eliminated one by one.
(I've also just standardized Honey, by the way, using that very template. Do you find it ambiguous or otherwise undesirable?) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 06:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Deletions
Templates which start "This article is about..." have been repeatedly deleted on TFD. The information is redundant as it should be in the first line of the article. Please do not create a template that starts with this phrase. ed g2s • talk 16:46, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
- TFDs do not set policy, and your interpretation of the motives behind months-old TFDs are not binding. If you would like to establish a policy to deprecate such templates, please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Hatnotes, and/or Wikipedia:Disambiguation, the latter two of which explicitly endorse templates such as Otheruses4 (albeit the former rather confusedly). As of now, I have seen you present no evidence that there is or was any kind of wide consensus against the use of these templates, and indeed consensus at Template talk:Otheruses4 appears to be against you. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:27, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] intelligence
- (moved from template)
I noticed that redirect5, unlike some of these templates, at least ALLOWS the editor not be a stupid illiterate. But is there some style manual to which users of template can be directed on which we can put suggestions on how to use those among these templates that are adaptable? In particular, that template allows the reader to choose between a capital and a lower-case initial. Lots of Wikipedians seem to think, incorrectly, the capitalization is required in these things. Michael Hardy 23:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Otheruses vs. Foruse?
Is there ever is reason to use Otheruses and a different reason to use Foruse? or is it just a matter of whatever the editor wants to use on any article?
Are there articles that Otheruses should be used for that don't make it clear in the first sentence what this article is about? I'm just wondering if there is a legitimate reason to have a template that has the 'this article is about' and a template that doesn't. Or is it just that different people have different tastes? Because I assume most people feel that all uses should either be otheruses or foruse... TheHYPO 15:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
- There is no Template:Foruse. In any case, the differences between the various templates are mainly due to stylistic preferences: some people (such as me) find "for other uses" jarring when not preceded by something for other to modify (they require the reader to read past the sentence to make sense), while others find the description redundant and annoying. As for when to use each, if it doesn't say "for other uses" nobody would particularly care if the summary went away, presumably; a simple {{for|x|y}} (":''For x, see [[y]].''") would make everyone happy there. Other than that, it's up to you. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
