Template talk:Controversial

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Contents 1 po-faced 2 avoid redirect 3 line break 4 colors, phrasing 5 grey background 6 scope 7 Suggested wording change 8 Category:Controversial 9 Suggested redesign 10 Please fix this grammar error 11 Matching Talkheader 12 Only on talk pages? 13 Stronger language?.. 14 Removing paren'd bit? 15 standard-talk style

[edit] po-faced

Is this table just a bit too po-faced in its approach? --Kwekubo 21:59, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

huh? po-faced?? —Noldoaran (Talk) 00:42, Feb 25, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] avoid redirect

Someone please replace the link controversial with controversial to avoid the redirect. -- pne 11:29, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] line break

The line break between the sentences should be restored, IMHO. --Shallot 16:25, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] colors, phrasing

Couple suggestions, the grey is too dark (#ccc) for black text, and might be tough to read on small monitors and for people with weak eyes. I'd suggest changing it to (#ddd) or (#eee). Also I think the first sentence would read better as "This is a controversial topic, and may be disputed" —siroχo 08:01, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

I made the color less dark (#ddd), but I don't know about the language and aren't a native speaker. --Joy [shallot]

[edit] grey background

Why the Grey Background? Why not the standard Wikipedia Text Box?

-- Andrew Morritt 01:24, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] scope

"This is a controversial topic parts of which may be in dispute", please? FT2 02:18, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

I think we need a message like Template:Dubious for this purpose. This template is primarily used for topics that are pretty much completely controversial... --Joy [shallot] 11:50, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Comment - There are 3 ways a "controversial" tag can help clarify a controversial article:

1. "Controversial subject with consensus of treatment, please read talk page before making major changes"

2. "Controversial subject, some aspects of which may be in dispute, please read talk page..."

3. "Controversial subject, may be in dispute overall, please read talk page..."

"Controversial" itself isn't a problem. Normally even in a controversial topic a variety of factual information will be undisputed, and this tag misrepresents that all or none may be. If the article is so controversial and disputed that substantially all information in it is in dispute, then {{controversial}} is probably not the appropriate tag, and the correct tag is more likely {{disputed}} or {{NPOV}}

I think these 3 cases are fundamentally different, and whatever tags are used there should be a separate and clearly worded template for each.

FT2 16:05, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested wording change

I'd like to suggest the word "substantial" be replaced by the word "substantive." To me, "substantial" has to do with the amount of change. Someone could say, "I only changed a sentence," even though he might have changed it 180 degrees. "Substantive" refers to the meaning of something, and I think that is more the purpose of the tag. Maurreen 18:22, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Controversial

other templates, disputed, npov, etc, include a category in the template, to make finding them easy. It'd be nice to be able to find controversial subjects this way. SchmuckyTheCat 20:12, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested redesign

This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read the talk page discussion below before making substantial changes to the article.

[edit] Please fix this grammar error

The line that says this: (This message should only be placed on talk pages.)

Should be reworded to say this: (This message should be placed on talk pages only.)

What it's trying to say is on no other pages except talk pages, but what it says is it should only be placed (not pasted or embedded, for example). It's incorrect and somewhat confusing.

Whoever has the power to unprotect this page, please fix it. Thanks. DavidH 23:04, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

That's not a grammar error but a question of how you say it. Compare:

• This message should only be placed on talk pages. Not on article pages, image description pages, project pages, etc.
• This message should only be placed on talk pages. Not under talk pages, next to talk pages, behind talk pages, etc.
• This message should only be placed on talk pages. Not pasted, embedded, etc.

The intended meaning is pretty obvious, since the alternatives don't make a whole lot of sense. --MarkSweep 02:10, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Where did you learn grammar, at the University of Crap? (Kiddding!) But I don't accept the grammar advice, "it's all in how you say it." Do you think everyone reads web pages to themselves out loud?

Here's an obvious example of how placement changes the meaning (from The Careful Writer by Theodore Bernstein, The Free Press: New York. 1998, based on a sentence that appears in G. & C. Merriam's Word Study):

Only I hit him in the eye yesterday.

I only hit him in the eye yesterday.

I hit only him in the eye yesterday.

I hit him in only the eye yesterday.

I hit him in the eye only yesterday.

Especially for an emphatic instruction on a template, we might as well be as precise as possible. Either way is better than the current wording:

This message should be placed on talk pages only.

This message should be placed only on talk pages.

Thanks for listening, I mean reading. DavidH 03:00, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Matching Talkheader

Propose changing to match Template:Talkheader.

Note: this currently only works for article talk pages; the article link breaks elsewhere (eg user talk, template talk). By way of example, "Controversial" below should go to Template:Controversial in this instance, but it actually goes to the article controversial. This is a problem to do with {{PAGENAME}}. Rd232 22:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

This is the Talk page for discussing changes to the Controversial article, which is a controversial topic, and may be disputed. Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them.

Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~). Place comments that start a new topic at the bottom of the page and give them a ==A Descriptive Header==. If you're new to Wikipedia, please see Welcome to Wikipedia and frequently asked questions.

Talk page guidelines Please respect Wikiquette, assume good faith and be nice.

[edit] Only on talk pages?

What is the sense of having this template in the talk page? Persumably the editor must already be on the talk page when he is reading this template. Borisblue 01:43, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I have no idea why whoever wrote "put it on the talk page" did so. My reasoning would be that it's only an interesting template to editors and not readers. SchmuckyTheCat 04:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree - that is very useful to a reader: it will help them understand that the article may be more likely than others to have cruft in them. This is a decent warning to give the reader about controversial topics considering the open nature of Wikipedia. I'm going to be bold in updating pages. Triddle 20:46, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

This is metadata; metadata belongs on the talk page, NOT in the article. That's why it said that in teh first place. Raul654 20:53, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stronger language?..

The text currently reads "This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read this talk page discussion before making substantial changes." I'm pretty sure the spirit of what the template's trying to say though is that people should discuss major changes before just going ahead and making them. So if someone were to read the talk page from top to bottom and then go ahead and delete a paragraph from an article and and add seven of their own in its place (before discussing any of those changes in the talk page) - that would technically be following what the template says, but I think we'd all agree that it would go against what the template really means. Perhaps a better wording would be something like "This is a controversial topic, which may be disputed. Please read this talk page and discuss substantial changes here before making them."

Blackcats 08:40, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removing paren'd bit?

I suggest that the part at the bottom in parentheses (this message should only be placed on talk pages, please) should be removed, because it's already got a {{check talk}} tag. →bjornthegreat ^t|_c 01:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Done. I was just thinking about making a template like {{check talk}}, didn't realise we already had it! the wub "?!" 16:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] standard-talk style

I was bold and I've done some cleanup so now this message box is the same size and the other "standard-talk" message boxes. Hopefully there are no objections to this as I do not see any other discussion of this issue. // Laughing Man 19:19, 8 November 2006 (UTC)