Wikipedia talk:LoPbN index-template generation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Note Re a Set of Renamings Format Conversions
In human factors terms, the design of Template:Lopbn-l1 is flawed in the context of its fellows in the suite of templates: it should take two parameters instead of one. It had seemed to me that there would be enough uses of it to require replacing the names of all 5 templates from -l1 thru -l8, in order give -l1 a replacement without problems in the transition between versions. But a WP (not Google) search suggests there are uses on only 9 pages, so that the following procedure should both be short cause no problems:
- Initially, {{subst:lopbn-l1|Bea}} generates the ...Bea link.
- Change all uses of that template, e.g. in that case to {{subst:lopbn-l1|Bea||Be|a}}; the additional parameters are ignored.
- Change the content of that template, to ignore the first two parameters and concatenate the third and fourth.
- Change all uses of that template again, e.g. in the case discussed to {{subst:lopbn-l1|Be|a|Be|a}}, again changing only ignored parameters.
- Change the content of that template, this time to concatenate the first two parameters and ignore the third and fourth; the generated markup is the same because all uses have two identical pairs of parameters.
- Without urgency, change all uses of that template one last time, e.g. to {{subst:lopbn-l1|Be|a}}, yet again changing only ignored parameters; this will be done only as there is other editing to do on pages that use the template.
These are the pages listed as using it at this time (false hits struck thru):
- Template talk:List of people A Links
Template talk:List of people Al Links- Template talk:List of people B Links
- Template talk:List of people Be Links
Template talk:List of people Bo LinksTemplate talk:List of people C Links- Template talk:List of people H Links
Template talk:List of people M Links- User talk:Avalon
(Pages starting to use the template after this transition will use the new two parameter format from the start, and avoid participating in any such transition.)
Documenting this is probably unnecessary, and i expect to catch any unexpected side effects. But this discussion may help if i am wrong, and can serve as a footnote for those decoding the history of these pages for any reason.
--Jerzy•t 07:17 & 08:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, as handling the markup in question reminds me, this template generates the markup for other templates, but is not called by them; the window of vulnerability applied not to those using LoPbN during the conversion, but to those changing templates, by use of -L1, or creating new ones using it. So far, a universe of one, all of whose lack activity of those kinds in that window i can vouch for [grin]. Well, it was a good drill for some future situation.[shrug]
--Jerzy•t 08:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
- I've rewritten Template:Lopbn-l1 with a new version that is compatible (via an #if:-style parser operator) with both input formats -- IIRC, under the impetus of discovering i still hadn't cleaned up all the old ones.
--Jerzy•t 07:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
