Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 August 17

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1 August 17

[edit] August 17

[edit] Template:Battlesofbeleriand

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was deletion RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 00:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Template not in use; articles listed on template are using {{Campaignbox Wars of Beleriand}} instead. — MrDolomite | Talk 02:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete: Swift 02:27, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. Neil916 (Talk) 04:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. —Jared Hunt August 18, 2006, 12:36 (UTC)
Delete per nom. Sophy's Duckling 18:12, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom--Dark Tichondrias 21:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom--Oldwildbill 09:40, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

[edit] Template:17th Lancers

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 00:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Template not in use; main article 17th Lancers uses {{Infobox Military Unit}} instead. — MrDolomite | Talk 01:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete per nom. Neil916 (Talk) 04:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. -- Jared Hunt August 18, 2006, 12:34 (UTC)
Delete per nom. -- That Guy, From That Show! 15:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
delete per nomination. Sophy's Duckling 18:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
delete per nomination.--Oldwildbill 09:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Czech ice hockey team at WCH 2006

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 01:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete This template is horribly useless and ugly to boot. There is no reason for it to exist. CptUnconscious 21:29, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete This is completeley excessive, and keeping it would set a very bad precident. Imagine a template like this for every international tournament any athelete participates in? Resolute 22:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- Comment Too late. –NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 23:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  - The Slovak one was likely created at the same time. I would recommend adding that template to this TfD, and it should be deleted as well. Resolute 00:28, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
    - Done, then. -NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 05:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete all three For the Olympics, something like this would be somewhat excusable. But for the annual WCH, no way. –NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 23:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete both Excessive per Resolute. A smaller version maybe ok. -- Jared Hunt August 18, 2006, 12:34 (UTC)
Delete both Large and unwieldy. BoojiBoy 14:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete both Gaudy! Skudrafan1 21:16, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment I'm not even sure if I would even support such a template for a major tournament. IMO, this is a case where a category along the lines of Category:1987 American League All-Stars would be more appropriate, and far less intrusive on the article itself. Resolute 06:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete both. per CptUnconscious and Resolute. Sophy's Duckling 18:11, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Guess what else I found. Modifying nomination to add this template as well. -NeoChaosX (talk | contribs) 05:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Oh, boy. What a can of worms. I think we may need a guideline or policy on this sort of stuff. --Swift 12:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete all'. Template is not article. Pavel Vozenilek 22:09, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Wikibookspar

The result of the debate was Speedy Keep.--Eloquence * 08:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Template links to Wikibooks with a deprecated Naming Policy. No pages on Wikipedia transclude it. Swift 21:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

~~Delete~~Keep (Deprecate and delete) Swift 21:58, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Just in case anyone is interested, I've proposed a merge of the previous Wikibooks templates. Talk is up at Template talk:Wikibooks. If no-one objects, I'll start work on deprecating and deleting the older ones. --Swift 02:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep. Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Wikibookspar is not empty. The purpose of this is to link to chapters. Yes, the Book:Page convention is deprecated, but by all means change this to Book/Page rather than deleting it entirely. Garrett^Talk 22:21, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Oops! I seem to have checked the "what links here" for the talk page (I'm very ashamed :-(). I guess, I'll begin by changing the links first. There does, however exist a Book/Page version, Template:Wikibookschapter, though with a different syntax, and simply changing the links wouldn't work since there are still pages on Wikibooks with only the old naming style. --Swift 23:23, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Speedy Keep - it's used on too many pages, and there are hundreds (if not thousands) of WB modules using colon naming convention. See discussion on WB. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 11:33, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep per SB Johnny. -- Jared Hunt August 18, 2006, 12:32 (UTC)
Keep, as the nominator has listed it in error. -- Mikeblas 20:54, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Not so much in error as in haste — if no-one objects to the merge proposal this template will get deleted. Votes on the long term status of this template would be appreciated. The Keep votes may seem to indicate that the template has some future function. --Swift 21:10, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep Due to massive valid use. Its also used in, for example, {{Cookbook}} as a subcall to the wikibookspar template. The merging of the wikibooks templates into one would be a good idea though. Kevin_b_er 05:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Extended squad

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 01:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete This template is now redundant after the creation of Template:National rugby squad. Bob 17:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Delte per nomination. Sophy's Duckling 18:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete. --Swift 11:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:World Cup squad

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 01:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete This template is now redundant after the creation of Template:National rugby squad. Bob 17:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete per Bob. —Jared Hunt August 18, 2006, 13:34 (UTC)
Delete per nomination. Sophy's Duckling 18:08, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep - They are two different things. World Cup squads are for a specific period of time whereas the national rugby squad reflects current selections. Hack August 21, 2006 14:48 (UTC)

Comment - no, they are not two different things. Template:National rugby squad replaces the need for Template:World Cup squad. --Bob 22:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep. Yes they are two different things. Puppy Mill 02:58, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
- Then you don't understand the premise of the template nor how to use it. You also obviously don't know why it was originally created, nor why it was superceded. For example, Template:England Squad 1999 World Cup was created using the new Template:National rugby squad. --Bob 16:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete. Redundant. --Swift 11:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete as unused and apparently redundant - I think some people are getting hung up on the names without looking at what the templates actually do. — sjorford ++ 09:16, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Sockpuppet

We've gone through this way too often, every time consensus is to keep - I see no point in going thru this again -- Tawker 05:11, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for deletion. It's often used to blank user pages and it violate privacy since no one should know what other names you're using, especially if a lot of people know you and you want to work undercover. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.163.100.72 (talk • contribs) 04:37, August 17, 2006 (UTC)

Delete. Some user persistantly put this on my page. I think it should be deleted. Reggae Sanderz 04:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong Keep Heavily used maintenence template, kept twice on April 22, 2005 and July 6, 2006 and used for suspected abusive sockpuppets. Kevin_b_er 04:54, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You can't nominate this template for deletion, it is used in a Wikipedia policy, Wikipedia:Sock puppetry. "If a template is part of (the functioning of) a Wikipedia policy or guideline, the template cannot be listed for deletion on TfD separately, the template should be discussed where the discussion for that guideline is taking place." Also, the word is being used here not just for people who use more than one account, but for people who do so in a negative way, such as vote stacking or to evade a ban. Vandals do not have privacy rights. -- Ned Scott 05:10, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Incorrect

The result of the debate was deletion. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 12:54, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Peviously deleted by unanimous TfD. Instruction creep. Useless template. If you see something incorrect, why not just delete it? dryguy 04:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete incorrect templates. (nom) dryguy 04:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete there are may better ways to deal with the problem of incorrect information than this. Removing, rewriting, or discussion on the talk page are much more productive ideas. I also question whether the thumbs down is a good choice because to me it appears to be somwhat consending. --Edgelord 05:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete Nope. This template seems inappropriate because this is not positive way for demonstrating incorrect informations in article. The best way is discussing in article's talk page. Daniel's page ☎ 02:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
A template with this name was previously deleted. The nomination claims it's the same. Can anybody with admin powers check if the version that was deleted was the same as this one? If so, speedy delete per G4. Neil916 (Talk) 04:52, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. -- That Guy, From That Show! 15:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom., send to BJAODN, as it's kind of funny to see that giant thumbs-down -- it's like we're Uncyclopedia or something. --M @r ē ino 21:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom. —dima ^/talk/ 00:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete We have cleanup templates, including a rewrite one, for this sort of thing. Sophy's Duckling 18:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nom and it is also condescending.--Dark Tichondrias 21:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per nominator. Polonium 16:20, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete. redundant with {{Disputed}}. -- FrostytheSnowman ^('sup?) 03:13, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:NYCS A

The result of the debate was to keep. RyanGerbil10(Kick 'em in the dishpan!) 12:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The sole purpose of this template is to render '''[[A (New York City Subway service)|A]]''' to a page. That's it. It's a simply unnecessary template and our casual editors will have a much easier time of editing articles when they just see standard wiki source than if they have to learn a whole new mess of NYCS-specific templates. There are a bunch more of these, but I figure I'd nominate one first and see what the TFD community thought. Allowing this kind of stuff could set a chilling precedent. We could easily have a few hundred thousand templates for various fields that would render the most commonly used phrases. At that point the barrier to entry of editing would be very high; imagine having to learn a dozen or more templates per subject area that you're editing! The use of templates in this manner has been strongly discouraged in the past, and I don't see any compelling reason to start now. --Cyde Weys 13:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep. The various New York City Subway templates are a vital tool in keeping hundreds of inter-related subway articles formatted in a consistent way. They are also a huge time-saver, not only in the creation, but also in the ongoing maintenance of subway articles. The Subway Project has a number of very experienced Wikipedians on it, including at least one administrator, all of whom have concluded that this template and the others like it are vital maintenance tools. The person who proposed this TfD never bothered to visit the project's talk page (although he was aware of its existence) to discuss the proposal, to mention this TfD, or to try to understand why these templates are so vital. Marc Shepherd 14:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I did visit the project's talk page, and no one even responded to me there other than to question Cydebot. As for your conerns: articles should be written using text in the article. Templates aren't used as mere shorthand for a slightly longer phrase (such as a piped link to a subway service article). That just leads to a messy soup of article text with loads upon loads of template inclusions. If all of these templates were substituted, say, two days ago, not a thing about the articles would change, except they would be much more readable. If these are really such an editor convenience we can keep them and you can use them with subst:. But keeping them all in hundreds of articles is a bad idea. --Cyde Weys 14:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Although you visited the project's talk page to inform other editors of what you had already started to do, you did not see fit to discuss or seek consensus before embarking on a unilateral edit that changed hundreds of pages. It also appears, from the timestamps, that the bot had already been launched before you put anything on the talk page. This TfD was not mentioned on the project talk page. I only found it by accident.

As to the merits of the idea, you will find that the edit window is actually far more difficult to work with without these templates. To get A to display as desired, you have to enter '''[[A (New York City Subway service)|A]]'''. This long soup of 44 characters that displays as only a single letter makes the articles considerably more difficult to work with in ongoing editing, not merely on initial entry.

AlphaChimp has already described some of the other benefits below. We have already had several cases where we made key changes in minutes, thanks to these templates, but those articles where the links were "hard-coded" took hours to fix. I would agree with you that, in general simple text substitution templates are unnecessary. We are dealing with an unusual situation here where a single letter (denoting a NYC subway service) has to display identically in hundreds of places. Their widespread adoption (even in non-subway articles) suggests that other editors have quickly picked up the system. Marc Shepherd 15:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep. Yesterday, without consulting the WP:NYCS wikiproject, and without requesting appropriate bot approval, Cydebot went through a substituted all NYCS line templates. The aforementioned actions were both unacceptable and unreasonable, and I have no choice but to feel that this is a bad faith nomination. However, I will respond to the arguments below. WP:NYCS has the arduous task of managing articles related to a multiplicity of subway lines and stations in NYC, sometimes with varying standards and conventions involving the linking of our lines. At times, we have changed the structure of our line specific articles, and there is a chance that we may do so again in the future. Specifically, there has been some discussion about using the official emblem of each line to denote that line within text. Whether or not these changes are appropriate, these templates give us the flexibility to easily adjust our linking structure in response to changes by NYC Transit or within the NYCS community. alphaChimp ^laudare 15:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
- Bad faith nomination? Don't be ridiculous. Apparently the changes were more controversial than I originally thought they'd be so now I'm giving you the courtesy of going through TFD and you dare to accuse me of acting in bad faith? --Cyde Weys 15:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

TFD isn't a mere courtesy; it is how the process is supposed to work. Marc Shepherd 16:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is why it is absurd to accuse someone of acting in bad faith when they use the process. --Cyde Weys 16:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Why didn't you inform anyone in NYCS of the nomination, then? And also, per Marc, why is this simply a "courtesy"?alphaChimp ^laudare 16:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I did inform everyone of the nomination. I put the {{tfd}} template on the template for deletion, as is standard policy. You'd have to be blind to not see it on any of the articles that use this template. And correct me if I'm wrong, but that's exactly how you found this TFD, correct? So your accusation that I didn't notify anyone is simply fallacious. Also, I reject the notion that a WikiProject can claim ownership over a set of articles. WikiProjects are informal groupings of Wikipedians; they aren't governed by any sort of formal policy. You'd certainly be pissed off if I claimed ownership over an article and got all irate when something happened to it when I wasn't paying attention and then demanded notification. Wikipedia doesn't work like that. If you're interested in something, you have to keep on top of it yourself. Nobody is owed any sort of notification except through the standard of {{tfd}}, which I followed to the letter. --Cyde Weys 17:05, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not irate. How this is just a "courtesy" if you're following the policy to the letter? alphaChimp ^laudare 17:13, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Here's a hint: you aren't going to get a good response out of people if you dismiss them as acting in bad faith. Why should I even try to explain myself to you if I know you're just going to distort or ignore everything I say because you presume to know that my motives are not in good faith? WP:AGF exists for a reason. We cannot even have a discussion if you dismiss me outright. Look at my history on Wikipedia — I've been around for awhile and I've done a lot of good work. What about me makes you think I'm acting in bad faith? --Cyde Weys 17:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Cyde is certainly right that we were sure to notice the TfD discussion before long, and indeed we did. However, as noted above, it is considered good form to place a notice "on relevant talk pages to inform editors of the deletion discussion." The failure to do so — coupled with the failure to seek consensus for his bot-edits, despite being specifically cautioned on his talk page that his bot-edits were controversial — coupled with his violation of WP:BOT — persuades me that this is not a good faith nomination. Marc Shepherd 17:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The first edit to my talk page regarding this issue were made after the bot run had already been completed, so unless I'm capable of time travelling and forewarning myself that something was controversial, I didn't know. And can you please define what you mean by "good faith"? I don't think you are actually using the same definition as, say, WP:AGF. Violating policy/laws doesn't mean someone is acting in bad faith; a classic example would be a poor mother who robs from a bakery so her children don't starve to death. Also, I continue to find it highly puzzling that you think you are capable of divining my motives and trying to figure out what the intent of my actions are. You want to know what the intent of my actions are? To improve the encyclopedia. All of the template code is confusing to new editors. --Cyde Weys 17:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Once again, you're characterizing me as something that I am not, which would seem to be not WP:AGF. I'm clearly reading everything you say. The fact that someone is a longstanding contributor does not exempt them from making mistakes, and does not exempt them from violating policy. Once again, how is this merely a "courtesy"? alphaChimp ^laudare 17:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You're right, nobody's perfect; even a long-standing contributor is capable of making mistakes. Maybe I made a mistake in substituting those templates before discussing them. But just because someone makes a mistake does not mean that they are acting in bad faith. You and AlphaChimp made a mistake in failing to assume good faith on my part, thus making this discussion not an issue of the merits of the templates but an issue of the merits of my character, but I'm still acting on the assumption that you two are acting in what you think are in the best interests of the encyclopedia. --Cyde Weys 17:38, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

You people need to realize that it's possible to disagree with someone's actions without automatically assuming that they are a vile, unreasonable creature acting in flagrantly bad faith. Until you can acknowledge that everyone involved is a reasonable person working towards what they think are the best interests of the encyclopedia, we are not going to be making headway. There are people out there who are acting in bad faith: trolls, vandals, people acting to disrupt or ruin the encyclopedia. Frankly I'm insulted that you threw my lot in with them. --Cyde Weys 17:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay, fair enough. I think that Cyde — an experienced sysop — ought to have been able to foresee that this was the type of mass-edit that should be discussed first. But I agree that it was not a classic bad-faith edit (as in trolls, vandals, and so-forth). People who have the power to edit hundreds of pages at one shot need to be more careful. Marc Shepherd 19:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth I've deleted templates like these before (on Olympics-related articles) and no one raised a peep. They were being used as abbreviations for soccer teams, such as {{mst|United States}} would expand to [[United states national men's soccer team]] (I don't remember the exact details). I still don't see why templates are necessary for these kinds of things; just use the wikisource! --Cyde Weys 19:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm with Marc. WP:NYCS is unique in that we have a number of very dedicated contributors who always discuss our large scale edits in the project beforehand and dislike large scale changes. True, we do not own the articles, but, as members of the project, we are their primary contributors. If someone does something to mess them up, we'll most likely be the one fixing the damage. Trust me, using the wikisource gets incredibly irritating within a short period of time. And, with recent changes (such as when we separated the A/C Train article), it presents a practical dilemma. Hope that clarifies. alphaChimp ^laudare 20:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep Used by a wikipedia project. Why would you want to delete this? Æon ^{Insane Ward} 18:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Because ... it's a simply unnecessary template and our casual editors will have a much easier time of editing articles when they just see standard wiki source than if they have to learn a whole new mess of NYCS-specific templates. There are a bunch more of these, but I figure I'd nominate one first and see what the TFD community thought. Allowing this kind of stuff could set a chilling precedent. We could easily have a few hundred thousand templates for various fields that would render the most commonly used phrases. At that point the barrier to entry of editing would be very high; imagine having to learn a dozen or more templates per subject area that you're editing! The use of templates in this manner has been strongly discouraged in the past, and I don't see any compelling reason to start now.

And by the way, being used by a WikiProject would only be relevant if it was a WikiProject template. It's not. It's a mainspace template being used in articles. So it doesn't particularly matter that some people associated with some WikiProject happen to us it; I think it's a bad idea for the reasons enumerated above. Care to address any of them? --Cyde Weys 18:12, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep This is a very useful template. It is much easier to use {{NYCS A}} rather than spelling out [[A (New York City Subway Service)]]. I don't see any reason why you would want to delete this. It's even useful to people who read about subways and want to be informed. Geoking66 03:47, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep Before my comments get butchered and rebutted to death, I will say you could have discussed this on the Wikiproject talk page, instead of "just visiting". Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • I'm a hot toe picker)} 19:28, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep, for the reasons given above. --Ssilvers 19:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Delete, per Cyde; don't use templates for this purpose. Or, subst all instances of the template. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

The suggestion to "subst" is inconsistent with the suggestion to "delete," as you can't subst a template that no longer exists. Marc Shepherd 15:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I connected the two possibilities with an "or". Christopher Parham (talk) 17:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy Keep per above. Simplifies entry of NYCS lines. I use it all the time. Alansohn 23:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete per Cyde. If it's to be kept, it should be always subst'ed. Having random inline templates in the wikisource just confuses new users. howch e ng {chat} 23:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Then by your reasoning, anything with a "{{ }}" should be axed. Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • I'm a hot toe picker)} 02:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

No, I didn't say that all templates should be deleted -- just those that are used inline in text. We already have specialized wiki syntax. Having these types of templates just makes it so that editors who are new to articles containing these templates have to learn them to figure out what's going on. howch e ng {chat} 17:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Keep I think what's lacking is adequate documentation and information (other than the implied meaning of NYCS) that this template is part of the Wikiproject NYCS. Currently, it is not apparent that this template is part of a project, and one would look at "What Links Here" to find that out. I have created Category:WikiProject New York City Subway to rectify this. If the category had been created, then this TfD may not have been raised. Personally, since this is a template that's used primarily for stylistic and convenience purposes (not used in table formatting, navigational boxes, infoboxes, etc.), I am slightly opposed to it. But given the nature of the NYC Subway system compared to other world mass transit systems, I will support these templates. Tinlinkin 06:34, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Suggest that selected members of the WikiProject ask for access to WP:AWB. --DavidHOzAu 11:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy keep. I was going to write a lengthy rebuttal, but Marc Shepherd and AlphaChimp have already beaten the tar out of this, so I'll just go with "as per Marc and AlphaChimp." In response to DavidHOzAu: I will soon be moving my main Wikipedia activities to an Apple machine, while AWB requires Win XP/2000. Thus, I won't be asking for AWB anytime soon. Larry V (talk | contribs) 12:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Strong delete all - This may be a silly question for the New York subway guys, but couldn't you confine yourselves to ONE template? {{NYCS}} takes a parameter for the for the train. So {{NYCS|A}} does the same thing as {{NYCS A}} and I would bet that it isn't too much harder to type. I don't think having a template for this is a horribly bad idea for the sole reason that naming conventions for this kind of thing change ... but certainly a single template is enough. Heck, having eleventy billion templates just makes it more complicated to make the change. BigDT 14:26, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

That might have been (and I'm only saying might have been) a potential strategy before this all started. At this point, many hundreds of pages would need to be changed. If you accept the premise of why these templates are useful—from your comment, it appears that you do—the overhead of re-editing all of the subway articles would vastly exceed the overhead of leaving the existing structure in place. Marc Shepherd 15:05, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It wouldn't be too difficult to give {{NYCS}} that functionality and deprecate the others over time (probably best done by bot). When I first saw this, merging the templates seemed the best strategy to me, partly because I couldn't find any overview of the NYCS* templates. --Swift 16:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I could write the code to do this in 5 minutes and have the entire execution completed within an hour. Shall I do it? --Cyde Weys 16:57, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll second that. If you don't have the time to write the bot, someone could pretty quickly replace all instances using AWB. I still think the templates should be subst'ed though. howch e ng {chat} 17:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I second that as well. Fix {{NYCS}}, to be backwards compatible. Five minutes might be pushing it, though. There are a lot of these templates out there. Let me know if you'd like help. --Swift 20:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, so far the Keeps seem to have it. Frankly, given the lack of due diligence that prompted the original bot edit, I wouldn't have a lot of confidence that the 5-minute job would function correctly. Marc Shepherd 21:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Template substitution is easy to do with a bot. It doesn't damage anything. You can even do it manually with AWB. That's not the point. This template is extremely useful for NYCT articles and is an essential part of our response to service changes on the part of NYCT. alphaChimp ^laudare 22:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

It took a bit more than five minutes, but this should work. --Swift 23:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd still prefer keeping the templates, but I'd be willing to settle on that as a compromise solution, provided consensus is delete. alphaChimp ^laudare 04:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, watch it. The bot did exactly what it was told to do. And you seriously doubt my programming skills so much that you don't think I'd competently be able to convert {{NYCS A}} to {{NYCA|A}}? --Cyde Weys 20:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

"Watch it"? Nobody doubts that you're able to go into pywikipedia and replace.py one template into another. What I do doubt, however, is whether your bot was approved to do that action originally. alphaChimp ^laudare 20:52, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll need a list of all of the templates that can be replaced simply by moving the {{NYCS ***}} part into {{NYCS|***}}. I'm presuming some of these wouldn't work, such as the rush-hour templates. As for the bot programming ... it would be a simple Perl script that goes through the list and invokes calls to pyWikipediaBot's template.py on each one. It seriously would take only five minutes to code. --Cyde Weys 20:43, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Has anyone considered the load on the database. I'm not sure, but doesn't every template make an extra call to the database? Developers have come out strongly against using templates in templates and I doubt this is any different. --Swift 16:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
- That's correct. See WP:SUBST. howch e ng {chat} 17:19, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
  
  Thanks for the link. This should be discussed on the template talk page to determine what the general practice should be. --Swift 20:38, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Indifferent but Do Something Quick. I don't care if it stays, or becomes {{NYCS|A}}, as long as we can get rid of these ugly "‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. See templates for deletion to help reach a consensus on what to do. ›" in the middle of sentences! See World Trade Center (PATH station) for an example of a sentence which just gives up in the middle. krallja 01:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Delete but after more discussion on the NYCS project talk page. I don't think that these should be templates, but I think the people involved in the project would probably prefer to come to a solution. Sophy's Duckling 18:06, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Keep It, per above. it's easy to use, less confusing. BWCNY 21:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Less confusing than what? --Swift 07:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
Weak delete. I think I created this back before I knew of the pipe trick. One can type [[A (NYCS)|]] and get A. However, we shouldn't combine them with a switch statement, since that can't be substed. --SPUI (T - C) 04:44, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I just tried and you're right :-(. That kind of sucks. I guess, now it should be deceided soon whether the template(s) should be subst-ed or not. --Swift 08:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a bit of confusion here, partly because multiple potential solutions are being discussed at once. Everybody who works regularly on the New York City Subway articles agrees that subst'ing considerably blunts and impedes the editorial benefits that these templates provide. I won't rehash those benefits, because several people have stated them already. Subst'ing would be a huge mistake.

The proposed new template, {{NYCS}}, would never be subst'ed. It would simply replace a whole bunch of separate templates with a single template. All of the benefits of the separate templates would be retained. I am neutral on the new template, because it doesn't matter to me. Marc Shepherd 15:57, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
keep. Please do something ASAP, because articles like A (NYCS) are gibberish, if amusing. If {{NYCS}} can replace a set of separate templates, I don't oppose. However, I see no reason for a switch in the template; the line name is an argument. Gimmetrow 23:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason for the switch is the multitude of templates such as {{NYCS 149 link}}, which produces "5". These haven't been listed on the template talk page, since doing so would be a waste of time if the templates won't be merged. The switch as it is presented on the talk page is mainly a proof of concept. --Swift 23:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

How many templates like that are there? If not too many, or most are adding a time link, the NYCS template could use a second argument to handle them. If the variations are not too complex this could probably be done without even using #if. Gimmetrow 03:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't it just be simpler to use {{NYCS}} for the simple ones that replace the forms {{NYCS ***}} and then use a special switch custom one for the rest? It sounds like we may be trying to overload it here. --Cyde Weys 03:45, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I estimate there are 160 NYCS templates. It looked like much less than half are "simple". Most would be in the custom switch. It would seem to me the simplest to have a template like {{NYCS_Brighton_express}} call {{NYCS|B|123a}} to form B. I suppose there are important reasons templates should not use other templates, but this would seem simpler than a monster custom switch to handle ~100 forms. Gimmetrow 04:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment on off-topic comments. We don't seem to be moving one little bit towards a consensus on deleting this template. Let's not continue discussing {{NYCS}} here.

For a discussion on how to arrange the NYCS* templates, go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New York City Subway#Merging NYCS templates.
For a discussion on what to specifically with NYCS, turn to Template talk:NYCS.

--Swift 06:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Who has the authority to end this TfD, so that the ugliness on articles like A (New York City Subway Service) will go away? Marc Shepherd 00:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd take it an admin, or the original nominator. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{blah • Snakes on a Plane}} 21:52, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

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