Template talk:WikiProjectBanners

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This template was considered for deletion on 2007 February 19. The result of the discussion was keep.

[edit] Purpose of this template

This template is designed to combine multiple wikiproject templates on an article's talk page into a single, default-hidden template.

[edit] Usage

A mockup is available at talk:Jogaila

[edit] Things to do

This template is still being prototyped. Things to do:

~~Implement parser functions~~
Support Wikipedia:Version 0.5, Wikipedia:Version 0.7, and Wikipedia:Version 1.0

[edit] Discussion archives

/Archive 1

[edit] The Kirill Lokshin PoC

I'm REALLY fond of the Proof-of-Concept Kirill showed above! As a first step, it's GREAT!

I say first step because I'd rather see some parameters that are pertinent to multiple projects be defined more "globally". For instance:

{{Multiproject | class=B | label1=WikiProject Biography | template1={{WPBiography | living=yes}} }}

Where the class parameter gets passed down to WPBiography and any other projects. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:55, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a whole different story. The issue with having a common class is that different WikiProjects evaluate articles somewhat differently; the ones with a stricter (or more formal) assessment process won't be happy if their assessments suddenly all get bumped up, and the ones with a looser process will be upset if theirs are pushed down.

(In other words: too much strife, minimal gain, almost certainly not worth the trouble.) Kirill Lokshin 05:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

(On a practical level: there's no way to implement it like that, since the overall template can't fiddle with the sub-templates' parameter lists. You'd still need to pass the parameter separately to each template.) Kirill Lokshin 05:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what Kirill has said, and said something similar here. Carcharoth 10:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I think eventually we'll want a lot more Wikiproject/Task Force organization like that of WikiProject Biography or WikiProject Military history. If we could assemble, say, all the country-specific, transportation or WP:TOL projects into a "task force" style system, templates could be streamlined far more easily (and we wouldn't have inactive projects' banners littering talk- and templatespace)Circeus 19:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Putting this template into use

I've put this template (using hte version copied from Kirill's single-box version) into use at Talk:Jogaila. It looks good, but there appears to be a larger-than-ordinary space above and below the template. Raul654 16:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Fixed it; there was a manual margin setting that you didn't take out when you added the standard classes.

(If we're going to use this widely, it might be worthwhile to come up with a way of reducing the margin setting on the actual project banners inside it; as it is, they're being narrowed twice.) Kirill Lokshin 18:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Since I'm working on tons of talk pages (installing ArticleHistory templates) can someone give me a dummies guide to how to install this while I'm there? I've never been involved with WikiProject templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's extremely simple. Just copy the existing wikiproject tags (sans small=yes) into this framework. Here is the example in the prototype:

Before:

{{WPMILHIST|class=GA|Medieval-task-force=yes|Polish-task-force=yes}}

{{WikiProject Lithuania|class=GA|importance=Top|comments= [[User:M.K|M.K.]] 14:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)}}

After:

{{WikiProjectBanners

|1={{WPBiography|class=GA|priority=High}}

|2={{WPMILHIST|class=GA|Medieval-task-force=yes|Polish-task-force=yes}}

|3={{WikiProject Poland|class=GA|importance=Top|}}

|4={{WikiProject Lithuania|class=GA|importance=Top|comments= [[User:M.K|M.K.]] 14:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)}}

}}

The template takes care of the rest. Raul654 18:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Raul! Speaking for some of the Jogaila editors, we've really been wanting a way to decrease the # of boxes at the top of the talkpage. Though, having read the other comments here at Template Talk, I'd also like to hasten to say that this does not mean we're against having the WikiProject banners. Indeed, anyone who's familiar with my own Wikipedia editing history probably knows that I'm a big fan and supporter of WikiProjects. ;) In the case where an article is only in one WikiProject, a large and complex banner is a definite help. However, in the case of an article like Jogaila, which overlaps through so many different subjects, the banners have really become a clutter, especially because so many of them have duplicate information.

There are a few other articles that I'm involved with, that are also multi-discipline, and I'd love to expand the use of this template. May I proceed, and list the locations here? Or should I hold off until things are more stable? --El on ka 19:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, go ahead - I don't see the core functionality changing much. Raul654 19:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pashtun people practice

Ah, a sigh of relief. Seven to one - can someone check my work on Talk:Pashtun people before I go crazy? [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Raul654 18:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

And for the "before" version, see how the page looked prior to double surgery. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The problem I have is that some categories are useful, and I don't know how we determine which are and which aren't. I check FFA and FAC categories regularly, and find three or four misplaced or incorrect nominations each week, so I can see a use for at least some categories. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Most of those are needed for WP 1.0 bot to function correctly; they're not really intended for actual editor use. It'd be nice if there were some way of having hidden categories on a page, but no such luck yet. Kirill Lokshin 18:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Who cares if talk pages are littered with categories? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What to do with selection versions?

I'd like to hear what people think we should do about selected versions 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0? I can see four possibilities:

Incorporate it into ArticleHistory (like Maindate, DYK, 'etc)
Incorporate it into this template
Treat it as any other wikiproject
Create a third (and probably final) meta-template that incorporates selected versions, deletion nominations, and whatever other common occurrences I can't think of at the moment.

Any thoughts? Raul654 19:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Treat it as any other WikiProject, it goes in this template. Please keep it out of ArticleHistory, which is complex enough to install. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, they're not really WikiProject templates, not having an associated WikiProject in any real sense of the term; this template is intended specifically for those, and I don't really think we ought to use it as a catch-all for anything else that happens to be on the talk page. Having said that, all of those can probably be combined into a single "release version" template; it'll just need parameters for which versions to take in. I'll see what I can put together as a PoC. Kirill Lokshin 19:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

OK - since I had added V5 to Pashtun, and was told it was OK, I thought it was. I see Circeus has already corrected my mistake, and now Pashtun is back to having a skipto template and a V5 template. No more clean talk page. [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I readded the Skip template because even with the merged banners, the ToC still was not visible in 1020x800. {{talkpageheader}} is certainly the most cluttering template present. Circeus 19:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I stand corrected: {{talkpageheader}} was the most cluttering template XD Circeus 19:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd prefer to delete template:talkpageheader entirely. It serves no purpose, it should never have been created, and it should never be used. Raul654 19:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Amen - I'll agree to that!!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 20:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The talkheader template instructions say: "Using the template is suggested for talk pages that are very active or have had policy violation problems. This template should be used only when needed. Do not add this template to every talk page. In particular, it should not be added to otherwise empty talk pages." - unfortunately, it is in use on over 25,000 talk pages (I stopped clicking on 'next 5,000' on the 'what links here' thing after the fifth time). I'd support the deletion of this template as well, but wouldn't a bot be needed to tidy up those 25,000+ pages? Carcharoth 00:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Like Sandy, I too would prefer not to have a separate selected-versions template. Raul654 19:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, you're going to have all sorts of miscellaneous templates (e.g. the various "this article was cited in X newspaper" stuff, etc.) up there anyways. Kirill Lokshin 19:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Which would argue for folding the most common ones into a common template. Raul654 22:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Or several common templates. There's no reason why we should jam everything into a three-template model at the expense of having the third template composed of things that have no connection to one another except for the fact that they're all represented by talk page banners. Kirill Lokshin 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Why not have a look at Category:Talk header templates and its subcategories, and try and systematically come up with multitemplates for common groups? Incidentially, the article history template only documents history recorded by templates. I'm sure a lot more history could be mined from a page's history and recorded. Page moves is one thing that is sometimes difficult to dig out from a page history. Also, could someone put all these "multitemplate" templates in a category, so they are easy to find again? {{ArticleHistory}}; {{WikiProjectBanners}}; {{oldafdmulti}}; and {{multidel}} are what I've found so far. Carcharoth 00:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I think selected versions appropriate in the ArticleHistory template. It's finite, small, and easily enumerable set of states (none, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0), which are very much related to the concept of reviewing articles. As such, I think I'm going to see about getting it implemented there. Raul654 03:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Make sure to preserve the message about GFDL images that is in the CD selection One.Circeus 18:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

As per Raul654's request, a test implementation of ArticleHistory containing support for v0.5, v0.7 and Releaseversion can be found at User_talk:Dr_pda/Sandbox. The extra text does make the box somewhat bigger, particularly if there's already a Main Page date in there. Also the v0.5 etc templates contain class and category parameters, which have to be included into ArticleHistory to maintain equivalent functionality. The test implementation does not handle the CD selection or things like {{core topic}}. Comments? Dr pda 01:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Just one - drop all the bolding. It's unnecessary, distracting, and tacky. Other than that, it looks great (as usual) Raul654 01:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Some articles may be in more than one CD selection. Also note {{WPCD}}. Another approach is to create a second toggle box (inside ArticleHistory) containing "misc" templates, that could be passed in as parameters without change. This would allow the same article to be tagged with 0.5, WPCD, and CoreTopic without incorporating code for multiple options here. (V0.7 seems mostly un-used.) You might have parameters misc1={{core topic|class=FA}} misc2={{v0.5|class=FA|category=Natsci}} This would also allow any combination of CD selections. Gimmetrow 02:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an example of an article that's tagged with more than one selection template? As far as I know, the selection sets are incremental; everything in 0.5 is automatically in 0.7, and so forth. Kirill Lokshin 02:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving it into the show/hide area sounds like a pretty good idea, actually. Although I do agree with Kirill that versions are supposed to be exclusive (although I think he got it backwards - things in 0.7 should be in 0.5, not vice versa). We could also incorporate a WPCD=yes option at the same time. Raul654 02:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, basically, 0.7 = 0.5 + (added articles). :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Sun has core topic and V0.5. Many of V0.5 or V0.7 have WPCD, eg Talk:Fish, Talk:Baseball, Talk:Cheese. Why did they all use different CD images? Gimmetrow 02:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

They're unrelated. Core topics is different from release versions (0.5, 0.7, 1.0), which is different from the external WPCD project. Kirill Lokshin 02:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's fine then. If the CD selections are like wikiprojects, just put them in the meta project banner bin. By this I mean, why not just put all these CD-related templates (V0.5, core topics, WPCD, etc.) in the big banner here, if people want to? Gimmetrow 03:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I've only just seen this discussion. I think it's a great suggestion, and it matters a lot as we plan to get a bot picking articles soon - so the no. of articles will shoot up. I think I like the ArticleHistory solution is best, though I think we could be flexible. A couple of points

Just to clarify - "Release Version" is a rolling term, referring to the most recent version we are working on, whereas specific numbers are supposed to be applied at publication. That means we can have permanent links to WP:WPRV, and have a permanent set of associated pages. Version 0.7 is the latest one we have started on, and Kirill is right, V0.7 = V0.5 + (added articles). We don't plan to give lists of versions that include the article - just essentially say "Version 1.3 onwards".
I was planning on writing a combined Core Topics/Release Version template, in order to reduce clutter, since all decent Core Topics are automatically included in all Release Versions. We can simply add "core" as a parameter into the Release Version template, similar to what is done at {{Chemicals}} (see Talk:Sulfuric acid for an example). The only thing holding up the Core Topics combo is that there are a handful of core topics that are omitted as embarrassingly bad! Hopefully we can fix that fairly soon.
The 2007 version of the WPCD selection is likely to be the last one, as User:BozMo is suggesting we merge future work with an appropriate release version such as V0.7. I think that makes sense, now we have things like bot systems and offline readers. The WPCD template automatically grabs anything in Version 0.5 already.
We hope in the future (next year?) to start releasing WikiProject-based specialised releases such as "Chemical reagents" or "The KLF". Although we don't need to deal with that right now, it might be good to consider this at least when weighing pros and cons. These releases could go into ArticleHistory, though these may belong better inside the WikiProject template, if the project designed the release.

In summary, it seems to me that all of these different general releases (0.5, 0.7, Release Version, WPCD) will end up in a few months in one single template, with core added for Core Topics. This should then be combined further into a more general template as suggested here. The specialised release idea might swing things a little towards the metaProject box option, though I think I'd prefer the ArticleHistory option overall. Walkerma 07:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Showing project names in this template

What are the pros and cons for showing the project names like on the second option here? Personally, I like being able to see at least the names of the projects. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:10, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I was just about to suggest the same thing, and Kirill's multi-template is exactly what I was going to propose. Though, if it's at all possible, it might be nice to also have the graphic of each WikiProject next to the name. Or is there even functionality to do that? --El on ka 19:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It could be done, in theory; you could have, say, {{WikiProjectHeaders}} as a switch statement listing various projects, and call things like this:

{{WikiProjectBanners
|1={{WikiProjectHeaders|WPBiography}}
|2={{WPBiography}}
|3={{WikiProjectHeaders|WPMILHIST}}
|4={{WPMILHIST}}
...
}}

The issues I see are twofold:

I'm not sure if this is doable for an arbitrary number of WikiProjects given the template transclusion limit.
The call would be quite fragile; misspelling the project name, for example, would cause it to not display the proper header.

Kirill Lokshin 19:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to use images to show the projects concerned based on the banner name? My programming is a long way back and limited to ZX Spectrum basic, but it feels like there should be a way of saying if WPMILHIST appears in 1-10 then display Image:Waricon.svg at 20px. Does that make sense? Steve block Talk 12:02, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Nope; the functionality available through parserFunctions isn't enough do do arbitrary string recognition. Kirill Lokshin 13:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a shame. If only I knew what parser functioning was. :) I'm now impressed at the capability of the old ZX Spectrum. Steve block Talk 18:27, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

m:parserFunctions ;-) Kirill Lokshin 18:28, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it. People can always choose to click show on the current version. Quadzilla99 22:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

Two things: 1. What is the maximum amount of boxes this takes? 2. Should we be putting this out or is someone going to make a bot to do all this? The Placebo Effect 22:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

1. At the moment, ten; but this is trivial to change.

2. Any mass-conversion is probably (a) not bot-doable unless we have a bot that can recognize WikiProject banners and (b) premature until the remaining design issues get settled. Kirill Lokshin 22:23, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

To answer the second question - Both. Sandy has already asked] Gimmetrow if Gimmebot could do this, and I'll be notifying the signpost soon. Raul654 22:24, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I don't like it

Sorry, I just gotta say I think this is the wrong way to go about cleaning up banners. Ideas like this have been considered and shot down before, and I doubt WikiProjects will be very happy with it. You're much more likely to get people to agree to use their banners less, have size / text limits on banners, and using the small option. -- Ned Scott 23:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not ideal right now, but when it's applied, it's usually to great usefulness. Look at the already mentioned Talk:Pashtun. There's no obligation to use it either.Circeus 00:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm kinda on the fence. Steve block Talk 11:57, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree with the original comment, this is a bad idea. I'm a member of Wikipedia:WikiProject Alternative music, so every single article that is under our scope will have to have this banner (whether its because of WP:BIO, WP:ALBUM, or WP:SONG). It obscures some WikiProjects while promoting others. Teemu08 17:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

How does it do that? All banners will be put into this template if it's used on a talk page, so they're all treated equally. --Conti|✉ 17:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Where have ideas like this been considered and shot down before? I'd love to read some of the criticism to see if it can be addressed. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 18:50, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Like I said before, I think limiting banner size (both picture and graphic) would be a much better idea than this kind of "push under a rug" approach. Also there are many projects which use banners that don't really need to use banners. One that I'm actually responsible for is {{WikiProject LOE}}, which isn't needed and can go away. That or situations where there are parent and child WikiProjects both using banners, when usually just the child needs a banner (such as the TV WikiProject Banner + a show specific banner, one really only needs the show specific one since that project should already be linking back to the parent). If they need the banner for article assessment, well that can be done with a template that doesn't actually show a visual banner. Basically this defeats the entire point of having a WikiProject banner, to advertise and get people's attention. The problem is many projects are trying to do too much within their banner. A while ago I re-worked {{WikiProject DIGI}} to take up a whole lot less room by moving most of the content to the "show/hide" area (not just the to do list).

In other words, we should actually fix the issue rather than just trying to hide it under a sub page/template/etc. -- Ned Scott 19:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ned makes some good points here, especially about making the parent WikiProjects invisible, relying on people to find them by following the trail back from the daughter WikiProject. I think the main point though, about keeping the different WikiProjects visible, but still reducing clutter, is to have the image and name visible at the top, but nothing else. See the second option shown here (that was archived too quickly, really - let's keep the options visible for people to see who come to the discussion now and later). Carcharoth 02:44, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If I understand what you've said, Ned, one issue is project banners that don't need to exist or that are unwieldy - either because the project is inactive, or because the banners are used when a cat or some other device might be better suited for the purpose, or because the project is jamming too much into their banner. As I see it, those issues should be addressed on a per-project basis. (side note - is there a WikiProject for Deletion process?)

But the other issue, one that this template attempts to address, is having to scroll down through 4, 5, 6 or more different project banners, whatever their size, all of which might be relevant and pertain to the article, before getting to the actual discussions. I don't see the two issues canceling each other out - in fact, they both aim to clean up talk pages. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 04:12, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

They are both ways to clean up talk pages, one hides WikiProject banners and one doesn't. We can use the small option if people don't want to scroll down, and we can further limit banner text and image size even after being small (because small isn't always.. small). Here's an example of a banner that isn't really needed "all the time" (probably something for Template:ArticleHistory): Template:WP:LoCE. Also, I keep seeing stuff like WikiProject Cats or something on the article of a fictional cat.. now that's just silly, because WikiProjects aren't about categorization by topic alone. I'd much rather clean up the mess than push it under a rug.

I think the only real guidelines on project banners we have are Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advanced project banners and Wikipedia:Talk page templates, and there's many experienced users who don't know those pages exist, nor are they really.. hard hitting. Take Kirill's example, why not just make all WikiProject banners be one line with a show/hide button individually? I know it sounds like a lot of work to get people to change, but heck, spin it the right way and it almost becomes a fad, with editors jumping to update with new cool banner style.

This just seems like a really sloppy solution to something that we haven't really tried to fix yet. I'm betting the clean up is a lot easier than we think. At least it's better than pushing it under a rug. -- Ned Scott 05:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You mean something like this? Kirill Lokshin 05:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, and maybe even a small "text high" graphic and a message (X number of words/letters or less) incase the name of the project wasn't completely clear, etc. Something that would most often only take up one line and then have a show/hide box. -- Ned Scott 06:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I like that too, much better, although like Ned a graphic would be good. I also prefer that purple one that's in your sandbox over this as well. I only just got around to making the Comics banner small compliant, now I have a new trick to learn. I have to agree with Ned about the scope of some of the WikiProjects. The cats one is something I noticed too. Steve block Talk 08:41, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

In technical terms, this model has an advantage over the purple one because the entire rendering is controlled by the template itself, rather than being dependent on outside help; I still haven't come up with a good way of setting up the meta-template version such that it doesn't require all of the project names to be entered by hand.

(It's not that hard to implement, incidentally; on a basic level, it's two extra CSS classes and a new top row in the table. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 13:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I can agree with some of the concerns mentioned here - many projects rely on these templates to recruit new people. However, some pages have got silly. I really like Kirill's last solution and similar efforts - I think listing out each WikiProject on the "outside", with a direct link to the project, is a fair compromise. I think we should let the pages go the way editors think is right (being Wikipedia, that has to be the way anyway!). Many simpler pages will have full templates, and more cluttered ones will have a choice of this or the small option. If any project violently objects, they can switch styles and (if needed) debate the issue on the talk page. Hopefully, 99.99% of such things will happen without any problem. Could we "pilot" the scheme on something like WP:MILHIST, and see if people get upset? Walkerma 16:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've implemented it on {{WPMILHIST}}; it's enabled by calling the template with hide=yes. Kirill Lokshin 23:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I really like Kirill's solution, too. The names of the WikiProjects can be easily seen, while the talk page stays neat and tidy. --Conti|✉ 17:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way to code this as a template option similar to how small works, perhaps as a hide variable? So you start with {{WPMILHIST}} and if you add hide=yes then you get User:Kirill Lokshin/Sandbox/Template4. Or is that asking too much? Steve block Talk 19:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, there is. :-) Kirill Lokshin 21:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

However, that means getting each of the wikiprojects to adopt the new framework. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 22:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, on some fundamental level, you simply can't have your cake and eat it too. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's all about how we spin the idea. I know that sounds slightly car-dealerish, but hey, presentation is everything in a virtual community. If it sounds like a chore, then it will be a chore. If it sounds like a rule, then it will be a rule. If it sounds like a great idea (which it is) then we'll have editors jumping to do this themselves. -- Ned Scott 05:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't it be default show, with the option to hide? Alexj2002 09:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

When designing an interface, you cater to the majority. The vast majority of talk page visistors do not benefit from wikiproject templates. They do, however, benefit from uncluttered talk pages. Therefore, the default is to hide. Raul654 16:23, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I will have slow, limited dialup access for the next two weeks, so I just want to add my name to the consensus of the arguments put forward by Raul. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly with Raul on this matter. I support wikiprojects and am actively involved in several of them, however talk pages are not meant as billboards for advertising WikiProjects. Quadzilla99 22:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Could it possible for a page with multiple banners to have designate one banner as a Main project that would have its banner displayed fully (with the hide in place still) while others would be minimized? On an article where it quite clearly in the camp of one project while others are more periphery, it would be a nice compromise. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SauliH (talk • contribs) 15:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Small

How does this work with small=yes? I tried it out at Krazy Kat, and it seemed like if there was a way the banners could, if they were all made to work with small, stack up inside the template a lot easier if the right float aspect could be tweaked, maybe through a css class? Seems to me maybe this could be a step forward for the banners, mandating them to be built as small. Okay, it's a dream, but I'm curious. Steve block Talk 18:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes I would appreciate it if this template could be modified to allow "small=yes". Then it could be employed on pages such as Talk:Supernova. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 18:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that this is a better idea than small=yes for gaining control of unruly talk page headers, but if people do like this, is there a way to get it to itself work with small? I also think having a collapsible small thing would be cool for its own sake. :) ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

What exactly do you mean by "work with small"? If you mean including small banners inside, it already does that. If you mean collapsing to small size in its own right, that would be possible, but only when all the banners inside were also using the option. Or do you mean something more complicated? Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I did. I had the idea that the banner could accommodate two small project banners per row, if the technical aspects could be arranged. But on reflection, that was probably naive wishfulness. Steve block Talk 20:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Not really doable (neatly) unless you turn off the float:right in the small-talk CSS class (which will break all the pages that use it at the moment), or force all the banners to support explicit alignment. Kirill Lokshin 20:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought the float:right would kind of kill it. It's way too much hassle to recode all banners just for this. Steve block Talk 10:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not all that conversant in CSS... Would the float right float the small box to the right of a table cell? Or an enclosing div? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

You could table it, I guess, but then that's dependent on all banners being small compliant to allow the tabling to work. Steve block Talk 10:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm crazy and this can't be done, I'm not that good with css... but I was thinking that if you told this box to be small=yes that it would make all the containing banners be small=yes (as if they had that parameter) as well and it would be the same width as a small banner, and positioned where small banners go, just as if it were one. I'm not suggesting that it hold a bunch of small banners arranged horizontally... does that help clarify? ++Lar: t/c 23:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The contained banners would need to be called with the small=yes option to generate small banners. While that can be done, it takes a bit of extra code to make it happen automatically. (One way to do it is discussed below.) Gimmetrow 02:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, each template needs to have its own small and large versions to allow the template call small=yes to work. What it basically does it acts as a filter: you code two versions of the template and make one of them dependent on the call of an "if" function with the keyword "small" acting as the target for "if". So every template needs to have been written to use the "small" call. I'm nopt sure you could code the template to insert the small call into each inserted banner, either. Well, I mean, techinicaly I think you might, but the method of doing it would be more complicated than the editor adding it to all banner templates when they add this wraparound template. Hope that all that makes sense, my programming is over half my lifetime away. Steve block Talk 10:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes. this only works if small is already supported in the embedded templates. Note that I have been informally (and on a spot check basis) converting templates that don't already support small whenever I find them. I'd been thinking about doing some toolserver automation (my first project there so likely to be slow to get done) to find ones that need it (because they are used on a long talk page and don't yet support small=yes) but am not sure if that's needful, I get the sense that swift progress is being made on converting them all already... Kyrill, is that true in your judgement? ++Lar: t/c 16:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

This thing basically makes the small function null and that is the reason why I personally love it. Not sure why small option is even being discussed as in my humble opinion this little template outmodes it. Quadzilla99 20:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Quadzilla -- the small option was an attempt to clean up talk page clutter. It was ill concieved and failed. This template makes the small option obsolete, and its use should now be considered deprecated. Raul654 20:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Eh? I think I missed some stuff! Why is small ill conceived? Why did it fail? I was not aware it failed... Where do I need to do more reading on this? Small seems a very elegant solution for the template clutter problem. This... seems more a hack, as it takes up a lot of vertical space no matter what you do. Small takes up no vertical space at all. ++Lar: t/c 20:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It's incongruous, cluttered looking, and if you have a high resolution computer screen (like me and mine's only 1680 x 1050) the boxes become too small. Quadzilla99 20:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

To which I'll add - the reason it was ill concieved is that it was an attempt to reduce talk page clutter concieved and exexcuted by the very people with a vested interest in keeping those talk pages cluttered. The result was something that was a true hack (in the computer programming sense), it was an aesethetic nightmare, and it didn't really make pages uncluttered. Having the wikiproject people come up with an anti-clutter solution is sort of like having the NRA write gun control legislation - it's an insurmountable conflict of interest, and the results are not pretty. Raul654 21:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree whole heartedly. I'm an avid member of the NBA wikiproject and a semi-active member of the NFL wikiproject so I'm not anti-wikiproject, but talk pages are not meant as billboards for advertising wikiprojects. Quadzilla99 21:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That's rather a POV characterisation of what project banners do. ++Lar: t/c 17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what's POV about it. Rather just hazard a guess could you just explain what is POV about it. Keep in mind that if you visit the NBA wikiproject you'll see I am very active there and have invited 10+ people to the project. Quadzilla99 21:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

No slight of YOU was intended, just that I think "billboards for advertising" shows a certain POV about what those banners are for. My POV is that they're not advertisments at all, but rather that they convey important information. ++Lar: t/c 22:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

As I have already cited elsewhere on this page, the Wikiproject council is quite clear that the primary (if not only) use of the wikiproject template is indeed for advertising purposes. Raul654 22:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that you read that discussion in that way, Raul654. I read the first part that the tags are advertisements, which then changes to talk about the content of the tags - specifically the article rating. So perhaps the tags do convey more than just advertisement... -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

So your view, in rose-colored glasses, is probably something like, "they convey very important information to the reader about a group or project that is dedicated to improving the type of articles in question." How is that not advertising? because it's something good? Advertising isn't defined by value judgements, an ad by coca-cola and the public ad campaigns in the 1980's for AIDS awareness are still both called advertising. What you're saying is that these are good things and therefore should be given billboard like status on every talk page. Which, of course is an entirely different argument. Your argument should be something like, "Yeah it's advertising but the product/idea is so good that the advertising space is well deserved and merited." Quadzilla99 23:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

So would it be more accurate to say that "failed" really is just the opinion of a few folk who don't like talk page project banners, rather than a broad consensus already arrived at and documented somewhere else that I missed seeing? Please let me know if small was discussed in depth somewhere else and rejected, but failing that, I plan to continue to keep applying it when I see the need for it on a a talk page. I do not think there is yet consensus that this solution is better. Some opinion, yes, but not consensus. I certainly don't think it is. ++Lar: t/c 14:29, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Small doesn't reduce talk page clutter; it just puts it on the side rather than the top, and makes it harder to read. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that it doesn't reduce clutter. Conversely, I feel this option takes important information that ought to be visible on a talk page, and hides it. Plus, IIRC, load time was a concern of yours. This option doesn't help load times at all, everything is still loaded full size even if hidden, while small (by using smaller images) does in fact help load time. But more importantly, your comment fails to address my point, that some folk here act like there's consensus that small is failed. If that's so, please point me to where that consensus was determined. I'm not yet seeing it, and I'll continue to convert stuff to small when it makes sense to do so, I guess. ++Lar: t/c 17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Small option doesn't reduce clutter, it just moves it to the right, and makes it look more incongruous. Must be nice to have a low resolution computer screen also Lar. I have a 1680 x 1050 screen which is nothing compared to the ultra high resolution screens that are out now and 20-20 vision (with contacts). The small option boxes are very hard for me to read from the distances I normally like to sit from my computer screen. Quadzilla99 21:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not following you there. I happen to run 1600x1200 and wear bifocals and don't see the merit in your argument about sizes, and as for clutter, I think things that take up the whole width of the page are more cluttered than things that don't. To each his own, really... Further, I think you assume a bit too much about me. But again, you miss the real point of my comments. Where is the consensus that small has failed which has been asserted above? I looked and didn't find it. ++Lar: t/c 22:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure I could consult an optomologist to prove this but from where I sit from the computer (about 30 or so inches I just measured) they're unreadable without squinting to a person with 20/20 vision on a 1680x1050 15 inch screen. Quadzilla99 23:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Purpose?

What's the purpose of the banner and task force parameters? If it's to advertise and attract more interested people, then obvious display on the talk page (or even on the article) is desirable and hiding would dilute the effect. If it's principally to bring articles to the attention of task force members, and/or prompt rating, than hiding is a much preferred option. Apologies if this has been covered but I've only skimmed the above discussions, which appear to be techie and need time to absorb. BTW, as a compulsive adder of tags, should I hold back, now? Folks at 137 09:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, but too long a display is bad, too. We need to reach a compromise between attracting users and lenght of the wikiproject ads. Personaly I think that multibanner should combine small versions so that they stack horizontally first, verticaly second.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 22:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] BLP banner

Can someone look at the problem occurring, for example, at Talk:Angelina Jolie? When putting the bio Project inside the Banner, the BLP warning template is lost from the talk page - it needs to be outside of the banner. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to post a note about this, too. That BLP banner is I believe a legal requirement (though I might be wrong) and therefore it has to be visible. The problem is the banner is tied in to the Biography Wikiproject banner. Short of having to recode thousands of biographical articles, I think the simplest solution would be for the creator of this catch-all banner to make an exemption for the WikiBio banner. 23skidoo 16:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

From a technical standpoint, there's nothing the catch-all template can do, since it's a single box; the only option here would be to simply not include the Biography banner in it.

(The other alternative being discussed above—having project banners shrink themselves down to one line—could handle this rather better; the BLP tag could be placed outside the banner's block, and would remain visible even when the banner was collapsed.) Kirill Lokshin 16:36, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It's not a legal "requirement", just something to tell people that we take articles on living people very seriously. Fall-out from the whole John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy thing. -- Ned Scott 05:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It's certainly not a legal requirement. There are probably thousands of stubby articles on living people without that banner on their talk pages. I try to add it where I can, and scans of the birth date categories probably help (those adding category:living people should already know to add the WP:BIO banner), but it is not always there, though it should be. Not a legal requirement, but it is Wikipedia policy. Carcharoth 10:34, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Can't we have a trigger so that when this multibanner includes BLP banner it will display the warning itself?--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 22:32, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not a fan of this template, but you can have the BLP banner independently and not have it display with the bio wikiproject banner. -- Ned Scott 00:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Like this. --HailFire 14:04, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

But that's an extra step that most people won't think to follow. Most are used to the BLP warning appearing automatically when the WikiBioProject banner is added. 23skidoo 17:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Please no. I've worked hard to get acceptance of WPBiography|living=yes, and occasionally run through what transcludes here for {{blp}} with my bot changing that template to {{WPBiography}} where the article in question is a bio. As a result only say 200 articles use it, whereas 200,000 use WPBiography. If this template can't cope with the issue then this template is the problem, as I argued at MFD. Encouraging folks to use blp directly harms WPBiography, and makes my life harder.

Note that there does appear to be some way of forcing certain divs to appear outside a container. See User_talk:Kirill_Lokshin#WPBannerShell_and_WPFilm. --kingboyk 19:13, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The good, the bad, and the ugly

On the good side, it's possible to pass a template name as a parameter, as here. This has a "full" and "bar" option - generating a link to the template for "bar". If the project templates were to support a global "bar" option (similar to the global "small" option) each could generate a one-line form of their own design.

On the bad side, I hope people are aware that this container box increases the space used on the talk page for people who browse without javascript.

Finally, some of the templates look worse forced to render inside this box. If someone wants a task, perhaps fix the way the extra two flag icons are displayed in relation to the portal box in {{WikiProject France}}. Since the container has the same background color as most template, they are rather lost in the sea of color. Gimmetrow 05:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a needlessly convoluted way of doing it. If templates are going to be allowed to support the bar option independently anyways, why not just encourage that from the start and avoid the parameter pass-through business? It's not like we have a deadline here; a few weeks for a critical mass of templates to pick up the new code (similar to how the small option spread) doesn't seem like a big deal. Kirill Lokshin 06:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I want to make it so that when browsing without javascript, the template can still be rendered in the bar form only. I would also like to be able to specify the bar option once rather than for each individual template. This was just an example of a way to do that. What's your approach? Gimmetrow 12:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no response, I guess this needs further explanation. The current implementation of this meta container looks worse than just having the project templates. If this is going to be an improvement, the wikiprojects must support a "bar" option in their project templates, and there must be a way to call the bar option for any project template placed inside this box, without using javascript. I would like any project templates put into this box get called, by default, with the bar option, and generate a javascript button which can turn on the full versions. The PoC above was one way to add a parameter inside a template call. There are other ways, and while they all involve fancy coding, this should be hidden to anyone on the talk page. Gimmetrow 01:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Err, maybe I'm just not understanding what you're arguing for, but...

You can't have a template that allows the reader to view it at different sizes without using javascript. There's simply nothing available in normal HTML or MW coding that allows post-rendering layout changes. If you don't use javascript, all you get is a template that's permanently fixed at a trimmed-down size, losing all of the functionality of the full version; I view this as quite unacceptable.

The reasonable way to do this would be to have templates support an option for rendering as a collapsed, javascript-enabled bar (as here), and then either (a) have the surrounding template display things called with that option, or (b) simply use that option natively on the talk page itself. But there's simply no way to do it without javascript. Kirill Lokshin 01:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If the rendering is controlled by an option, then that option can produce a "bar" summary style, permanently fixed for non-javascript reading. If that loses the "full functionality" of the full version, so what. The bar should contain the essential information - a link to the project, the class rating, and *maybe* a very terse encoded version of any other info that can fit on one line - and this should be available in that form for non-javascript users. Gimmetrow 02:58, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The number of non-javascript users is very low, and WikiProject tags—unlike actual article content—are not something that is essential to view "correctly". If a few people don't see them in quite as pretty a layout, so what? It doesn't justify hamstringing the WikiProjects by breaking all the functionality built into their templates. Kirill Lokshin 03:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If the layout doesn't matter, then why does this project exist? Gimmetrow 03:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Because we'd like a better layout (but not at the cost of simply breaking the templates!). Kirill Lokshin 03:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no reason this needs to "hamstring" wikiprojects. All you need to do is render a simple bar version, with a javascript button (available only in javascript...) that creates the full version. Do I really need to spend an hour making a mockup of the MILHIST template for this? Gimmetrow 03:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The concept of "backward compatibility" should probably apply here. As we "upgrade" to the new multi-project box, the baseline is what we have now, no matter how pretty or ugly it is. The upgraded version should be the prettier (and shorter) version - if that isn't available to some users, then they should get just what they get now. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 03:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Obviously I'm not getting across here... there is no such thing as "available only in javascript" from the template's perspective. We cannot design a template that detects whether a viewer has javascript enabled and renders itself differently. Obviously, if we use javascript-dependent features, they'll only work for a viewer that has javascript support; but for a user that doesn't, they'll simply be nonfunctional.

In other words, we can create something like this via javascript support for collapsing tables; but, for a viewer that doesn't have it, the template will be shown uncollapsed. The site javascript can't generate template code that doesn't exist in the rendered page; our only option is to collapse what's generated by the MW engine, not to expand it with new material. Kirill Lokshin 03:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thought: what you're asking for can be done via the ugly hack of having the template's contents all set to display:none when rendered, and depending on javascript to actually display them (as, e.g., here). This has the obvious unfortunate side effect that non-javascript users can no longer get at the "hidden" contents of the template. Kirill Lokshin 04:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess that's one approach, but not what I was thinking. If a project template is on its own, it can stay the same for "backward compatibility" per SatyrTN. A project template inside this new container is a something new, however, and there is no reason to make it more ugly for some users. The current container makes it more ugly. I'm not going to argue how many users don't have JS, but should the project really depend on all this JS? Gimmetrow 05:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

If it doesn't use JS, it's going to be displayed at a single size for all users, and that size will largely be governed by the amound of material that's in the template. This is basically true regardless of how the template is displayed; you can fiddle with the exact layout, but there are limits to how flexible it is, and they're well short of what you seem to have in mind. (In particular, it can't be reduced to a single line—or even a few lines—without losing much of the functionality of these banners; there's simply too much data to condense it that far, even if you trim enough words to make it completely meaningless to the uninitiated.) Kirill Lokshin 06:20, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] More ugly?

So maybe you could be more specific about the "more ugly" part? From reading through all of the above, I noticed

a comment about the extra flags on the {{WikiProject France}} tag (which seems to have been fixed)
a comment about the color scheme - since the background of the WikiProjectBanners is the same as (most? all?) individual WikiProject banners, it is a bit overwhelming. Personally, I prefer the color scheme (and layout) of the second option Kirill Lokshin has in a sandbox.

So are there other comments about "ugly"? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 06:24, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Outside the container, all WP templates appear with breaks between. Inside the container they 1) take up more vertical space, 2) have no break in the current color scheme, 3) render in less horizontal space than (some) were designed for. So far, I'm not seeing any improvement. (While the second point would be easy to fix, I'm suprised it wasn't different to begin with.) This is rather different than {{ArticleHistory}}, which condenses templates. Gimmetrow 15:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns about WikiBiography

The warning about bios of living persons on the Wiki Biography banner is useful, but on pages like Talk:Arsène_Wenger this thing, while useful, would hide it. If Wiki Bio isn't placed into this thing, however, it would make the template not very useful Any ideas? Xiner (talk, email) 01:01, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Have the banners support the "hide" option instead? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there really isn't much to hide on those banners. I was thinking more of an "exclude" option for this template, but the living bio thing is the only one I can think of that'd need it and that seems a bit overkill. Xiner (talk, email) 01:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I meant that, if the project banners were set up that way, there would be no need for an overall template to hide them all. This would allow the BLP warning (which would, presumably, be outside the show/hide block) to show up properly. Kirill Lokshin 03:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This is awful

I am pretty sure that there must have been some discussion before this thing began to be implemented, but this simply annihilates the purpose of WikiProject banners, which is to recruit new members. The WikiProject Guide clearly states that "One of the most basic aspects of keeping a WikiProject active is recruiting editors. A WikiProject must recruit new members to make up for attrition; any project that fails to do this will eventually collapse" (emphasis not mine). This template hides WikiProject banners under an unnecessary layer, as IMO, WikiProject banners are not the problem they're made to be. That said, Kirill's solution in his sandbox is a much more adequate compromise than this template, and should be implemented; This template should then be deprecated and deleted. Titoxd^(?!?) 06:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Is the main point of a talk page to talk about the article or to recruit members to WikiProjects? There are cases in which there are so many project banners that they overwhelm the talk page, which was part of the motivation behind introducing the small templates, and this is simply another manifestation of that. The compromise is fine, too, but I don't find the current implementation to be at all contrary to the real purpose of talk pages. Dekimasu が... 08:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

A talk page is not to "talk" about an article; WP is not a forum. It is instead intended to find ways to improve articles, and that includes "Hey, there's other editors that specialize in these subjects, so maybe I can go ask them as well". In my experience, the vast majority of talk pages are unwatched, so adding a question there is like throwing a stone into a pond. It makes waves for a bit, then everything goes back to the way it was. However, if it is asked in a more visible place, by asking a WikiProject, for example, it is much more likely that someone will actually do something about it. I don't see how adding complex code to talk pages helps anyone, and I do see how it can make WikiProjects less visible. Titoxd^(?!?) 21:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

To talk about the contents of an article. We do call them "talk pages", and it was in that sense that I was using the word "talk". Dekimasu が... 08:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[An article's talk page] is instead intended [to be used] to find ways to improve articles, and that includes "Hey, there's other editors that specialize in these subjects, so maybe I can go ask them as well".

Except that's exactly what they are *NOT* used for. In reality, they are used as a free place to advertise wikiprojects that, in almost all cases, have made no effort to improve the article they are advertising on. I've seen this personally on the FA's I've gotten up to FA status -- I'll work hard to get an article up to FA status, and after it's promoted, people from one wikiproject or another come along to slap their advertising on top of the talk page for articles they did not lift a finger to improve. In other words, these wikiproject banners are nigh unto talk page spam. Raul654 04:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way about some WikiProjects. I'd mention a couple things, though, that you might think about. 1) Tagging an article with a WikiProject tag does not mean the articles is owned by the Project - simply that it "falls within the scope of..." the Project. 2) Perhaps the project is still in its beginning stages, and if you give it a chance, the project will be able to contribute. 3) If you are running in to a specific project that seems to be acting this way, consider joining the project - there are probably editors there that will be able to contribute to something you're working on - or vice-versa.

And finally, that issue relates to specific WikiProjects, not to this template, or even to the reason for creating this template. If the template is working properly, both sides of your issue will be addressed - the project(s) will be able to attract members, and there will be much less "talk page spam". -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 05:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'm well aware that tagging a talk-page with a wikiproject template does not imply ownership. But, frankly, I find it both brazen and insulting to have other people advertising their wikiprojects on articles they have not made an iota of effort to improve (especially on ones that I *have* devoted such efforts to). As to your second and third comments, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I'm talking about a few bad apples spoiling the bunch. This is not the case. In fact, as I pointed out weeks ago, most projects tags posted by virtually all wikiprojects go onto articles that no one from that wikiproject has ever improved or will ever improve. (And the response to my assertion was effectively - yes, so what?) In fact, discussion by the Wikiproject Council makes it *QUITE* clear the primary purpose of Wikiproject templates is shameless advertising. Or, just look up to Titoxd's very first comment in this thread, which says this template "annihilates the purpose" of the Wikiproject templates. So by his very own words, we know the main/primary/only purpose of the wikiproject templates is to advertise.

As for your assertion that these issues do not relate to this template - I am at a loss for how to respond except to say - yes, they obviously do. The purpose of this template - to clean up talk pages, and make them more usable to the user - runs directly counter to the purpose of the wikiproject template, which is to advertise various wikiprojects. (Or, as project-supporter Ned put it, this template "misses the point" [3]) This explains the very vocal opposition on this page stated by various wikiproject proponents. Raul654 05:28, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's not a black-and-white issue, obviously; not all WikiProject "proponents" are in vocal opposition. ;-)

More generally, the basic qutestion is this: how much "spam" are we willing to tolerate as the price of keeping WikiProjects functional? Obviously, giant flashing banners at the bottom of every article are out; but so is the total removal of the banners, unless the desired result is killing off most of the projects through attrition. This template probably goes a bit farther towards the no-spam end of the spectrum than I would prefer; but it's not so far along that the general function should be unacceptable to the projects, I think. Kirill Lokshin 05:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Raul654, when I said it misses the point I did not mean that. I mean that the real issue is that we have too many "minor" WikiProjects (for most of these situations) that don't actually need to be individual WikiProjects. Also, it's well known that the point of the banners is to advertise, that's never been a secrete. Guess what, to advertise is not a bad thing. Commercial advertisements are bad on Wikipedia, especially ones that don't relate to improving the articles. These are not commercial advertisements and they directly relate to article improvements. Advertising editing collaboration is no different than "advertising" a new policy for comment. If you are trying to relate WikiProject advertising to commercial advertising then you are out of your mind. -- Ned Scott 07:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I should clarify, "too many minor projects" is one possible reason, but there are others, and addressing those issues is a better way of dealing with this. -- Ned Scott 08:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Advertising a wikiproject is not an end unto itself. If wikiprojects only tagged the articles they actively improve and take care of, this would be a moot issue, as:

(A) There would be a hell of a lot fewer banners (I would say - conservatively - less than a hundreth of compared to now), and

(B) Their presence on an article that a project is actively taking care of would not be so objectionable, compared to the situtation now where they slap it on tons of articles they have never touched.

But the fact of the matter is that Wikiprojects tag everything under heaven that could possibly be related. Thus, the point I am making is that these templates serve almost no purpose BUT to advertise the wikiproject, Titoxd's comment above about their potential uses not withstanding. For the most part, they do not benefit talk page visistors, or the articles tagged with them, or Wikipedia as a whole. They do have an immedaite, demonstrable and detrimental effect on the usability of talk pages, which is why, wikiproject boosters not withstanding, people want this template kept. Raul654 16:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Raul, I believe you are painting with too wide a brush - no doubt based on your own experiences, so you're probably not being intentionally anti-WP. When you say "If wikiprojects only tagged the articles they actively improve and take care of", it sounds like all wikiprojects plaster their tags around and don't take care of the articles. I'm sure there are projects like that, but there are also projects that do take care of articles they've tagged. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 18:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I love this template and talk pages are definitely not billboards for advertising Wikiprojects. I am an extremely active member of the NBA Wikiproject and a semi-active member of the NFL Wikiproject so I'm not anti-WikiProject. If you want members to join projects simply invite them, in addition people can still see the Banner give them some credit. Quadzilla99 20:58, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to reiterate what I said earlier, this edit from two days ago is a perfect example of the problem. You have an article that has already been edited heavily, gone through featured status, is on the main page, and then someone from a wikiproject comes along and slaps their advertising on it, without ever lifting a finger to improve the article. Raul654 06:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

1) I wouldn't think an article about "a series of four printed engravings published by William Hogarth in 1751" would belong to the Comics project - I'd delete the tag on that basis alone.

2) I don't disagree that tags are slapped on articles - at every stage in their development.

3) Do you realize that it sounds like WP:OWN when you say that?

4) The tag says "this article falls within the scope of (project)." It does not say "(Project) helped elevate this article to its current state."

5) Have you ever contacted a WikiProject that has "slapped their advertising" on an article to get help?

6) What does that have to do with a template that combines WikiProject tags to make the talk page of an article less cluttered?

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 07:32, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

3) Actually,slapping an article is closer to WP:OWN than protesting unused talk page clutter.

6) Because it's edits like these that increase the clutter the present template aims to eliminate??

Circeus 13:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, it is far, far more efficient to recruit by leaving polite notices on new editors' talk pages than by slapping banners willy-nilly. WP:TOL and WP:PLANTS are fairly active wikiprojects, none of which uses banner. Circeus 13:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(1) I already have.

(3) What Circeus said.

(4) The template creates an obvious (false) impression that the wikiproject edits the article. And if they don't edit the article, they should not be tagging it.

(5) While I personally have not, the FAR people do it on a daily basis in the regular course of buisness there. The results have been virtually nill, as Sandy has already said elsewhere on this page. This suggests that the vast majority of wikiproject tags are gratitious.

(6) What Circeus said. Raul654 15:49, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Question number five, for about six months I have been regularly notifying every WikiProject I could find about every article that comes up at WP:FAR. I notify the Projects which have tagged the article, and I used to also notify every Project which could be remotely related in any way to the article, in the hope of casting the widest possible net to find editors willing to help maintain the article. I could probably count on one hand the number of times a Project has actually marshalled resources to help maintain the featured status of an article (and that may be an overestimate: I'm giving the benefit of the doubt). Most often, when I notify a Project of an article up for review, I find that most of the messages on the Project talk page are my old notifications. I have also notified Projects in advance of articles that would eventually come up for review, hoping an advance notice would result in improvements without review; this approach has yet to bear fruit even once that I'm aware of. IMNSHO, and based now on six months of experience, most of the Projects are essentially useless in article maintenance (with a few exceptions; for example, MilHist has a very good peer review process, etc.). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

We're actually trying to get more attention directed to our articles on FAR now, by actually transcluding the reviews directly (here); I have no idea how helpful it'll be in practice, though. Kirill Lokshin 16:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd have to agree that most WikiProjects aren't effective. Last night I went through 380 WikiProjects. I'd say 80%+ have fewer than 1000 articles tagged. Given those numbers, it's surprising this template is needed at all. And I also wonder what the WikiProject Council does about inactive projects and/or promoting activity by projects. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 17:24, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

3) Tagging an article does not assert ownership. It says "this article falls within the scope of". It's like a category with benefits. It's simply a tag that promotes the particular project and provides information *to* the project about what articles are within their scope.

4) If the project is active and effective, tagging an article should be the first step. The project(s) I'm involved in are fairly new, but the stated goal is to improve articles within the scope. The next step is to promote (within the project) editing articles to improve them. I'm sorry if you haven't seen activity that suggests that, but that issue is best directed at the project involved.

5) If the project isn't active, take that up with the project - it's not a reason to condemn projects and tagging. And if anything, that should be a reason to support this template.

6) I'm not sure how an edit showing a (single) mis-tagging relates to this template.

-- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(3) This is the same argument used to justify the "This article is maintained by" tag, and frankly I find it hollow. Yes, it is true that it doesn't explicitely say "This article is owned by _____" -- it just implies it very strongly. And you did not reply to my comment that "And if they don't edit the article, they should not be tagging it.", so I'll presume you agree with this.

(4/5) Once again, you are incorrectly characterizing my comments (and Sandy's) as applying to a specific wikiproject or small subset of wikiprojects, when in fact we characterizing virtually all of them. As Sandy just said, over the course of many months, she has (on a daily basis) notified wikiprojets of impending FAR nominations, and almost without exception those wikiprojects have done nothing. If tagging an article is only the first step and improving it is the second, then I want to know where all these second-stage articles are. Per my other comments on this issue, I would optimistically guess 1 in 100, but I suspect even that is a huge overestimate. Nor do I believe your "it's not working, so let's do it more often" argument - it just doesn't hold water. If already-heavily tagged articles do not benefit from improve originating from a wikiproject, there is no reason to believe that employing them even more heavily would fix it. If your roof is on fire, you don't set fire to the rest of the house just because the smoke hasn't killed you yet. Or, to put it another way - let us assume for one moment that talk page templates causatively corrolate with article improvement (when in fact there is not a scintilla of evidence they do). You would then be arguing that they should be deployed more widely. But since, in reality, there is no evidence these tags lead to improvement, you simply argue they haven't been used wiedely enough. Tell me - are there EVER ANY circumstances where you would not support deploying them more widely?

(6) Uh, as Circeus just said - this template is designed to solve talk-page clutter. Talk pages are cluttered because of gratitious talk page tagging. The edit I cited is as crystal-clear an example of gratitious tagging as I have ever seen. Therefore, it (and the many edits like it) are the reason this template has been created and deployed. Raul654 18:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Evidence of article improvements due to wikiproject and tags and here.

But I'm going to assume nothing I say will change your mind that wikiprojects are useless and banners are nothing more than clutter. So, while I disagree wholeheartedly, I'm done. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 19:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

The pages you cite indicate that the number of featured articles with wikiproject tags is increasing. They do not, however, indicate causation (which is what I explicitely said there is no evidence for). I suspect the reason those numbers are going up is because of edits like the one I just cited - people coming along and tagging an article *after* it has been featured. I grant there are some exceptional wikiprojects, but these are rare indeed. How many wikiprojects can honestly claim they have produced a featured article? A half-dozen? Maybe a dozen at the outside? Raul654 20:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

And the ones that have are, of course, being as thoroughly affected by this as all the others; the approach taken here makes no distinctions among projects based on their success or lack thereof. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 22:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I have an idea that would address both your concerns (that useful wikiprojects would be hurt by this template) and my concerns (that talk pages are becoming too cluttered, due primarily to the fact that wikiproject templates are being used gratuitously). I propose that we institute a rule that that *all* wikiproject tags are to be removed from *all* articles, and may only be put on an article *after* the wikiproject has made substantial and significant contributions to that article. (or it stays in place if the Wikiproject has already made such contributions) I'll leave defining what 'substantial' and 'significant' are to others, but it should be assumed to be a high bar. This would solve the clutter problem, and eliminate the need for this template. Somehow, though, I don't think this would fly.

So, in lieu of that perfect solution, this one will have to do. Or, to paraphrase Mr. Churchill, it's an absolutely horrible solution, except for all the other ones that have ever been suggested. Raul654 22:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, there are plenty of other solutions possible—assuming, of course, that one takes the stance that WikiProjects are fundamentally a good thing, and should be encouraged to become more active. We could, for example, institute a system of "accreditation" for projects; projects judged by the community to be sufficiently productive could be rewarded with additional priveledges—in this case, more prominent banner placement—beyond those available to their kin. (Such an approach would, incidentally, substantially reduce the proliferation of projects, as there would be significant benefits to trimming down infrastructure and becoming a task force of a larger and already accredited project.)

But, of course, the underlying idea remains that productive projects should be given a somewhat longer leash than unproductive ones; if the point you're arguing for is that they should all be muzzled, then this obviously won't be a very attractive idea. Kirill Lokshin 22:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think they should *all* be muzzled. I just think that if they want to advertise, they should have to earn it. To wit - they can advertise on articles they substantially improved. (And, incidentally, if they want the most people possible viewing their articles, they would do well to improve the articles with the greatest viewership - shifting the onus towards improving our most prominent articles. Hence, everybody wins).

I don't think wikiprojects are fundementally good or evil, per se; I don't think having lots of Wikiprojects is a problem; I think that the practice of peppering hundreds of otherwise-untouched articles with advertising is a huge problem. A wikiproject isn't an end unto itself - its purpose should be article improvement. I have no objections to rewarding wikiprojects that do improve articles (and I think the reward should be proportionate to the work). Raul654 23:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) WikiProjects don't write anything, editors do. As I'm sure you know, most decent articles are written primarily by one person, occasionally by two. Projects provide resources, among the most important resources being a group of editors who have a stated interest in a related topic, who are moderately likely to be willing to read/review and suggest things about an article. Members of the group may have access to relevant reference material. None of these wikiproject resources are used, however, if some particular editor isn't interested in improving an article. It seems a little reversed to talk of wikiprojects improving articles; they help editors improve them. This is in my opinion one main reason for the lack of wikiproject response at FAR - if some particular editor doesn't take it upon themselves, a large group of people with a passing interest isn't going to accomplish anything. But that some group of mildly interested people can be a good resource if one editor takes the lead. And all that one editor really needs is a link (to the project or portal) to find the resources they need. Gimmetrow 02:37, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Well said. Something that bothers me about the idea that projects can only tag after they've edited an article is that we shouldn't think of WikiProjects like that. Of course, there is some appeal in the form of a "community", but that's more of a side effect of projects. They shouldn't be seen as groups of people as much as being seen as places of collaboration. Centralized talk pages, deletion sorting, article requests, article stubs, article assessments, keeping track of those things help us to improve articles. I've always tried to promote the idea that the only reason we call some people "members" or participants is to help show how active a project is, or to help participants find each other (for collaborative editing). But at the same time anyone who's edited an article within the scope was just as much a participant, because the "WikiProject" is simply an effort to improve the articles, and they are apart of that effort. There are many WikiProjects that I have used in the past without ever tagging myself as a "member", but I was still apart of the effort and used those tools set up by the project.

The idea that projects have to earn the right to a banner isn't completely bad, and some form of approval might be a good idea. -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ned Scott (talk • contribs) 03:44, 22 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] TfD nomination of Template:WikiProjectBanners

Template:WikiProjectBanners has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. -- Ned Scott 08:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And it was kept. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:03, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kiril's option

Is there any objection to changing this template to reflect Kiril's option of showing a header line for each project, with the "show" button to see the full banners? Personally I think that version addresses many of the objections raised recently - and may even make the TfD moot. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are still unresolved technical issues with that version. It's unclear (to me, at least) whether the implementation should be done through a common option in the banners themselves or a central template responsible for the bar display; but, in either case, substantial coding is still needed before the thing will actually work. Kirill Lokshin 16:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The TFD is already failing. It's clear that most people support this template as is. Meanwhile, setting aside the technical problems, Kirill's soluion is simply not scalable - it makes the problem smaller (each wikiproject only gets one line of advertising on the talk page instead of N lines, where N=the number of lines in its wikiproject template) but the problem is still there. In time (with the proliferation of wikiprojects) we will start seeing the same problem over again - this time with huge lists of wikiprojects claiming each article. And, this is not even considering the problem of wikiproject templates (e.g, this article was featured on the 'marine biology portal in the did you know' section template I saw recently). Raul654 16:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't solve all of the scalability problems either, though. The length of time to load the page will increase with the number of banners, whether or not they are shown, as has been pointed out at the TfD debate. I also wondered over there if Kirill's suggestions could be implemented by changing the default "hidden" text of this template to show text links to each hidden WikiProject (within the same box). Dekimasu が... 17:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See below. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 17:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Question: This would be an "option" as in some editors could display it that way? Or it would be a new format? Quadzilla99 20:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

See, this is my whole point. I like the idea but this fix is sloppy and can be done so much better. -- Ned Scott 08:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well bring it on :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 13:30, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I object to "Kiril's option" (whatever it may be - he's got several of them) on the simple basis that this template works pretty well. It is Good Enough, and doesn't need to be Better. RossPatterson 13:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer, and others are concerned that it defeats the purpose of attracting users to the WikiProject and leading them to other articles where they can contribute. I think the multiple box template (which is here btw, Ross and others) is a wonderful comprimise, and another way to save this from negativity at TFD (I have also put the suggestion forth there). --Reaper X 22:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer to the current suggestion! I could live with it, but as long as a template exists in this one's form, I wouldn't use Kiril's. I'm not anti-WikiProject, but I am anti-compromise — in-between positions often seem worse to me than what they're trying to mediate between. If we're going to hide the banners, let's hide them, and if we're going to show them, let's show them. Nobody is forcing articles to adopt this template, so there's no need for a middle ground. Oh, and Kiril's option has some odd behavior with the hide/show "buttons" — sometimes they do what they say, sometimes they don't. And, of course, the colors violate WP:TPT. All that stuff's fixable, I'm sure. But one thing that isn't fixable is the need to list every banner twice, once by template and once by the name to list it under. I suppose that's a small price, but things like that rankle nonetheless. RossPatterson 00:45, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Well it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer - I dispute this assertion. Some people have said this. Most have not. Most do support this template as is. Kirill's multi-line box takes up too much space. And it's difficult if you want to see all the templates, you have to click again and again. Raul654 00:48, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Some people may not like "the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer", but some certainly do, as is obvious from the TfD page. Those that don't shouldn't use templates that hide banners on the articles they work on. Those that do, should. Nobody's proposing that all banners everywhere be wrapped in some enclosing template, at least not that I've seen yet. RossPatterson 00:50, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Most WikiProjects don't even know about the TfD, so if you want to make this about numbers then I'll be glad to prove you wrong. -- Ned Scott 02:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

This discussion isn't about numbers, or at least I don't think it should be. I'm just pointing out that when Reaper_X said "it appears to me that people dont like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer", that was only one point of view. A quick check just now found several statements that clearly support putting the banners in a drawer: "I think it is helpful to have some organization"; "seems the best option for solving talk page clutter at the present"; "a good way not to clog up talk pages"; etc. I don't care how many are pro-drawer and how many are anti-, but there are obviously some of each casting TfD votes. RossPatterson 04:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What a difference two silly letters make. I meant to say "it appears to me that people do like the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer". I do apologize! You know, sometimes your so rushed to get your opinion up there... Sorry guys! Thanks for pointing that out Ross. --Reaper X 20:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering that the TfD has been written up in this week's issue of the Wikipedia Signpost, I'd say it's pretty well publicized. --El on ka 02:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

As cool as the Signpost is, the majority of editors don't read it regularly. You seem to have missed my point, in that numbers (hello voting) do not always reflect how things are actually turning out. Not only that, but many of the keeps and deletes don't conflict, meaning that someone supported keep and used the same rationale as someone who supported delete. Some editors seem to think the TfD is about if we are going to have the talk pages be bloated or not, rather than it being about which solution we use. I'm finding myself agreeing with a lot of the keeps, and I'm the one who nominated the template in the first place. Specifically going back to what Ross said, many of those supporting keep do not like "the shoving of WikiProject banners in a drawer". -- Ned Scott 03:22, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yup, you're right. Some of the keeps are clearly laissez faire opinions, wanting to maintain the option for others of using a template they themselves would not. That sounds right neighborly to me :-) RossPatterson 04:53, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If you wish I can start posting diffs that show that most don't have any objections to the alternatives, and many strongly prefer them, from both keep and delete supporters. They're not just saying it to be nice. -- Ned Scott 06:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yet another version

This combines the general idea of the current implementation with some of the various suggestions made for linking to the projects in short form. The underlying functionality is done through a template that recognizes banner template names and spits out appropriate project links; the major drawback is that each project must be added to it individually, or it won't get a link. (The possibilities of using this point to keep a check on the proliferation of useless WikiProjects are left as an exercise to the reader.)

Comments? Kirill Lokshin 17:18, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Great. Support this entirely and wholeheartedly. Thanks for making an example that shows what I was finding it hard to put into words. Dekimasu が... 17:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

If I understand this, it requires specifying the title as a parameter separate from the template itself? There must be a way to avoid this, even if it doesn't use the technique demonstrated above. Gimmetrow 21:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The name of the template has to be passed in as a distinct parameter (whether separately, or as part of a broken-up template call) in order to be used in a switch statement; to do otherwise would require a general pattern-matching function, which the devs have said they don't want to do. Kirill Lokshin 21:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

String functions do exist, they just aren't installed on enwiki (and probably won't be). With present technology, I had in mind an option the WP templates would support, title=yes, like the small option. When this parameter is present, the WP templates would generate a link to the project (and possibly, the article importance code). This seems like the more object-oriented approach, but it would probably take a few months to get (most of) the project templates coded. A big monster switch would be implemented faster.

This still doesn't fix my non-javascript issue, and an ultra-light one-line rendering with just the project name and ratings would be nice on dialups. Eventually I'll experiment with the WP:HV template.

If we *must* have the name as a distinct parameter, then could we at least have a fall-through in the switch so projects can "opt-out", get called with a "title=yes" option, and do their own rendering? Gimmetrow 22:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That would still require two parameters, no? The simple link would need to render separately from the main template, so instead of

|1={{WPMILHIST}}
|1_n=WPMILHIST

you'd have

|1={{WPMILHIST}}
|1_n={{WPMILHIST|title=yes}}

which doesn't seem like it would really gain anything (except for a neater handling of redirects).

Another point to consider: the centralized template approach ensures that individual projects don't do anything bizarre with the rendering; leaving each banner to render the link means that we have to deal with whatever it spits out (which may not be the link we're expecting at all) gracefully. Kirill Lokshin 22:52, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

No, the way I'm thinking of it, the code in the talk page would still look something like:

|1=class=B|taskforce=WWII|importance=Mid|peer-review=yes|infobox=good|images=good
|1_n=WPMILHIST

(Assume the syntax for splitting the template this way would work.) All the options would have to be present in the your version anyway. However, for some WP who have an alternate rendering, the switch would call them with {{{{{template}}}|{{{1|}}}|title=yes}}. Otherwise, it would render with the hard-coded link as the switch does currently. Only those projects with this alternate call would have the alternate rendering, nothing bizarre could happen without approval. Does this make sense? For the alternate rendering, I'm basically thinking the project link and a rating code like (B/Mid/WWII). I mostly had in mind the one-line bar versions, and if that doesn't happen, this is probably too much fuss for the benefit. Gimmetrow 23:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Color scheme

There's something else that I asked about a while ago with no response. Could the container background (aside from the header part) be a lighter color so the templates are set off, and it is not one huge block of color? Something in the vicinity of style="background: #ffffe6;" perhaps? Gimmetrow 07:08, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be trivial to change the background, but it would contravene the standards for talk page templates. :-\ Kirill Lokshin 13:47, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What standards do you mean? I'm not aware of prior discussion of the color scheme for container templates. It would help here if the other templates were rendered against a contrasting background, somewhat like this; the top part of the container background would be the standard color. Gimmetrow 15:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page templates still applies regardless of whether it's a container, no? Kirill Lokshin 16:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it indeed does. Raul654 22:45, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the background for the container remains the appropriate color, it's just the background for the cells in which other templates are rendered I want to change. A wikilawyer might say that's not directly addressed by WP:TPT. Gimmetrow 18:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

If the template calls are not going to be split up to allow for small options, is there any reason to have multiple parameters for the templates themselves? The alternate use here doesn't need them; this puts all the templates into one cell, so it also doesn't break up the background color.

A bot could rather easily go through all current instances of the Banners template and add the template names as separate parameters. Gimmetrow 13:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If we're not going to be doing anything clever with each call, then I see no reason why they can't be combined. (In fact, that's precisely what I did for {{WikiProjectBannerShell}}.) Kirill Lokshin 13:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope of this template (Or - Same problem, new form)

I'm concerned about the proliferation of wikiproject and wikiportal related templates. Consider Talk:Asperger syndrome (I don't mean to single it out as being particularly worse than others, but it was the first one I found) It has "This article was selected on the Medicine portal as one of Wikipedia's best articles related to Medicine." So in fact, now we not only have to worry about the project templates themselves, but all of the *daughter* templates they are generating too. Each wikiproject could have potentially dozens of these things. It's the same clutter problem as with the wikiproject templates, only tenfold.

My first preference would be to add these to the list of speedy deletion criteria, and shoot all the ones that already exist. But - although I honestly cannot see how those templates are in any way beneficial and believe that they only serve to clutter talk pages - I suspect that there would be some people who object to this. Therefore, I think it should be made clear that the scope of this template includes these templates. Raul654 19:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

That should really be folded into the WikiProject medicine banner. {{WPMILHIST}} by Kiril is where I learned it from. Maybe we need a WikiProject:WikiProject banners, to co-ordinate the banners and keep an eye on it all. Although that could lead to a this banner falls within the scope of WikiProject:WikiProject banners in the middle of every WikiProject banner. :) Steve block Talk webcomic warrior 20:29, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Hrm, merge them into their parent templates -- that's an even better solution... Raul654 20:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Agree (merge to parent templates). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
  - Doesn't the template have to go to TFD? I would vote merge. Hilarious comments by the way Steve, so true. Quadzilla99 20:41, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
    - No, TFD is not required unless you want to completely remove a file. -- Ned Scott 02:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

If a project maintains a portal, I would have thought it natural that any portal info, like selected article indicators, would be part of the project template. If this isn't stated in a guideline somewhere, it should be. Gimmetrow 21:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Promoting is not the same as commercial advertisement

Whatever we do, it's really starting to bother me that people are trying to make the argument that banners are "evil advertisements". Promoting a collaborative editing space should never be seen as evil by default. Obviously, due to many WikiProjects not being useful, many banners don't end up helping things, but people are confusing the concepts here. It's so easy for people to manipulate how people view this situation by throwing such a hated word as advertisement into the mix. The misconception is getting a little disturbing. If you want to say that most WikiProject banners shouldn't be around I'll not only agree with you, I'll help you take them down and get rid of them (I've reformatted and removed tons of project banners in the past). Even if it really has become the minority for there to be good WikiProjects, please don't be so ridiculous as to make the argument that it's a bad thing to promote editing related efforts and tools on Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 02:28, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll cut and paste my comments from above as Ned obviously must have missed them, also using quote marks when interpreting people (no one said "evil advertisements" that I can see, maybe I missed it even if they did don't pretend one extremist on the subjext represents everybody) serves to discredit your opponenents by making them appear as something different that they are. Please don't resort to tricks and deliberate misinterpretation, thanks. Here's what I said above to another editor:

In addition I'm not sure advertisement is such a hated word like you imply, especially considering how many people own their own business or would like to, and that most people probably understand it's necessary to almost any successful business. However what the banners do, even if no money is exchanging hands, is what is commonly considered advertising even if it doesn't fit the technical definition because no one is being paid to do it. Quadzilla99 14:21, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What the hell are you talking about? I agree with you that you can call them advertisements, and I've even called them that myself, but the context that many people are using is equivocating it to something like commercial advertisement (or maybe you didn't see the topic header). Where do you get off calling my message resorting to tricks and deliberate misinterpretation when I specifically comment on people thinking of them as bad, not just that they're being called ads. You're trying to argue with me on something I don't even disagree with you on.. -- Ned Scott 03:55, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll make it simpler. Your distinction is entirely a value judgement and I haven't seen many people say they hate wikiprojects. The projects serve a good cause but they're templates are what are commonly known as advertising (even if they don't fit the strict dictionary definition) and putting them prominently on talk pages (which are designed for talking) has been disapproved of by many editors, even people like myself who really like wikiprojects. Also no one that I can see brought up the term commercial until you did, even if maybe one person did, is that really worth starting a whole new header? Just to point out some minor clarification? Basically you don't like the banner, your TFD failed, and you're going to comment on your disapproval all over this talk page in a hundred different ways. That's fine just don't go around trying to create new issues over and over again. Quadzilla99 23:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ned please stop deleting my comments from this talk page thanks. Quadzilla99 02:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It's perfectly OK to remove other's comments if they are inappropriate and/ or personal attacks, and yours are both.

My TfD didn't fail at all as something such as one of Kirill's alternatives is now being shown as having a strong consensus. I indicated that was an acceptable outcome in the nomination itself.

Yes, this is simply how I've seen the situation, but I think it's fairly obvious from the TfD that some people do have a great amount of frustration and anger over this.

If used correctly then advertising on the talk page leads directly to significant article improvement. One of the major elements of a WikiProject is a centralized talk page for common elements relating to a group of articles.

This issue needs clarification, as people are clearly getting the wrong idea about if it's ok to promote, rather than what should be promoted and what should not be promoted. -- Ned Scott 03:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention that tagging an inactive talk page because it's inactive can be a good idea so people can find active discussion for what they are seeking. If you have a hundred articles on individual rocks, but want to discuss elements that can relate to more than one article, or no one is active on the current talk page, then a project banner helps people to talk about the articles. -- Ned Scott 03:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with our previous run-ins and it's an ad hominem fallacy to imply they do. I really like the template and you really don't. That is going to put us in conflict as you really seem to want to get rid of it and have spoken out against it on the TFD and here repeatedly. Believe or not I actually really love this template and don't like the small option. If you perceive that I am getting upset or heated with you it's because I like this template and will make forceful arguments in favor of it. As for the actual issue if you want to take a quick glance over WikiProject National Basketball Association I am very active over there but talk pages don't need endless banners for those projects. Besides simple curiosity will lead people to click the Banners, for me it's a simple and perfect solution. Quadzilla99 04:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why else you would be acting so hostile to me, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Saying that this is simply "I don't like the template" is false. Since this is pretty much the same message as your e-mail to me, I'll also just include my e-mail response as well (I was hoping on getting back on topic, but I don't take kindly to such false accusations).

I hope it isn't personal, but again the only thing I hate is how sloppy this template is. I am not trying to defend pointless banners, I'm trying to stop pointless WikiProjects from existing and removing banners that are not needed (or not needed everywhere). It's unfortunate that the number of good banner uses is now the minority, but I seek to protect that minority by preventing them from being lumped into this frustrated response of a template. I can give you examples if you want, but I've nominated many WikiProjects for deletion, tried to discourage some from being started, and helped others get off on the right track. I am interested in real solutions, not sloppy fixes.

Raul654 is specifically putting a spin on this concept of ads to aid in creating a bad image for WikiProject banners. I was hoping to clarify that good use of promotion (that was actually useful and yielded in article improvement) was perfectly fine and should not be shunned. You might want to check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_templates#Talk_page_templates_considered_harmful, especially the example I gave to Ideogram via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WikiProject_DIGI which is a template I've had a big hand in shaping.

Promoting / advertising is not evil or good by default, but people are starting to behave like it is, and I was hoping to have a discussion to clarify that. I'm sorry that I've been a bit short with you, but people continue to make the false assumptions about my motivations no matter how many times I specifically state them. I'm sorry that you do not believe me about my motivations, but you're just acting like an asshole on the template talk page, and all of your comments are just accusations that are false, rather than discussing the topic.

Again, this all seems rather pointless since most seem fine with alternatives and improvements to the template, and people are becoming more active about addressing the core issues. We could have cleaned up the talk pages just as much as we have now, have something you love just as much as this one, but with half the work (updating all those talk pages, avoiding confusion with people who were early adopters of the template). For some reason we didn't go down that path, maybe because many of us (myself included) tend to take a fighting stance on discussions in Wikipedia instead of being a bit more open minded (again, myself included). I doubt I helped "calm" the situation (looking back on it now), but my intentions were pure and had sound reasoning behind my logic. -- Ned Scott 05:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Promoting / advertising is not evil or good by default - incorrect. Every wikiproject tag added to every talk page article detracts from the usefulness of that talk page by cluttering it. As Ideogram has noted, this is a textbook tragedy of the commons scenario. Therefore, steps to mitigate the damage caused by advertising (like this template) and to regulate it (like my above proposal wherein they would be prohibited except on articles that wikirproject had already improved) are essential. Raul654 05:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why you take such an extreme view on this. No, not every Banner is like that. Like I tried to point out on Wikipedia talk:Talk page templates to Ideogram:

"Here's an example of a banner that I've had a big hand in, {{WikiProject DIGI}}. Yes, it's a WikiProject for... Digimon.. But put your fears to rest, the goals of this project is to actually reduce things like fancruft and the hundreds of articles about these mostly non-notable little guys. The banner does a few things, one is that it has a second banner explaining the current mass-merging effort going on in hundreds of articles. Editors are seeing a lot of changes happen and who knows what they'll think of it, jumping to conclusions and getting into revert wars. Adding a notice helps people to understand what's going on and how they can be involved in the discussion. That alone has been a world of help in our merging efforts. Also take note that it's pretty small compared to most banners, using the show button for all those little extras that most banners have at the main level. Clicking show revolves direct links to important guidelines that many of these fly-by-night fan editors won't normally take the time to find themselves. I'd like to know what you think about this template and it's uses. The talk pages this is seen on are pretty clean and free of banner clutter. At most a page will have two banners total (not including that sub-banner), even when sharing an article with another project. These are the kinds of situations I want to defend, and are the kinds of situations I'm not sure everyone is considering. -- Ned Scott 03:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)"

The fact that tags have been placed on inactive talk pages has actually been a huge help to us, since it's unlikely to get a response on one of the hundreds of talk pages WP:DIGI covers. One of the ways I really see WikiProjects helping is with articles that are not watched often and don't get a lot of traffic on, thanks to centralized discussion. Centralized discussion also helps apply logic from one article to others, without having to have the discussion on each and every talk page. These are directly talk page activities.

Most projects don't do it right, I get that, but saying all of them are that way is wrong. -- Ned Scott 05:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

And I actually welcome some form of banner regulation (even to the point of getting a banner approved first). I don't think your criteria would be good, but some type might be. -- Ned Scott 06:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The projects are a resource for an editor who actually wants to improve an article, and having at least a link to that resource seems somewhat helpful. It only really needs to be a link, however - a one-line bar form, or even just a link in the first section of the talk page, might work. Perhaps the full blown template might only be on articles the project has actually improved, or at least considers "high" importance? (Yes, I know the loophole there...) Many talk pages of minor articles have a single edit - to add a project template. Gimmetrow 06:04, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

That would be reasonable to me. I like the idea of making the entire banner nothing more than one line with a show button (or just a link to a welcome page, or "project tools" page). I said before that it would be far more efficient than putting a template inside a template.

Stronger and easier to find/use guidelines would make a world of difference. For example, even if an article can fall under one's scope, a lot of WikiProjects don't know that it would be better to just let an existing project take care of it so that they can take care of articles with no WikiProject. A great many WikiProjects have lost sight of why they put articles under one's scope. For example, article assessments with multiple WikiProjects is just down right stupid. Why are we doing the same thing twice, three times, or even four? The whole point behind WP:1.0's work-via-WikiProject idea was to be efficient and to cover a lot of ground. Remember, we have no guidelines for this, so it's hard to fault the WikiProjects for doing something they didn't know they shouldn't be doing. -- Ned Scott 06:12, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The original tragedy of the commons involved farmers taking their cows to graze in a publicly-owned field. The field didn't belong to any one of them, but to all of them, so they didn't really care if they over-grazed their cattle there. Soon enough, the field became trashed, from over-grazing. All the grass died or was eaten, and no more grass would go there. The farmers then had to find somewhere else to graze their cattle.

The reason I mention this is that it directly relates to your question. The template you just described has *a LOT* of functionality hidden. So anyone loading talk pages sporting that template will have to load a bunch of wikiproject-related cruft that 99.9% of them don't care about. So, 1 person in 1000 benefits, whereas the other 999 experience longer loading times for no good reason. This is NOT a good thing. This is a very, very bad thing.

But that's not the worst of it. What happens when, like the farmers in the parable, everybody starts doing this? I know we already have at least one bot running around tagging tons of articles with wikiproject tags. So tell me - what happens when we have 30 or 40 on a talk page? Yes, as you said, those talk pages are empty - FOR NOW. They are not likely to remain that way.

There's an old saying - "No raindrop believes that he is responsible for the flood" I believe that saying is apt, in this case. No individual person on any wikiproject believes he is responsible for making talk pages useless, but that is EXACTLY what is happening. Raul654 06:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Except that none of the talk pages under the scope of WP:DIGI have this issue, and WP:DIGI has seen significant help because of those banners. I've taken the banner off of many voice actor talk pages, because they're voice actors and they're in tons of shows. You're saying that this is not stoppable, that it will only continue. We haven't even tried to stop this, so where do you get off saying that? I'm sorry this has become an issue on many talk pages, but there are also many other pages where this isn't an issue. Your solution, to "hide" the banners doesn't do anything to stop the problem, and many times makes more white space than alternative ideas, such as shared banners, task forces, or the small option. Many projects are being merged into parent projects left and right, while others are going to WP:MFD. All we need now is to make stronger guidelines to prevent bad projects from starting in the first place. Even Ideogram saw value in my example, yet you just ignore it and assume it's no better than the rest, with no evidence of that being so. -- Ned Scott 06:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Except that none of the talk pages under the scope of WP:DIGI have this issue ... yet. On other other hand, virtually all of our heavily trafficked core articles are overbloated with tags from wikiprojects that have never done a thing to improve them, and the problem is spreading.

and WP:DIGI has seen significant help because of those banners. - just to reiterate two comments I made above that nobody has actually yet answered - (a) Wikiprojects are not an end unto themselves. Their purpose is to improve articles. (b) Is there any evidence that wikiprojects are improving articles? As judged by featured article production, the answer for all but a handful is no.

I've taken the banner off of many voice actor talk pages, because they're voice actors and they're in tons of shows. Ok, so you are removing them, while hundreds of other wikproject-pushers (plus at least one bot) are adding them. As time goes on, are we going to end up with a greater or fewer number of wikiproject tags?

You're saying that this [tagging of articles with wikiproject tags] is not stoppable, that it will only continue. - In the absence of rules prohibiting gratitious tagging, all evidence to date suggests this trend will continue unabated.

We haven't even tried to stop this, so where do you get off saying that? - As I said on the TFD, I welcome any attempt to turn back the clock on wikiprojects and get rid of the damn things en masse. But as Haikur said, I don't think this is has a realistic chance of success. The best we can do now is minimize the damage they do.

I'm sorry this has become an issue on many talk pages, but there are also many other pages where this isn't an issue. It's already an issue on all our core articles, and the problem is quickly spreading. So, it would be more precise to say that there are many pages on which this isn't a problem - yet.

Your solution, to "hide" the banners doesn't do anything to stop the problem - incorrect. The multi-project template is scalable to any number of wikiprojects on a talk page, and shortens the apparent loading time of a page. It's not a perfect solution (as I have indicated elsewhere on this talk page, I can think of at least two superior solutions - (a) create a rule requiring a wikiproject to improve an article substantially before tagging it, or (b) Make a multi-project template that displays only the name of the wikiproject. Both of these still have scalability issues, but they attack the problem more directly)

and many times makes more white space than alternative ideas, such as shared banners [WP:TASKFORCE|task forces]], or the small option. - This template (on firefox using the default font magnification) measures 599 by 51 pixels, for a total area of 30549 square pixels. For comparison, I went to today's featured article, and measured the WikiProject India (with small=yes). It occupies 229x152 pixels, for a total area of 34808 square pixels. I will presume this to be the average area for a wikiproject template. Therefore, even if a talk page has only one wikiproject template, this template still saves screen space. And the savings go up for each addition project on that talk page.

Many projects are being merged into parent projects left and right, while others are going to WP:MFD. - while at the same time, even greater numbers of wikiprojects are being created to replace them. Every day, we have more projects than we did yesterday. And there is, to date, no evidence that this trend will cease.

All we need now is to make stronger guidelines to prevent bad projects from starting in the first place. - I don't really know what you mean by "bad" wikiprojects. As I said above, I don't really see a downside to having inactive or specialized wikiprojects, as long as they are not being advertised. There is no shortage of space for wikiproject pages; there is a shortage of space on article talk pages. I will, however, support anything that reduces talk page clutter. Raul654 07:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wait a second, you are clearly missing the point in that many banners are not incorrectly added. I gave you an example of a banner that is being correctly used to counter your argument that it is always a problem, and in response you bring up some other template.. what? Talk:Ahmedabad is rather clutter free with only two banners, one project and one the ArticleHistory template, and with a TOC would take up less white space than this template (less scrolling to get to the discussions, nothing wasted). I hardly see that talk page as supporting your point at all. Even then, we can still make templates smaller, enforce strong guidelines if we have to, and yield better results than this sloppy solution. You seem to make the argument that there is a problem, guess what, we don't disagree on that. We disagree on how to handle the problem. I'm sorry for having a little more faith in Wikipedians (who haven't even been given a chance to reform their projects) than a jaded long time user such as yourself. -- Ned Scott 07:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'll just mention again that I usually browse without javascript, so this container template does absolutely nothing for me, rather it makes the talk pages worse. It also doesn't really help the load times for the 999. If we could get most of the templates down to a one-line bar form, with no javascript widgets, the 999 would benefit a lot. Doesn't take long to download a single link with some rating codes and a border. Gimmetrow 06:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I would support something similiar to Kirill's other template, sans the show button. That is, it has a pure-text listing of all wikiprojects that claim that article, with links to their project pages, displayed by default, and nothing else. It would be small, scalable, usable by non-java users, and significantly reduce load times for everyone. Raul654 06:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

A good banner shouldn't take up any more than a small discussion, which is hardly significant. I can, however, see the concerns for non-java users, which is why I can see linking to a whole other sub-page or just linking to the project as an acceptable alternative. Nothing but the title is over the top, though. I would see "one line" as perfectly acceptable. -- Ned Scott 06:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, no, I don't think it's fair to blame the good banner because five bad banners were also added. If someone adds a good link in an article, and someone comes along and adds a bunch of bad ones, do you blame both editors for the condition for the article? -- Ned Scott 06:56, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It would also gut the functionality of these templates, which I consider to be categorically unacceptable. (You do still remember that initial discussion you so conveniently archived away, yes?) Kirill Lokshin 13:25, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Option 14 would be acceptable to me anything larger than that would defeat the purpose of the template in my opinion. Quadzilla99 16:14, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "WikiProject Banners"

If anyone is interested I have proposed "WikiProject Banners", a WikiProject to set standards for, and help projects with, WikiProject banners at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals.— miketm - Queen WikiProject - 11:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Breaks nested collapsed table

Using this template breaks nested collapsed tables. An example of this can be seen in Talk:Go (board game), where a template was modified to use a collapsed table to work around a problem with NavFrame. A general problem with nested collapsible tables, so it probably can't be fixed in this template. YooChung 08:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another issue to be aware of

User:Kingboyk has reported a problem with this template and his AWB plugin. I've also noticed an issue with templates within templates using the pywiki library. I suspect many codes were written without considering nested templates in the actual wikitext. Gimmetrow 21:06, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm reading it wrong (Kingboyk doesn't really say specifically what happens when pages with the banner are edited), this will just involve users putting some banners up outside the WikiProjectBanners template, at which point they would be likely to be moved inside the banner by other editors. It seems like a minor nuisance more than a problem. Am I misunderstanding the situation? Dekimasu よ! 01:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, in the pywiki situation, a template inside another template was not recognized, so a new one was added rather than the old one modified. Gimmetrow 02:16, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

My plugin searches for templates using regular expressions, it doesn't actually parse the page like - say - Mediawiki does, so it doesn't matter to the plugin where exactly it finds a target template. So, rather than the pywiki problem I would anticipate only the problem Dekimasu describes. That was indeed what I was referring to - my plugin placing new templates outside the container or moving existing templates outside it. (The latter should only happen with WPBiography. My plugin always puts existing templates back where it found them, except {{WPBiography}} which it moves to the top if it has living=yes. The only other changes to page layout it does are putting {{talkheader}} (yuk) and {{skiptotoctalk}} to the top).

I'm hoping that version 2 of my plugin will recognise and create these container templates or, better still, that AWB will do it. On this note please see this thread: Template_talk:WikiProjectBannerShell#Why_two.3F --kingboyk 13:20, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../w/i/k/Template_talk%7EWikiProjectBanners_a662.html"