Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Cleanup

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# 2005 - 2006

Contents 1 Capitalization Tag 2 Proposed template: technical jargon 3 Lead 4 Overhaul 5 List 6 Template proposal: Math 7 Cleanup of the templates 8 Template proposal: Redundancy 9 Template for obscure time references? 10 Template proposal 11 Cleanup of specific subjects 12 Minor glitch 13 "list templates" category 14 subpages 15 Proposed policy: Keep cleanup tags on talk pages 15.1 Revisiting: Where should cleanup tags be placed? 16 Req Photo Tag 17 orphaned category 18 cleanup of cleanup templates 19 "All-purpose" cleanup template proposal 20 SUGGESTION: "Remove unneccesary images" template 21 Tech-term-ambig 22 WP:DPP doc pages needed 23 New plot summary tag 24 proposed article size template? 25 new template- is this useful? should it be added here? 26 Requested addition of cleanup template 27 Tried to cleanup the categories on this page 28 Use of icons 29 Why can't tags say either section or article? 30 TOC 31 pointer to vandalism cleanup tags 32 On the surface "This article or section reads like a review" is not clear to template user or viewer 33 Add "This article is written like a term paper" 34 Wikipedia:Template standardisation 35 In-line template for citations broken 36 The whereisit description looks butchered 37 Add {{Confusing|date=March 2008}} tag? 38 Suggestion: image/map/diagram fix tag 39 Proposal - "Selection criteria" tag 40 {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} pairs 41 Template Suggestion 42 Reorganization/restructuring 43 Need "remainder of section needs cleanup" template 44 Inline version of off-topic template has been created 45 Templates out of hand 46 Templates linking to pages which should not be read 47 Template:Memorial 48 Undue weight? 49 Overlinked 50 This article or section 51 Wikipedia bug? 52 This empire has grown like topsy 53 Template for lists that need ordering? 54 What template to use for see also that's too long? 55 What template to denote edit warring?

[edit] Capitalization Tag

I think we need a tag for poor capitalization. This is a major problem in many articles about Japanese (and perhaps other countries') popular culture where names have unconventional capitalization. The problem arises because contributors think that the 'official' capitalization of an album/band/single name etc. should run through the whole document in opposition to Wikipedia's guidelines on style. It's particular annoying to read whole articles filled with all-caps etc. I think in this case it makes more sense just to target the capitalization rather than the punctuation/style in general because that is usually the major problem and I can see a more general approach resulting in a comma or two being fixed and the message being deleted.

L'Arc~en~Ciel is a good example.

Macgruder 17:23, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you can feel free to be bold and create one, perhaps also specific to the particular kinds of (Japanese-related?) capitalization problems you are encountering. -- Lea (talk) 04:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed template: technical jargon

I'd like to see a simple template to use when an author has used a technical term without defining it. See Romic alphabet and its use of the term "glossic transcription". {{buzzword}} implies that the article is loaded with lots of buzzwords, which may not always be the case. We need something for the isolated term.

Suggested format: {{Techterm|term}} Suggested text, using a purple box and the 40pxInformation icon:

This article uses the technical term "term" without defining it. Please rewrite this article to make it more accessible to a general audience and comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. See Wikipedia:Explain_jargon.

--Cbdorsett 09:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

All that over a little bit of text seems a bit specialized and unnecessary. How often does that happen, anyway? Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 22:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I endorse this proposal. This sort of problem occurs frequently in technical articles (such as those concerning sound editing and production). It's extremely hard to read, much less edit, an article when you don't know what it's saying and therefore don't know what it should say.

One of the fundamental tenets of a good dictionary is that every word used within the dictionary is also defined within the dictionary. While Wikipedia is obviously not a dictionary, it does purport to be an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is by definition a generalist reference work, targeted to a generalist audience. Terms that are not otherwise accessible should be defined either within the body of the article or with a link to a relevant article. I'm definitely not in favor of "dumbing down" the Wikipedia, but it's pointless to include a technical article targeted to a technical audience if it's not understandable to the public at large. -- Nonstopdrivel 21:30, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lead

Is there a template to suggest that a page should revise its introduction or add one in accordance with WP:LEAD. Please respond to my talk page. TonyTheTiger 16:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Using the talkpage of the article is an option instead of using templates. --Van helsing 20:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, obviously, Van. The templates themselves often advise or require talk page comments. Still, your commentr is a general denouncement, not an answer. I'd say there probably aren't any templates like that. I've never seen one. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 20:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You’re right there Ace. But, in general I think we should avoid creating templates for every little issue and litter an article with it. People tend to avoid talking about their concerns when there’s a convenient template available, even when a template refers to the talkpage. Still, I agree it probably wasn’t the response TonyTheTiger was looking for. --Van helsing 22:32, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I would posit that tags unsupported by discussion in the Talk page should be summarily dismissed. There's too much temptation for vandalism. --Nonstopdrivel 21:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As I replied at his talkpage, See the first 4 template links in Category:Wikipedia introduction cleanup. I've added them to the list already. --Quiddity 21:05, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Still, none of that actually applies to creating an intro. Ace Class Shadow; My talk. 21:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Overhaul

I've just finished re-structuring this page, so that the various cleanup templates are divided into sections based on their purpose/topic/etc. That will hopefully make it much easier to find the specific template one is looking for. I've also added some intro text (with links) to many of the sections, in an attempt to provide some context for the new user. Can we remove the {{cleanup-restructure}} template from this project page now? Comments, commendations, and condemnations are all welcome. —DragonHawk (talk) 08:47, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks great, much thanks :) --Quiddity 09:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Seeing no disagreement, and as the page appears to be in good shape, I'm going to remove the {{cleanup-restructure}} template. NickdelaG

[edit] List

I created this list iof templates and their category for a WP:LGBT automated to-do list, but thought other people may wish to use it:

Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template proposal: Math

What about a template noting that there are mathematic formulas or calculations that need to be formatted properly? --LakeHMM 05:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup of the templates

What's with the total lack of standardisation?! The variety of images, colours and wording across the templates is very confusing, which is especially bad since these are supposed to be placed in the article namespace. Can we suggest a few standards? Jack · talk · 14:07, Sunday, 25 February 2007

[edit] Template proposal: Redundancy

There really should be a template message for articles where a lot of the text is repetitive or redundant. An example of this problem is the current article on Goliathus (Goliath beetle) where virtually the same litany of facts is stated in the first part of the article and repeated in a different order in the second part. I have no experience making templates (does it require administrative approval?), but if it is possible I would be glad to design such a template myself. InnocuousPseudonym 04:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template for obscure time references?

Is there a template for relative time references such as "yesterday", "last year", "X years ago," "recently," etc. that seem as if "today" was the current date used as a reference? Squids'and'Chips 00:09, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template proposal

I would like to propose the following template:

This idea came out of a discussion about Proprioception on that articles talk page. I think that it would be a useful alternative to {{Disputed}}, where the facts aren't wrong per se, but the theme of the article seems to miss the point. Also, it could be useful when the wording of an article is such that the statements in the article may be true, but they might lead the casual reader to interpret them in a way that is not. --Selket ^Talk 18:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Hearing no objection, I'm going to go ahead and add this one. --Selket ^Talk 17:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup of specific subjects

Are these really necessary? Would it be impossible to use the more generic cleanup templates instead of these? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.146.115.227 (talk • contribs)

How is this supposed to work? The cleanup-section template (for example) prints "and/or replace this tag with a more specific message", but the link to Cleanup#Cleanup_.E2.80.94_specific_issues doesn't go anywhere. Does "more specific message" mean using a more specific tag (cleanup-section instead of cleanup), or is there a parameter like date that lets an editor say specifically how the page / section / whatever needs to be cleaned up? (Obviously this can go in the talk page.) Lumpish Scholar 13:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems the problem lies in the redirect page. Checking the history it used to redirect to Wikipedia:Cleanup but was changed to cleanliness and back and forth to Wikipedia:Cleanup resources. Currently it points to cleanliness which as you said is pretty useless. The templates probably need to be changed to point directly to Wikipedia:Cleanup resources instead. I think the general idea of the message itself is to get people to mark what kinds of cleanup need to be done (wikify, rewrite, whatever) rather than the general tag. Hope that answers your question, maybe someone more familiar with the templates in question will fix them, or we could just change the redirect, again. Stardust8212 13:28, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor glitch

The "citations missing" template shows up on most pages as this:

"This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes." (and so on)

However, here on this page, it shows up as this:

"This is missing citations and/or footnotes." (etc.)

Any clues why? Maybe it's linked to an older version, somehow... I checked the Wiki code there and can't think of anything else. Kennard2 01:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "list templates" category

This article is appropriate for categorization in category:list templates because this article has list cleanup templates. Duh. There should be a way to have a master (template?) list cleanup template list that only has those templates on it, so the entire wikipedia:template messages/cleanup article doesn't have to be included in the "list templates' category. -Eep² 10:52, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

No it isn't, because the category itself says it isn't allowed, as I quoted to you. If you want to change that, first edit the category to remove that text. Otherwise we are contradicting ourselves. As for the other issue, this page should probably be split up anyway.—greenrd 11:19, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] subpages

These template message lists are getting too long. They should be split up into even more subpages. See Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages#subpages for main discussion -Eep² 16:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed policy: Keep cleanup tags on talk pages

I'm proposing a policy [1] saying that "cleanup" messages should be on talk pages, not in the article itself. Your thoughts are welcome. --PeR 07:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I think they should be left on the page itself. First off it lets the reader now that there are issues with the article. Secondly, it means that the shortcomings of the article are more likely to be dealt with as the main contributers know that the 'weaknesses' of the article are in a very visible place. Put that stuff on the talk page and people are less likely to deal with it in my opinion. Macgruder 09:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Just for information, there's currently a backlog of over 24 000 pages marked for "cleanup". I don't think it's possible for people to be any less likely to deal with it. --PeR 05:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

24,000 out of 1,775,000 . About 1.35%. That seems a good number. Macgruder 08:40, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

This was discussed recently on WP:VP, but I didn't see the end result. Did anyone else see it? They archive and move that stuff too quickly. Timneu22 15:12, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revisiting: Where should cleanup tags be placed?

I have been influenced by an essay I read about eight or nine months ago, and would like anyone responding to my comments here to read it before responding to me. I believe, as does the writer (who makes his case better than I can) of this essay, that those of us who edit Wikipedia are so wrapped up in our role as editors that we sometimes forget about the fact that most people who visit our pages are readers, not editors. They come here to be informed, and they are, by and large, not interested in our editing policies and practices. But we are so vain that we continue to plant tags and templates on the top of articles that are of no use to our readers, and may actually distract them—or worse, turn them off—from reading Wikipedia. Now some tags may be unavoidably necessary. A warning, if it is genuine, on severe POV problems may be necessary to warn a reader before he begins reading. But a semi-protection warning is irrelevant to the reader of our articles. That's why someone got smart and created the little padlock icon to use instead. It was a recognition that the SP tag was not something that readers needed to see. Along the same lines, one editor, User:Notmyhandle, made a small cleanup icon, which I think is a great idea. But as much as I like it, I suspect most people who hang out on this page will say that we need something bigger.

So what I'm asking for, is that we consider whether or not cleanup templates at the top really serve the interest of our readers. I do not think so. I think the argument that it is more likely that they will get cleaned up is disproved by the geometric growth of such templates. We have gone tag-template crazy, and some decent articles will still have three large tags at the top, "warning" readers who would be nuts to continue reading past these signs. Okay, okay, maybe they are needed (though the cleanup tags are, in my opinion, overused). But why can't we put them on the talk page, or maybe at the bottom of the article? In this way, editors who cruise the cleanup pages will still be able to easily identify them, but readers will not have to endure them. I think to do otherwise is to place our own Wiki-world above the real-world needs of readers.

I think that this is worth discussing. I don't believe (as I did a few months ago) that there should be one rule for every tag and every situation. But I think, at the very least, that an editor ought to be able to know that our policy will at least allow him or her to use his or her judgement to place such tags at the bottom of the article, if they think that the reader will not suffer for it. I've already seen that many editors are doing this (perhaps influenced by the above-mentioned essay, though that speculation is groundless). Can't we at least make the tag location optional? Unschool 03:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe the tags can serve a useful purpose but I feel they are far to prominent at present. Moving them to the discussion page is probably too drastic but I think they should be moved to the bottom of the article and minimised by default to one line or less with a button to expand it if the reader is interested. Only serious warnings to the readers should be at the top. Serious means warnings about bias, not notes that the article doesn't follow our house style. Filceolaire 21:02, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I too think that the "article message boxes" are far to visible and disturbing. I would prefer that most of them go on the talk page. But since I bet that will never happen I like what Filceolaire suggested, putting them on the bottom of the page just like the stub notices. And making them thinner (just one row of text) or have a hide/show button on them. And with a link to further explanation. The hide/show button technology is already readily available and currently used in navboxes. Those buttons have the nifty feature that if only one box is there it shows, but if there are several they collapse. I know how to code/use that stuff so if you are interested I can code up a demo.

--David Göthberg 13:32, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Req Photo Tag

I'd like to know what to do about the req photo tag. I've delt with admins on this. On the tags talk page itself the issue is there but unsettled. I have had admins agree with me and others not. I have some removing the tags with it and without it (? those really confuse me) on the articles talk page. I do not see a policy/rule anywhere saying the request photo tag can be on the article page or one saying only for the talk page. I like what Macgruder said above for reasons why it should be on the article page. Nothing to get in a huff over but to make edits on Friday and come back on monday and find all your dozen or so req photo tags deleted for no stated reason is really annoying (all by the same admin no reason listed.)--Xiahou 22:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] orphaned category

I created an orphaned category template. -Eep² 22:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup of cleanup templates

This article is particularly badly sectioned. The "Plain old editing" and "General cleanup" sections could be merged. The "Lists" section conflicts with Wikipedia:Template messages/Lists; the way the templates are sorted now isn't consistent since there are list templates in this article as well as a separate page just for lists (which doesn't include list cleanup templates)--it's just badly organized. There are a few different ways to sort all of these template messages: page type (article, category), namespace type (user, article, category, template, image, etc), page element (intro, main article, specific section, lists, external links, etc), and then kind of the way it is now but with better sorting--it's like in The Sims where objects can be sorted by room (kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc) or type (appliances, electronics, etc); location (form) vs. function. Wiki templates should be sorted similiarly, with the same template on different lists, relative to the location/function, I believe. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 07:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree.... I found the sections, as accessed from the TOC, to be pretty intuitive and clear. YMMV. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 16:17, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Yea, well, I don't. Not everyone thinks/classifies the same way, and I'm just trying to appease multiple classification schemes. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 14:55, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "All-purpose" cleanup template proposal

I don't know if this idea has been discussed before, but it seems to me that the number of cleanup templates is growing to a point where it diminishes their usefulness.

For instance, consider a long, but very poorly-written article.

• An editor could just add {{cleanup}}, or a similar template, but it says right there to try and be as specific as possible.
• It needs grammar and spelling help, but the style, cohesion and tone are OK - thus, {{grammar}} and {{spelling}} are added, not {{copyedit}}.
• An unstructured timeline is also present in the article - {{proseline}} gets added, too.
• None of this mess is referenced, so {{unreferenced}} finds a home as well.
• Etc, etc, etc, until the number or variety of applicable templates is so great that nothing is actually done.

Many of you may say, "not many articles are actually like this", but I just finished editing one; it was three pages long and included a lot of good, but poorly-presented, information. I could have added five or six cleanup templates to the thing. We need a way to display exactly what's wrong with the article, without displaying any unneeded criticism.

Therefore, I'm looking for input on the idea and help constructing an "all-purpose" cleanup template. I'm thinking the description page could look a lot like Wikipedia:Template messages, but without the template images. This template would include dozens of optional parameters, each corresponding to one particular problem that is right now represented by a whole template. The editor adding this "all-purpose" template to an article would simply choose the applicable parameters, just like s/he would choose templates right now - the difference is that the problems would be displayed in one template rather than cluttering the page with multiple images.

Thus, the aforementioned article might receive template code as follows: {{allpurposecleanup|grammar=yes|spelling=yes|proseline=yes|unreferenced = {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}

Then one template image would be displayed on the article, reading something like, "Multiple problems have been identified in this article." This would be followed by a bulleted (or otherwise) list determined by the parameters provided, e.g.:

• This article needs a spellcheck
• The grammar of this article should be corrected
• An unstructured timeline is present in this article
• This article does not cite any sources or references.

In summary: This template would relieve cleanup-template crowding by concentrating all cleanup messages into one concise and easily-navigable template. It would also clarify all template messages by including all messages that are needed, and none that aren't.

Whatcha think? PaladinWhite 00:28, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is potentially a good idea - multiple templates tend to clutter the article page, and this would certainly resolve that. I can't think of any major problems from a theoretical standpoint (although perhaps there are some WYSIWYG concerns with regard to use of the templates and their effect on editing the article) - are there any technical concerns that might need to be resolved? Carom 05:00, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a brilliant idea. The very core idea of template is to avoid repeating the same thing. Yet, this template explosion is exactly that. Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup illustrates the problem and is a good starting point. There are a few implementation detail questions I'd like to raise

• In icon at all? Editor-overridable icon? One or many?
• What will be the fate of the existing templates? Deletion? Transcluding the all-purpose template?
• What about the templates on Wikipedias of other languages? Notify the ambassadors?
• Shorter name than "allpurposecleanup"?

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:21, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a great idea. We use a similar multi-purpose template for {{WPAVIATION}} with a large number of parameters and multiple features, which eliminated the large number of sub-project templates. Dhaluza 02:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SUGGESTION: "Remove unneccesary images" template

I suggest that we create a template which can be added to articles that are cluttered with an incredible amount of image.

example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Browser_wars

...I don't really know what images could be considered important there, but i can tell there are too many for the current article structure. A template for that would be a good thing in my opinion.

Tehniobium 12:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tech-term-ambig

On my wish list:

Reasons soon... Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 08:41, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

My reason: especially in computer science multiple meanings are wide-spread, the most commonly known example is between the programmers and the program marketers, causing mutual despise. For a fresh example see Talk:Text file, where a pretty harmonical discussion (except my hysteria) on term ambiguity occurs. When I saw the article on List (computing) and saw that LISP lists (which technically are pair trees) are confused with lists in general (a generic term on data arrays - approximately - with varying meanings), I saw the need of the template. May I?? Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:01, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

It would belong to Contradiction and confusion. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 09:04, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I made a search among the template categories and found the nearest template to be Template:Contradict, but it doesn't refer to amboiguous definitions causing the contradiction. Said: Rursus ☺ ★ 13:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:DPP doc pages needed

I just noticed a database lag situation that occurs because the templates are cross-included by (mostly, I'd infer) all referencing as a see also Wikipedia talk:Template messages/Cleanup. Since that page includes each template, updating the one causes an impact on all pages having cleanup templates. This line and such notes need to be in /doc pages insulated by a noinclude block wall. // FrankB 16:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New plot summary tag

Hello. I'd like to recommend that a new plot summary tag be added for nonfiction works like documentaries. I ran across this plot summary for Michael Moore's Sicko: [2]. I was going to tag it with the plot summary tag, but then noticed that the tag only references fiction works. I don't know how to make or add tags, so could someone with more experience consider adding this? Thanks. Citadel18080 02:36, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] proposed article size template?

I might be missing it, or might be proposing, but I think we need an article size tag. This would recommend trimming article size, by copy-editing and/or forking pages. Objections? Support? Already exists?--Cerejota 11:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

We do have {{verylong}} already, which seems to do what you're looking for. Calliopejen1 12:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new template- is this useful? should it be added here?

I just made {{primary source claim}} to stick in an article I'm cleaning up. Should this be added here? Does this already exist elsewhere? Calliopejen1 11:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested addition of cleanup template

• Template - {{non-free}}
• Associated category - Category:Articles with improper non-free content
• Wikipedia policy - Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria
• Section in which to add - Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup#Potentially unwanted content

Reasoning. The reason I'm proposing this cleanup template is that we currently have many templates to call attention to problems with specific images, but none to call attention to problematic uses of images in particular articles. A copyrighted image may be perfectly acceptable in one usage, but not in another. Some examples:

1. An article about an actor with copyrighted screen captures of him in movie roles, being used to show what the actor looks like. (Example: Screenshots of James Bond films being used to illustrate the appearance of Sean Connery.) The images are fine under fair use to depict the fictional character, but not the actor. (Probably violation of WP:NFCC#1.)
2. An article on a comic book character that contains 20 non-free images showing his appearances, where 2 or 3 would do the job just fine. Each individual image would be all right under fair use, but the aggregation is far more than is necessary for the article. (Violation of WP:NFCC#3a.)
3. An article about a song containing screen captures of the song's video, solely showing the person singing. The screen captures don't increase the reader's understanding in a way words can't. (WP:NFCC#8.)
4. An article about a music style that contains a gallery of album covers to illustrate discussion of the genre. The album cover images all have fair use rationales for their uses in articles about the particular albums, but most don't have rationales for use in this particular genre article. (WP:NFCC#10c).

Not a lot of Wikipedians are expert enough on our non-free content policy to perform cleanup on articles themselves, but it would definitely help if others could add this tag to articles which seem problematic. If nothing else, it will point editors toward the relevant policies. Also, categorizing these articles allows actual image policy experts to review them and determine whether or not there really is a problem. Videmus Omnia ^Talk 06:05, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tried to cleanup the categories on this page

I fixed as many of the templates on this page as I could, I replaced all the [[Category:..]] without {{{category|...}} around them on all the templates that weren't fully protected. Gudeldar 18:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of icons

I recently added an icon to {{unreferenced}}; another user reverted it, and after some back-and-forth I think it would be a good idea to try to hammer out a quasi-official policy on the use of images in cleanup templates. --bdesham ★ 18:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll start. I think that icons should be included in all of the full-sized cleanup templates. As long as they are formatted properly, they don't change the size of the template, so that's not a valid complaint. I think that the instant recognition afforded by icons is very important and useful to editors—consider how hard it would be to tell apart all of these templates if they had no icons. Since the colors, size, and formatting are already standardized, the icons are really the only way to differentiate them quickly. --bdesham ★ 18:36, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

For me, I never look at the icons, I look at the text. If people don't want an icon on template:unreferenced (admittedly I am one of them), fine. Garion96 (talk) 18:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

There is a long history of editors suggesting and not finding consensus for adding an icon to {{unreferenced}} you tried and did not find consensus on the talk page, and now you have moved the conversation away from the talk page of the template you want to modify in another attempt. When you still fail to find consensus then what, take it to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)? Jeepday (talk) 02:31, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I moved the discussion because people were claiming at Template talk:Unreferenced that the discussions on that page somehow applied to all other cleanup templates. It seemed that this would be a much more appropriate place to have that discussion, since more people are likely to see it here and we could potentially develop a policy to apply to all of the templates. I don't believe that a discussion on one template's talk page can validly be construed to apply to all of those other templates. --bdesham ★ 04:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that icons are generally a good thing and should be used in most cases. I also like the idea of a standardised style for each of the various template classes (in this case those for cleanup). However I have to say that the new icon is, to my eyes at least, quite at odds with the general WP iconset. Perhaps a general redesign might be worth thinking about, but at the moment the contrast between the highly graphical style of most existing icons, and the rather busier Image:Text document with red question mark.svg is something which doesn't really look terribly professional.

Having said that, I don't necessarily dislike the new icon (though I think the '?' could do with being bolder/larger). I'd certainly be interested in seeing any proposals for developing this new style to create a general theme, but piecemeal replacement of one or two icons at the expense of WP's present graphical coherence doesn't seem the best step forward.

Xdamr^talk 00:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I designed the icon you mention. I honestly never considered that Wikipedia has a consistent icon theme… looking at Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup gives a ton of different types. No offense intended, but I don't think that there's any "graphical coherence" at the moment. Even within the citation templates: since I changed them all to use my icon, two templates have been changed to use different "question mark" icons, so that there are now three being used within that section alone.

I'm not complaining about my icon being removed, but the use of three different icons for the same thing is ludicrous. I would be more than willing to participate in discussions about a unified icon set. A good starting place would be an existing icon set; I'm partial to the Tango icons, as they're SVG and there are already a number of "standard" icons there. Anyone else interested in laying down some guidelines and/or actual graphics? --bdesham ★ 02:21, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, claiming there is blanket 'graphical coherence' is was probably a bit much - better to say that there is a generally coherent iconset out there, but that it is often not observed. Essentially it boils down to piecemeal, isolated changes to individual templates, when really we ought to have the big picture in mind. I too would happily contribute to a wider discussion on this issue, though my talents are less on the graphical side and lie more with criticising from the sidelines :) (Actually I know my way around Photoshop fairly well, but I have little familiarity with the field of vector graphics.)

As an interim measure, pending a full discussion, perhaps it might be a good thing to go around and re-impose some stylistic order using some of the existing icons?

Xdamr^talk 15:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe start by making a list of template types that might be appropriate for the same icon. Then work towards a standard icon by category. I would hesitate to attempt to mandate an icon that must be used, but a standard for icons if one is used could be helpful. Templates like {{fact}} are not currently appropriate for an icon, others like {{clean up}} have an attractive and communicative icon. No offense intended to you Bdesham but every couple of months someone plays around with some photo tool makes a new icon, or finds a new icons and then decides it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Next they run around to every unprotected template and add their new icon without reading any of the talk page comments on the last similar attempts, or even seeking consensus before making the change. While it is good to be WP:BOLD in general, bold actions on templates can impact tens of thousands of articles at once and tend to bring less then warm receptions. Jeepday (talk) 15:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I see that now ;-) and no offense taken. My objectives in changing all the templates were to (1) use a more specific icon ("information i" vs. red question mark) on the templates that already used icons, and (2) add icons to the rest for consistency. Clearly there wasn't a very warm reception to my changes; I feel, though, that there should be a definite policy on this, instead of asking users to look at e.g. thirteen different talk pages. (Another thing we should consider is whether or not we really need 13 templates related to verifiability issues; there is a lot of redundancy in those templates.) Anyway, I look forward to helping with some kind of policy on this. --bdesham ★ 18:57, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that trying to build a policy on icons could be helpful to wikipedia. It would as you point out provide a primary location to address concerns and to point to for direction. I would strongly recommend not including discussion on combining templates in a discussion about icons. If you would like to take the lead on developing a policy I would be supportive of generating a policy, though you and I may have differing opinions on what that policy should be. I am still absorbing my recent experiences with a new policy attempt at Wikipedia:Requests for verification and am not ready to take the lead on something new currently. Of note you may notice that other then the immediate responses to your changes, only you and I have paid more then a passing notice of this topic. That could either mean that there is no significant interest in a policy about icon usage or that the has been a lengthy and failed discussion. I would suggest more research before considering the attempt. Jeepday (talk) 15:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Just noticed a similar string starting at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Template standardisation Jeepday (talk) 15:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Tango and SVG: This is just a note to concur with those who expressed a preference for Tango and SVG as part of a sound design strategy for standardizing template appearance. I have been doing something similar with WP articles, please take a quick look at User:Dreftymac/Docs/ImageDisclaimer#ImageNode_series. dr.ef.tymac 16:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't SVG cause problems with transparency on IE browsers, since it's converted to PNG by MediaWiki, and IE (pre 7.0) doesn't handle PNG transparency correctly?--Father Goose 18:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why can't tags say either section or article?

Some tags allow you to specify if they are used for the whole article (with '|article') or just a section but many (most?) don't. Is it possible to alter them to specify it?--Svetovid 16:41, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Using {{unreferenced}} and {{unreferenced section}} as an example they are separate tags because they put articles into separate categories {Category:Articles_lacking_sources and Category:Articles needing additional references Respectively). Some tags are selectable for section or article in fact {{unreferenced}} used to be either or [3] until it was decided that it was only appropriate on article that had no references at all Template_talk:Unreferenced#Template_usage_no_references_and_undereferenced, you can see from the two category titles how this works out. Jeepday (talk) 19:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Come to think of it—if the category is the only reason for the separate templates, we should combine them into one template. The ParserFunctions can selectively put the article in one category or the other based on the parameters to the template. --bdesham ★ 02:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

{{Article issues}} does this sort of thing. Rich Farmbrough, 11:28 17 September 2007 (GMT).

For example, the template {{in-universe}} says "article or section" and you can't choose which.--Svetovid 02:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TOC

This whoppingly large page needs a table of contents! Else a pain to navigate. Jidanni 00:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Ummm... the MediaWiki software automatically generates one. Don't you see it? If not, check your preferences, under the "Misc" tab, for "Show table of contents". For more info, see WP:TOC. —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 02:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] pointer to vandalism cleanup tags

Add a link to where one can find vandalism cleanup tags. The word 'vandalism' is nowhere to be found on the page. Jidanni 17:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On the surface "This article or section reads like a review" is not clear to template user or viewer

For the "This article or section reads like a review" template, they click "review" to find out why somebody may be mad that their article sounds like a book review... only to find that their bland summary style article is now being accused of soapboxing. Therefore the word "review" is unclear. Jidanni 00:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add "This article is written like a term paper"

Add a template: "This article is written like a term paper".

"What might have fooled your professor into grudingly letting you graduate shall not be dug up and fed into the encyclopedia verbatim."

Jidanni 00:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Template standardisation

The project to standardise the design of all the article message boxes is in its last stage. That is, all boxes like {{wikify}} etc is going to get a new look. We are just some day from starting to convert all article message boxes to the new standard. So pop over to Wikipedia:Template standardisation and have your say before it is too late. --David Göthberg 14:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In-line template for citations broken

It's not very helpful to find {{Citations broken|date=March 2008}} applied to a whole article or section that has some good citations and some broken citations. Fixing the situation is more work than necessary. Sometimes I'd like to substitute an in-line notice of a broken citation clearly indicating which citation is broken. Accordingly, I have created Template:Citation broken and will try to figure out how to document it.

Would this be a good addition to this project? --Orlady 00:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The whereisit description looks butchered

It currently reads like this:

"This about a place does not specify the where it is located."

On its actual article page, it fortunately properly says:

"This article about a place does not specify the country, city or region where it is located."

I didn't edit this page although this should obviously be fixed, but I currently don't have time to read into how you actually do edit it, as it's a bit more complex than directly fixing it -- using templates for the tables, etc. Can someone please fix this up? — Northgrove 21:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add {{Confusing|date=March 2008}} tag?

Can we add this tag somewhere in this list of wiki tags?

All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear. Please help clarify the article. Suggestions may be on the talk page. (March 2008)

WinterSpw 06:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

{{cleanup-confusing}} is in the list of tags. It redirects to {{confusing}}.

[edit] Suggestion: image/map/diagram fix tag

How about: "One or more of the images, maps, or diagrams in this article needs repair or improvement."

I occasionally see articles where there are images, maps, etc that need improvement, such as:

• Poorly lit photos of things that should be easy to get better images of, such as album covers
• Scanned images used instead of a widget-created map
• Diagrams, maps, etc with poor color choices, an unusable legend, etc

Having a tag like this would allow graphics-savvy people to search for them and do fixes. Bry9000 (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Another problem I've seen are diagrams that are straight up factually inacurate. From what I can find, the procedure to request fixing them is extremely arduous, involving drawing up a request at wiki commons. However, I think the solution would be, not to tag the article, but to tag the image itself. This way, there is less doubt as to which image is a problem, and other articles that link to the image automatically get the same tag. (The further ability to put articles using flagged images into a special category, like "articles using images in need of cleanup" would be nice, but I don't believe there is presently code to support such a feature.) -Verdatum (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that the image itself, not the article, should be tagged. Bry9000 (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I've found some templates for tagging these kinds of problems:

• Here's a general template: {{cleanup image|reason}}.
• The pages at Category:Image_quality_templates and Category:Image_maintenance_templates include some more specific templates for tagging image problems. Bry9000 (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal - "Selection criteria" tag

I've been doing a lot of cleanup of stand alone lists lately, and I frequently encounter the situation that there is no explicitly defined selection criteria for articles that should be considered "partial lists". Without this criteria, the list can become indescriminate and infinitely long. Then an article that could potentially be salvaged goes up for AFD. I believe this is worthy of a cleanup template that would go either in the section on lead sections, or the section on lists. Since selection criteria can be any number of things, the template should possibly reference the article's talk page so a concensus on the criteria can be reached. Thoughts on this idea would be appreciated. -Verdatum (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} pairs

The source of the page contains funny {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} pairs like this:

{{tlrow|fansite|{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}|category=Wikipedia articles needing style editing}}

Why is that? -- Ddxc (talk) 06:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template Suggestion

Wouldn't a template for cleaning up uncited facts specifically be a great idea? GO-PCHS-NJROTC (talk) 23:01, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I think so and if there's one, it should say something like 'This article or section has too many unsourced statements'. Martarius (talk) 23:05, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reorganization/restructuring

What's the difference? Peter jackson (talk) 12:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need "remainder of section needs cleanup" template

There's already a remainder of article boiler... there should be a remainder of section boiler. Perhaps {{cleanup-section-remainder}}. Jason Quinn (talk) 10:11, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inline version of off-topic template has been created

See Template_talk:Off-topic#Inline_version.3F. The template is {{Irrel}}.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates out of hand

I don't know if this is the place to write this, but it's really been striking me lately that the cleanup templates are getting out of hand. I don't know if anyone's calculated what percentage of WP articles have these tags on them, but it seems to be growing exponentially--presumably because it's much easier to point out that something needs fixing than to actually fix it. There's some justification for a tag like the neutrality one, because it serves as a warning to the user. But there's really no particular reason why users need to be warned that an article needs copy-editing or whatever--they'll notice that soon enough without our telling them.

For the vast majority of cleanup tags, if we really think it's helpful for people to point out work for other people to do, there's no reason why the tag can't be placed on the discussion page--where it can be tied to a discussion of what specifically the tag refers to, and maybe some kind of explanation/apology for why the tagger can't fix the problem themselves. The widespread use of cleanup tags in article space seems to violate one of the basic principles of WP, which is that WP is not supposed to be self-referential. Does this bother anyone else? Nareek (talk) 04:18, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The proliferation of tags bothers me too. Just today I left the following on a talk page: "it's the whole "lighting a candle is better than cursing the darkneness" concept: how about helping make the page better like the rest of us rather than just throwing tags around?" UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:35, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

We've had this debate before (see for example the section "Proposed policy: Keep cleanup tags on talk pages" on this very Talk page). Tags in articles do have advantages: they prompt people to come in and join the editing fun; they apologise for the poor state of the article and let readers know that it falls short of our standards; and they are more visible and official - nonsense on talk pages can go unchallenged, but when someone puts a tag on an article it's more likely to be scrutinised.—greenrd (talk) 20:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

The fundamental concept of Wikipedia is that anyone can write and improve articles. And if that message is not clear enough, that is a concern for the overall design of this website. But if we keep putting tags on some articles and not to others, readers might feel that their contributions to articles lacking tags are less welcome. It might be a good idea to help people understand what they can do to improve an article. But such messages should go on talk pages. -- Kildor (talk) 08:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Templates linking to pages which should not be read

Is it advisable to have templates link to historical pages? These pages contain policies, guidelines, and practices which have been rejected by the community, so I find it quite imprudent to actually suggest to editors to read them. Links to such pages should therefore be avoided at all times, in my opinion. I have just located two specific examples: {{cleanup-reorganize}} and {{cleanup-restructure}} link to Wikipedia:How to structure the content, which is a historical page.

I suggest that the links in question should be re-directed to Wikipedia:Layout, an excellent page outlining the basics of article structuring. If there is no objection, I shall do this tomorrow. Waltham, The Duke of 20:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I have been thinking about the same issue. I agree that links to historical pages can be misleading. In addition to what you suggest, perhaps a subsection of the standard See Also section called Historical Documents or some such, for those editors who really want to see the whole history of a topic. For those of us who use categories a lot for browsing the project namespace, I'm thinking that a new category "Wikipedia inactive documents" to segregate all these. Libcub (talk) 00:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't Category:Inactive project pages cover you? All historical pages are tagged with the X-bearing template at the top, and that template also serves to categorise them. What did you think, that the Wikipedia community wouldn't have a cemetery where to bury its miscarriages? :-D

On another note, I admit that I didn't understand the part about the See also section. I suppose you are talking about project pages, because it would make no sense otherwise; however, I was talking about the mainspace, which is where these templates appear. In any case, relevant pages are often mentioned in, and linked from, project pages, and if they are mentioned in the text they need not be in the See also section. It is a greater problem when there are links not acknowledging that the pages on the other side are historical... Hell, even the department directory listed one not long ago. Waltham, The Duke of 01:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Update: Seeing that there is no opposition, I have just done the re-directs, as described in my first message. Waltham, The Duke of 18:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Memorial

I've created {{memorial}} to deal with WP:MEMORIAL. Feel free to add it to the relevant lists. Skomorokh 14:56, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Undue weight?

No template for tagging a source as possibly undue weight?^{[undue weight?]} --Nate (talk) 13:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Overlinked

This article or section may contain an excessive number of links. Please improve this article by removing links to common words and duplicated links.

We could use something like this. I've just added such a tag to an article but didn't want to create a new template in case there was one that I hadn't found. JЇѦρ 03:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh heck, now there's a template I'll use. Thank you. TONY (talk) 12:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This article or section

We don't seem to know whether we're Arthur or Martha. You add a tag to an article & you know it's an article. You add a tag to a section and you know it's a section. Why not at least give editors the option to look like we know what we're talking about. It'd be as simple as {{{art/sec|article or section}}}. It reminds me of those userboxes with "him/her", "he/she", "his/hers", etc. ... I know whether I'm a boy or a girl ... but at least the userboxes don't get onto the mainspace. JЇѦρ 03:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia bug?

Please look at this: Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Fiction and see the text This may fail to make a clear distinction between fact and fiction.. There is something MISSING in-between! Now check Template:Fiction, and you see that the text is correct this time: This article or section may fail.... Why is this so? -andy 85.179.58.60 (talk) 09:30, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking at {{fiction}}, the text "article or section" is default message that can be changed by the editor— this is not documented. If you used {{fiction|section}}, then it would say "This section may fail . . ." The list of templates uses {{tlrow}} to show each template. For some reason, it suppresses the default message of {{fiction}}. I added the text back in manually. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 10:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] This empire has grown like topsy

I've never looked through this complete list of clean-up templates. I'm shocked to find so many that are very similar. Why? Every one that is added, with a finely different shade of meaning, means that people have to be aware of its existence to be able to use it. The list is huge.

Much more practical and user-friendly would be a rationalised list (probably half the size), with the fluff removed. One template should do for both article and section, for example, not TWO.

In addition, the bright yellow in the ones at the top is just a glare; the "A" can hardly be seen. When did this happen? The old one was so much better. TONY (talk) 12:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Template for lists that need ordering?

I can't find one of these, does one exist? If not i think one would be useful. if anyone can help it would be appreciated as i'm not that familiar with creating a template. --neonwhite user page talk 14:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Something like :-

This list needs to be organised. Please improve this list by ordering it according to a criteria. For example alphabetical, numerical or chronological.

created the template as {{Unsorted}} --neonwhite user page talk 22:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

One nitpick: the word "criteria" is plural. I suggest the text be changed to: Please improve this list by sorting it according to a single criterion. Note though that many lists are coded so that they can be sorted by more than one criterion. – ukexpat (talk) 16:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

You might lexically order by one criterion within another: 1a, 1b, ..., 2a ... Peter jackson (talk) 10:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What template to use for see also that's too long?

Per my question above, I'd like to tag long see also's sections that need pruning, like this one.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 17:36, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What template to denote edit warring?

What template should one insert into an article which is so crippled by disputes, edit warring and interminable Talk page discussions that progress is rarely made (I'm thinking of some political articles here, specifically former Australian prime minister John Howard and the voting system Instant-runoff voting)? The Template:POV isn't quite right - the edit warring results in a reasonable balance, it's just that the articles are still a dog's breakfast. Any other suggestions? Peter Ballard (talk) 04:24, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Even if there was one, I doubt it would survive long on an article that was the subject of an edit war. – ukexpat (talk) 16:22, 4 June 2008 (UTC)