Wikipedia talk:Template substitution/Archive 1

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The discussions on this article has been copied from a different article. -- Zondor 19:33, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
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{{vfd}}

{{vfd}} vs. {{subst:vfd}}

Sorry for being ignorant, but what's the difference between {{vfd}} and {{subst:vfd}}? I've gotten myself into the habit of doing {{vfd}} for speed. Am I causing a problem by doing this, and what is it? The only difference appears to be that {{vfd}} stays as a template link (which is easy to remove from a kept article), and {{subst:vfd}} actually inserts the text of the template into the article. Other than that, they both do the exact same thing. - KeithTyler 23:44, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Several reasons, all of them relatively minor. It really doesn't hurt anything if you use {{vfd}} instead of {{subst:vfd}}. The benefits of using subst include:
  1. Allows you to edit the tag itself. Useful for special cases where you're listing multiple pages for deletion, since [[Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/{{PAGENAME}}|its entry on that page]] doesn't work unless the VfD subpage is an exact match.
  2. Discourages vandalism, a little. The average newbie who has just created an inappropriate page will be less apt to remove the entire wikicode for the tag, rather than a short "{{vfd}}".
  3. Extremely minor benefit: less strain on the database as it doesn't have to access Template:Vfd when rendering the article.
Hope this helps... • Benc • 06:45, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I guess that answers some of the rationale. Although...
  1. I could see doing it that way, in that uncommon special case.
  2. But the average newbie might more easily accidentally corrupt part of the tag, meaning more cleanup work for the non-newbie to reinsert the tag.
  3. Of course, if the VFD tag is changed/updated/improved, the subst: method won't reflect the improvement.
- KeithTyler 18:49, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

What does "subst" actually stand for? Joyous 23:59, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)

Substitute. • Benc • 00:02, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  1. {{subst:vfd}} is a pain in the ass for mirrors and violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references.
  2. using subst makes it impossible use "what links here" to find articles where the tag was kept after delisting from vfd (both valid and malicious delisting).

anthony (see warning) 05:40, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I want to bring this up again. I think the {{subst:vfd}} has more disadvantages than advantages. Apart from what Anthony mentioned in the previous post, the large and scary subst block has the potential to scare away a newbie from editing the article. Perhaps that same newbie would be able to bring the article above deletion standard. The subst has the same effect as a really large HTML style table at the beginning of an article. I suggest we go back to recommending {{vfd}}. — David Remahl 20:13, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • I disagree. Newbies are not children, and we shouldn't base our policies on the possibilities of scaring people off. The only duty we have to newbies is not to be rude to them. The same thing goes for mirrors -- while it's great they exist, we shouldn't be bending over much to make them easy. Their existance is a fringe benefit. The subst use of the template serves a valid and good purpose -- to discourage people from trivially removing it, and to serve as a really good visual cue that it's important. --Improv 20:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • To a computer-literate person who knows a bit of HTML etc, it is not scary. But a newbie who is not used to markup, who clicks edit and sees a lot of things he/she does not recognise from the article, may think that editing Wiki is too difficult for him/her. To counter bias in Wikipedia we need to attract more non-technical users. Besides, is it really that much more difficult to remove ten lines compared to removing one? I usually select the whole block and press the backspace button in both cases. If we want to make it clear that the tag serves a purpose and is important, why not use:
      {{vfd}} <!-- do not remove -->
    • — David Remahl 17:03, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • I doubt people will actually put that in, although it's not a bad idea. There are, by the way, a huge number of articles that newbies can edit -- why should we assume they should gravitate towards those on VfD? And yes, it is much more difficult to remove 10 lines -- making sure one removes the right, and only the right, lines is a bit tricky -- it takes more effort. --Improv 21:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Making sure one removes the right lines may be hard, but removing half the VFD notice is no worse than removing all of it. Removing the VFD notice and some other text is even worse than just removing the VFD notice. In any case, it's quite trivial to revert in any of the cases. This reason doesn't really make much sense to me. subst:vfd violates Wikipedia policy, and when I see it I will replace it with the template. anthony 警告 02:04, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • You just said that use of "subst:vfd violates Wikipedia policy". That's news to me. Which policy does it violate? Thanks. Rossami (talk) 12:32, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • vfd also violates policy, as stated on the VfD page. When I see it, I will replace it with the substitution. --Improv 16:20, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

subst:vfd -- why subst?

Why should one add {{subst:vfd}} instead of {{vfd}} to pages? —msh210 19:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What it effectively does is replace {{vfd}} with the actual template text (enclosed with <div> and </div>). The reason why we prefer this is that template substitution reduces load on the template. If you just add {{vfd}} to the article, the original template is still linked to the article, but if you use {{subst:vfd}}, it just substitutes the contents of the template and there is no longer any link between the template and the article. That reduces the number of articles linking to the template and helps for performance issues. --Deathphoenix 19:31, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It also makes things easier to fix when someone moves an article despite the big, shiny "Please do not... move this article while the discussion is in progress" notice. (See also [[Wikipedia talk:Votes for deletion/September-December 2004#{{vfd}} vs. {{subst:vfd}}]].) —Korath (Talk) 19:56, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

{{vfd}} vs.{{subst:vfd}}

Why must we advocate one over the other?? It seems POV, considering there are advantages to both. Jesse's Girl 13:25, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

What? POV only applies to encyclopedia articles, not policy pages. We don't have a policy page that says "vandalism is a bannable offence, although some people think we should have more of it". Anyway, I don't see the advantage to {{vfd}} - since the message is only supposed to be there for a few days, there should be no need to pick up changes to the template. sjorford →•← 13:52, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
This has been extensively discussed here. The overwhelming conclusion was that the benefits of {{subst:vfd}} outweigh the advantages of mere transclusion for this particular template. Most of those discussions have since been moved to the archives of this page. Rossami (talk) 14:59, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm aware of this, but I do not know where to find those...Could you point me to the exact discussions? Jesse's Girl 15:01, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
Here is a partial list based on what I found by quickly scanning the archives. I also remember other discussions that I have not yet been able to find. I think some of the better discussions have been moved over to Meta where I can't find them. Note: Some of the older discussions need to be read in light of the technological capabilities which were in place at the time. WikiMedia has made significant changes to how templates are handled. Rossami (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Subst must be used for calling VfD warning

Subst?

Is there any reason why this footer advocates the use of {{subst:vfd}} instead of {{vfd}}? I thought we were moving towards templates, and I would have changed it myself, but I figured there might be an database implementation consideration why this was better for a highly used template like vfd. Can anyone say which is better? I'd rather have the template, because our vfd anchor format changes so frequently. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:34, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Boilerplate text#Shorthand for old discussion of this. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:54, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Why

(Added bcz (not knowing already mentioned) i promised to when i changed it back to subst, and bcz it may help prevent the next well-intentioned breaking of the system.)

Because only 5 expansions of the same template get done per page. (I think true even if they're in subst format, but with subst the restriction only comes into play if you nominate 6 or more pages in the same edit -- since a subst expansion permanently becomes text (and ceases to be a subst) when it's saved.)

It's not a bug, it's an important security feature, so don't bother asking to change it. The link above probably goes into the details, for those interested.
--Jerzy(t) 01:11, 2004 Aug 21 (UTC)

Why would you have more than 5 VFD notices on the same page? Using subst: violates Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. And if one wants to stop people from changing it simply protecting the page is available. anthony (see warning) 10:59, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)