Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates

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[edit] Proposals?

Stale. No consensus; moribund topic.

Part of the "charter" was to establish a proposals area. Another idea was to create Wikipedia:Inline templates for discussion. As with WP:SFD, it would take a while to get "buy-in" at WP:TFD on WP:ITFD's "authoritativeness", but I would suggest that WP:ITFD would be useful both as "Inline templates for deletion" (renaming, merging) discussion area, which initially could be advisory toward any WP:TFD discussion of the relevant templates, unless/until it there is consensus that it should operate like WP:SFD, and as the place for proposals of new templates of this sort (thus "for discussion" instead of "for deletion"). WikiProject Stub Sorting went with widely separate proposal and delete/rename/merge areas, and the result has seemed to me to be a little chaotic. Thoughts? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:21, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Will there be so many changes that many types of discussions are needed? How about starting with a Proposals area being used for any proposed changes? Suggestions, creation, alterations, or deletion. It could be a subpage under this project, so as to keep this Talk page relevant to the project itself. If specialization is needed then more specific pages can be created. (SEWilco 04:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC))
/Proposals always seems to mean "proposals for new stuff"; what should we call it then? Heck, I guess we could literally call it /Inline templates for discussion. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Requests, suggestions? Thesaurusize. (SEWilco 19:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC))
I'm for /Inline templates for discussion; we could use WP:ITFD immediately, and moving the page someday to Wikipedia:Inline templates for discussion would be less jarring. That's my !!vote. ;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:03, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm marking this as "Resolved" for now due to lack of interest in the topic, and evidence that the talk page is handling this function fine for the time being. The issue could always be re-opened later. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Infobox for adopted templates

Stale. No objections, but no one sufficiently interested to implement it.

Maybe an infobox should be used for adopted templates. Initially it might primarily include a Category, with additional info being added as necessary. (SEWilco 04:52, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

Is good plan. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Identified templates

Resolved. Self-resolving FYI.

I've categorized all of them (or flagged them for editprotected's to do so, where necessary) into Category:Inline templates (among other fixes, in various cases; several citation templates were not cat'd as such, while a few templates for non-ref footnotes were mis-cat'd as such). Most if not all of those editprotected's were just fulfilled. I would suggest that any newly discovered templates of this sort (regardless of their age) be filed in the "New" templates section on the project page until they are thusly processed. I'm sure more will turn up. I think our first order of business is indentifying and categorizing them (both in the "Category:" and for purposes of the project on its own page, so we know what we are dealing with. I got bold and have already flagged a few of them as problematic. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:28, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Resources section

Resolved. Self-resolving chat.

Did someone manually add that material or is it just part of the default "new WikiProject page" stuff? Some of it seems kind of off-topic... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

PS: To be more specific, I mean the two self-reference/WP-metadata items, one of which is moribund. These templates are WP-self-referential by definition, like all cleanup tags, so they are auto-exempt from Wikipedia:Avoid self-references, no? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:40, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Those seemed like they might be relevant, and as I stumbled across them I tossed them in.(diff) Edit ruthlessly. I'm busy with other things at the moment but this project is in my watchlist for further attention. (SEWilco 19:34, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Date issues

Resolved. VP discussion stalled, and did not conclude with any particular consensus other than status quo.

Notice the current discussion about date consistency in Wikipedia:Village pump %28proposals%29#Date formats in cite templates. (SEWilco 23:59, 14 April 2007 (UTC))

I popped in there. Not sure my comments were all that debate-shaping. I'm pretty happy to implement whatever the rest of WP wants in that regard. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
To the extent this issue still "lives" it appears to be at Template talk:Cite_news, Template talk:Cite web, etc. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Microformats

Stale. TfD closed with "no consensus", and the issue has yet to arise again over 3 months later.

Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats should be considered when designing format changes. (SEWilco 00:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC))

Can you elaborate? I've noticed that project before and tried to figure out, but I don't understand what its goals are (nor, to the more immediate point, how it really relates to what we're up to here). Are we thinking of doing something like hCard, but for issue-flagging with superscripts in plaintext? <confused> I'm not trying to be obtuse or anything, I just genuinely don't understand the point of that project, even though I know what a microformat is (I was using vCard when it was still a draft and no software in the world had yet implemented it; I think eff.org may have been one of the first sites in the world with vCards downloadable from the /staff page. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:00, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
The format of inline templates will be adjusted by this project. The microformat standards should be considered. For example, if this project changes an inline template which has a geographical coordinate then maybe the new format should include the geo microformat. (SEWilco 16:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC))
Today is the first time I've seen this discussion, but if you're still confused about microformats, I'd be happy to answer any questions, You might find microformat (heavily revised since you wrote the above) and hcard a good place to start. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 12:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

There's currently discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Microformats about inline microformat templates. Comments from people in this wikiproject would be appreciated. --Para 23:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be under control there, and people are already noting that much of that discussion is off-topic; adding WP:WPILT issues to the discussion will just make it more off-topic. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
There's another long discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 10#Inline_microformat_templates. The issue with those particular templates is about to be solved, but the topic generally could use some more points if some haven't been made yet. Here, there, or anywhere else. --Para 10:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The debate seems to have died off completely. Anyway, yes, surely we should be cognizant of Wikipedia:WikiProject Microformats's needs as we go forward, but there does not seem to be a large degree of "jurisdictional" overlap. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
That's unfortunately what one of the contributors causes to happen quite often [1]. The overlap that should be in everyone's interests is the clarity of wikitext, especially in projects related specifically to issues with editing. It seems that people are not too interested however, as Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/HTML#Inline_microformats_and_other_HTML_markup remains quiet. I suppose the Village pump will be the next place to take this issue to to actually have some opinions. --Para 11:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Aside from your further ad hominem, "the Village pump will be the next place to take this issue to " sounds like forum shopping. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 12:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
This sounds like a discussion that should happen in user talk, not here (if it should continue at all). As for forum shopping, the VP is generally where lots of discussions about where consensus should go take place; I don't think it would be forum shopping to raise an issue there unless there was already a solid consensus about it at a more narrow venue, and someone disgruntled with the results tried to misleadingly "consensus-break" by re-raising an already settled issue as if had not been settled. Just my take. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:09, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Request that the brackets don't link

Resolved. Overall consensus is not to link the brackets except in ref citations.

Copied from Template talk:Fact: I simply request that the brackets don't link, only the citation needed part needs to link. --98E 01:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

To: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates
Cc: Template talk:Fact
We have our first customer!
I suggest we discuss this at WikiProject Inline Templates instead of Template talk:Fact so that we can have a format that applies across all inline templates.
--Kevinkor2 07:01, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Currently, the pseudocode for {{fact}} is

   if in main namespace,
       if date given,
           place article in Category:Articles with unsourced statements since date;
       else,
           place article in Category:Articles with unsourced statements;
       end if;
       place article in Category:All articles with unsourced statements;
   end if;
   start superscript;
       start wikilink to Wikipedia:Citing sources;
           start span
                   with style="white-space: nowrap;"
                   and  tooltip="This claim needs references to reliable sources";
               if date given, add "since date" to end of tooltip;
               open square bracket;
                   start italics;
                       "citation needed";
                   end italics;
               close square bracket;
           end span; 
       end wikilink;
   end superscript;

The request from 98E (talk · contribs) would change this to:

   if in main namespace,
       if date given,
           place article in Category:Articles with unsourced statements since date;
       else,
           place article in Category:Articles with unsourced statements;
       end if;
       place article in Category:All articles with unsourced statements;
   end if;
   start superscript;
       start span
               with style="white-space: nowrap;";
           open square bracket;
               start wikilink to Wikipedia:Citing sources;
                   start span
                           with tooltip="This claim needs references to reliable sources";
                       if date given, add "since date" to end of tooltip;
                       start italics;
                           "citation needed";
                       end italics;
                   end span; 
               end wikilink;
           close square bracket;
   end superscript;

In code, this would be:

<includeonly>{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}||{{#if:{{{date|}}}|[[Category:Articles with unsourced statements since {{{date}}}]]|[[Category:Articles with unsourced statements]]}}[[Category:All articles with unsourced statements]]}}</includeonly><sup class="noprint Template-Fact"><span style="white-space: nowrap;">[[[Wikipedia:Citing sources|<span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources {{#if:{{{date|}}}| since {{{date}}}|}}">''citation needed''</span>]]]</span></sup><noinclude> {{/doc}} </noinclude>

Please indicate if you accept or reject this change. --Kevinkor2 07:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Accept. I think 98E's request will result in cleaner looking output at the cost of a modest increase in template size. --Kevinkor2 07:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Accept Per Kevinkor2, the brackets shouldn't be linked. --snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 07:42, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Accept. Will look better, makes more logical sense (the term, the footnote anchor, whatever it is inside an inline template that is being linked, does not actually include brackets; they are simply a typographical convention), and it will be more consistent with <ref> — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:16, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Weak oppose. Both external links[2] and Cite.php's <ref>[1] link their square brackets, so I don't know how this makes it more consistent. Of course, those numbered links are a lot thinner to require more clicking space. But I think the color difference between the text and the link[citation needed] may be less aesthetic than the current format.[citation needed] Someone could argue that the brackets are part of a meta-problem, so they should also link away to differentiate it from the actual content on the page. –Pomte 02:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Change to accept. If inline templates are to be standardized, it seems to be more proper form to unlink the brackets on all of them, especially considering the case of multiple links within them. –Pomte 01:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Neutral Update: Accept per dispenser's multiple links point below. 08:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC): I must've been smokin' crack when I wrote the struck part above; ref. citations do indeed link link the brackets. I must've been wishing they didn't. For consistency's sake, then, we should have all of these superscripty things do that, shouldn't we? (Though I think I maintain that it isn't particularly logical, and my ultimate preference would be to have the developers change <ref> to stop doing that; however, I do also understand Pomte's take on the "link away to meta" perspective.) I'll just sit on my fence for a while. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Oppose: All the reference tools with brackets also link the brackets. (SEWilco 04:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC))
Comment: By the way, this this the kind of debate I like to see. Many things are technically possible, but our work as a WikiProject will be more permanent and useful when we have consistency and consensus.--Kevinkor2 05:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, many other inline templates aren't linking their brackets. –Pomte 05:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I suppose one has to decide whether to consider {{fact}} as being similar to reference templates or to other inline templates. (SEWilco 06:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC))
  • It's more that the some-do-some-don't thing with these templates simply points out a lack of consistency that needs fixing. Many were created in emulation of then-existing ones, without actually using their code at all, and this has caused a lot of divergence over time. WikiProject banners have been undergoing the same messification. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:26, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
Accept: Multiple links in a superscript should be considered as in the case of {{dead link}}. Also, If memory serves me correct the outer brackets were hyper linked as to increase the clicking area. —Dispenser 03:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Comment The {{fact}} template did not originally include the brackets in the link, and I believe they were added to address a nowrap issue. Has the proposed version been checked for proper nowrap behaviour? Gimmetrow 01:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Nowrap applies to the entire text, so there shouldn't be any problems. –Pomte 04:02, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Accept: Agree, the [edit] link at the side of each section doesn't include the brackets, so why should anything else? Just hypocrisises itself. Bennelliott • Talk • Contributions 14:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Conclusion: There appears to be a broad but not entirely unanimous consensus to not link the brackets, especially because some superscripted notes of this sort have more than one link in them. Some concern was expressed that this is inconsistent with <ref> style, but the countervailing observation was that the linking of brackets there was to make the very small links more clickable - a special case. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Classes

I'd like to see most of these templates have a specific class identifying on the outermost container element, so that they can be identified by user css and javascript

Maybe like how the body element on the page itself has the class "page-Template_Fact", the sup element could have the class "transclude-Template_Fact". --Random832 02:36, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

Note, {{fact}} itself already has the class "Template-Fact", per my earlier request - ideally i'd like to see something or other become a standard for all pages intended to be transcluded. There should probably be another class that simply identifies all "superscripted bracketed templates" of this sort, etc. (multiple classes can of course be included on a single tag as a space-separated list) --Random832 02:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Any progress on this idea? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nowrap for entire phrase or not?

Copied from Template_talk:Fact#Request_that_line_breaks_be_handled_properly. Gimmetrow 01:16, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Can an admin please modify the code so as to allow a line wrap between citation and needed when it overflows? It makes lots of pages have horizontal scroll bars unnecessarily because the 'needed]' part sticks out too far to the right. Fullmetal2887 00:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

This problem should be solved by getting rid of the <span> tags and instead putting &nbsp; between citation and needed. You can see the difference here. The top paragraph has the current format; the bottom paragraph uses &nbsp;. Make your browser window thinner until you see a difference in line wrapping. The top paragraph is the one that creates a scroll bar, at least in Firefox 2. –Pomte 01:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
The fact template had nbsp for quite a while and it was changed to a nowrap span for a reason. Gimmetrow 03:51, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I have found the reason: "Using &nbsp; to prevent linebreaking is klugey; do it with CSS instead." This is not convincing so far. Are there browsers that do not prevent linebreaking with &nbsp;? –Pomte 04:00, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
My browser (IE7) orphans "[" when "citation needed" does not fit on the line. I believe it feels there is a line break opportunity before a tag.--Kevinkor2 14:03, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
How about [citation needed]? This would allow wrapping only on the space between the words, at the cost of slightly (2x) larger code. --cesarb 01:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Has this issue been resolved yet? What is our {{fix-inline}} meta-template doing? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 'Attribution' Tag

I only just joined this project, so forgive me if my suggestion is somehow naïve. I use the 'who' tag often, as in:

 Some groups[who?] oppose these measures.

It seems to me that one could simplify this tag to "who?", as in:

 Some groups[who?] oppose these measures.

It's short and non-distracting, and its meaning is obvious -- I've had people inappropriately swap my 'attribution needed' with a 'citation needed' tag, possibly believing their meanings to be the same. With this tag, the difference should be obvious. Additionally, it would nicely compliment the weasel word tag ([who?]).

Yay? Nay? --Xiaphias 05:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It would have to be rethought and redocumented and might just spawn a more general "attribution needed" inline tag; despite its name {{who}} is used more broadly than to ask "who said that". It might also be questionable whether {{weasel word}} is needed (or countervailingly whether not only is it needed, why don't we have a lot more inline templates with finer-grained meaning?) It's a debate we haven't really had yet. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:37, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
A template that says [who?] would definitely be a lot more intuitive, but it's an issue that's not as important as the need for attribution. It's possible for the groups to remain unspecified: some reliable sources can say only that "some groups oppose this" without saying what those groups are. In that case, maybe it's better to write "there has been opposition to this". –Pomte 06:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
A further issue is that there are multiple templates of this sort all trying to serve effectively the same purpose; see Wikipedia:WikiProject Inline Templates#Problematic ones and #Weasel words below. I reject my lack of certainty in June (above), and now maintain that we need one inline template for flagging weasel words, and it probably should not say "attribution" due to the abortive but still semi-active attempt to replace WP:V/WP:NOR/WP:RS with WP:ATT. A mass-merger is needed. I'm personally in favor of {{who}} as the eventual target, but I think we could probably come to consensus step-wise, and merge all "who-ish" templates into {{who}}, and merge all "weasel-ish" templates into {{weasel-inline}}, then discuss merging the remaining two into one. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

See also #Weasel words, below.

[edit] Dead links

Resolved. Needed edits have been made.

Found my way here from {{dead link}} - is it worth suggesting on that template's page to people that they use the Internet Archive or a similar project to try and find a cached version of the 404'd link, rather than mindlessly plastering articles with {{dead link}}? Neil (►) 12:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably. See {{dlw}} and related. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:39, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
The optional url parameter already implies this. I've added more explicit instructions. –Pomte 06:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Related WP?

Resolved. Requested linking done.

Maybe this project should be listed as being related (a child?) of Wikipedia:WikiProject Templates, and a link (parent?) from here to there. (SEWilco 15:42, 3 June 2007 (UTC))

Done. –Pomte 17:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weasel words

I found {{WW}} while doing a cursory Scroogle search, and dusted it off and put it up to {{fact}}-like level, with documentation and mainsapce deactivation. Now I have discovered {{weasel-inline}} and its redirect {{weal}}. I think we should merge the latter two into the {{WW}}, as the other two are quite long and much more difficult to type than WW. Thoughts? Disagreements? hbdragon88 05:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Please keep templates comprehensible. {{weasel-inline}} is comprehensible. {{WW}} and {{weal}} are sheer gobbledy gook. --The Cunctator 20:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
Strongly concur with The Cunctator. WW should simply redirect to weasel-inline, which is less wordy in its rendered version, allowing shortcut freaks to use "WW" and the template long-namers to use weasel-inline. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I propose that this merger take place (WW into weasel-inline) by July 30, barring any objections. That ought to be more than enough time for discussion. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
PS: See also the similar {{who}}/{{who?}} merge discussion at Template talk:Who#Merge.
I've also tagged {{weasel-name}} for merging into {{weasel-inline}}, as it has no separate discernable purpose at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest merging {{weasel-name}} with {{who}} instead. Anomie 17:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who/weasel merge discussion

There has periodically been discussion here and there that the weasel-inline type templates and who-type templates should be merged. I'm a fence-sitter on this issue. The pros and cons that I can see (others should feel free to refactor-in any additional ones) are listed below. My take is that while this is worth discussing now, no merger action should be taken between {{who}} and {{weasel-inline}} until all who-style templates are merged into {{who}} and all weasel-style templates are merged into {{weasel-inline}}, so we have only two templates to contemplate a more overarching merger of, just for our own sanity's sake. NB: The outcome of this debate either way probably will have precedential consequences for a number of other inline templates... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Pro
  • The templates are redundant, as they both cite the same guideline and serve the same purpose (identifying statements that need to be cited to a specific source).
  • Having multiple subtly-different templates for the same core purpose may encourage the creation of numerous other vaguely divergent templates from other pre-existing inline tags.
  • It is hard enough to remember what template to use for what cleanup purpose, and we do not need to add to this problem.
Con
  • The templates actually serve different purposes: {{who}} flags, without prejudice, the fact that a statement lacks a specifically attributable source, while {{weasel-inline}} flags, with prejudice, that weasel words are being used, either out of sloppiness or outright attempts to mislead, push a PoV, promote original research, etc.
  • Having multiple, nuanced templates for the same policy/guideline is helpful, because most of those guiding documents cover a lot of ground and numerous related but different points; reducing all of WP:WEASEL to a single, generic template may make it harder for editors to understand the nature of the problem in their article or how to fix it.
  • Inline templates are largely used by long-experienced editors who engage in a lot of cleanup work and who are unlikely to forget the difference between two templates; also, if the wrong one is used, someone will simply fix it (if the article isn't fixed first), and both templates link to the same policypage, so simply reading it will make the article problem clear enough.
Comments
  • Neutral for now; I don't (yet) have a firm opinion either way. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Regarding the Pros, the first ("redundant") IMO is false as stated in the first Con. The third ("hard to remember") is false, as it isn't really; if anything, copy the first Con to both doc pages. I'm not sure I buy the slippery slope argument of the second Pro, and the merger of all the weasel-style templates into one and all the who-style templates into one would set a good enough precedent. Anomie 17:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: The {{weasel-inline}} and {{who?}} templates should both say "[who?]" but point to different places: {{weasel-inline}} should point to WP:WEASEL and {{who?}} should point to Burden of evidence. Basically, "Who?" is a more intuitive explanation than "weasel words" which is a term with which many people may be unfamiliar. Bwrs (talk) 23:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Two Template Solution

After seeing the who merger on the {{who}} talk page, I thought about the {{who?}} template, which I created. It was suggested that the Who? template's wording be used - [Who?] (i.e. Critics[Who?] say ...), however after pondering the situation, I realized that Who? isn't really the appropriate question. While most experienced users would probably understand it, I believe that the best wording clarity-wise would be [Such as?]. Whereas (for an experienced viewer) the who? question can be answered by "Critics", such as demands an example - and also prevents any misinterpretations whatsoever. However, as pointed out by SMcCandlish - "Such as?", while fine in most situations, would not be applicable in every situation. Thus, I believe {{weasel-inline}} should be used for those scenarios. No question could adequately address any of the scenarios, and because weasel-inline is not a question, it has an advantage. However the reason the template would not be ideal for all situations would be because it uses essentially jargon and thusly is horrendous from the clarity point of view. So I suggest merging {{Who?}} and {{Who}} (by situation said by SMcCandlish on said talk page), however moving the result to Template:Such as, while also redirecting the templates - and the wording would be [Such as?]. I also suggest keeping weasel-inline due to stated problem, however this would allow us to delete {{weasel word}} (redirected to weasel-inline, {{Who?}} (redirected to Such as), {{Who}} (redirected to such as), {{WW}}(redirected to weasel-inline) and {{Weasel-name}}(this bloating template redirected to Such as) - all we would have to do is create such as?. I believe this plan would be full proof, and it will successfully clear out all of the messy weasel inline templates.--danielfolsom 18:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the issue raised at #Consensus discussion on "direct address" style below would need to be settled first before consensus can be reached on something like this. If consensus is pro direct address, then I think this would probably work, but otherwise we'll need a different solution. As per our discussion on my talk page, there are cases where wording like "such as?" would work, and situations where it won't, when the WP:WEASEL violation is more subtle, so yes a more "generic" {{weasel-inline}} would need to be retained. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Wait - "There are cases where wording like "such as?" would work, and situations where it won't" - that's what I said - "SMcCandlish - "Such as?", while fine in most situations, would not be applicable in every situation. Thus, I believe {{weasel-inline}} should be used for those scenarios."--danielfolsom 14:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry for the lack of clarity; my post meant "I agree with Danielfolsom that "weasel-inline" would need to be retained, but think it is too soon to create "such as?" because there's a lack of consensus on what to do with "exhortatory" inline templates. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Ok how's this - instead of such as - we use {{specify}} - although that says it's for articles without citations - it would actually work with weasel words - more so than [Who?] or [Such as?] (2 examples: Critics[specify] say... and It is said[specify] that .... While it works slightly better in the first situation, it can still work in the second, however I would still say keep {{weasel-inline}} around just in case.--danielfolsom 03:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
No one's proposing to delete weasel-inline. Anyway, I see this is as still the same question. {{specify}}'s future is also subject to the consensus discussion still ongoing about whether directly exhortatory inline templates are the direction we should be going in. If that resolved in favor of direct address, then specify's poposed dual role would have to be figured out (remember that it links to a specific policy page, and while WP:WEASEL really is in fact derived from WP:V I'm not sure that's entirely intuitive to every editor. That is, I think we'd be better off with something like {{who}} instead of operator-overloading {{specify}}. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TFD started

Someone unaware of these discussion has TfD'd all of these templates: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 August 2#Template:Weasel-inline; I've procedurally opposed, since consensus discussion with regard to what to merge into what was already taking place here. Could probably use more input, over there, however. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I got the TfD procedurally closed early, pending consensus discussion here. That means we actually need to arrive at said consensus. I am thinking of advertising this project a bit on WP:VP because we don't seem to have quite enough people to keep things rolling here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Has there been any further discussion on this? If not, I'll TFD them again shortly, since that seems to be the best forum for getting enough people to comment. GracenotesT § 15:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Template:Dubious

I have real trouble seeing the positive utility of this template being better than a) editing (there are such things as search engines and libraries to research information; Amazon's Book Search is excellent for the lazy) b) commenting on the talk page of the page or the contributor who added the passage in question or c) using {{fact}}, which so far as I can tell, serves a near-identical purpose. With respect to inline templates, less is certainly more. The bias should always be towards actually editing the page in question rather than asking someone else to do work for you. --The Cunctator 20:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't feel superduper strongly about this one, but I note that the purpose of the {{fact}} template is to quietly flag something as unsourced without expressing any judgement value on it, while the point of {{dubious}} is to suggest that something is, well, dubious, and to direct people to the talk page to hash it out. It seems more probable to me that {{disputable}} and {{dubious}} are redunant with each other than either/both are redunant with {{fact}}. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
On closer inspection it seems clear that both {{dubious}} and {{disputable}} (slated for a merge; discussion here) are about Wikipedia:Disputed statements and Wikipedia:Accuracy disputes, which is a different issue from WP:V, which is what {{fact}} addresses. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Another way of looking at it, using your points a, b and c above: a) The point of the d-templates is that what to edit the article to say is in dispute; b) discussion on the talk page is already happening, and the d-templates are 1) to warn readers that the article may not be accurate in part, and 2) to alert editors that more sources need to be found to settle the dispute by determining which of the conflicting views is authoritative; and c) {{fact}}, as noted, doesn't serve particularly similar purposes at all. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge & rename

Two active discussions: Template talk:Dubious#Requested_move, Template talk:Dubious#Merge. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dumb question

I know that somewhere there is some code that can be put around something (such as a [[Talk:{{PAGENAME}}|discuss]] link in one of these templates) that will a) prevent the enclosed stuff from being printed and b) equally importantly, prevent it being exported in the database dumps used by mirror sites. I totally misremember where and what this code is. Help?!? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus discussion on "direct address" style

It's come to plenty of our attention that these templates take basicallly two forms, and that one of them might be inappropriate (the matter to settle):

  1. Dispassionately identifying a problem in Wikipedian terms ("attribution needed", "weasel words", "disputed")
  2. Directly addressing the reader, either in an asking ("who?", "reliable source?") or a telling ("verify source", "cite this quote") manner, in often informal terms

We need to collectively decide whether the latter style should remain at all, and whether it should supercede the former. The pros and cons that I can see (others should feel free to refactor-in any additional ones) are listed below. This may be worth a notice for further community input at WP:VPP, directly people to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates#Consensus discussion on "direct address" style (we don't want a separate discussion to form over there).

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Pro direct address
  • Clearer, simpler language, that is often shorter (even just one word!)
  • Inspires editorial action, by use of actively engaging, direct wording
  • These templates are already accepted WP:SELF exceptions, so that guideline is out of the picture
  • Inline templates are a special case, and do not necessarily need to be just like box-style templates
Con direct address
  • Dispassionate wording is more formal and not so long or obtuse that it won't be understood, and is phrased in terms of WP policies/guidelines, not opinional reinterpretations thereof
  • Equally inspires actual editorial action, because editors deal with templates, of all sorts, all the time, while readers who are mostly not editors will simply see an extraneous message telling them to do something, or asking a question, that they are not prepared to do anything about
  • WP:SELF is bent by consensus to allow cleanup tags, but this direct address is taking the inch and turning it into a mile
  • Generally, the larger cleanup tags do not use direct address; the usage here is a divergence from the accepted norm
Comments
  • Oppose direct address: I don't find the pro arguments very convincing, though they are fairly commonly raised on the talk pages of templates within the project's scope. My main concern is that, because they are inline, these messages are read by non-editor readers far more frequently than by editors, and we should not be exhorting general-public users of the encyclopedia to fix something. The purpose of these templates for the non-editor user is to warn them of a problem in the material. The editorial purpose of them is of course to spur fix-it action. The dispassionate style does both without arm-twisting the readership. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Direct - the purpose of cleanup templates is not to be encyclopedic - it's to get the message to a reader that a line needs to be changed - and if it can "inspire" action then of course it should be direct. And we always try to have public users help with the encyclopedia - otherwise we would have non inline templates (like {{unreferenced}}) on the talk page. And most non-direct inline use jargon (like {{weasel-inline}} - which if anything discourages readers from editing, which goes against the core principle: "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit". You seem to be somewhat biased against general editors as opposed to experienced, just because someone is just joining the project doesn't mean their contribution can't be helpful --danielfolsom 14:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Bias against J.Q. Public editors is not at all my thrust; it's the inverse: Direct address is unfriendly to the vast, vast majority of users with no intent to edit at all (it's not that it's "unencyclopedic", it's sort "anti-encyclopedic" from a reader's point of view); dispassionate problem annotation alerts them to an issue about the material without implying that editing-uninterested readers need to do something, and is also inspiring of action by editors (experienced and noob alike). I agree with you that some of the dispassionate ones are to wikijargonish, however. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
I have a new proposal for the [Who] issue you might like --danielfolsom 03:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
And this proposal would be...? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
haha, sorry, the one listed above- under the heading "two template proposal"--danielfolsom 22:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to continue using the direct style, it may make sense to use one template for {{clarify}} and have a parameter to say what the question is. I made this edit, but self-reverted on realizing that it might not be uncontroversial. —Random832 15:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inline symbol templates

Should inline symbol templates like {{access icon}} (which produces Handicapped/disabled access) be included in Category:Inline templates? – Tivedshambo (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd say list them in the "Similar but out-of-scope" section; while they are technically inline, they do not do anything related to the cleanup and dispute templates we're concerned with here. The scope could change over time, so it's good to know what templates of this sort exist. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I've made Category:Symbol templates (which contains icons such as access icon) a sub-category of Category:Inline templates, analagous to Category:Flag templates. – Tivedshambo (talk) 07:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal: Old fact into Update after

{{Old fact}} doesn't really serve any purpose not servable by {{Update after}}. All that needs to be done:

  1. Settle on the language of the template (appearance in prose, and tool-tip)
  2. Update {{Update after}}'s documentation to stop saying not to use it for dates that have already passed.

Easy-peasy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think update is closer to old fact. The only difference between these two is whether the notice is a separate box or inline. Since there are only a handful of references to old fact, I suggest we just substitute update and call it good. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Except a lot of editors strongly disagree with using large boxes like {{update}} to flag minor problems; thus the very existence of the inline templates in the first place. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm one of them. I don't see the need to flag an entire article for a three word phrase (As of XXX,...) if it appears only once in an article. I believe the inline template is needed, but merging seems best. I just think we should edit the {{Update after}} so that if the user doesn't include a date to update after, the template will just say Update needed. I don't see a need for two templates if {{Update after}} can be changed to fix this minor error. - Mtmelendez (Talk|UB|Home) 18:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the September 2007 SMcCandlish response to Rick Block and want to preserve "old fact". We need this as a small inline template that can be put right where the problem exists, not a big flag at the top of the article with no reference to a specific line or lines where the problem has occurred. I also don't like the "update after" because, where I'm using "old fact," the problem is I don't know when the fact went (or will become) stale because I don't know the date on which the fact was current. -- LisaSmall T/C 22:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merging wayback templates

I've finally come here since I can't figure out what the right thing to do with these templates. Neither {{wayback}} nor {{waybackdate}} are seeing much use so merging them wouldn't be much trouble. I personally find that {{waybackdate}} has a better format and would be to be generally more useful. However, it uses site= instead of the more used url=† and if the date isn't provided it links to the list view. The other template, {{wayback}}, provides more text which makes it hard to use inside sentences but is nice for bullet points. It will always link to the most recent version and uses unnamed parameters which cause problems for URL that have equal signs in them. I would like to either deprecate one of the templates or merge them together. —Dispenser 02:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

† User:Ocolon provides some arguments for why it might be better. Although I'd have to disagree as I have to look for any link inside template with my bot.

Support merge, after fixes. Make merged version accept both url= and site= as equivalent. Go with shorter text (our general trend here with all such templates). Use "always links to most recent version" code. Use named parameters, but support unnamed ones quietly for backward compatibility until such time as they are all replaced with a [numeral]=, even if a few URLs would be broken (they already are anyway; the only ones affected will be those that contain "=" and are already broken due to being used in {{wayback}}). My opinion: Always merge, never deprecate, when at all possible, and this one is certainly easily possible. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Idiom

I need an inline template which will mark patches of bad writing. This should normally simply be corrected; but there are occasions where changing the wording runs a risk of introducing error; and, in this case, on P. G. Wodehouse, an editor revert wars against all efforts at good writing, because he regards anything less clumsy than "England-born British writer" as POV. If there is another inline template which does this, please just redirect {{idiom}} appropriately. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User sig templates

People in this project might be interested in WP:VPM#User templates, even though it's technically out-of-scope. —Random832 18:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarifyme template

Hi, I made a request at Template talk:Clarifyme#Request for change to link behaviour, but I think that page gets little traffic. Could I encourage you to look at it please?

Could I also encourage you to look at Template talk:Clarifyme#Wording and express your opinion about this proposed change.

Thanks, Matt 03:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Making article message boxes flexible

Could the people here who worked on {{fix}} have a look at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes#Project-specific templates? It is an idea to apply the following concept to message boxes: "Most inline notices use virtually identical formats. This template is designed to provide a single standardized format which can accommodate the different text, links, and categories of individual templates." Thanks. Carcharoth 11:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal: Template:Overlyrecent

Inspirational page: The Torch, St. John's University. Ignoring most of the ways the page is a disaster, the newspaper has been around since 1922, but the page contains almost no info less than a year old. Do we need a template to the effect of "this page needs more focus on the entirety of the subject's existence"? - Richfife 16:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that would be an inline template, since it seems to be a problem with the whole article rather than any particular sentence. Anomie 01:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Listing page?

Is there an easy reference page somewhere that groups all the inline templates together with the way in which they are rendered? Something like:

might be useful (and likely prettier if presented in table form). Just curious, maybe I just haven't searched thoroughly enough to find it. - Tobogganoggin talk 00:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I doubt there is such a table, so we can change the current lists into tables. –Pomte 00:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] MediaWiki URL templates

Commands Templates Alais Examples Comments
Actions
view, print Template:View (edit talk links history) {{print}} view {{view}} is an alias for {{v}}, a tnavbar experiement
watch, unwatch Template:Watch (edit talk links history) {{unwatch}} watch
delete Template:Delete (edit talk links history) delete Deletion notice
revert Template:Revert (edit talk links history) revert
rollback Template:Rollback (edit talk links history) rollback
protect, unprotect Template:Protect (edit talk links history) {{unprotect}} protect {{protect}} use to used display a notice
info Template:Info (edit talk links history) info disabled, currently the template displays an infobox
markpatrolled Template:Markpatrolled (edit talk links history) markpatrolled
render Template:Render (edit talk links history) render only the article text is shown
deletetrackback Template:Deletetrackback (edit talk links history) deletetrackback
purge Template:Purge (edit talk links history) purge
dublincore Template:Dublincore (edit talk links history) dublincore Disabled
creativecommons Template:Creativecommons (edit talk links history) creativecommons Disabled
credits Template:Credits (edit talk links history) credits not documented
submit Template:Submit (edit talk links history) submit
edit Template:Edit (edit talk links history) edit
history Template:History (edit talk links history) history
raw Template:Raw (edit talk links history) raw Gives wikitext
ajax Template:Ajax (edit talk links history) ajax
Preference overriding
useskin Template:Useskin (edit talk links history) useskin=myskin {{Previewskin}} already exists
uselang Template:Uselang (edit talk links history) uselang=de Displays the page with interface in that language
variant Template:Variant (edit talk links history) Language variant
printable Template:Printable (edit talk links history) printable Printer-friendly version

Above is a short list of action that can be applied to a page and links to corresponding templates. The parameters name have not quite been standardized and are inconstant. {{Purge}} does not allow other pages to be purged. {{Watch}} does not allow different text. —Dispenser (talk) 01:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] clarifyme updated documentation

I updated the doc file for the clarifyme template, and I posted a message at the talk page asking for review and clarification (!) of parameters.

Second, I wish to flag up my support for Matt's suggestion both there and above in this page. Or something similar. -Wikianon (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Something wrong with clarifyme?

If the clarifyme template, i.e. [clarify], is used within an italicized paragraph, then that paragraph runs horizontally with no linefeed (in the Firefox browser, at least). Is there some way to fix that? --Farry (talk) 12:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposing new template

I would like to flag quotes that are translated from a foreign-language source and that are difficult to understand, ungrammatical or say things that are likely to be challenged. It would look something like this:

{{subst:fix
|text=mistranslation?
|class=
|title=This text seems to be a quote that was translated from a
non-English source.  Please verify that it was translated correctly.
|cat=All articles with unsourced statements
|cat-date=Articles with unsourced statements}}

Or, the cat parameter could be used to place pages into a new category, "articles containing possibly-mistranslated quotes." Would this be useful? Bwrs (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal for template - 1911 Britannica Mis-scans

Non-Latin alphabet text is often mis-scanned from the 1911 Britannica. Having just fixed some examples of this in Nethinim I'm considering an inline template along the lines of User:Pseudomonas/Template:1911Mis-scan to allow people who are better able to deal with the alphabets in question to find and fix them. Pseudomonas(talk) 10:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] new inline template suggestion

I'm going to throw this out there, though I don't quite know if it should be implemented. I (personally) would find a lot of use for some basic logic tags: things like "doesn't follow", "negative reasoning", "mis-categorized", etc... these aren't actually a formal part of wikipedia policy, of course. but I think they are expected of any editor, and the tags might help specify specific problems in articles, and maybe save some talk-page squabbles. or maybe not... comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs) 03:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)