Wikipedia talk:WikiProject template sharing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to WikiProject template sharing

Shortcuts: WT:IWTG WT:TSP

Additional talk page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:MP:TSP

[edit] Resources List

Contents 1 Resources List 2 Methods 3 Intermediawiki linking 4 coord - new coordinates template to replace coor templates 5 Wikinews 6 Meta 7 Wikinews 8 Highly misguided project with an arrogant and offensive rationale

1. Template:Interwiki Help appeal
   1. [ Wikipedia talk:WikiProject template sharing/Page Differences ] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fabartus (talk • contribs) 00:17, 13 February 2007 (UTC).
2. M:Meta doc page pattern -- duplicate of original work on Wikipedia
3. M:Template: Interwikicat-grp -- tags common categories.
4. M:Template: Interwikitmp-grp -- tags templates within the scope of the project.
5. M:Template: Interwiki doc page pattern
6. M:Template: Doc page pattern transluded(R) / M:Template:Template doc page transcluded
7. M:Template: Template doc page viewed directly

[edit] Methods

I looked for the Meta versison of this Wikiproject and could not find it so I am contacting you here.

Your project is up for deletion at Wikisource. I strongly suggest that you find people within a local project interested in joining a local branch before creating templates in a new wiki. Signing up for an account would also be a gesture which gets a more favorable response from the "locals". I personally disagree that Wikipedia's large number of templates are a "rich collection of productivity enhancing tools and utility templates." While I believe there could be some good from such a project as this, it must begin with communication with the sister projects and a assesment of what they actually might need based on local formats and tradition.--BirgitteSB 18:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks BirgitteSB -- I'll look into it. // FrankB 16:41, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intermediawiki linking

First off: please don't get mad at me for what I say below. I say it in good faith, and most likely a naive view.

It seems to me that you're going about interwiki-linking to the other wikimedia sites in an overly complex way. Wouldn't something along the same style as the inter-language wikipedia links (i.e. in the bar on the left of the page) be far better, and much more elegant? Not only would it reduce the amount of clutter on the page, it would also remove any issues with categories being named differently as the interlanguage links deal with this as a routine matter. Additionally, there are a number of bots that would be able to propagate these interwiki links (i.e. you'd add one set of links on, say, Wikipedia, and a bot could propagate them to all of the other sites).

I can see two issues with this: 1. it requires developer changes to the mediawiki code, 2. it's not possible to use tracking categories. Hopefully the first one of these shouldn't be too difficult to arrange, and if inter-wikimedia-ing becomes popular, I think that the benefit of the tracking categories is fairly minimal.

Mike Peel 12:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

... or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? The above works nicely if you're just linking similar templates together, and even if you're making sure that they have similar functionality. However, if you're making sure that all of the templates _are exactly the same_, it's not so good. In this case, a system like that used at Help:Link would be better - having a single master copy (the best place I can see for this is on the meta), which is then copied over to all of the mediawiki wikis every so often. That copying could be done by a bot, say every 24 hours, with the template being flagged for human attention if it's been modified anywhere but on meta. Of course, extra care would then have to be taken if the template calls were modified. Mike Peel 14:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Mike I be putting this whole section in WT:TSP, but the short answer is first that I concluded last fall this belongs on Meta, and much of our 'good stuff' is already there and many of our best template programmers contribute there as well (Omegatron, AzaToth, CBD, etc.)

   But here people know me and so this is where it began. Like David Kernow, RL called (demanded!) and I went wiki-missing much of last fall, and was busy with mediation stuff when I first returned to having regular time for wiki's, then iterwikitmp-grp hit Tfd... so that boot in the rear restarted things.

   I'd really rather be working on categorization between here and the commons! Sigh... life is not a selection of first choices, most of the time we're lucky to be able to get one selection in our top fifteen!

   As soon as I get a decent project page draft together, I expect to move that to Meta, and so too CDB/Ligelum's doc page pattern page... if CBD doesn't beat me to it.

   a) like a C/C++ header file ideally, all macros would be identical

   b) The real focus is good documentation and promulgation of what is available... I'm good at not finding pages, but to my knowledge, with all the voluminous pages in and off WP:TEM, there is none that covers utility/tools templates. So administrative tasks are blanketed, but not the templates used to make an editor's donated time more efficient.

   That idea of a same language interwiki has some merit however, and I'll be glad to have some help exploring that. Lately I've been wishing the main tagging template had lts style edit links, and for unrelated additional reasons, in fact wrote {{ltsany}} yesterday, but haven't gotten back to saving it. (My main system's had some issue this past week, but suffice it to say between RL work and wiki browsers, I'm trying to close things down as fast as I can to not loose anything started.)

Then there's the truly good news like the above notice to deal with off-site. So I need to expedite all along. I think if you read the current hot-off the presses draft now on WP:TSP, some more blind spots will occur to you, and I'd be glad for the input. There is nothing to say my vision for this project needs stay... I'm a laid back kind of guy, not a control freak -- that's my wife's role! <g> // FrankB 16:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] coord - new coordinates template to replace coor templates

Please be aware of Template:Coord (edit talk links history), a new template which is intended - after ongoing testing and consultation - to replace the nine coor templates, combine their current features; allow for user-preferred displays (Degrees, Minutes and Seconds; decimal; or both) via CSS settings; and output a Geo microformat. Andy Mabbett 16:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

---

Belated acknowledgement (sort of) Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Microformats#Rational.3F -- sorry! w/PING to poster Andy Mabbett

• Thanks for the FYI. What other English sister projects are using coord type links, and what sort of international participation do you have with other language wiki's? If a template is used on other sister's, we're glad to cover it, but if it's entirely en.wikipedia, the most we can do is file and document an official version (sic) on the Meta template handbook which hasn't yet been begun (aside from some category tagging). We're bootstrapping here too. // FrankB 17:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikinews

I've left a similar message on meta, but this likely bears repeating before someone sets up a bot.

Wikinews is a news source, not a reference work. We've already deleted some of the content created from this project, and much more will go if it is not adapted to our project goals. We are not an encyclopedia, so we don't want encyclopedic guidelines and categories. (Eg Category:Vehicles). Would those working on this project please look at the project goals we have in wikinews before adding content without consensus. --Brianmc 11:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Meta

From Meta talk page on this WikiProject http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:MP:TSP

[edit] Wikinews

Please see discussion on admin alerts over on Wikinews, much of what has been created for this project has been deleted, or listed for deletion, as inappropriate and encylopedic. Currently we would prefer to opt out of this project until such time as those contributing to it have reconciled templates with our specific news-related project goals. --Brian McNeil. 10:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

here, here. Bawolff 23:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

With Rebuttal here and breakdown by use as well. // FrankB 07:03, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Highly misguided project with an arrogant and offensive rationale

The efforts of this project have been soundly rejected by at least two Wikimedia Foundation projects: Wikinews and Wiktionary. The templates that it ends up dumping on sibling projects are overcomplex, byzantine, unnecessary, and in many cases wholly inappropriate to the project's goals. The changes to wikt:en:Template:wikispecies made by this project, that actually broke a theretofore working template, are a good case in point. The statement that sibling projects "have not attracted the fairly large and talented population of computer science and engineering trained editors that frequent the hallowed digital halls of Wikipedia and Meta-wiki" is arrogant, offensive to those editors who work on those projects, and downright wrong. I've yet to see any positive benefit for any sibling project to come from this project; and the breakage of several templates on Wiktionary caused by this project and the addition of useless and incorrect templates to Wikinews is evidence that this project is not actually the work of a "population of computer science and engineering trained editors" at all. I strongly recommend that this project be wholly disbanded. Uncle G 05:03, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The templates were also deleted (repeatedly) on the English Wikisource. Where they weren't completely useless, existing templates existed already (often much better in both extensibility and simplicity of usage and coding). See, for example, "Templates copied from Wikipedia" and "Further pasting by Wikipedians". I'm very tempted to nominate the whole system for deletion on Meta as well. —{admin} Pathoschild 05:13:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• Would you please STOP making this false charge. Yes they were TFD'd while I was away last fall, as they were on Wiktionary. Yes I put a few back when the development was renewed upon my return in Jan-Feb... which is basically a blind spamming operation, and I frankly DIDN'T notice they were missing (I wasn't keeping score, just putting the basic system in place. YOU and others deleted that. Big deal.) and when they were TFD'd, I did a belated defense and stopped (As I tried to point out, t'was done anyway). Don't make it out like TOOLS TEMPLATES are bad things or unsavory, or I was forcing things down people's throats... At best you look ridiculous and just mean the individual tagging templates See also Templates: interwikitmp-grp , WikiPtmp, Commonstmp, Wiktionarytmp, and Metatmp and a few other formatting or typing-aid templates used in the self-documentation. So stop the histronic charge. Frankly, it makes you sound petty, spiteful, waspish, and a bad sport. Until you'd brought it up the third time, I'd a rather different view of you. // FrankB 19:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like Wikiquote also has rejected the project, they voted for deletion of similar templates at q:Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Template:WikiPtmp. On Wikimedia Commons there have beens some small scale oppostion at various places, but no mass deletions (yet). /82.212.68.183 21:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Gee Uncle G, can you come up with a 'error' more recent than last September when the concept itself was in a very early trial state (or I was pretty much brand new at template coding, for all that!)? Sister's are more or less capable of deciding whether they want the same tools as anyone else so we really aren't distributing 'willy-nilly' as charged, the focus of the project is to tag, especially to document clearly (aimed at people that are totally ignorant of templates), and stabilize useful utilities such as like: Template list , lts, las, tl, cat, cl, catlst, and cat also and so forth from endless and unneeded changes— all of which many of us use in a preview screen or talk page to access and check other information, links and so forth as an aid to discussion (Gee- just like those used here in this discussion--imagine using something unuseful to be CLEAR! HARUMPH!!! <G>).

(I'll fix up the 'arrogance' in that statement, though--work on that page has been tardy--and at the time I wrote it several new sisters were looking for template programming expertise.)

The project primarily has two templates: {{interwikitmp-grp}} which links templates and name variants of the same templates as well as properly categorizing such, and Template:Interwikicat-grp (edit talk links history) which allows category cross linking to equivalent categories on other sisters.

That those sisters rejected an very crude and early version of the effort is essentially irrelevant the way the whole has evolved, and the local cultures in the three (wiktionary, wikisource and wikiquote) are essentially anti-template in any case. That we learned not to use some formating templates in documentation from their TFD objections has been good for us, and as older projects, they have learned to get by in their own ways.

But if you have a constructive suggestion, We'll be glad to hear it; Identifying equivalent templates, template names, documenting such for lay editors, and writing a handbook guide (eventually) is hardly hurting you older editors who have perfect recall and know all, nor any sister project; tell me what harm the project is causing, or go spend your time crying about something else. Thanks. Cheers! // FrankB 19:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I have a contructive criticism. Try consulting the projects before imposing your project upon them. At Wikinews we have our own set of templates that we use. We have no interest in a project imposing templates onto us without some form of prior discussion about which will benefit the project. At the end of the day, even if you do create the templates, without a discussion with the community, nobody is going to use them. Use some common sense, please. If a project rejects this project, accept it and move on. You were BOLD in introducing it, but we were also BOLD in rejecting it. --Skenmy 09:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you guys read your own project page:

Anyways, the DR on wikinews has more or less closed (there is one or two pages that were added late), with the vote to delete. That implies we do not want anything else to do with this project, so I would like to ask that no more templates (not that any of these were actually templates, they were more time savers in an extremly complicated system that didn't really do anything useful unless you're at the english wikipedia. Remember back in the day when a template was a template?) be copied to wikinews. Also it has come to my attention that several of these templates were also deleted on September 10, 2006 as being useless and were since recreated and now are being deleted again. Last time I checked recreating deleted content was a big no no and could land you in quite a bit of trouble, so please make sure these don't magically appear again. Bawolff 04:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)