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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dschor (talk | contribs) at 01:01, 12 May 2006 (→‎Criteria T1). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Archive 1, Archive 2, Archive 3

Template:Add

TFD reorganization

This page has steadily grown in size and is now over 300 kb long. I propose that we split it into subpages per day (transcluded on the main page) just like it's done on WP:CFD. Radiant_>|< 13:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think we might be better served by simply closing the discussions that are really old; as of now it's got discussions dating from October 29, and seven days ago was November 11. I'm also a little concerned about the unwieldyness of doing it the transclusion way - it's very confusing until you've nominated 5 or 6 articles (templates) and have the pattern down, and newer users will tend to not bother to nominate things for deletion because it's too much effort. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 14:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It isn't unwieldy - in fact, you wouldn't even notice it: you'd click on an edit link and add the reference to the template, just like you do now. Look at WP:CFD and you'll see what I mean. I specifically do not mean a subpage per nomination the way WP:MFD does it, because that would indeed be unwieldy. Radiant_>|< 00:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The solution when the page reaches 300kb is to close some discussions! I would prefer to avoid subpages since they aren't really needed when the page is down to size (as it is now...), and they mean things drop off, or never get onto, my watchlist. -Splashtalk 03:23, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oversized Templates and Deletion Criteria

Currently there seem to be no rules regarding templates that, while potentially useful, are far too large to be practical. I'm thinking specifically of the Template:Navarre, which lists municipalities in Navarre. There are 272 such municipalities in Navarre, and the Template dwarfs the articles in which it is placed. So, is this already covered under current deletion criteria, or is this an acceptable template, or should it be nominated for deletion? Ziggurat 03:53, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Overlarge templates do often get deleted. Sometimes what is really needed is a standalone list, with a link in each article's "See also" section and/or a category. -Splashtalk 04:04, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Deleting a useful template because it is designed badly sounds like lunacy (yes admittedly us Wikipedians are prone to that sometimes). TfD determines usefullness (and appropriateness), but design improvements should not be centralized at this location. Pcb21 Pete 10:12, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is now to to enhance the usefullness of a 272 entry template by design changes. There are categories, lists, and portals to serve the need of having 272 links. --Pjacobi 10:18, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ouch. I can see where that is coming from. Sometimes a template can be made less unwieldy by reducing font size. In this particular case, however, the template duplicates Category:Navarre and has no meaningful ordering other than alphabetical. That would be reasonable grounds for deleting it, imho. Radiant_>|< 15:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

templates for speedy deletion

I've made the template {{tsd}} for templates which may meet the criteria for speedy deletion. Perhaps someone might find this useful. --Ixfd64 00:37, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There are no spesific critereas for speedy deleting templates. You can only speedy templates that are patent nonsense, tests, pure vandalism or or if you created it yourself and no one else have edited it. Templates fiting those critereas are generaly not used in a lot of articles so there is no need for such a notice, just remove it from any articles that might be using it and slap a regular speedy template on it. --Sherool (talk) 03:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where do redirect templates go?

I'm just wondering, where do any redirect templates for deletion go? I want to create a template regarding this, but I need to know where it should point to. --Wcquidditch | Talk 13:23, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

They could go on TfD or RfD, but redirects are cheap, and unles the redirected name is actively misleading, should usually not be nominated. i don't see a reason for a special template. DES (talk) 18:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, okay. Thanks. --Wcquidditch | Talk 23:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Am I the only one who read that as Where do all the calculators go? :)? - SoM 23:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's related to my question! (that means yes) --Wcquidditch | Talk 23:50, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another (non-)sisterproject box

It's pretty well-known that sister project boxes for sites that aren't actually sister projects nearly always get deleted here, and those that survive get reduced to a {{imdb}}-like external link template; so it was only a matter of time before people started trying to sneak them in by pasting the code directly into articles [1] instead of providing a convenient template for us to shoot. Has a prohibition on such boxes ever been formalized anywhere, or am I going to be stuck playing whack-a-mole with these? I don't see anything on Wikipedia:Sister projects or Wikipedia:External links or their talk pages, but there's always been a very strong consensus against them here. —Cryptic (talk) 15:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be tough to convince me that any Wikicities project should ever be linked from one of our articles. They aren't authoritative and verifiability is extremely difficult. It's probably reasonable to allow them on Talk pages, but not main articles. Treat it like other forms of spamming... warning, then a block. -- Netoholic @ 17:46, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't disagree with you, this is kind of dodging the point I was getting at. What if the boxes were instead to IMDB, or some other legitimately linkable site? —Cryptic (talk) 17:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The authors at WikiMac would probably be disappointed to hear your opinion. Those sites should be treated like any other, and if they have good valuable information, links (not boxes) should be allowed. —Mike 01:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
They are treated like any other; that is, they are not considered reliable, because anyone can edit them. Using one wiki to verify another is rapidly converging on circular logic. The idea of sources on Wikipedia is not simply to say "don't blame us if this is wrong, we got it from them" - the idea is to find sources (including websites) with some special authority on a subject, and reference those. Wikicities is not such a site. If their articles reference authoritative sites then we can reference those directly ourselves. Soo 02:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

new template for use as comment

I don't know if this might help anyone, but I made a template {{tfd3}} that will format a standard comment for a tfd. It will also add your signatore so you don't need to type your four tildes. →AzaToth 17:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Using a template to vote is BAD. You may say it's intended to be used as a subst:, but are you going to be the one that perodically checks up on it and replaces active uses? Similar templates have been deleted before. Save us the trouble and mark it for deletion yourself. Please, people, not every damn thing on WP needs to be done using a template. I'd venture to say this template is even more complicated and involved than typing it yourself. -- Netoholic @ 17:40, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Please no. I know you intended well, but this is overcomplicated and dangerous, in that if anyone ever forgets to sub, or the template is changed, people will have their opinions changed w/o knowing it. It takes more time to use the template than to type it out manually, IMO. Someone speedy this (or do we have to take it to tfd, horror of horrors?)? -- nae'blis (talk) 00:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal change the layout of tfd page

I suggest to have simlar layout as WP:AFD, WP:CFD or WP:MEDCAB, i.e. using sub pages, becaus WP:TFD can get rather long. →AzaToth 15:17, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Made a simple subst-template that could be used on the tfd-page for links User:AzaToth/Tfdl, for example {{subst:User:AzaToth/Tfdl|Template|Tfd}} gives:

It absolutely should not work the same way as AfD which is vastly confusing and wholly unnecessary when we have a scheme that already works. I wouldn't mind it being the same as CfD which is a subpage per day, but a subpage per debate here is just plain ordinary overkill. -Splashtalk 00:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer the way AfD works because the discussions are held on subpages (makes it easier to keep an eye on nominations rather than constantly visiting TfD). And as AzaToth says, the pages can get quite large and difficult to load. Further, when there's high activity, having the nominations on seperate subpages will reduce the chances of edit conflicts.
BTW: what is confusing about how AfD works? —Locke Cole 10:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the discussion will have been missed by the regular denizens of this page, since the temp page's talk page was "cleverly" transcluded here, and so it didn't show up on watchlists. While this reform started out ok, at some point it transformed into a bloated, instruction-creep-ridden process that will make the process nearly unuseable. Just a handful of its problems:

  • The new tfd1 template works only if it's substed, contrary to current practice. Forcing it to be substed makes it highly difficult to use correctly when it's put "within the box", as per both the current and proposed instructions. (More precisely, it makes it very difficult to remove correctly if the template is kept.)
    • If it's not substed, it breaks... but not until the next day. This will make it impossible to notice when it's used in practice.
    • It's also forked beyond belief, and the various versions look dissimilar from each other already and will quickly diverge even more.
  • The new tfd2 template is formatted such that it's not just encouraged to use it, as per current, but required. No one's going to be able to remember all the stuff that's put inside the header line. Even a casual inspection of TFD as it now stands shows that almost nobody uses the tfd2 template as it was, despite it being in the instructions since the end of August.
  • The new tfd3 template is especially unintuitive, forcing the nominator to make an explicit vote (when in fact we're attempting reach a consensus instead), signs for the nominator using an ugly hack, and uses a cringeworthy mix of placed and named parameters.

I run a bot every morning that cleans up incomplete afd nominations. Afd uses a system that's an order of magnitude simpler than this one, and I still have to repair anywhere from fifteen to thirty articles per day (out of about 150 total listed). If the "easy" afd system is that hard for new (or, more frequently than I care to think about, experienced) editors to handle, where the second and third steps can be handled by a simple header and transclusion, than anyone who doesn't already spend time on tfd every day isn't going to be able to get through this. —Cryptic (talk) 13:43, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree wholeheartedly with Cryptic. I didn't say anything up to now because I figured I would be told I was just whining or needed to learn the system better. This is way too complicated. --TreyHarris 18:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Cryptic is right. Making a tfd nom at present is a very simple process: add a tag, make a new section, write a nomination. Job done. There is no reason to make life harder for merely aestethic gains. I'm concerned at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Temp thinking itself nearly ready for deployment when it has massive problems and has been 'discussed' in an almost perfect vacuum. TfD isn't broke. Don't start fixing it. -Splashtalk 13:08, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Re:Cryptic's comments. I think part of the problem with incomplete AfD's was that there were a number of "obvious" help pages that listed the {{AFD}} template, with no clear link to the instructions. I have fixed a couple of these (Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion and Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#What to do with a problem page/image/category) so that they do not show the {{AFD}} template, but only a link to the instructions. If the instructions for TfD are mature enough, the same should be done there. As it was before, an ordinary user could be expected to think that all he/she needed to do to get an article deleted was stick the {{AFD}} tag at the top, since the most obvious help pages implied that that was the procedure.--Srleffler 06:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I estimate only about a quarter are the result of someone just slapping the afd tag on. About half complete step II (ie, they create the actual afd subpage with a proper header) and don't do step III at all; another quarter are strange cases like this, where the afd3 template was placed in the nomination page, not the daily subpage, or otherwise attempted but not properly done (I've also seen both the afd2 and afd3 templates used on the article itself, or the talk page, etc.) I don't think it can be written off as people just not seeing the instructions, especially now that they're linked from the afd template itself. —Cryptic (talk) 15:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with this proposal. TfD is quite manageable as it is. Dan100 (Talk) 17:32, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree as well... all this page needs is more admins to take care of closing these things out in a more timely manner. -- Netoholic @ 06:07, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. More thought is needed, and it's not clear that the current system is unworkable.--Srleffler 06:50, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • See below. Substantial majority is in favor of splitting by day, and this won't make doing a nomination any harder than it is now. In fact the average user won't even notice he's now editing a daily page rather than a global page, except for the fact that there's fever load time and fever edit conflicts. Radiant_>|< 11:58, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Advice sought

I would like to put up Template:Middle-earth portal for deletion, but I think that adding the TfD template will cause display problems on pages.

I made a new template that might help you here, it's {{tfd-small}}:

Template:Tfd-small

→AzaToth 16:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah that is perfect! Thank you AzaToth :) --Qirex 00:50, 23 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As you can clearly tell, {{tfd-small}} now has regular {{tfd}} on it, as the "small" variety has been listed for deletion. Besides, I thought there was {{tfd-inline}} for these types of things? It existed last time I checked... --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 20:50, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Holding cell

I've edited the holding cell template Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Holding cell to include a text that it is transcluded (see diff). The new link is helpful to edit the whole section at once for example to move templates between subcells. My edit seems to work but I'm not shure if it is elegant. I'm asking myself if it would not be better just to include the section title as well in the template such that clicking on the section edit button on the right of the whole Holding cell section just opens the whole Holding section (the template) for edit. Opinions? Adrian Buehlmann 15:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Split

Does anybody else think it's about time to split this into separate day-pages, like CFD? ~~ N (t/c) 03:48, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See a couple sections up. —Cryptic (talk) 04:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Majority is in favor, and there's a 369 kb page size, and a page per day has been proven to work fine on CFD and MFD. Hence, page is now split, for easier archiving and to counter frequent edit conflicts. Radiant_>|< 11:56, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I sure hope you already have a bot arranged to maintain it properly. —Cryptic (talk) 18:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to my talk, he doesn't. Wonderful. I'm going to try to have something ready by tomorrow. —Cryptic (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's pretty awesomely amazing that even though you aren't necessarily actually in favour of the change (per comments below), that you're going to try to do a bot to make it work more smoothly, and further, that you think you can do it in *one day*. How cool is that? ++Lar: t/c 05:06, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How should move to log work now? I cant see the point no to have separate logs for deleted and not deleted, just move the actual day reference from the tfd page to the archive page →AzaToth 19:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should simply tag closed debates with {{tfd top}} and {{tfd bottom}}. This provides logfiles similar to AFD and CFD give. Radiant_>|< 21:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've got an (only slightly evil) hack put together at User:Cryptic/sandbox2 and User:Cryptic/sandbox3 that adds <noinclude> tags around these when substed. This'll let us hide closed discussions from the oversized main page (you know, the reason why it was abruptly split and all) while keeping them visible on the individual logs. Good idea? Not? —Cryptic (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And while I don't hang out around CFD much, I've noticed they put the {{*fd top}} beneath the section header instead of above it (as at AFD and MFD). I assume this is primarily to avoid the confusion that results when someone edits the section above. Of course, this is something that should've been figured out before charging blindly ahead with this split, but never mind that. —Cryptic (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great job, Radiant!. Good to see you listened to the majority who have opposed splitting over many months, and made this irreversable change without prior notification. We could have just moved User templates for deletion to their own wikiproject, just like stubs were moved. -- Netoholic @ 20:10, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, no problem. We can still split out userboxen for deletion if we really want, but the apparent fact is that it will be impossible to delete any userboxen using any consensus-related deletion mechanism for the forseeable future, so we might as well accept that. Radiant_>|< 21:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good to know a two-person majority of "Support, yeah, that looks ok" against multiple long, well-reasoned opposing opinions is a consensus now. —Cryptic (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Netoholic's Law
As a wiki discussion grows longer, the probability of an accusation by one user of another acting unilaterally approaches one.
Look, I've made thousands of "unilateral" edits, so probably have you. It's a wiki. Get over it.
Corollary
One can substitute any of the following for "unilaterally", and the law still works -- "against consensus", "mindlessly", "carelessly". Any of these words indicates you might be facing off against a wiki-warrior.
I have heard that consensus is not required. In fact, I think that a consensus of two is a marked improvement over some of the behavior I've seen this last couple weeks. Avriette 04:10, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Majority? Voting? Democracy? Close some debates and remove the backlog instead of fiddling with subpages. -Splashtalk 03:58, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of adult content template?

Personally, I feel that we should mark articles as containing adult content. Otherwise, some ackward situations could arise at home, school, public places, etc. -Sparky 18:27, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You'll need to propose a policy change then. WP:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_censored_for_the_protection_of_minors -- Sneltrekker 18:57, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Let me just point out again that having a label saying something contains adult content is in no way the same thing as censoring that content. I really don't get why 6 of the 12 votes on this template chose to cite NOT, which really has very little to do with the issue. I understand how such a template might not be useful, or desirable, etc., but calling it censorship seems like a knee-jerk reaction. Or do you consider movie ratings and the like to also be a form of censorship? Dragons flight 19:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This has already been discussed at length before (and is, in fact, a perennial proposal). See Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates, which has links to some of the other places where this has been discussed before. --cesarb 19:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notes on talk pages

Would those closing debates where the template survives please remember to put a note on the template's talk page? It makes handling renominations much easier. Thanks. -Splashtalk 15:09, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added that to the instructions in the header. Please review my edit. --Adrian Buehlmann 15:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was actually already there, but in its previous form (as {{tfd-kept}}) it wasn't particularly useful without a link to the actual discussion. —Cryptic (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um. Yes. My fault. That was the one I've constantly overlooked in the past. Thanks for straighten this. --Adrian Buehlmann 00:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now that What links here is working again, I see that there are quite a few for {{tfd-kept}} and {{tfd-keep}}. These need to be hand subst. And currently the directions for tfd-kept are commented out in the instructions. Wouldn't it be dandy to have a nice example {{subst:tfd-kept|entry=page#section}} to aid folks?

And I don't see the need anymore for the result parameter (it's always keep).

--William Allen Simpson 17:38, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Should this be a messagebox? I've seen some messageboxen for restoration of deleted articles (perhaps hand-built, as I cannot find a template), is there the equivalent for TfD?
--William Allen Simpson 18:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see that folks are busily working on {{oldtfd}}, too.
--William Allen Simpson 07:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oldtfd works better, it's better documented, and consumes less screen real estate. I've rd the others to this and restored the instruction, highlighting subst:. I prefer the template name tfd-keep but I'm not comfortable with the history mess a move would entail. Perhaps someone else will be bold. John Reid 11:49, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you should have read a bit farther down the page. Moreover, these templates are for closers. I'm undoing the redirects, which don't work, as the parameters don't match! You were bold, and WP:BOLD is only for articles, not templates. Discuss first! Wait patiently!
--William Allen Simpson 15:25, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Disallowing userbox nominations on this page

WP:TFD is being overrun with nominations related to these. Very few last beyond a couple hours without either being speedy kept or speedy deleted. I would like to hear opinions about whether we should stop accepting Userbox nominations on this page. Like stub templates, these could all be moved to the WikiProject, so that that they can be policed by the members. -- Netoholic @ 23:04, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't like the notion of "policing" or "members" and I think we should keep them here as a result; it's a passing fad. However, a halfway house would to be quickly move such debates, when they grow, to transcluded subpages and leave just a link here. Yes, that gives transclusions in transclusions, but there will be few of them, they only stay active for about 7 days and the whole thing will go away soon anyway. -Splashtalk 23:08, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I don't see that the number of userbox nominations is really threatening the TfD process, and suspect that the increased number of recent noms will settle down in the coming weeks, anyway. But I also don't see much of a problem in handling them in the same manner as stubs, and there is logic in doing so. – Seancdaug 23:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have real difficulty with passing this off on the WikiProject, as many of them have been voting en masse to keep most of these templates. While userspace-intended templates probably ARE different from regular templates, I agree with Splash for the most part. This will eventually die down again; a new procedure is not needed, though new policy may be. -- nae'blis (talk) 00:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should disallow userbox nominations here or anywhere else. Free speech on user pages is a no brainer and the costs of transclusion are negligible compared to the benefit these users give the project. "The seed of revolution is repression." ~Woodrow Wilson *Peace Inside 00:30, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Keep them here. No userbox is sacrosanct. -- Dalbury(Talk) 00:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely should not be spun off into their own project, or the decisions will never represent the consensus of the broader community. Just look at what's happened with stubs. I don't see a problem with a moratorium on nominating them at all, though; it's clear that no userbox is going to be consensually deleted in the foreseeable future, between the counter-Martin revolutionaries, the deluded newbies, and the hordes of socks. —Cryptic (talk) 03:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Wikipedia: Stub types for deletion has developed a good process. They work to rationalize every new stub template against the mass of others, and remove, combine or eliminate those that don't fit into the larger picture. Having nominations for Userboxes put onto this page misses out on that big picture. Stub templates, when they first became vogue, spread virally around the wiki, much like these userboxes have. Today, the stubs are managed quite well. Making WP:TFD the battleground for stub templates was the wrong leng-term decision, and that is true for Userboxes. -- Netoholic @ 04:47, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree wtih Dalbury and Cryptic that it is better to keep them here. Johntex\talk 04:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with D, C, J – keep consolidated. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 05:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Move it to the WP. Jimbo wants nothing to do with them; they're not encyclopedic, and the userbox thing is a hobby, and not seriously used on any article-namespace pages; it doesn't make any sense to keep this kind of stuff here. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 06:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me that the whole concept of userboxes has lead to absolutely nothing of use to anyone. I use the language ones, but I am not sure even they are worth the trouble. PhatJew 13:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The debate about them has certainly led to far more divisiveness than any userbox has yet caused. FWIW, I think that they should be kept here unless and entirely separate process-page setup is created for them, which to me seems a bit of overkill. Oh, and I might like to preserve Netoholic's comments above - it is very rare for someone not heavily involved in WP:WSS to say anything nice about SFD! :) Grutness...wha? 00:18, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Blech

Who changed the closing procedures and the header on the page so that it's horrifyingly long and a mirror of the obnoxious AfD process? Which is to say, who is going to yell at me when I put it back to the good method that's served us just fine? Phil Sandifer 05:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do keep the subpage-per-day structure, though. That doesn't add to the closure process. (I say this just because hefting the whole thing back to a non-subpaged layout seems pointless now we are here.) -Splashtalk 02:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's still instruction creep on a page that was working just fine. Phil Sandifer 08:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I argued against it (and suggested people close debates rather than complain about how many unclosed debates are making the page long), but the work involved in undoing it is probably not worthwhile. -Splashtalk 08:56, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy to do the work - I find undoing instruction creep to be almost inherently worthwhile. Particularly instruction creep that was instituted despite many editors saying "Umm, no, please don't creep this up." Phil Sandifer 08:57, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you do undo it, please drop a note on User talk:Crypticbot so that it doesn't try to update the subpages at midnight. —Cryptic (talk) 13:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The new structure is actually also better to the servers as there are now only a limited number of revisions per day per page. Also the merging of conflicting edits (which still must be done by the servers if sections do not conflict) is reduced. And last but not least the work to archive the debates is trivial as the article page for that day is already its archive. At least we could continue using the new structure made by Radiant (per consensus) until we have some more experience with it. --Adrian Buehlmann 10:58, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Phil - I'm not sure what closing procedure you're actually referring to as the "good method", considering that this page has seen quite a lot of changes over the last year. That said, please keep the daily subpages. TFD had gotten very large before the split, and a 350-kb page is unwieldy, hard to use for some browsers or connections, and leads to edit conflicts. Radiant_>|< 23:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template deletion threshold

The reason I ended up creating Wikipedia:Supermajority is because I asked what the deletion threshold for a template should be after seeing one deleted with less than 66% opposition. However, I asked in perhaps the worst place to ask that question, and didn't get any actual answers to the question.

Therefore, I am repeating my original proposal here and on Wikipedia talk:Supermajority:

A template should be deleted if it is opposed by at least:
  • 67% of voters when two or more editors are using the template;
  • 60% if just one editor is using it; and
  • 50% if it isn't being used by anyone.

Comments? Please post them on Wikipedia talk:Supermajority Thanks. --James S. 13:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No. We do not close debates based simply on numbers, as has been explained in very considerably detail at Wikipedia talk:Consensus. That's a massive policy shift you are proposing, and I'm afraid it's quite out of the question to do it here. -Splashtalk 02:29, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • TFD is not a vote, but a discussion. The rule of thumb for deletion has always been somewhere between 67% and 75% support required for deleting anything, but that's really just a rule of thumb. If one side has better arguments, they can sway the outcome more than any amount of voting. Certain policies make very good arguments (WP:AUM comes to mind). Also, it kind of depends on the closing admin. Personally I'm a lot less hesitant about deleting a template than I am about deleting an article (largely because articles are content and templates tend to be metadata). Bottom line, you can't create a clear line for this. Radiant_>|< 23:09, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

closing instructions

They don't appear to be correct as they ask the closing user to move the discussion to the log, where they already seem to be. I haven't been active here so am not sure if I'm misunderstanding, which is why I'm not simply changing it myself. Tedernst | talk 23:26, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed →AzaToth 23:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Tedernst | talk 00:18, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

preserved from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

The what links here (WLH) is still very bad. Articles accumulate on WLH of certain templates. This makes the TfD process very difficult. For example we have substed and deleted template:ll after seen that WLH had stabilized. But obviously WLH of template:ll is still not stable as articles pop up now that really include the now deleted template:ll. Example: Al-Qanoon (permalink). Side note: WLH doesn't mark Al-Qanoon with "(inclusion)" even though it actually should. This makes the cleanup even harder. I'm working to fix now the newly appearing broken articles. --Adrian Buehlmann 09:31, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's clear {{ll}} was deleted too soon. There are still lots of pages using it. I'm going to be bold and restore it until it's really subst'ed everywhere. --Angr (tɔk) 09:41, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It only takes a few minutes for me to find all the instances of the template from the database dump, unfortunately the newest dump is a month old so it isn't much help. If a new dump does appear I can sort it out though. Martin 11:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, Martin. I've fixed those newly popped-up articles on the WLH for now. I'm again watching that WLH. If that should be needed I will happily return to your offer. --Adrian Buehlmann 18:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See bugzilla:4549 -- Netoholic @ 11:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the pointer. I've added also a warning note at the holding cell on the TfD page. --Adrian Buehlmann 18:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having some luck in finding links by adding "<includeonly>[[Category:Something]]</includeonly>", where Something is a short existing category. A bunch of entries will show up. Still won't be listed in What links here. We could use a standard Category:Temporary and maybe Category:Holding cell.

--William Allen Simpson 15:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added Category:Holding cell and some things showed up in it, and I orphaned them. However, according to "Rick Block" below, categories added by templates won't update article categories. So, why did some articles not listed in What links here show up in the new category? Were they already in some cache somewhere? Do we still have to wait for an edit to most articles before the rest of the changes are seen?
--William Allen Simpson 02:30, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An excellent example is to compare Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:4LA with its Category:Ambiguous four-letter acronyms. I've eliminated virtually all What links here, but there are hundreds appearing in the category!
--William Allen Simpson 06:11, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates

preserved from Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

Is it possible to have templates automatically "update" on every page they are utilized on once they have been changed? (sort of like how when a category is added/removed from a pages info the hyperlink to the page is added/removed on the Category page). I don't really know much about how Wikipedia works, so my apologies if this is a stupid question. --66.229.183.101 08:26, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Templates do update on the pages they are used on, so the behaviour you describe already exists. --TheParanoidOne 10:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes they do update and there is no way to say no to that besides making an own template for every new version of a template (For example version 1 of template:book reference could be made at template:book reference/1 and protected forever). Templates even break the promise of Wikipedia that you can always go back to an old revision of an article. Example: on article Bill Clinton, User:NetBot changed on this revision the parameters of the president box on the right side (diff). All revisions after that edit of that article now show a good president box on the right side. But all revision prior to that NetBot edit show a broken box (example: revision before that edit). See also this message on wikitech-l and my talk with Rick Block on this (User talk:Rick Block#Some toughts about templates). --Adrian Buehlmann 10:44, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So do images. Superm401 | Talk 11:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the template only updates once the page where the template is used is edited. i.e. Even if someone changes the president template, a president page itself doesn't change to reflect the new infobox until someone edits some aspect of the page in question. Thus, for pages that are less often edited, the alteration of a template used on the page often doesn't occur until much later. --66.229.183.101 18:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't believe you. Can you provide any detailed examples and steps you have taken (with references to wiki pages). BTW: Please create a login for yourself. It does not hurt :-). --Adrian Buehlmann 18:45, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's only the cached version. Changing a template clears the cache of all pages linking to it. [[Sam Korn]] 20:30, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are some things in templates that aren't updated, like adding a category (if the template adds a page to a category, changing the category in the template does not automatically recategorize all referencing articles). So a more complete answer is formatting information is updated when a template is changed, but information contained in internal database records (categories, what links here, etc.) is not updated until the page is next changed. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Thanks for clearing that up. --66.229.183.101 01:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Closing by non-admins?

Since when are these to be closed by non-admins? It's left some spotty dates, where the first are closed by non-admins, and later are left unclosed....

--William Allen Simpson 02:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst it's not usual for admins to close AfDs, since they can be rather more controversial than the average TfD, it is ok for them close to TfDs as long as they are careful and thorough. The deleting admin must necessarily check for themselves of course. If someone is not closing all of a day, please do leave a note on their talk page; day subpages should never be removed from the main pgae until completely closed. Could you list here the incomplete days? I'll try to finish them off. Do note that some templates have not been deleted, even though their debates have been closed. This is largely because they need orphaning first (see the Holding cell at the bottom of the project page), but this process has been held up on a number of templates since Special:Whatlinkshere is not working properly for templates at present. -Splashtalk 11:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It was non-admin Tedernst that didn't finish them (on Jan 27), but AzaToth and Cryptic took care of the rest on Jan 29. I'll keep in mind that it's OK for a non-admin to close these next time I notice things are behind. Easy enough to list in Holding Cell.
--William Allen Simpson 04:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
According to Wikipedia:Deletion process non-admins can onlty close uncotriversial Keeps. But if it is OK for us to close deletions and move stuff to the holding I will help out.--Birgitte§β ʈ Talk 19:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User does not trust Jimbo

This userbox template was speedied, but it may be worthy of deletion review. If there is another user who feels that it ought to be restored, I will list it for undeletion - otherwise I'll just have to make my own. --Dschor 17:27, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'll say this once, and I'll say it again and again: why in the hell are we still dealing with userboxes at TfD when there's a Wikiproject dealing with it? Let them handle their own cruft. TfD is for Templates that Matter, not Usercruft. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 19:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The wikiproject effectively serves to promote userboxen, and it is unlikely that they would consider the conclusion that they are, in sum or in part, harmful to the project. TfD is the way templates are deleted, which includes userboxen. --Improv 21:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ready to delete log

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Ready to delete says

Templates for which consensus to delete has been reached, have been orphaned, and the discussion logged to Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted, can be listed here for an admin to delete. Remove from this list when link indicates the page no longer exists. If these are to be candidates for speedy deletion, please give a specific reason.

Since the closing is now on the daily log, and I've noticed that few are added to the /Log/Deleted, couldn't this step be eliminated?

--William Allen Simpson 20:44, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Userboxes for deletion

Should we make Wikipedia:Userboxes for deletion to deal with all that rubbish so that we can focus again on templates outside of userspace? No wonder there's a backlog here. violet/riga (t) 19:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can see why this is attractive, the problem is that if you do it, it will mean that with fewer 'normal' participants seeing it, the userbox fanatics will find it all the easier to block any deletions. --Doc ask? 19:43, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whatlinkshere appears fixed

The recent problems surround Special:Whatlinkshere for templates appears to be fixed. I've come across several templates that have plainly had their links fixed between nomination and closure, and bugzilla:4549 indicates that Tim Starling added a patch and reran the relevant script recently. This message is an advertisement for willing victims in the Holding cell, which is desirous of your ministrations. In exchange, you will find that your edit count goes up in a satisfying manner Note that this can be fatal as usual.-Splashtalk 00:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the message. And thanks to Tim Starling, of course. This is very good news. If I'm enough bored (and have time) I will continue to help at the holding cell. Sadly, I've been recently very busy in re WP:AUM, which is (was?) a tremendous wikipedian-hours resource hog. BTW I'm not interested in high edit counts (to the contrary - Re "recent changes spam" by my bot and accusations for running it too fast). --Adrian Buehlmann 08:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now if I could only get the dev's to fix the inaccurate (doubled) Whatlinkshere information I reported in bugzilla:4428. On a page that uses a template redirect (like Template:US City infobox), the "Templates used on this page" shows a link to the redirect AND to the redirect target. Also, the article shows up twice in Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox U.S. City (once normally, and once through the redirect). This is nonintuitive, and redundant. -- Netoholic @ 08:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. I would also like to know why it is not possible to have links created through a transclusion shown as such, like those created through a REDIRECT. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:22, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This does seem a little bit weird to me. I suppose, from a maintenance point-of-view, the 'remedy' is to always orphan any redirects first so that you're actually looking for the name of the redirect rather than of the actual template. I imagine a bot not doing redirects-first would get confused. -Splashtalk 16:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria T1

User:Angr has been voting to speedy delete articles under T1 on the basis that argument on the template talk page "proves" that the template is "divisive". This seems preposterous to me, because it means that any time I want to get a template deleted, all I have to do is troll the talk page and the resulting argument will make it speedyable under T1. Can we get a clarification of what "divisive" means? --Ryan Delaney talk 18:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Divisive" in this context means that there are one or more admins willing to delete the item in question. T1 can only be applied to templates, however, not to articles. --Dschor 01:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seriously...

Hey guys, why are like half the things being suggested for deletion, because wikipedia is no place for advertisements or whatnot? I mean come on, there have to be other, more important things to be worried about then this...--TheOneCalledA1 01:17, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Request admin assistance

Remember the templates AnarchismDildo and AnarchismDef? The user who created those, Hogeye, has been banned for a month. Now, however, he is even more belligerent as an anonymous user and sockpuppet, User:AnarChrist. He recently vandalized Template:Primarysources by wiping the page and replacing everything with the same thing from AnarchismDildo/Def. I'm not sure what bureaucratic practice I'm supposed to follow in order to help put a stop to the disruptiveness, so I was wondering if any admins wanted to take a look at the situation (evidence). Thanks! --AaronS 04:54, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Justification for my removal

I removed my own nomination of three templates because I have changed my mind. These should be keep. Since I nominated them, I think removing it should be fine. The other votes were only keep. Sorry for the mess.--Adam (talk) 16:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

tfd-inline

Please use {{tfd-inline}} when proposing the deletion of userboxes. Just paste in {{tfd-inline|{{subst:PAGENAME}}}} into the body text and it will not break anyone's page. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 14:15, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No archives for TFD?

The archives seem to be incomplete, or at least muddled. For instance, though Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/January 2006 exists, I can find absolutely nothing explaining or documenting the vote to delete Template:User Lutheran: there's not even any TfD page that links to it, and the deletion debate only happened a week or so ago and is directly relevant to discussions about userboxes on the main TFD page now. --Saforrest 14:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see. There's no link because there was no discussion. See User_talk:Improv#Userboxen and Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Userbox_debates. --Saforrest 14:51, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Useless

Could someone del Template:Useless? J. D. Redding 11:40, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You should have put it on Wikipedia:Speedy deletion as nonsense. But I'm deleting it. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:34, 5 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{See also}}

I suggested this for deletion, and before the day was out the TfD had been removed, debate closed, as speedy keep. All this without giving me a chance to respond to some of those voting (who admitted that they didn't understand my point — perhaps because, as editors hanging round the template pages, they're so used to them that they don't understand the problems faced by other users).

I suggested it for TfD in part because, after I'd posted a comment making the same point to Template talk:See also, after some time the only response had been one that agreed with me. It seems to me that this speedy keep was precipitate at best. The template is frankly absurd; it offer virtually no advantages over creating a "see also" section manually, and simply places another obstacle in the way of casual or occasional editors (who are perfectly capable of adding a bulleted link to a section, but have no wish to look up the template in order to work out how to use it. It seems to me that there's a regrettable tendency in Wikipedia to replace simple editing methods with geeky ones. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So many problems, it's hard to know where to start:
  1. "before the day was out" -- no, before 3 hours had passed. It was important to get the background template update process rolling before the US East Coast awoke and the servers were swamped.
  2. the official process was violated (and noted in the speedy keep). This is a long standing template with considerable history and past discussion.
  3. there are something like 15-18 templates that redirect to this one -- {{seealso2}}, {{seealso3}}, ..., and {{see also2}}, {{see also3}}, ....
  4. there are many hundreds (thousands?) of uses.
  5. before nominating anything for TfD, always check What links here (WLH).
  6. "the only response had been one that agreed with me" -- that would be Netoholic (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) -- banned from the template namespace -- in the process of his 3rd or 4th Arbitration and banning.
  7. the template does not add a "bullet", it adds indentation and considerable HTML markup (that matches the markup of other related templates).
  8. and perhaps most important of all (related to the out of process nomination), you still show no evidence of having understood the relevant guideline for using this template! Really, that message at login that asks you to read the policies and guidelines isn't there for decoration!
--William Allen Simpson 06:48, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for violating process; I followed Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header#How to list templates for deletion (as linked to from {{Deletiontools}}), which makes no mention of any problem. Specifically, it doesn't say that templates that have been around for a long time or which are often used are immune to YfD.
"it adds indentation and considerable HTML markup", all of which is unnecessary (and against Wikipedia guidelines that deprecate the use of HTML when formatting can be achieved perfectly well without).
The idea that any User can read every policy and guideline is absurd; I probably know more than most, but have barely scratched the surface. If you're going to wag your finger at good-faith editors, you should at least make sure that the most likely place that they look for guidance actually gives it. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:31, 22 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It does, in the very next section after the one you cited: Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header#What (and what not) to propose for deletion at TfD.
"If a template is part of (the functioning of) a Wikipedia policy or guideline, the template cannot be listed for deletion on TfD separately, the template should be discussed where the discussion for that guideline is taking place."
Maybe it would be better to move that above the "How to" section. Consider it done.
--William Allen Simpson 07:42, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with that is that it's virtually impossible to go through every policy or guideline to see whether a template is part of one (and that's a pretty vague description anyway). Which policy or guideline is involved in this case? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh yeah, and you missed the very first step: "If the page is heavily in use and/or protected, consider putting the notice on its talk page instead." That would mean you need to check WLH.
--William Allen Simpson 07:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I considered it. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:22, 23 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This template is not part of any policy or guideline...the point of the rule Mr. Simpson refers to is that people shouldn't nominate, say, {{afd}} for deletion just because they don't like AFD. While this template might be recommended for use at various guideline pages, that doesn't make it part of the functioning of any Wikipedia process. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:51, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I feel very strongly about the exclusion of process-related templates so I feel compelled to explain it.
By process is meant ongoing activities within the project; the obvious example at hand is TfD itself. TfD makes use of a number of templates, each one of which has a specific purpose in service of the TfD process. These templates are all immune from the TfD process itself -- as are similar templates used by CfD, AfD, and so forth. Templates (such as see also) are mere article namespace templates. They support the activity of editing, not the meta-activity of debating what edits can be made or which should be deleted. On the other hand, some templates may be created to support new and untested process; these also are exposed to TfD.
It's vital to see beyond words to the heart of any matter. Here, the important value preserved is the collaborative nature of policy making and process. Let's say that someone wishes, perhaps, to alter the process of AfD. The proper place to do that is at Talk:AfD. That is where interested parties "hang out"; that is where the most informed comments will be seen. It wouldn't be right to undermine that process by nominating an AfD-related template for deletion here.
Another point is that some templates are very heavily used. Tagging one for deletion is automatically wrong; if it is appropriate to nominate the template for deletion at all, then the tag should be placed on the nominee's talk page. It's just too disruptive to tag on the template itself.
Given all this, it's clear that there has been some misunderstandings on all sides. This template is eligible for consideration at TfD but should be tagged only on its talk page. I have seen the template in question and it does appear to me to be very poorly written. This is not a result of incompetence on the part of its creators; rather it is due to the limitations of the transclusion machine. This has many shortcomings and they will likely be with us for a long time. It's not immediately clear what the best interim solution may be. John Reid 21:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's no misunderstanding. This template is explicitly part of the standard section markup. That is a guideline. NO guideline templates are eligible for TfD.
Sorry that you don't like it, the design required a great deal of discussion, and technical expertise.
--William Allen Simpson 23:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{tfdend}}

There are a plethora of ending templates. I've found:

Meanwhile, I've developed:

At least for me, that will help for remembering the syntax.

I'm going to spend the evening fixing all the tfd-keep and tfd-kept. What should we do about oldtfd and oldtfdfull?

--William Allen Simpson 01:19, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Each has radically different parameters, as the way that TfD was Logged changed over time. I've just finished hand replacing all the remaining tfd-keep with valid tfd-kept (often searching for the log entry), but those are for 2004 and 2005 Logs. Oldtfd was probably subst'd, as it has no remaining inclusions.
For new logs, it's down to {{oldtfdfull}} or {{tfdend}}. The former requires the date in 3 parameters, the latter a single parameter date (like {{cfdend}}), and has a default result (keep, like {{tfd-kept}}) for the lazy among us.
--William Allen Simpson 06:03, 31 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no point in having a template to affix to talk pages for templates about to be deleted. John Reid 12:14, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You seem confused. Templates that are deleted can on occaision have the talk page remain. The result parameter is required to describe any conditions. It defaults to "Keep", just like {{cfdend}}.
--William Allen Simpson 15:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Noticed that the Wikipedia:Deletion process still had references to moving to the old log, so I updated it to match the current process, using this template. Note that the Talk discussion there has decided not to subst: the keep templates anymore.
--William Allen Simpson 16:12, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see much value in tagging talk pages of deleted templates but I won't argue against it. I don't care which template is used to tag talk pages after closing so long as only one is used and it is mentioned in the TfD instructions. All other template names should rd to the preferred choice or be deleted. Failure to preview and pay attention to parameter use is punishable by ten lashes in public square. John Reid 16:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, of course! Anyway, the Wikipedia:Deletion process and the Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header were diverging, so I merged this into Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing. And I've listed the obsolete templates for speedy deletion, pointing to this discussion.
--William Allen Simpson 18:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Should {{Tdeprecated}} be affixed to {{tfd-keep}} and {{oldtfd}}? User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 14:40, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They're redirects, that won't show up. There are no known references to them anymore, but they might show up in edit histories. I spent a fair amount of time converting them. They had different incompatibile parameters, so it took a lot more than just a redirect.
--William Allen Simpson 01:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Placement of {tfd top}

I noticed some inconsistency in the placement of templates on closed discussions. The instructions were ambiguously worded, so I clarified them and made sure they read:

Add {{subst:tfd top}} '''result''' ~~~~ ... after the template's section header but before all other content. (parenthetical explanation removed for clarity here)

Another editor changed this to:

#Add {{subst:tfd top}} '''result''' ~~~~ ... before the template's section header but after the previous sections content. (same elipsis)

Well, I'd like some discussion of this. It seems clear to me that {tfd-top} belongs after the section header. Otherwise, it falls within the previous section. This is just messy and invites the risk of screwing up another section while editing this one. Please see the example/test screenshots.

While I'm sure we'd all like to think we're smarter than this, I know I'm only human and am liable to make mistakes. Let's keep all markup pertaining to a given section within that section. John Reid 16:23, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your way is done for CfD, but it's a tradition here. The current documentation (at both places just merged) was consistent: top before section. I'll support changing the tradition, after a week or so of discussion.
--William Allen Simpson 18:04, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry; I don't think it's tradition; it's just carelessness. It is something we can fix. John Reid 21:07, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please read Wikipedia:Deletion process. That's very well documented tradition, since 2005-01-05 16:55:24 Rossami when these were Votes for Deletion. It actually requires extra knowledge and preparation to accomplish. Therefore, not carelessness.
I'm agreeing with you that I'd like it changed for Templates to match Categories. Please don't shoot the messenger.
--William Allen Simpson 23:41, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I prefer the notice before the section. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:55, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would you tell us why? Maybe I'm missing something. I find it disconcerting to find the left shoe of a pair in a shoebox with the right shoe of another. Why is this better? John Reid 00:26, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, beyond the basic "I like the way it looks", it also fully encloses the section in the "this is a closed discussion" notice (which also includes the section-edit buttons). As unlikely as it might be, I'd like to think that the edit button being in the "don't edit this section" block might do more to deter people from contributing after the debate is closed. Disregarding that though, again, I just prefer the way it looks. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:03, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can create markup that will extend the visible borders of a box over the section header and its edit link, while the markup itself remains entirely within the section marked. Will that satisfy? I'd like everyone to be happy. John Reid 21:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing

Whilst well-intentioned, I think this thesis on how to add two templates to a debate was vastly over-long and regulation-laden. Plus, its also on the self-duplicative Wikipedia:Deletion process page which is where it belongs. TfD is often a long page anyway, and I can't see that we need masses of isntructoins added to it. I don't really understand what was wrong with the brief description we had before that said more than enough for a halfway-competent admin to close a debate. So I massively reduced the section adn would fully support its wholesale abolition and reversion to the previous status. Also, I cannot stand those damned result templates and have never used them. -Splashtalk 12:44, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing is transcluded into Wikipedia:Deletion process. This makes it simpler for changes to closing to be made (change Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Closing and you've changed the instructions everywhere). I've reverted you. —Locke Cole • t • c 12:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, Splash, you must not actually read the page, just working from memory. This was previously in Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Header, so it's always been on the page! That was its "previous status"!
So, it was just a status quo. I merely combined them and moved it closer to the Holding Cell (after the debate listings) where it would be closer to the actual work.
Worse, your change deleted all the information in both places, since it is now a transclude....
If you don't like the templates, how do you do the work? Just copy and paste?
--William Allen Simpson 13:00, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is less than half the length of the new essay. The two are not the same; it was not a status quo. I do not see any need to have such lengthy explanations included on this page itself. Just subst: it into the del proc page or somethine. It's not that I work from memory, it's that its the painfully obvious way to delete things, because its the same for every process ever. We're not writing these instructions for newbies, remember, since they shouldn't be closing debates. It needs to be brutally edited down to size, adn subst:ed into the del proc page. Oh, by "result templates" I meant the ones for talk pages, rather than the closure tags. -Splashtalk 13:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I seriously don't see the big deal here. The instructions being longish doesn't hurt you, and just because you understand how to close TFD's like the back of your hand doesn't mean future sysops won't need some guidance on the page to help them along. —Locke Cole • t • c 13:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The big deal is the big page of instructions for something that is very easy to do and was formely a 5 step process. Sysops needing guidance can read Wikipedia:Deletion process which I just rewrote. -Splashtalk 13:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I still didn't see the big deal. So there was some large instructions that went into the details and explained what it looked like. Hardly something to kill with a stick... I preferred William Allen Simpson's instructions. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:06, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User box wars

Where can I read about the outcome of the Great User Box Wars? I see a lot really silly userboxes since coming back from a short break and no user boxes on TfD? --Pjacobi 19:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Most seem to get speedied and then get taken to WP:DRV/U these days. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 01:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Babel templates

Well, Babel-XX is gone for 21<=XX<=50, but there's still quite a few left for XX<=20. I'm thinking we just substitute them. {{Babel-X}} is a hideously ugly template that can't be substituted. {{Babel-N}} is incompatible with the numbered Babels, unfortunately. I guess the only other alternative is to replace the Babels with {{Userboxtop}} and {{Userboxbottom}}, but that will take a little bit more coding. Your thoughts? --Cyde Weys 06:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hrrrm? I don't think we should substitute Babel-1 through Babel-20 onto user pages. The whole point of templates is to standardize formats and remove the complicated markup from the page. We could have a bot convert all the calls of Babels 1 - 20 to Babel-X (or Babel-N or Userboxtop/bottom with a bit more work)... but I don't think we can delete them all because of the 'portability' issue. That is, users on sister projects (of all languages) and other language Wikipedias haven't all adopted Babel-X, Babel-N, et cetera. They still have Babel-1, Babel-2, et cetera exclusively and expect those to work when copied over to English Wikipedia. Thus we probably need to keep some form of these templates around for now, if only as redirects to Babel-X. Actively spreading the alternatives to the various sister projects/languages might eventually allow full retirement of the numbered Babel templates. BTW, Babel-X could be made subst'able (any template can), but... why would we want to subst it? --CBDunkerson 12:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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