Talk:Glossary of underwater diving terminology

Style of this glossary
This glossary uses template style as follows. Do not change the style of existing entries following this style without consensus. Entries in other styles may be converted to comply without discussion.

Which renders as:
 * Each term is listed in alphabetical order
 * The "Primary" term, usually the or most commonly used, is followed by any immediately alphabetically adjacent alternative terms using the multi parameter, followed by:
 * a definition template containing an 'Also:' glossary hatnote listing all the other terms in the glossary with the same meaning (unlinked, as this is the target for their links),
 * a glossary hatnote link to the main article (generally with the same or similar title),
 * then a glossary hatnote of any links to other articles with significant treatment of the topic or where appropriate, section links to the topic in related articles,
 * and then the definition or definitions. Usually only one of 'Main article', or 'See' links is enough. Links to other entries in this glossary should use the gli internal glossary link which displays with a dashed underline. Ordinary inline Wikilinks to other articles should be formatted in the usual way. eg:
 * foo: (primary term)
 * foobar: (term with same meaning, alphabetically adjacent)
 * fu: (alternative spelling)
 * (alternative terms not alphabetically adjacent)
 * (link to main article)
 * (other relevant links of sufficient importance)
 * Metasyntactic variable with arbitrary applications. (the definition)

foo: foobar: fu: Metasyntactic variable with arbitrary applications.[1]

Which renders as:
 * The other terms with the same meaning each only have a hatnote glossary internal link to the primary term. This should be in the definition template, eg
 * bar:

bar:

An instrument for hitting balls Which renders as:
 * Use template when the target will be on the same page. Template  is suitable when the target is on any other page of this set of glossary lists as it can detect the correct sub-glossart using the initail character of the link term. Both of these templates accept an optional piped alias. Please check that your glossary link actually works.
 * If there are multiple definitions, use the numbering options to list them. The ghat does not work well in numbered definition templates. Work around it. eg:
 * bat:
 * See:
 * A be-able thing
 * Main article: Bat (sport)

bat: See: A be-able thing Main article: Bat (sport) An implement for hitting balls


 * etc...

Splitting: Most of the splitting support work has been done following the initial split. It should not be necessary to split again for some time. Suggested splitting criteria are if the sub-glossary exceeds 150KB, and it can be split into sub-glossaries of more than 50KB. Cleanup after splitting will usually involve making sure that internal links all work correctly. This may involve changing some } links to {{{Diving term}} links. Splitting will require Template:Diving term to be updated, but the update is trivial if you have a reasonable grasp of template coding.

Table of contents: The sub-glossaries use Template:Glossary of underwater diving terminology ToC to render a ToC that works accross all the subglossaries.]]. It will need updating after a split, but it should be straightforward.

See also MOS:GLOSS

&middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 10:30, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Updated &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 08:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Terms to add
If you have a term you think should be added, and either don't know what it means, or do, but don't feel confident to add it yourself, add it to the bottom of this list, and it will be added when a suitable definition has been found. Feel free to include a definition, and if relevant, references. Dont worry about formatting, just use a bulleted list or failing that a new line.

Terms should be used by English speaking divers, but may be jargon or dialect terms limited to relatively small areas or user groups. In those cases a reference is requested.

Try to keep definitions/descriptions between 5 and 50 words.

For example: hydration:

rehydration:

riser clamp:

Merge proposal
I propose to merge Glossary of SCUBA diving into this article (and redirect) as it is a subset of the appropriate contents for this article. Merging would reduce duplication, reduce maintenance and improve usefulness. Glossary of SCUBA diving is also non-compliant with WP:MOSGLOSS and WP:SCUBA naming conventions (should be Glossary of scuba diving terms, which should also be a redirect). Peter (Southwood) (talk): 10:06, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Full support from me - it seems an obvious job to be done, and thanks, Peter, for volunteering to do it. --RexxS (talk) 19:57, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. &bull; &bull; &bull; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:05, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Should we have to do this?
Why are we forced to do things like this to make a page work? Is this not a thing the devs should fix? I can understand the need for a limit to the number of templates in a page, but does it really need to be a hard limit? Would it not be possible for a soft limit which could be adjusted for pages which need it due to actual size as opposed to bugs? The fix works, but at the expense of making the content massively larger and more difficult for the average editor to read, understand, edit and debug. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 13:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * @Pbsouthwood, why are you using those templates at all? Why not use the native wikitext formatting instead?  Look at how I formatted the glossary sections at Disease. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , it was recommended in a discussion at one of the precursors to the current glossary, based on the recommendations in the Manual of Style, and provides some rather convenient functionality, such as automatically providing anchors and different formatting for in-page and off-page links. Until recently, it has worked well and been convenient to use, but this limitation has recently become apparent. This style is used in other glossaries too, some of them also large, and if I remember correctly, some of them featured lists. Now it appears that an apparently arbitrary software restriction is setting an upper size limit that does not seem to be mentioned in the MOS. We are occasionally advised that space is not an issue, but it seems that size is, for some things. Anyway, that is the short answer to your question, and a bit of background. The current hack sort of works but I have not been able to check that it has not broken some of the functionality, because I do not have the html skills. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 10:00, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * @Pbsouthwood, I agree that the anchors offer a significant benefit, but it might be necessary to forego some of the benefits, or try to find a different way to achieve the same goal. Sometimes there's a way to make a template more efficient.  I'd normally take a question like this to Village pump (technical), or maybe ask @Redrose64 if there's an obvious individual to talk to.
 * (The Template limits restriction exists for a reason.) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , Thanks for your response, I was aware of the DoS hazard, which is why I recognise the necessity for a cap, but suggest that in cases where a legitimate advantage of a higher limit exists, the limit might be available as a variable setting. I thought you might know if there are technical obstructions. Maybe Redrose64 can shed some light, both on the feasibility of a soft limit, and on whether a more efficient template is possible. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 17:11, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think that a variable setting exists, but it feels like the kind of thing that would be (theoretically) possible to create. I'm not sure that Ops would actually agree to install it, however, even if we did all the work ourselves and gave it to them wrapped up with a bow on top.  I get the feeling that some devs consider the PEIS limit to already be a bit on the generous side, especially when you consider the accessibility problems involved in large pages.   Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:56, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

This problem has been resoled by splitting into several sub-glossaries, which involved a lot of work, including coding a special table of contents and recoding Template:Diving term to also serve as a special internal link template. Further splits should be much easier. &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter Southwood (talk): 08:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)