Template talk:Air National Guard

Origins
This template combined Template:US ANG by state (version as of copy), Template:Wings of the Air National Guard (version), Template:Squadrons of the Air National Guard (version), Template:Non-Flying units of the ANG (version). The other templates will be changed to redirects once all instances have been replaced.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   23:11, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Done.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   21:55, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

disambig
copied from respective user talk pages

I saw that you undid my edit to Template:Air National Guard. Unfortunately, in doing so, you restored a link to the disambiguation page National Guard. Links to disambiguation pages are strongly discouraged. If you think Militia (United States) is not the best link in this context, can you suggest another that is not to a disambiguation page? --Russ (talk) 15:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not particularly. In this case, National Guard has the best definition. It is unfortunate that it is logged as a disambig page, when it's really more of a list combined with a stub definition. Militia (United States) is not appropriate because the term encompasses much more than just the scope of the navbox.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   15:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think perhaps AWB is logging this as a suggested cleanup edit? This supposed "disambig" has happened again.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   14:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation
It appears that Bahamut0013 reverted my Oct. 17 edit without even reading it, as it was materially different than the previous attempt at disambiguation. Before reverting again, please explain exactly why you believe a link to National Guard would be more helpful to readers on this template than a link to National Guard (United States). Of course, in order to do this, you will have to actually follow those two links and compare and contrast what is on the respective pages. --Russ (talk) 20:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The same rationale works. National Guard has the best definition. Perhaps you should have actually read the talk page, like my edit summary suggested.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   20:53, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't think so. National Guard is just a disambiguation page that lists many countries that have organizations called a "National Guard."  National Guard (United States) describes specifically what the term means in the U.S. context, and this template is used only on articles about U.S. Air National Guard units.  So I continue to believe that the U.S.-specific link is more relevant.  Can we get some other opinions to help resolve this dispute?  --Russ (talk) 21:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
 * To be honest, at this point, I can't say I feel strongly enough to really turn this into a wider dispute. If you feel that National Guard (United States) is more appropriate, then I will defer to your judgement.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   23:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Spilt
I can see why we need this template but there is no need to make a parent template and many other little templates within it. There were separate ones for a reason. The only reason that I made the many templates was because I wanted to cover the ANG more than the USAF was being covered in concern to these page. Each page now has over 300 other pages linking to it, which is really ridiculous. This template would be better off split because I have never seen a template where it subdivides into other sub-templates. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:32, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but you haven't really made your rationale clear to me. There is no guideline stating that a navbox with collapable sub-sections is forbidden; the very existence of such a template kind of proves otherwise. If you are saying that it's too broad in scope, I might be able to see your argument to a degree... but most of the articles I added this navbox to aleady had at least two of the four base navboxes, if not more. This simply unified them so that maintenance and navigation are easier. The number of links is really irrelevant as long as its not disruptive, which it isn't (the template is coded to be collapsed by default), and if you are having trouble with the "What links here" utility getting clogged with the template links, you can filter out transclusions.  bahamut0013 ♠  ♣   02:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I basically am saying that it is too broad. As for saying that the added pages had a few of the templates on them, I am sure that they didn't as I heavily edited all the flying unit pages and tagged the non flying ones. Unless someone else tagged all those pages, I don't remember seeing two or more boxes. I didn't really like the ANG by State template on the pages for units anyway since each state has two or more units, no matter how small they are. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:29, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I had to pipe in here, since I'm a user and a builder of a lot of Air Force/Air National Guard unit pages. I'm not a fan of having to click multiple times to get to the unit type or number that I want (i.e. Combat Comm Units). I circumvent that awful ANG template by creating a template for the specific type of unit (i.e. Combat Communications Units) and place that on the bottom of the page. That way I can get to the number of the unit in that category. A useful ANG template would just have the specific types listed (i.e. Fighter Units, Air Refueling Units, RED HORSE units, Combat Comm Units) and let me pick the type without going through multiple menus on the template. Another choice is to just list the Wings/Groups by number (i.e. 101st Intelligence Wing as 101st IW) and let the user find them that way. Quickly scanning a a list from 101 to 200-something is easier than having to decide "is it a flying unit or a non-flying one?" TDRSS (talk) 13:20, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What I did was combine three navboxes that were already in use. If it's hard to use, then a split would not make it any easier to use, though I agree that a restructure might be in order. And I find the argument about "flying vs non-flying" a bit weak... it should be obvious that a unit named 103rd Fighter Wing is a flying unit. I may not be especially imaginative, I find it hard to imagine a scenario where a reader would know the number of a unit but not the name.  bahamut0013  words deeds   16:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Missing unit
I was cleaning up some stub articles and came across 209th Civil Engineer Squadron, which appears to be an ANG squadron, but is not listed in this template. I thought someone here might be interested to know about it. LyrlTalk C 13:58, 4 August 2009 (UTC)