Template talk:Audio-IPA

This template is basically a combination of Template:Audio with Template:IPA. (Template:IPAudio is now a redirect to this template.)

For instance, is rendered something like this:

Plain version:

Revealing license information
I question the design of this template, since it effectively obscures license information for anyone but Commons-savvy users. We would never accept this treatment of pictures or photographs. Why should this be any different?

Peter Isotalo 09:58, 21 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. There is another template, Audio-IPA that has basically the same function as this one but without that problem. I'm for redirecting this template to Audio-IPA since it doesn't make sense to keep both, and that template is both older than this one and avoids the problem of not providing a direct link to the description page where the licensing is. User:Angr 13:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I made a stab at this redirection. It seems to work. Please correct me if this is not the proper way of doing this. Stefán Ingi 15:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You merely duplicated that template here, which does not seem to be the best way. Besides, I'm not that sure licensing is what we need in article's headers. Come on, this template was created to be used in headers, where we tell the readers what is, say, Łódź, how to pronounce its name, where is it located and how many inhabitants does it have. The fact that the voice sample was recorded by this or that Wikipedian is of secondary, if not tertiary importance here.  // Halibutt 22:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm for a straightforward #REDIRECT to Template:Audio-IPA since they have the same parameters in the same order. It's really silly to have two different templates here. User:Angr 07:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, in theory that would be a good solution. However, in practice my arguments above still stand.  // Halibutt 14:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What arguments? It isn't being used in any header at Łódź, it's being used in the text, and it doesn't say anything at all about where it's located or how many inhabitants it has. This template and Audio-IPA serve exactly the same function, except that this template doesn't provide a link to the image description page and Audio-IPA does. There's really no need for two different templates that do the same thing. User:Angr 15:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK, I freely admit that I don't understand redirects in templates. Please, somebody who does understand them help and set up the redirect if it is possible. As for the question whether it is sensible to have the licensing information, this question should surely be settled simultaneously for the IPAudio and the Audio-IPA template so we should redirect one to the other and then settle it. Stefán Ingi 15:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Redirects in templates are just like redirects in pages. Just replace the text with  and voilà. User:Angr 15:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Don't like the Łódź example (where, BTW, it is used in the header indeed; just take a look at the very first sentence of the article)? Then take a look at Wrocław, Warsaw, Poznań, Gdańsk or any other place where this template is used. In 99% of cases it is used in the header (usually right after the name of the article). What exactly is the merit of putting a lengthy license information there? The fact that it was me to record the ogg samples for those names is really, really less important than other information to be found in the header (population, location, basic data...). In fact an average reader would open the wikipedia article on, say, Gdańsk to find out what is that city, not what license did Halibutt release his voice sample under. I'm reverting and I hope you guys would come here and try to talk to me first, before again redirecting this template somewhere.


 * Also, take a look at the above examples: if we were to use your ways there, the first line of the header would look like this:

Gdańsk (['ɡdaɲsk] (help·info); German: Danzig (help·info), Kashubian: Gduńsk (help·info), Latin: Gedania (help·info); older English Dantzig also other languages)... blah blah. How many help-info links does a reader need in the very first line of the article? And what is more important in wikipedia: content or its creators?
 * You don't want to use this template - fine with me. But please do not destroy it - at least not mindlessly.


 * Oh, and one last thing: Audio-IPA-nohelp and Audio-nohelp do not have a link to the file description either, yet you're not proposing to redirect them. On a personal note - I believe that the too long "technical" links within the template are the reason why Audio-IPA is used in exactly five articles, including in three headers. Quite a contrast with this template being used in dozens of articles and almost exclusively in the headers.  // Halibutt 08:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Halibutt, there is no reason whatsoever to have both templates. They serve the same function, except that this one violates the GFDL. The redirect is the best solution; the other option is to get a bot to convert all uses of Template:IPAudio to Template:Audio-IPA and then delete Template:IPAudio. "Header" refers to the name of a section, enclosed in "== ... ==" marks in the edit box. I suppose you mean it's being used in an article lead. So what? Any image (and sound files are considered images) has to have a link to the image description page so the source and license of the image can be viewed. Perhaps the multiple "help" links are unnecessary, but the multiple "info" links are not, because each links to a different image description page. You own neither this template nor the pages it's being used on. User:Angr 09:17, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * In what way does this template violate GFDL or any other license? Could you point me to an exact part of the license where it is explicitly stated that "all instances of the usage of PD documents should have their full description accessible at all times and from all levels"? And especially so for my own modification of GFDL I use for most of my samples - and feel ok with the current state of affairs?
 * Also, as I already pointed out, we have already at least six similar templates, why destroy this one in particular? Why not the other way around? Because this one is useful while the other is not (apparently, judging by the usage)?
 * I don't own any article - but neither do you. Why exactly should we make wikipedia worse by deleting a perfectly useful and needed template, and replace it with another one that is not used by anyone - and for a reason apparently? Please be so kind as to reply to my questions before you revert yet another time. This template is used in 100 or so articles and changing it without consensus might be considered vandalism.
 * Please, let's sit down and talk before we engage in a silly revert war.  // Halibutt 11:57, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You say after reverting yet again. Let me say it again: THIS TEMPLATE IS USELESS. It does nothing that Audio-IPA doesn't, but it does fail to provide a link to the description page. If there are six other similar templates that also do nothing that Audio-IPA doesn't, they should also be deleted (or rather, redirected to Audio-IPA). Providing links to image description pages makes Wikipedia BETTER, not worse. The GFDL requires that licensing information be available for all media used. This template hides that licensing information except for the handful of people who know how to decompose (for example) the URL http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Bangladesh.ogg into http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bangladesh.ogg, where they will find the licensing information. As Peter said above, "We would never accept this treatment of pictures or photographs" and we should not accept it for sound files either. User:Angr 12:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course I did it again as I'm merely restoring it to the stable version. Anyway, why not improve it (or the other template, though I believe the other one should be redirected here as it's barely used, contrary to this one)? You say that this template is useless, yet it's used in 100+ articles, while the other one is not used at all (except for 4 articles or so). So, think of it for a while and then tell me which one of them is useless - and why do people not use the "useful" template, while they do use this "useless" one. Anyway, let's focus on improving this template rather than changing it into something people do not like to use anyway (someone mentioned the other template was created earlier than this one - and..?). Let's work on it together, ok?
 * You state that all media must have their license description available at all times. I generally agree, but not the way you put it. We don't put GFDL templates in image captions either. One has to click for them (and know that he could do it) in order to get it. On the other hand I don't see a mention of a similar situation anywhere in the GFDL license, not to mention other licenses like PD. Could you point me to an exact place? Thanks in advance.
 * I believe that nobody forces us to make a separate link to the file description (see point No.1) and that it's simply a matter of copyright paranoia, though I admit I might be wrong on that one. I could agree to put the information somewhere, but not to putting it the way it is within the other template you redirect to. It simply looks bad to have a chain of several IPA keys, all followed by a "technical" part - longer than the IPA keys themselves. It's similar to putting the fact tags after every other word in an article. You know, Some people assume that the Earth is flat. Once is enough.
 * Are you 100% sure that the best way to place such information is by using the text fields nobody would like to see repeated several times in a row? How about the way I did it here with the media information?
 * Perhaps we could agree to the way it was before: the "loudspeaker" linking to the Media Help, while the question mark leading to the file? What do you say?
 *  // Halibutt 13:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The fact that the IPAudio is more widely used doesn't make it any less wrong. Audio-IPA doesn't directly give the license either, any more than a frame around an image does; rather, like the little boxes in the frame around an image, it provides a link to the page where the license can be found. Having several sound files in a row is like having several images in a row, and you have to have link to each one's description page. If we want a short version, it should be one that provides the link to the description page but omits the link to the help page; that's what only needs to be given once. I think on the principle of least surprise, clicking on the loudspeaker should cause the file to be played, and a question mark should link to a help page. I think using the word "info" to link to the image description page is good, unless that stylized lower-case i widely used for "Information" can be used. (Is it a Unicode character?) User:Angr 13:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, the fact that the Audio-IPA is not used at all does not make it any more right either :) As to the i letter- seems a fair solution, much fairer than redirecting this template anywhere. I'll see what I can do tonight.  // Halibutt 14:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Link in IPA
I was under the impression that it was bad practice to make an IPA transcription be a link because commonly a link will be underlined and this might obscure some of the IPA symbols. Stefán Ingi 13:17, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you mean? Of course it depends on the Wiki settings you have in your profile, but AFAIK the default view has the links not underlined.  // Halibutt 22:34, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The default view on the English wikipedia has the links underlined, see also . Stefán Ingi 15:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Now that is a serious argument. I created this template to avoid having too long headers, which is a serious problem in the case of Polish cities, where everybody wants to put in the pronunciation in their language, along with an ogg key, a grammatically-correct name and so on. This creates a lot of confusion and makes the header look awfully (check Gdańsk for instance and imagine the opening list of names used to be much, much longer..). Combining the IPA key with its phonetic representation seemed a fair choice, as both are logically connected. I hadn't noticed the problem you raise since (like 90% of wiki users) I don't see my links underlined and I use the template mostly for Polish names (and Polish IPA chart does not have symbols that are obscured by the underlining). However, perhaps there is a way to override the underlining? Any ideas?  // Halibutt 09:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah, class="nounderlines" will do it. I'm not sure exactly how to put it in a template.AEuSoes1 09:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Just adding a new span around the link with class="nounderlines" doesn't seem to do it. hmm Stefán Ingi 10:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC) Well, doing things in the correct order seems to help. Stefán Ingi 10:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Template redirected
We only need one template. --Kjoonlee 03:36, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The source of Audio-IPA is more compact, easier to understand, and so more maintainable. Also, it's cohesive with other audiolink templates. --Kjoonlee 03:49, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The other template is ugly - the source might be compact, but the actual appearance isn't.  It looks really awful when you need to use two or three of these templates at the beginning.  Sukh | ਸੁਖ | Talk 11:20, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I disagree, because I think the old IPAudio is even uglier on its own, difficult to click. (Not to mention the inelegant source.) Besides, you can always use together with Audio-IPA-nohelp if you need to use lots of audio links. --Kjoonlee 11:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you think Audio-IPA looks bad, you can solve it by changing Audio, Audio-IPA, Audio-nohelp, and Audio-IPA-nohelp. Please don't revert.
 * And we really need just one template. No need to have two.
 * And because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I'll mention a practical reason. Text links are much more friendly to users.
 * And there are 1730 pages that use Audio instead of another audiolink template. Audio and Audio-IPA look the same: there must be many editors who think it's pretty enough. --Kjoonlee 11:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Why does the ipa link to the audio file?
Why does the ipa phonetic spelling link to the audio file? The loudspeaker and the "info" link already link to the file's page. This seems triply redundant, and provides the ipa phonemes with no link to a help page that can help the reader to interpret them. This seems like a poor choice. Perhaps the "info" link should be dumped as redundant, and the ipa phoneme should link to a help page on ipa.--Srleffler (talk) 22:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Redundant template
That template is redundant. Either IPA-all or audio can do the job. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:TFD it then. — Lfdder (talk) 23:05, 5 October 2013 (UTC)