Template talk:Doppelganger

PAGENAMEE
Is there a reason this template uses rather than  for the displayed text? I ask because it unicodes the false username Nae'bIis as Nae%27bIis. I don't want to change this behavior if it's included for a good reason, though.

Also, this template seems like a prime candidate for high-risk protection. -- nae'blis (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Image
Hey, there has been controversy about which image the template should have (The stop hand or the other image). Is there consensus on this, or is it an admin edit war over the images? Astrale01talkcontribs 20:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Contested move request
''The following request to move a page has been added to Requested moves as an uncontroversial move, but this has been contested by one or more people. Any discussion on the issue should continue here. If a full request is not lodged within five days of this request being contested, the request will be removed from WP:RM.'' —Stemonitis 06:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Template:Doppelganger → Template:Doppelgänger — This is the correct spelling of the word, see doppelgänger and . Please also move Template:Doppelganger-other once this has been performed. — Mel sa  ran  21:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
 * This is hardly essential for a template, and in any case, "a" is easier to type than "ä" on a standard keyboard. PC78 00:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * According to dictionary.com, without the umlaut is acceptable in english. 132.205.44.5 20:10, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Also compare BadenWurttemberg-geo-stub and so on. It is standard practice to remove accents from template titles for ease of typing. --Stemonitis 06:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not support the move. There is no need to be über correct in a non-mainspace matter. It is also difficult to type unless you go to the character map and use alt codes. i said 07:53, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You can (at least in Linux) set-up a dead key to make accented characters easier (I use the right windows key). Thryduulf 23:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither is there a need to be "less correct". And it doesn't matter that umlauts are difficult to type on your keyboard, because doppelganger will still be a redirect.  Melsaran  (talk) 00:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * oppose for lack of benefit. If you are bothered by the lack of a template:Dopplegänger then I don't suppose a redirect would do any harm. Thryduulf 23:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Lack of benefit? What's the benefit of calling it "Doppelganger" then?  Melsaran  (talk) 00:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 *  Oppose Neutral per below Most American Keyboard users cannot type an umlaut, unless they use the character map, which would be a pain. Nor should it be expected that users on English Wikipedia create special keymaps or mousekey maps for non-English characters. This is not mainspace, and the meaning of the word is not changed at all by the addition of the umlaut. If you are bothered by there not being a page for this with the umlaut, might I suggest you create the page, and simply re-direct it to this one? :) Ariel ♥ Gold 23:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * On a normal Western keyboard, an umlaut is made by pressing " and then the vowel (as far as I know). Still, if American keyboard users cannot type an umlaut, what does that matter? Template:Doppelganger will still be a redirect.  Melsaran  (talk) 00:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Because it would be an unneccesary move, because most people would still use it without the umlaut. And what about pressing the " and a vowel? Because I have never heard of it before. i said —The preceding  signed but undated.
 * Well, I use a US-International keyboard, which is fairly common. That shouldn't matter, though; if you prefer typing it without an umlaut, then the redirect still works. If we move it, the page title is correct, and people who cannot type an umlaut can still access the template, so why not?  Melsaran  (talk) 12:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I definitely don't use a US-International keyboard, lol, and that shortcut you said certainly does not work with my keyboard, pressing " and then the vowel, produces this: "e. However, if the original name (this page) were to remain as a redirect, (which I didn't see any mention of when I initially opposed, perhaps it was assumed, but I didn't assume it) then I guess I don't really have a problem with it. I see both sides, so I'll go ahead and just change to "neutral", and whatever is decided is fine with me. Ariel ♥ Gold 13:02, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose per WP:UE - it's a special character that should be avoided; and, of course a selfish reason: that this is a maintenance template-- used primarily by administrators and people skilled with the english wikipedia. It's rarely, if ever, used by the general public, and the only invocations of it are with the "ganger" spelling.  On the german wikipedia, it might make sense to move it; otherwise, I'd suggest simply redirecting the correct spelling here for the overwhelming minority of users who would type "Template:Doppelg(the weird a)nger" in the search box or go directly to the URL with the HTML-entities-encoded version in their browser's navbox. -- slakr  \ talk / 08:40, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Category for template page
Whenever someone gets a chance, please add Category:Sockpuppet templates to the template page (but not the template itself), since this is a sock-related template (like ). Cheers =) -- slakr  \ talk / 08:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ - lol. -- slakr \ talk / 13:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I just changed the cats to populate instead of ; I know the template is protected, so if anyone objects, just say so and I'll revert the change.  For some reason three instances of the template are showing through, notwithstanding the noincludes, if anyone knows why, let me know and I'll fix it.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:00, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Error in talk page link
Edit protected

The current version of this template has the following code:

The variable  does not provide a link to the established user's talk page, as the text implies, but rather to the talk page of the doppelganger, which in many cases will be non-existent and unmonitored precisely because it is a doppelganger and not an active user. Please fix this so the variable matches the text implication, like so:

Of course, one can work around this by making the doppelganger's talk page a redirect to the real user, but erroneous coding with easy fixes should be fixed whenever possible, since most people learn wiki principles by observing others' work. Thank you. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Protection
Do we really need indefinite full protection on this page? Why? There are a lot of templates of equal or greater importance that are not protected at all.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 21:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hearing nothing and seeing no significant history of vandalism, I'm unprotecting until this is discussed further.--Doug.(talk • contribs) 20:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Page title
Should we move the title from Template:Doppelganger to Template:Doppelgänger? Doppelgänger is indeed the proper way to spell it. Create a Pineapple (talk) 00:19, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It already has a redirect, Template:Doppelgänger with the a-umlaut symbol. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

No longer using Template:1
15-Aug-2010: I have changed Template:Doppelganger to no longer invoke the non-existent Template:1, as caused on 2 August 2010, when the outer braces "{ }" had been omitted for using parameter 1 with {gender}:
 * WAS: Please see
 * NOW: Please see

Because there had been no error message, the use of double-brace perhaps seemed ok, but I changed it to triple-brace , after 2 weeks. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Adding Something
Could we add

so then the original account has signed underneath so it ends up looking like User:SophJ?

S ophie ( Talk ) 18:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC) Edited to avoid transcluding user page which was causing incorrect categorization of this page. DexDor(talk) 07:37, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Box type
I know this is nitpicky, but would anyone mind if I changed this from a to an , because this template is primarily meant to appear in the User rather than the User talk namespace? Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 02:15, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Being that this template is meant to be used in both namespaces, I have changed it to an, which is specifically meant for multinamespace templates. Antony–22 (talk⁄contribs) 17:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 14 June 2018
Change to. Generally, only trolls have the sophistication of creating an account with a similar username to attack or impersonate another editor. L293D (☎ • ✎) 01:48, 14 June 2018 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 20:52, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't think we need to explicitly list every flavour of vandal, nor to suggest new kinds of naughtiness. But not so strongly as to reject the request. I'll just take a pass on this one. Cabayi (talk) 10:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Trolls are vandals, no need to call them out separately. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|TALK

Template-protected edit request on 26 October 2019
Remove the  tag from. It looks weird and it doesn't belong here. Use a bold tag. – Aνδρέας talk&#124;contributions 17:10, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: I've swapped to mono because kbd is incorrect regardless. Why do you think it needs bold? Izno (talk) 17:34, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

Unnecessary harshness/wording
I feel like the words "by an established user" and "by vandals" are unnecessary. Like the template would just seem more helpful without it.Peasesoon (talk) 23:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
 * But that is why people create doppelgänger accounts. Primefac (talk) 00:01, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, how does a Doppelganger account prevent impersonation by bad people?
Hi, guys, how does a doppelganger account prevent impersonation by bad people? The template documentation does not give an explanation. Thanks! F r i e n d 5 0 5  12:45, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It does, actually; see the paragraph starting with This template is for these... Primefac (talk) 13:34, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Please change possesive 's depending on username
I'm not an expert on templates or conditional magic words, but if someone can please make it so that if the user's gender preference is unspecified/neutral, and their username ends with an s, x, or z, that it will end in just ' instead of 's? Quick Quokka  [⁠talk • contribs] 18:23, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Example:
 * without s, x or z


 * with s, x or z

Quick Quokka [⁠talk • contribs] 18:33, 21 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Seems like Apostrophe is full of so many rules, and that this convention is optional. That being said, I'm not opposed to it - but it would likely require a string match parser function to run there - looks like this normally just says "his" or "her" - why not just use "their" - our standard grammar rule for interface pages? —  xaosflux  Talk 19:23, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Completely agree with xaos here, just change it to "their talk page" and call it a day. If people want to get bent out of shape by the use of the singular "their", then just make it "See User talk:Example for relevant..." and avoid the issue altogether. Would also work to change BASEPAGENAME's edit count to the doppleganger's edit count to avoid that ending as well. Primefac (talk) 19:45, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Or you can use the magic word, so something like, so it will properly display the user's preferred pronouns.  Quick Quokka  [⁠talk • contribs] 06:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Example: Xaoflux' preferred pronouns are . Primefac's preferred pronouns are . Quick Quokka  [⁠talk • contribs] 06:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Just looked at the code, and noticed it does do that, just uses the possesive 's for neutral. I think singular they is still better. Quick Quokka  [⁠talk • contribs] 07:01, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree. Where a body of text refers to a stranger whose gender is unknown to me, I would expect to see the pronoun “they”, not “he” or “she”.
 * This particular usage of singular “they” is not related to gender identity at all — it’s been a standard English-language convention for hundreds of years.

Foxmilder (talk) 03:55, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

A bit of minor pedantry
The template page contains the following passage (I have avoided the use of quotation marks for the sake of clarity):

Often, this takes the form of replacing capital "I's" with lowercase "L's" and vice versa.

There shouldn’t be an apostrophe in either of these constructions. In any case, the phrasing here is quite awkward.

If I were able to edit it, I would suggest the following alternative:

Often, this takes the form of replacing a capital “I” with a lowercase "L”, or vice versa.

Foxmilder (talk) 03:41, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair point, I've also changed the wording a bit to indicate it is an example. Primefac (talk) 07:39, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit count link
I'm not entirely sure what the purpose is of providing a link to the doppelganger's edit count. Presumably it's going to be either zero or near-zero? I suggest removing it. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 06:46, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I could create a "doppelganger" account of someone, tag the user page with it, and then go about my business impersonating someone without anyone suspecting. You are right, a doppelganger account should have a zero or near-zero edit count, and it should be easy to check that. Primefac (talk) 07:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, that makes some sense. A better approach would be to centralize, i.e. have a collective report of all edits from accounts tagged as doppelgangers, so that any issues could be picked up more quickly. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Edit request
Please change "'their' will change to 'his' or 'her'" to "their will change to 'his' or 'her', if necessary" in the description. Some Wikipedians do not use a gender specific pronoun, and to also make sure non-binary individuals or individuals who do not use a gender specific pronoun on Wikipedia would not be worried about it changing to "his" or "her". Mseingth2133444 (Did I mess up? Let me know here) 03:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)


 * @Mseingth2133444, I'm not sure I understand the request. Are you seeking to change the template or the template's documentation? The template itself already uses Gender to match what a user has set in their preferences. The documentation notes this, although the example it uses is a little out of sync — it references "their", but @Nyttend changed it to repeat the username in 2013, calling the singular they ungrammatical. I'm inclined to revert that change (to bring it back in line with the documentation), as the repetition is clunky and the singular they is widely accepted at this point, but apart from that I do not see any issue we need to deal with.  Sdkb  talk 07:05, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm totally fine with the singular they/their. Primefac (talk) 11:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I meant the documentation, @Sdkb, but seeing as you will change it/have changed it, I think this is pretty much resolved. Mseingth2133444 (Did I mess up? Let me know here) 15:14, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I meant "This template will correct itself based on the gender set in the preferences of your real user account (i.e. in the sentence "Please see their talk page for any relevant discussion", "their" will change to "his" or "her")." Mseingth2133444 (Did I mess up? Let me know here) 15:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Actioned.  Sdkb  talk 16:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)