Template talk:Lifetime/Archive 1

Lifetime vs Lived
Why do we want this which duplicates template:lived? --Phil | Talk 09:39, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
 * It's easier to use (see below). -- User:Docu

Resolved Lived was deleted. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Mini controversy
Alternative for Jean Baptiste Audebert (born in 1759, died in the year 1800):
 * 1759

There are two main reasons for requiring the former usage such that this template is left as a template and not substituted. The first is that it provides potential for expansion of its functions in the future, if any reason is found to add additional biographical formatted data at the foot of all biographical articles. The second is a corollary, in that if all biographical articles have this template, then that is an easy way to index into the set of biographical articles via the 'What links here' feature. There is no way to access this set at the moment, other than indirectly through Category:People. There is a third trivial reason that it's shorter so there's less chance of cocking up the two category invocations. User:Noisy | Talk 19:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The reasons for substing it are explained here, if you want to stop this being subst:d then I suggest you take it up there, as few monitor these pages. Martin 20:40, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Defaults now available
A few adjustments to the template now allow for generation of default categories:


 * blank birth year: results in Category:Year of birth unknown
 * blank death year: results in Category:Living people

Name sort key from the 3rd parameter will also be included in these cases.

Existing usage of this template should not be affected. Dl2000 03:34, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems

 * note: i posted earlier on the village pump before i realised this page existed..

Hi, this template is causing me some difficulties. It works fine when years are entered, but when one or both of the years aren't entered it defaults to Category:Year of birth unknown and Category:Living people, as you know. For the former, this is unhelpful because the majority of articles without birthdates are of people where the birthdate could be found, just hasn't been yet - the "unknown" category is supposed to be for those people whose birthdates have been obscured by bad record-keeping or the sands of time, or is disputed by historians or might never be found. I know this might seem like a pedantic complaint, but one of the main things I busy myself with here is going through the year of birth missing category trying to fill in the dates, so I started trying to keep these two categories separate, a task which isn't helped by this template. In the latter case, the default is even less helpful, since it may result in people dead hundreds of years but with no listed deathdate being categorised as living people. I propose that both default instead to the Category:Year of birth missing and Category:Year of death missing categories, which play the part of some kind of triage. Alas I have no idea how to go about this. How does anyone else view this matter, and could it be changed? Jdcooper 18:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Here is how you would do it:


 * --Splarka (rant) 02:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Right. So would i just paste the second box onto the Template: namespace? Jdcooper 19:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I have reverted to the original version, because most of the current usage is predicated on the way it used to be, therefore changing the layout would involve revisiting all usages to check that they were correct. Noisy | Talk 12:49, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So how exactly do you address the problems I detailed? With my edits, if no dates were listed for someone without researched life-dates the worst that would happen would be that the "missing" category were used, which would be harmless. Under the current edits, if no dates were listed it may list 18th century people as Living people, and would list currently living people as Year of birth unknown, which are serious factual errors. The vast majority of usages of this tag are incorrect, placed on articles where these errors would subsequently arise. Furthermore, not using my edit would involve revisiting all usages to remove them entirely, because they are not used appropriately. Please respond soon, or I will revert back, because we cannot have factual errors on wikipedia. Jdcooper 17:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I would concur with reverting the unfilled birth year to the "missing" category. If the birth year was truly unknown, this should be handled manually after some research effort is documented.


 * But defaulting to the "missing" death year introduces other factual problems. See the "How to use" section on this talk page - it currently indicates that living persons are represented by leaving the death year blank. To categorise living people as "Year of death missing" would imply they are dead, introducing a serious factual error on the other side.


 * The only other default death category that might be considered would be Category:Possibly living people, although that would likely bring a new set of problems.


 * Therefore we need a consensus whether this template should be used for deceased people only, or for both living and dead people. That will determine the default death year category setup.
 * Dl2000 18:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Using it only for deceased people would solve the problems, theoretically, as you say otherwise either way there could be factual errors (though the Possibly living people alternative seems even better, perhaps). However, the problem in the first place comes from the fact that people have used the template wrongly without reading the instructions and results, how could we make sure that the template is only used on articles about dead people? Jdcooper 18:20, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

DEFAULTSORT magic word
A great new feature's been added to Wikipedia's software. As mentioned at Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-02/Technology report, we can now change the default sort key for a page like so:. If this were in George Washington then all categories that didn't explicitly override it with their own sort key would put this article under "W". How about adding this to this template, since it seems like something that would be useful to universally apply to biographical articles? It's a pity this template gets substed so much or this would allow us to do a massive categorization cleanup in one fell swoop, but at least future articles will be handled more easily. Bryan 05:56, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Not working correctly! If there is no 3rd parameter given, it sorts it to "{". Also it overrides any preexisting DEFAULTSORT declaration Caerwine Caer’s whines  08:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Hrm. I see why my original testing missed this, I was passing a blank third parameter instead of no parameter at all. But I've now spent half an hour messing around with every permutation of parser function I can think of and can't get it to correctly omit the defaultsort under that condition so I'm going to revert myself for now and go in search of more experienced templatesmiths than myself (I posed the question here). As for overriding previous defaultsorts, is there a situation where this is a problem? I'm unable to think of any offhand, but haven't spent a lot of time pondering it. Bryan 09:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It could be if someone wasn't expecting that behavior and was using a different key for an explicit DEFAULTSORT. But I can't see why one would want to use different keys or how such a situation could be detectable. Caerwine Caer’s whines  10:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Categorization to Category:Year of birth unknown removed
I commented in the edit summary that this is a maintenance template, however, Jdcooper reminded me that this is in fact not the case (as would be with Category:Year of birth missing). I still nevertheless assert that the removal should stand as it would otherwise incorrectly categorize many individuals who should rather be placed in the missing category, the missing and unknown categories being mutually exclusive. __meco 21:38, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So now, if someone used this template without a year of birth stated, what cats would be generated? (Apologies, but as I said my computing skills are not hot) Jdcooper 14:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you try out the template example in the top of this page: and preview the page, when you look to the bottom of the page you'll see only the year of death category showing. __meco 19:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I see. In that case I am completely in support of your solution. I raised that issue myself a while back, and no-one seemed to appreciate the problem. Jdcooper 20:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems nobody went and actually removed it from Lifetime. I am on it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:21, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Magioladitis (talk) 00:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Possibly living people ?
How would we use Lifetime to populate Category:Possibly living people ? GrahamHardy (talk) 22:04, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

What for?
What's the point of using this template? Does it make editing easier? No, people have to remember how to use yet another template. Does it make Wikipedia friendlier? No, newbies don't understand what's that thingie for. it saves a copule keystrokes? Then subst it! But keeping it in articles makes no sense, IMHO. Max S em(Han shot first!) 15:11, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Lived does that job. Maybe you are right. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with MaxSem, having this template sitting atop the categories in an article serves no purpose whatsoever. --Closedmouth (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Many users seem to use it. In fact, I have notices users replacing defaultsort by lifetime. If you would like, you can nominate it for discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:37, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I also agree with MaxSem. Categorising articles is an easy thing to do as a new editor and this makes it harder for people to understand as the template gives no indication as to what the numbers or anything are for, or even that it is for categorisation. This is especially true if just BD is used. All it is doing is creating a dependence on a template for something that shouldn't. Use of this template should be avoided and people should definitely not be going round just converting articles to use it. mattbr 14:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * We have two options. Delete it or give instructions to avoid it. Some users are replacing categories with this template and some users do the opposite. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This should probably go to TfD for further discussion. —  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  17:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. But let's prepare for a LONG discussion there. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:21, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see what the problem is, it's not very difficult to understand how to use the template and it's much more efficient to use in biographical articles than defaultsort is. For An Angel (talk) 13:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

AWB
Why does AWB replaces this tpl with categories?--Kozuch (talk) 12:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this is better taken to WP:AWB. I had not used AWB in a while, so I had to do an update and look at this.  It does replace lifetime with the birth and death cat, but does not add DEFAULTSORT.  --—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs. The problem is already reported twice. It's a AWB discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Please stop
Please stop massively substituting this overly and unnecessarily complex template (as seen shere) for the impler code that is used on most biographical articles. Even editors such as myself who have edited here for years can't make sense of this template. Please stop. Badagnani (talk) 17:48, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Please stop. Badagnani (talk) 18:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I concur with Badagnani. Is there any reason why category links and default sort have to be replaced by this template? I'm going to revert the changes. -- Taku (talk) 21:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a question of the huge bandwidth all of this is taking. I wish we had consensus before the change had been done, in bot-like fashion (or is it a bot?). We really should always try to keep our code as simple as possible for new (and old) users to figure out and use on a regular basis. Badagnani (talk) 21:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I already asked for MaxSem, who is an administrator, to nominate this template for deletion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that this template is not a good idea, and have asked the editor who adds them to stop. Rettetast (talk) 21:27, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you go for an AfD? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:33, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree 100%. I thank the creators / etc. for their intentions but please, you need consensus before mass changes like this. I also think it's much harder to work with this template than with the three others and it makes it impossible to order categories as I have before. I'd also like to see consensus that mass rollback on this is permissible. gren グレン 22:12, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I am starting rollbacking because of all the errors in the edits. Rettetast (talk) 22:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Better before involving in edit wars let's bring it to Afd. I can't do it because the article is protected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I have just created a TfD which is currently at the top of: Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_May_22. Your input is appreciated. gren グレン 22:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Some of the above mentioned bot-like mass-changes (one edit per second) are also done plain wrong, for instance this:, or even replacing a correct DEFAULTSORT with a new "automatically generated" wrong one:. Oceanh (talk) 23:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC).

The same user, Archanamiya, ignored my requests to stop putting special characters in the template. If this editor is using a bot, I would like to ask: Is he/she allowed to? -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

BIRTH-DEATH-SORT
In order to make things simpler i nominated the old redirection BIRTH-DEATH-SORT for deletion. Check Redirects for discussion and please express your opinion. I think BD is enough as a redirect. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Looking back to my comment: IF I had to choose between BD and BIRTH-DEATH-SORT, I would choose the later. The first is hiding the fact that it uses Lifetime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Removing defaultsort from Lifetime
Discussion held in Templates for deletion/Log/2008 May 22 showed that many editors believe that defaultsort has to move out from Lifetime. Do you support this modification? I support it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it showed that the majority of editors believed the template is fine the way it is, and only the most vocal people disagreed. For An Angel (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It was shown that they are many problems caused by hiding DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

MISSING
Could "MISSING" be abbreviated with a simpler "-" for those years unknown? -- Matthead Discuß   18:06, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The MISSING switch seems not to be working properly. See Kaveh L Afrasiabi. __meco (talk) 10:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Works now. Perhaps I overlooked the fact that Category:Year of birth missing (living people) is a hidden category... __meco (talk) 15:18, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

No sense
This template has no sense. Categories that are going to stay in articles forever (birth and death years don't change), must be introduce with. --Emijrp (talk) 12:55, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Why? __meco (talk) 10:22, 18 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Why should a template be rendered everytime the article is read when the content therein will not be changed? Double Blue  (Talk) 21:59, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. It serves no useful purpose. Let the categories appear in the category listing.  And especially, let the DEFAULTSORT magic word appear in the listing.

Moreover, for articles for two persons (for example twins or couples). We need more than one birth or death category -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Broken?
This seems to have stopped working. With birth and death empty it is only generating "Category:Living people", see e.g. Tom Morgan (comics). (Emperor (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC))


 * OK I see - the year of birth missing category is now hidden. No problem. (Emperor (talk) 15:09, 1 September 2008 (UTC))

What is wrong with the BD TEMPLATE?
It works perfectly well for dead people. If it should not be used for living people or those for whom the date of birth is missing, so be it, but leave it alone for the rest, at leat until this has been through a proper discussion that has been flagged up on ALL relevant projects that are dealing with biographic subjects. I had taken BD to be an alternative version of "lifetime", which seems to produce the same result. They may be duplicates, and I do not see why they should not be merged, but what is happending at present is that BD is being Vandalised by Yobot. If you wnat to get rid of it take it to a proper discusion - do not just do it! Peterkingiron (talk) 18:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I observe that there was a Tfd discusion last May and the result was KEEP. If YOBOT does not revert ALL these changes to perfectly proper use of the BD template, I will have to requiest administrative action against its owner.  Peterkingiron (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no good reason not to subst when using this template and the TfD discussion echoed that. There are several good reasons why it should be subst. Calling Yobot's work vandalism is very uncivil and incorrect and you should revert your comments quickly.  D OUBLE B LUE  (talk) 18:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I am copying my answer from Peterkingiron's talk page.

Hi. I just saw your message. Two more users have contacted me for the same reason. You can read the discussion in my talk page. As you can see my bot is not substituting Lifetime but just BD. BD is a bad redirect because it's name doesn't show that it uses defaultsort. BIRTH-DEATH-SORT is better. The lack of the information causes many editors to get confused and add defaultsort again. A very recent example is this one but they are more and I sometimes add these examples in Template talk: Lifetime. Moreover, I would like to inform you that there is no consensus for a preferable method, to go and substitute everything with one method against the other is something nonconstructive, it will make no difference what people see on the screen. It's like something runs AWB just to move stubs to the bottom of an article. Finally, I informed about my actions and thoughts in Template talk:Lifetime. I have made comments about everything concerning this template, warned about possible issues. You can participate in there to help us. If you like I can send the subject of BD to Redirects for Discussion (RfD) before continuing (or not) with by bot but I think the reasons I am substituting are clear and are a result of the discussion for Lifetime.

Replacing BD with Lifetime is ok to me. for the moment at least. The important thing right now is to get rid of BD and handle Lifetime later. So, edits for replacing BD are constructive. On the other hand, replacing DEFAULTSORT+the 2 categories with Lifetime has no consensus and I think is nonconstructive. When a new article is created you can use your prefereable method to add categories but please don't replace existing categories with Lifetime. After all, why Wikipedia has to render the categories each time someone load the article? Friendly, Magioladitis (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If (as you say) there is no consensus, YOU should NOT be making wholesale changes without discussion. Experienced biography editors will know how to use BD or lifetime correctly.  I would however suggest that their use should be limited to people where birth and death are known at least within a decade (so that 1730s births) could appear if it is not known that the birth was (say) 1733.  I would depreciate the use of BD (or lifetime) where one of these is unknown or missing.  The case you cite is where some one tried to put in defaultsort twice, once via defaultsort and once via BD without dates.  This is the work of an inexperienced editor, which experiecned ones will correct.  What experiecned editors need is a means by which they can quickly insert birth and death categories in succinct manner.  Since the template generates the requisite categories etc, I do not see what the objection is.  In changing it you are adding about 50 characters to each article.  Is that really necessary.  I think the use of BD simplifies the content of the bottom of the article, and saves two lines of text.  Unless you get a consensus, please leave things alone.  Peterkingiron (talk) 20:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Bringing BD to RfD is a good idea. As you point out it is not a well-named redirect and has been deprecated.  D OUBLE B LUE  (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. I'll send to to RfD and I'll stop by bot until then. I hope this clears things. Just give me 3 minutes. I just returned home. I just want to say that Peterkingiron is debating pro Lifetime and not BD specifically. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:36, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I understand that and suspect he's a little confused about what you are doing but I still think that BD should eventually be deleted once all the uses have been eliminated to prevent it from being used since its name is misleading.  D OUBLE B LUE  (talk) 22:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I sent BD for RfD. Check Redirects for discussion/Log/2008 November 22. It's important to be clear that this is an RfD and not an TfD. Thanks everyone. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to avoid RfD because many articles will be disturbed for something we could solve in here. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Can we do something about the rfd template in Template:BD, because it's appearing on every article that includes this redirect. Furthermore, the template links to Redirects for discussion, where article is replaced with whatever article the user is currently viewing, so it won't actually go anywhere useful. I suggest just removing the redirect and placing the rfd in noinclude for now, because placing the noinclude along with the redirect will make the redirect appear as plain text. Gary King ( talk ) 23:41, 22 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Resolved Gary King  ( talk ) 23:53, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The template needs to be encased in a pair of tags. Peachey88 (Talk Page 23:51, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * This just shows why this change should not be made without a proper RFD (or other) process first. Peterkingiron (talk) 00:06, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Huh? The RfD notice template is what caused the problem.  D OUBLE B LUE  (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know exactly what the problem is. But it is definitely broken now; people who have added this template have removed other sort keys on the other individual categories, or general DEFAULTSORT keys.  But now articles with this template, even if they have the proper sort key in the template itself, are missorted in all other categories too.  FIX IT!!!!!!!!!  Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * We have to remove the RfD tag. This causes the problem. It was the reason I wanted to avoid adding it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've reverted to the previous (working) version, since the change broke literally thousands (tens of thousands?) of articles. If someone knows how to put on an RfD tag without breaking the categories for all those articles in the meantime, feel free. --Delirium (talk) 11:00, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Still broken! Please fix it, and leave it fixed
Despite what Delerium says above, this is not working now. Please fix it, and leave it fixed, until it is removed or whatever. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I should be working after the reversion. If they are any problems please fix them manually or by substituting BD or by renaming to Lifetime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:35, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I replied to myself below without noticing your comment. Time will probably solve it (of course, not for the many that have improper sort keys in the first place, like the one I just fixed at Gábor Császár where User:Maracana had created the page with an improper BD sort key "Császár, Gábor".  Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:40, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I may have been a bit hasty, forgetting that these probably won't be fixed until Wikipedia gets around to refreshing the articles. I just tried a null edit (a save without making any changes) on one of them, and that fixed it.  So I'll give it a couple more hours, and try again to see if it is still broken.  Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:36, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Now, however, it has been 36 hours since Delerium reported it fixed above. But it still isn't fixed; and it shouldn't take that long for Wikipedia to get around to fixing it.  Still gets fixed with a null edit, the the articles which haven't gotten a null edit or an actual edit remain unfixed. I still expect it to resolve itself, but it sure is taking a long time. Gene Nygaard (talk) 23:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not understand the technicalities on this, but the RFD discussion is likely to end with YOBOT being set up to run a large number of substitutions. I presume that it opens and then closes the articles.  That should fix a lot of them.  I would therefore counsel patience.  With such a very widely used template, I would suggest that ultimately there should be a very high level of protection applied to it so that even well-meaning Admins cannot interfere.  Peterkingiron (talk) 11:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Modification of template name contrary to explicit instructions in documentation
The documentation for this template tells us:
 * The template's name and its aliases are in all-caps and feature the suffix -SORT so as to clue in editors that it embeds and replaces DEFAULTSORT. (The original alias "BD" was renamed and is unlisted for the same reason.)

So, will somebody please explain to my WTH is going on, because there is no "SORT" in the template name now.

I say it should be fixed in accordance with the templates documentation. Barring that, this template should be made to be only used with subst:, so that the actual category names and the DEFAULTSORT magic word itself appear on the edit screen when some other editor goes there. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:14, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * In the beginning it was: BIRTH-DEATH-SORT and Lifetime. BIRTH-DEATH-SORT had a better code and Lifetime a shorter name and we decided to delete the old Lifetime and move BIRTH-DEATH-SORT to Lifetime, leaving it as a redirect. I know it's confusing and that many mistakes have be done. BDSORT was deleted and BD didn't. They were so many names and much confusion. I am trying to cleanup. I sent Lived for TfD, check Templates_for_deletion, and Living for RfD, check Redirects_for_discussion. I hope BD is deleted and then we see what's next. Maybe we have to rename Lifetime back to BIRTH-DEATH-SORT or BDSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Of course, I agree that Lifetime has to be subst only. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:23, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I would suggest that the best place for this discussion is on the current RFD discussion, where I suspect that we are coming to a consensus that the name should be BDSORT and that all its mirrors should be renamed to that (or whatever is decided. It is unsatisfactory to have multiple parallel discussions.  Peterkingiron (talk) 11:15, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, it is (confusing, that is; disagree about somewhere else being best place for discussion). But this discussion deals with the problems of lifetime template, and nobody should realistically expect a decision in that discussion of a different template to have any significant affect on this template, which doesn't include the same notice of RfD discussion, with the notice of an opportunity to be heard on it.  It belongs here, I would think--if the discussion there gets off-track and broader than its real scope, then send it to the discussion here.  Doesn't that make sense?  Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Either that, or explicitly include Lifetime in the RfD, with appropriate notice here. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:30, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that all these problems would be solved if the template were simply required to be subst so that editors see the DEFAULTSORT magic word and the Born and Living/Died cats instead of multiple unclear template names. If it was subst only, there could be multiple shortcuts that suit the needs of editors with no confusion and lack of clarity for editors who follow.  D ouble B lue (talk) 18:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Ok. BD was kept after a bit hasty closure because "The redirect is still used in thousands of articles. Many editors object to its deletions". This doesn't mean it should not be orphaned to save us from troubles. What we do then? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I argue, of course, that all instances of BD be substituted to unveil the hidden DEFAULTSORT and cats. Double Blue  (talk) 21:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep something short and sweet -- According to the quotation above, "Lifetime" fails to comply with the rules (because it is not in capitals and does not include SORT), BD also fails this in that it does not contain SORT. This leads inexperienced editors to think that the hidden DEFAULTSORT is missing and should be added.  I admit this is a problem.  However, those of us who are frequently creating bio-articles need a short template by which birth death and DEFAULTSORT can quickly be added, and the shorter the better.  We certainly only need one template for this, and the present Lifetime does this well: it aint't broke, so don't fix it; in other words, the present code seems to do well.  The issues are, "What should it be called?" and "What are appropriate redirects/shortcuts to it?"  I would suggest that the underlying template might be BIRTH-DEATH-SORT, but this will not be used becasue it is much too clumsy to type quickly.  I would recommend that BD, LIFETIME, and BDSORT should all operate as shortcuts to that.  The template documetation page should have a capnote identifying that they redirect to it.  If so desired, some one might run a bot that would regularly make a substitution of the others to (perhaps) BDSORT.  In any event, there is an urgent need to retain something short and easy to use, even if only a redirect.  Peterkingiron (talk) 23:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

I think what really ought to be done is for someone to create a tool to help add these cats and sort easily with a couple of clicks and input boxes and avoid the template altogether. In the meantime, making it a substitute-only template would be a great benefit. Perhaps Magioladitis wouldn't mind running his bot to subst instances of these templates regularly if there's support of that as well. Double Blue (talk) 23:33, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Let me clear some things:
 * I like the idea to rename BD to BDSORT. I think it will make things a bit better.
 * There is a way to easy add cats. It's called WP:HOTCAT. I install it recently. I also proposed some changes.
 * I am not suggesting to delete Lifetime but to replace/subst all current instances of BD with a bot. People can keep adding cats with their preferable way. The bot will simplify the things for editors who try to reenter the categories or add DEFAULTSORT for the second time. Peterkingiron and others are doing a great job in adding categories in articles, my intension is not to cancel this job or make it harder. I just want to make it easier to others.
 * Of course, I can run my bot as often as you tell me. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:59, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have to see that Lifetime/BD (or BDSORT) look much neater at the end of an article (as one is editing) than three lines for two categories and DEFAULTSORT. We have a lot of apparatus there as it is in bio-articles, particularly if there is a succession box.  Peterkingiron (talk) 00:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Having a look behind the butcher's counter to see how things are made is not for everyone but for those who are making articles, the important, standard apparatus like cats and defaultsort ought not to be hidden in templates. I can see that people who like to use templates for these things would like the name to be short but that needs to be balanced with clarity for what is hiding behind that template. I think that subst'ing all instances of BD is productive. A short-form like that could even be kept if, and only if, it was always subst'ed. Double Blue  (talk) 06:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The hidden defaultsort is causing problems to AWB as well. I also understand the "easy to add reason" but not the "I like it more in the code" one. Take also in mind that extra templates means more work for the servers. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the solution to this is to retain BD as a redirect for Lifetime, but for the DEFAULTSORT element of it to be omitted. In the short term, this will require some one to run a bot to extract the defaultsort from the template and substitute it.  Since the template is widely used, it will probably be necessary for this to be repeated at intervals until editors know not to include the SORT element in the template.  Since DEFAULTSORT, is available in WP markup, this solution should cause little hardship in terms of the number of keystrokes needed.  Is it not time this discussion was closed?  Peterkingiron (talk) 12:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Another incident: An editor replaced Lifetime with BD: -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I think we have to proceed by substituting BD and then handle Lifetime in order to separate it from DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:28, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep the keystrokes minimal, please: As a regular Stub-sorter, I add a lifetime tag to any article on a person as I stub-sort it, as the quickest way to generate sort key, BLP category where appropriate, and birth/date cats where available. In fact I look out for people who mis-sort in the Category:Stubs listing, as being in need of this treatment, and stub-sort them as priority. I'd be upset if there was any move to make it take more keystrokes (or scrolling and mouseclicks to pick up the Defaultsort markup) to generate all those categories. PamD (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think we conclude that Lifetime can exist as a way to add yob/yod/defaultsort very fast and easy. But, then it should be substed by the editors or by bots for the reasons I state above. -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that it can be used for the purpose of entry if editors find it handy but it should be substituted. There is no need to have ordinary categories and DEFAULTSORT hidden within a template. I'd like to see a gadget like WP:REFTOOLS for these bio cats that would make it easier still and negate entirely the use of this template. Double Blue  (talk) 17:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the only opinions in favor of this template are WP:ILIKEIT and that is easier for editors to add categories, I think that it's ok if we go and subsitute it in all the existing cases. Any disagreements? -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It is not only easier to add categories using this template, it is also easier to change the categories if additional information is later discovered. Substing the template makes this more difficult as one has to look through the category listing for all relevant categories, change them, remember the names of new categories, type a lot, etc. So I would prefer this not to be substed. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe I am repeating myself but:


 * BD is hiding DEFAULSORT resulting in things I am describing in the section above,
 * categories as "year of birth missing", "living people" etc. don't even appear and are hiding in an "||" expression within a template,
 * many bots and programs are having problems with BD, (editors can't edit categories using HotCat, bots can't identity and/or move/modify categories)
 * because of the use of BD the categories have to be rendered by the servers every time,
 * categories have to be placed alphabetically and BD is not helping with that
 * (something I haven't written so far) "year of birth unknown" and "year of death unknown" which is supported by BD are supposed to be in the talk page (check instructions).
 * BD's name doesn't make clear to what is referring to. The new trend is to have clear template names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:58, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I tried to find out where it is written to place categories alphabetically, but I was unsuccessful. Can you please help me? Doma-w (talk) 01:06, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't believe it is but it is a convention that many wikipedians and automatic tools follow; I don't. Double Blue  (talk) 02:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * To simply insert non-temporary categories is also against the intended use of Template namespace. It is also no more difficult to add "Category:2009 deaths" than it is to figure out between which pipes one places "2009". Furthermore, as Magioladitis implies, the meaning and use of the template is not as intuitive as the plaintext categories for new editors. Double Blue  (talk) 02:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the answer. Sorrily User:Magioladitis didn't answer. Still I am wondering why nobody can stop him from "substituting BD"! This edits are nonsens and only a collecting of edits. Their are 1000s of unnecessary edits a day! Kind regards Doma-w (talk) 10:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * BD should be substituted to liberate the DEFAULTSORT and cats. Double Blue  (talk) 15:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Why? There is no need... Kind regards Doma-w (talk) 16:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Since the discussion resumed, I stopped the edits for this subject. The edits are not unnecessary because many problems are caused because of the hided DEFAULTSORT and for other reasons I explained above. There are still ~9.000 articles with BD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll do the job only for BD because the name is really causing problems. Imagine if instead of "category:" we had "c:", for "file:" we had "f:". Editing Wikipedia should not be difficult and template names must make clear what they are about. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to start a huge discussion, I just wanted to express my opinion. These are my thoughts, none of them WP:ILIKEIT. lil2mas (talk) 23:04, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
 * First of all, I don't care what the template is called. As long as it doesn't keep changing all the time! If us editors stumble past a new template, we check the template to see what it does. So the statement that DEFAULTSORT is not shown, should not be used as an argument. Just think of Lifetime as the new DEFAULTSORT.
 * Second, I'm against that it should be subst'ed. To see only one line containing the YoB, YoD & DEFAULTSORT parameters, makes it easier to spot if either of the parameters are missing. I totally agree with User:David Eppstein, that this makes it easier to add a missing parameter, like when someone dies!
 * Finally, I read that categories were to be sorted alphabetically. I have seen numerous types of sorting, and I have yet to discover any consensus on this issue. Anyway, YoB & YoD categories is almost always placed in front of all the other categories, which is the alphabetically way aswell. The use of this template makes this happen automatically.
 * Thanks for taking some time to write down this useful stuff. Keep in mind that not all biography articles need YoB/YoD categories. For example, if the year of of birth is unknown, the Category:Year of birth unknown should be placed in the talk page. Additionally, in the case of duets or other biographical articles for more than one person, there could be more than one YoB category. My problem is especially with "BD" because I am fully convinced that it's unclear for inexperienced users. The names of the templates should be as clear as possible, this is the reason we renamed almost all infoboxes to longer names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 09:48, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Merge with persondata?
Would it be possible/advisable to merge this template into persondata? It seems like this information is redundant at the bottom of articles and the year and default sort information should be pulled from that template instead of having multiple templates that contain similar information. Thoughts? I am also going to create a similar discussion at Template talk:persondata ~ Paul T +/C 00:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Strongly object -- Place of birth and death are rarely of great significance. This is a VERY widely used template, as is "BD", which redirects here.  These are simple templates and very quick and easy to use.  Your proposal involves replacing a simple template with a very complicated one.  If you really want to, I suppose you could convert existing uses of the template (and its surrogates) into "personaldata", but in my view it would be a waste of time.  In any event, the existing template should be retained for use by those of us who do not have the time to enter into all your complexity.  You proposal might have had more point to it a month or two back before a bot removed about 50% of the "BD" templates.  Please read the preceding section.  Peterkingiron (talk) 00:24, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In the interests of keeping this discussion all in one place, please direct further replies to the persondata talk page. ~ Paul T +/C 16:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Namespace detect (editprotected)
editprotected

Please replace the template with the contents of User:Ameliorate!/sandbox (diff). Currently this template adds any page it is used on (including userspace pages) to article categories (specifically Category:Living people). Thanks, ~ User:Ameliorate!  (with the !) (talk) 15:51, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * What does your proposal do instead? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
 * If the template is included in the articlespace it adds the categories, if it is used in any other namespace it doesn't. ~ User:Ameliorate!  (with the !) (talk) 02:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Not done. Doesn't work properly with optional substitution. --- RockMFR 05:40, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Replacing DEFAULTSORT with template:Lifetime
I am attempting to persuade an editor to cease this activity, referring to the template documentation which reads: Please, do not edit war by replacing DEFAULTSORT, xxxx births, yyyy deaths with this template, or the opposite.. His response is that this does not reflect any consensus and that "someone just added it." Do we need a more thorough discussion of this matter? __meco (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My "someone just added it" comment was not directed towards that sentence, but to an older revision. I have never edit warred over the issue, so... But I clearly prefer Lifetime over DEFAULTSORT, seeing as it's neater and tidier, and way more practical (cf reasoning in above threads). Punkmorten (talk) 19:05, 25 April 2009 (UTC)


 * As I said above, I respect everyone's choice to add the yob/yod categories the way feels it's better. My experience shows that lifetime has many disadvantages newbies, bots, programs, servers so I am pro defaultsort+yob/yod. The most important is tha is hiding DEFAULTSORT. There is a list of problems caused of that above. Moreover, I explained above that there is no way to apply lifetime to all biographical article because some don't need defaultsort, some are for duos (two yob and two yod categories), sometimes the year of death is unknown and the category of death is not needed, etc. This is an example of what I don't like and I think we had a consensus not to do. Replacing yob/yod categories with a cloudy "1953||" . Then people have to guess that with the double | a category is hiding. I noticed by edits you did in April 20 that you are doing this regularly. I think that as an administrator you at least have to respect consensus (even this mysterious one) until we establish a better one. If you think we don't have consensus we have to discuss it before starting mass editing. I wouldn't like to see this subject to Arb Com because they are better things to do. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:40, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's interesting that you probably haven't read the manual yourself. It reads "Please, do not edit war by replacing DEFAULTSORT, xxxx births, yyyy deaths with this template, or the opposite." but the most interesting is that "Lifetime template should generally be placed after the last Category tag" and you are adding it on the top of the category tags. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:45, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * A while back I was replacing birth death and DEFAULTSORT items with the template. I then objected when a bot was undoing this.  I now take the view that it is safer to have the DEFAULTSORT separate, but lifetime or BD (which works like it) is a quick and useful way of adding the birthg and death categories.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:39, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Options for possibly living people
Given that the Lifetime template is better-established, it seems appropriate now to expand it to generate the Category:Possibly living people category. This seems to be appropriate where there is no definitive indication of life or death, and the subject's age warrants this (e.g. attained age 90). Would it be useful to include a POSSIBLY parameter of some sort? Dl2000 (talk) 02:40, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) A good option is to add a POSSIBLY keyword in the death parameter e.g., and blank parameter will still generate the regular Category:Living people category.
 * 2) Another possibility is to automagically generate the Possibly category after a target age is reached, and no information is placed in the death parameter e.g., although that may be riskier in recategorising people who are demonstrated to be still living.
 * 3) Or do nothing and not provide this option.

Let's run a bot and substitute Lifetime with the categories. Then we can discuss how to handle the categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:29, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Placement
"Since Categories are preferred to be listed in most-common order, the Lifetime template should generally be placed after the last Category tag" Why? Articles without this template have the birth and death cats first, before all the other ones. I don't see why this should be placed after the last category.  Lugnuts  (talk) 12:36, 23 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I did some research:
 * Categorization_of_people: There is currently no consensus about the order in which these categories should be placed.
 * FAQ/Categorization: Both the alphabet and importance are used to order categories currently. Since some categories are obviously less relevant to the reader than others, categories should be ordered so that someone reading the article can use them to understand the subject, directing the reader to the categories that are most important to exploring the subject or understanding its context. Although this, like most ordering issues in Wikipedia, is a matter for judgment, it is generally clear that some categories -- for example the birthplace or birth year of a person -- are less important than others, such as their status as an Oscar or Nobel Prize winner.
 * Categorization: The order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule. Normally the most essential, significant categories are listed first.
 * Nevertheless I usually see categories like date of birth (and death) on top. This would include the Lifetime template. The reason may be that these are obvious categories when searching for appropriate categories for an article.
 * In view of the above I propose to remove the above quoted text from the documentation page, since 1. the rule is not clear-cut 2. common practise seems to be otherwise.

Debresser (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this was to deal with problems if DEFAULTSORT was also present. I read another reason somewhere in WP:AWB but I cant find it right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Found it. An editor wrote "Default sort does not affect the content or display of the page, I guess. It only affects the listing within a category - hence DEFAULTSORT can be anywhere. So, Lifetime's position need not be affected by the fact that it includes DEFAULTSORT. Also, the Categories for Living people, year of birth, year of death, are not more important than other categories. Hence they should come at the end among list of categories" -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:01, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * As much as this editor is right about, but his words about the placing are no more than an overly simplified echo of the pertaining guidelines mentioned above. Those words should never have made it to the document page. Which leaves us with ambiguous guidelines and clear practise preferences, and - in short - my proposal. Debresser (talk) 23:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Where was this discussion? Perhaps invite him over here? Debresser (talk) 23:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * At AWB/FR. Btw, I hope you don't replace categories with lifetime! -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Not usualy, but it has happened. Why? Debresser (talk) 23:21, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry, this was not for you. Anyway, whatever we decide about this subject I would like to note that this edit for example is non constructive since it doesn't add anything to the article. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:25, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify, in the example edit you mention, moving the Lifetime is indeed not constructive. However, note that a relevant category is also added and a stub template is correctly removed. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  23:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I invited three editors who took part in that discussion. My proposal is to remove the instruction from the documentation page and to reprogram AWB to stop making this change. Arguments as above: no clear guidelines and against common practise and should therefore not be a feature of AWB. Debresser (talk) 23:33, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

While I agree that the most logical place for editors to find Lifetime is in the same place as DEFAULTSORT, we must remember that Wikipedia does not ultimately exist for the editors. It's for the users of the encyclopedia. And for them, the most useful way to list categories is with the most important ones first. I would strongly urge that we keep the current guidelines, and continue to place Lifetime after the categories. I'm currently working on adding/correcting thousands of sort keys, and I frequently come across a Lifetime above the categories. I never move it if that would be the only change, but if I perform other constructive edits on the page, I always move it. M AN d ARAX •  XAЯA b ИA M  00:30, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree that Lifetime should be after the categories, as the categories it adds (like year of birth) are not as important as other categories, like the person's awards, achievements, profession, etc. I do not agree that since the practice is to include year of birth category first, that the guidelines themselves should be removed. If I may over simplify and give an analogy to this, just because there are a few queue jumpers we cannot abandon the queue system. Just because many people jump red lights does not mean we will stop using lights.
 * If there is going to be consensus that Year of birth, etc., are more important, then I will not stop the decision to place Lifetime at top of categories. Otherwise it has to be after the categories list, which is what I strongly favour. VasuVR  ( talk,  contribs ) 04:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As I've been asked to contribute: I don't much care about the placement of lifetime. The current guideline about placement after categories seems logical but if lifetime is before the categories the difference is minimal. If there is any change in guidelines, raise a feature request for AWB to be updated and I'll action it in due course. Rjwilmsi  07:47, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I found this discussion via a link at WT:AWB, and I support Debresser's proposal to remove the instruction that lifetime should be placed after the category list, and to replace it with the instruction that it should be placed where the DEFAULTSORT would normally be placed (i.e. before any categories). From a general perspective, changing the location of the template is a minor "fix" and not worth doing in the form of isolated edits (so I support its removal from AWB); from a more focused perspective, I agree with Mandarax that the encyclopedia is for users first and foremost, but I cannot help but think that an alphabetized category list (numbers first) is much easier for the average user to navigate than a jumbled one that is based on individual editors' competing evaluations of which categories are "most important". –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 21:14, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Having seen all the different view points, a suggestion is to remove the AWB functionality to adjust position of Lifetime within the list of categories. If it is placed elsewhere in article, like top of article, middle of article, that can be moved to go with Categories (now I change my preference to top of categories list, see next para below).
 * The next suggestion, from Black Falcon, that alphabetical order for Category list makes better sense for users, is a good one. A viewer of the page can be from any background and importance from their view points would average out (for different combinations possible) for the different users. Leaving the order of the list of categories in an article to editors' whims and fancies seems to be a little disorderly. It would be good to get some order in to it and alphabetical seems to be the logical choice. VasuVR  ( talk,  contribs ) 03:28, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Having the catrgories alphabetised is one more step to start substituting Lifetime with categories and make it a subst only template, which I find good. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

There are three proposals as far as I understand:
 * Under the categories
 * Before any categories
 * Anywhere in the article

Right? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:06, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd strike that third one. Debresser (talk) 03:13, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Both arguments are that it can be anywhere in the article thus... on the {top, bottom} of the categories. I don't see any argument why not before Persondata or on the top of the article. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:26, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Neither do I, but such a possibility has not been proposed as it is rather odd. Debresser (talk) 12:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I support lifetime being placed "under the categories", even if they are alpha sorted, because the Category:Living people category is not important for users and would be out of place anyway. (Confession: Until I realised I was wrong that alpha sorting categories was a policy, I was minor editing pages just to sort their categories and (re)placing lifetime at the end.)

Of course this also depends on the lifetime good vs. lifetime bad argument too. My opinion is it is a more parsable, simple persondata and should never be subst: even for dead people. Mark Hurd (talk) 09:34, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, a category indicating that a person is still alive is just as important (if not more so) as one that indicates the year in which he or she was born. Also, while the presence of "Living people" immediately after "XXXX births" breaks the alphabetical order of category lists just slightly, in a way it makes sense to place the "Living people" category where "XXXX deaths" would otherwise appear. Just my 2 cents. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 21:18, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, it may be broken more than just "slightly", for example when you've got Category:Year of birth missing (living people) and Category:Living people.


 * I agree with you wholeheartedly that it makes sense to place the "Living people" category with the "births" category. This idea is central to the argument in favor of ordering categories in logical groupings roughly in order of importance. What the person is most known for first, down to maybe their education and where they lived, and finally the least important and broadest categories, the birth/death/living ones. A user seeking similar articles would have a much easier time locating relevant categories when they're grouped together logically instead of scattered around based on the first letter of the category. Don't you think it's more logical to list Category:American physicists next to Category:Theoretical physicists? M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  06:39, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree that this would be the best option, but "what the person is most known for" is subjective and the consensus is we can't come to any consensus regarding that sort of thing (see "notable roles" InfoBox Actor discussions). So I think the "compromise" of effectively what we have now -- articles with a large number of categories are alpha sorted, with lifetime at the end, so you can find one, and those with a smaller number just remain "organic" (with my preference that lifetime is at the end) -- is probably the best we can do. Mark Hurd (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Mandarax, I honestly find it easier to navigate alphabetical lists of categories than ones that include groupings by topic, and I would not say that it would be more logical to list those two "physicists" categories next to one another. Categories exist to facilitate navigation and the fact is that we do not know which characteristic of a person a reader is most interested in. If the category list is alphabetical, the reader knows where to look (or can make a reasonable guess); if the category list is topical, the reader has to read through the entire list until he or she finds the desired topic. –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 19:45, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to put it to a vote? Debresser (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be so late to the party but from what I have seen lifetime works on the placement within the categories the same way the DEFAULTSORT does. That is, it affects the categories below it. It does not affect any of the categories above it. (Trust me, I checked while while I have been resolving the conflicts of the thousand or so pages that populated Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts.) If DEFAULTSORT is placed below a category and there is no pipe with in the category tag, the article is sorted by the Page Name. For persons in the Western Hemisphere and most of Western Europe that is not acceptable.

The good news is that a pipe in the category tag does not cause a DEFAULTSORT conflict. (The Icelanders take advantage of this.)

This is one of those instances where no matter what people may prefer there is only one way to do things. Sometimes that happens.
 * JimCubb (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You are mistaken. DEFAULTSORT and Lifetime affect all unpiped categories on the page no matter where they're located. Look at Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, which has Lifetime after all of the categories. Check the categories, such as Category:Sharashka inmates, and you'll see that the article is properly sorted under S, not A. M AN d ARAX  •  XAЯA b ИA M  19:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I sit corrected. (It is difficult to type standing up.) The alphabetization of the categories on that page is somewhat interesting.

Now that I have been away from the subject for a couple of hours I have a few questions. I do not understand why there is a concern about this. As I noted the alphabetization of the categories for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has been broken.

Imagine that you are a user of WP not an editor. You have no intention editing a page and will not do so even if you see a glaring typo. How can you tell whether DEFAULTSORT or lifetime is on a page? How can you tell where it is on the page? Do you care where it is on the page? Actually, it makes absolutely no difference to a reader if either is on the first page that is consulted. What is important is that it be on all the other pages in the categories in which the original page appears. (If I go to Category:Sharashka inmates from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn I am not going to look for Solzhenitsyn among the inmates. I already know he is there.  I am going to look for other inmates.)

"By the way, I believe that the decisions to move the year and place of birth tags on the Talk page were made too hastily, on spurious grounds, with insufficient discussion and fly in the face of logic. When I have the time I will do all I can to get the decisions reversed. I only mention them because they were referred to above."


 * JimCubb (talk) 22:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * BTW, you did a great job on those Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts !

Macedonian interwiki
Can you please add mk:Шаблон:Животен век ]]. Thank you--B. Jankuloski (talk) 05:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. You could do that alone as well. Interwikies are added in the documentation subpage which is unprotected. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Age pliz 1988 jamal mohamed
pliz edit and change my year of birth pliz 1988. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.202.206.59 (talk) 14:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Substitution?
The TfD is going to be keep for no consensus. So, should we go about getting a bot to do the substitution work for this? I never minded the template as a means to easily add categories. I minded pages with categories and sort keys being arbitrarily changed into this template (sort of like arbitrary British English <-> American English switches). How should we precede on that end?

The problem with this, though, is that this is what a substitution looks like (ignoring the TfD|inline). I think it's possible to rework the template to make substitutions look as they should... gren グレン 20:03, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It's horrible. Keep WP the way it was meant to be: as transparent and easily usable/learnable as possible. If some new editor (or even an old editor) finds that code on a page and can't figure it out for the life of him/her, that would not be beneficial to our project. Badagnani (talk) 20:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

We certainly have to create instructions who disallow the subtitution of existing categories with Lifetime, at least in many cases. -- 20:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It is possible to structure templates so they subst cleanly using lots of subst tags inside includeonly tags, but it's not usually worth the effort. If you ever request a bot to remove in some articles, don't use the terminology "substitution" or anything that implies "subst:". It's really more a case of "replacement" if you change the template to a defaultsort and two categories. Gimmetrow 22:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes I will ask YoBot. Rich Farmbrough, 08:23, 3 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I can use "replacement" as the correct term but I am really using subst: to replace lifetime. :) -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:50, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I have some AWB stuff that does a replacement. This is good because it allows AWB to remove the hidden categories and place the DEFAULTSORT correctly. You can also use subst:ltm. Rich Farmbrough, 10:41, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * I use AWB's advanced substistution to subst + add the extra subst at the end. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:44, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes the problem is that the subst doesn't occur until the page is saved. this means general fixes can't fix them up. Not a biggie but caused some conflicts in my last run because it fixed the existing DEFAULTSORT - second run was needed to take care of this, remove duplicate cats and the like. AutoWikiBrowser/Settings/lifetime is what I use now, although you may want to check general fixes is ON if you use it. Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC).

Lifetime vs YOB and YOD categories
I suggest we add this in the template documentation. "If both born and death categories exist, lifetime should not be used". Replacing these two categories with lifetime is not consider as a constructive contribution. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree, I believe it is constructive because it simplifies the wiki text, the same way we used to use the defaultsort template to simplify the sorting of categories. Now with the new lifetime template it makes it even simpler. That's a good thing. For An Angel (talk) 02:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually think it makes the wiki text more complicated for the average/new user. I view switching from categories that are already there on the page to adding the template as a waste of resources and should not be done. -Djsasso (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Once again check here for problems caused of the hidden categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Check this one.An editor adds Lifetime without even removing the categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:47, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Plus, every time we use a template, Wikipedia has to render it to the categories. This is waste of energy. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:44, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The same problem described above in one more case. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Check here. An editor add BD and DEFAULTSORT together at the same edit. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:25, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

In this one an editor got confused and added the person in 1986 deaths instead of births. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

In this one an editor used "0000" to dedicate that "YOD is missing" plus it seems that the editor didn't know that BD contains DEFAULTSORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

In this one defaultsort co-existed with birth-death-sort. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

In this one the wrong use of Lifetime was overriding the right categories. The person was listed as alive but it was deceased. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:13, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

In this one an editor was infact removing categories by adding the template with a typo. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:28, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

In this one an editor thinks that Lifetime is the equivalent of DEFAULTSORT. This edit resulted of adding categories Year if birth missing (living people) and Living people to a deceased person. -- Magioladitis (talk) 06:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

In this one an editor, back in 2008, did I double mistake. Line on the wrong place and special character in the name. The mistake corrected a year later. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:25, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually if either birth or death categories exist, lifetime should not be used is the principle I have been following lately. I admit that it upsets me a little to find an article that has the categories but no sort value.  I say bad things about the contributor, add DEFAULTSORT, copy the value to the listas on the talk page and move on.
 * Thirteen examples of errors in the usage of lifetime in a year plus two weeks says a lot about those who use lifetime. There are at least that many errors in a month's worth of Featured Articles that are on the front page.  JimCubb (talk) 03:04, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

In this one an editor replaces an existing error in Lifetime with another one]. In this one correct categories are replaced by wrong lifetime (editor forgot a line, removing article from living people). In this one there is an extra line in the beginning forcing article to be categorised in the "Living deaths" category. All mistakes found after SmackBot replaced Lifetime. I record unique cases of mistakes and certainly the list is not exhaustive. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:53, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Optional substitution now supported
This template now supports optional substitution - an explanation of how to do this is in the documentation. This is the first step in hopefully making this a subst-only template. --- RockMFR 19:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I am with you in that! -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:53, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Good job. Now it should be subst-required. Double Blue  (Talk) 15:05, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I've got a question for RockMFR... four articles.. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain, & George W. Bush... these articles take forever to load because they are so huge... why on earth would you want to make them even larger by having 3 lines instead of the one that this template takes up?--Dr who1975 (talk) 16:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This doesn't affect the loading time. Converting a template takes more time. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * In other words it is faster to replace the template. Rich Farmbrough, 10:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC).

Misleading
The subst version does not add this template. It adds DEFAULTSORT and two categories to the page. It is misleading and deliberately so.
 * JimCubb (talk) 21:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course it doesn't add this template. Why would someone to add a subst only template that adds another template? -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:43, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

BD
Someone to remove BD as a valid shortcut. BD was replaced by BIRTH-DEATH-SORT because it is hiding SORT of its title. There was a consensus against the use of BD. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:01, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * ✅., but be aware that you can edit the /doc page yourself in the future. I see what you were requesting. Please make a request at Bot requests for automated replacement...20,000 articles is far too many for a flesh-and-blood editor to handle. — Huntster (t • @ • c) 09:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC), 09:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I requested approval for an extra task for my bot. Thanks for the reply. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:53, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Yobot will run and substitute BD everywhere to avoid problems described above. IT will not touch Lifetime or BIRTH-DEATH-SORT. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)


 * This appears to have changed since, and Yobot is going about changing Lifetime, too. Will go seek the explanation below, if there, but this seems curious and a lot of work for an undeprecated (pardon) template. Schissel | Sound the Note! 10:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * BD is replaced for one additional reason. Even the name is confusing. Info: Nobody used BD the last two months. I made 0 replacements. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I was unclear. Replacements of Lifetime are certainly being made by Yobot (eg Ryelandt page). Perhaps this is pre-empting, in light of still-ongoing discussion. Schissel | Sound the Note! 14:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Missing vs. Unknown
I have edited the template to make "Unknown" a synonym for "MISSING". I see that the option to use "Unknown" as a parameter was removed about 6 months ago; however, a few editors keep using it, and it results in articles being incorrectly classified to Category:Unknown births and Category:Unknown deaths, which are redirects. Nearly all of these editors appear to be unaware of the technical distinction between "Year of birth missing" and "Year of birth unknown"; if they actually meant the latter, they would know to place it on the talk page, not in the article. Therefore, assuming that the editor made an error and fixing it for them seems like the best solution. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 11:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Category:Year of birth unknownis different than Category:Year of birth missing. The first one should be in talk pages and the second in article space.
 * Otherway around, surely? Rich Farmbrough, 03:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * We have to explain this to editors than maintaining the confusion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:17, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * And something important: I think you should first write in the talk page and then make any changes. This is a highly visible template. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:21, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Understood; if this causes any problems, it can easily be reverted. However, despite the many uses of the template, there were only two articles using the parameter "Unknown" at the time I made the edit. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 14:03, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I won't disagree that most of the editors use the YOB unknown incorrectly. But I can't resist to say that this inconsistent between the real categories and this template is another entry to the big list "Lifetime Causes Confusion & Problems to Newbies, Bots, Programs, Servers etc." -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:24, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a genuine difference between "Unknown" and "Missing": this will normally relate to people from earlier centuries. It should be "unknown" if no one knows it, but "missing" if it is likely to be known but has not yet been recorded in WP.  Peterkingiron (talk) 15:48, 26 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course we can move these cats to the talk pages reasonably easily once the backlog is replaced with cats and DEFAULTSORT. Rich Farmbrough, 13:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC).
 * Why would you want to put them on the talk page? They can not be populated by any information on the Talk page.  The talk page is for discussion of ways to improve the article, project banners and article history.  Birth and Death information, date and place, only appear in the article.  Who is going to monitor all the pages with missing or incomplete data to insure that the category on the talk page is updated when information in the article is updated?
 * JimCubb (talk) 20:58, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Well there is a contention that some of these cats belong on the talk page. And your question is as applicable now as at any point in the future: who will update "living = yes" in the WPBio template? Who will update the "needs infobox" and "needs pic" parameters? Rich Farmbrough, 03:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC).
 * To clarify I don't yet have opinion on where these cats belong, but would generally defer to the WP bio people on it. Rich Farmbrough, 10:58, 4 September 2009 (UTC).

Birth and death dates should appear on the article page. Unknown and missing are categories indicating amendmetns needs are thus maintenance that could properly go on the talk page. I can see an argument for stripping DEFAULTSORT out of the template, bit not for other substantial changes. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The discussion of the placement of the categories should not be held here. Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 18:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot is replacing template:Lifetime
I asked Rich for a justification of this and this was his answer.. copied here for information... Ian Cairns (talk) 14:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with lifetime, a template that was originally intended for fast adding categories by substing is that it hides DEFAULTSORT and categories, and creates in the longer term a number of problems. First people cannot see the categories, and especially the DEFAUTLSORT so they tend to re-add them. This happened on some thousands of articles. In some cases people add lifetime and leave on or more of the things it replaces. Here for example is the cycle has run its course and a second lifetime template has appeared - there are probably only a dozen articles left as extreme as that. Thirdly people miscount the | s so you get this sort of thing - or this. Or indeed spaces get between the pipes putting them in Category:Births. And {lifetime|1222||Blogs, Fred} will be a living person. Moreover it makes it hard for processes to work with defautlsort, synchronising with listas parameters from the talk page, to test for membership of categories by examining the source, causes pages to look uncategorized when they are categorized, and so forth.

However as a time saver it has been useful, for that reason there is ltm which is a subst only equivalent. Thus typing 1901 will give the same results as using lifetime, without hiding any information.

Best regards, Rich Farmbrough, 13:18, 6 September 2009 (UTC).

Right now it's only replacing lifetime in the case of conflict. I am not against replacement of Lifetime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:38, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Slight aside... I had made this comment at Template talk:Infobox comics creator and slightly above that section break, and I'll repeat it here: If Lifetime is being treated as a "temporary" template - one that is adding specific categories and templates that will not change and no actual text - it makes sense to either make it a mandatory substitution and/or set up a 'bot to clean up/convert it.
 * Part of the reason that it was brought up with regard to Infobox comics creator is that the infobox had incorporated an embedded version of Lifetime and Rich and Magioladitis had strong issues with the conflicting DSes needing to be cleaned up.
 * At the time, Lifetime was removed from the infobox on the perception that Rich's actions regarding the Lifetime template in other biographies had at least some consensus to it. Looking at this... I am starting to wonder if there really is a consensus to remove/rework this template. - J Greb (talk) 19:09, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Small addendum... It seems that Rich created ltm on September 3 without an reference to a consensus or discustion for the change. - J Greb (talk) 19:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Many editors in the past have discussed for a subst only version of Lifetime. So, this is ok. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:14, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Nagging point though: Was it just a set of discussions with no actual result or was the a solid consensus to move this way?
 * Without that consensus, then moving forward as you and Rich are does not seem right. - J Greb (talk) 15:55, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * We are trying since 2008 to create a subst only template that 'll easy for people to use. Check above. What Rich created is great. Moreover, why simplifying things would be a problem? It's the other way around that causes problems. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:44, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Was that prior to, the cause for, a result of, or after but not related to the May 22, 2008 TfD listed at the top of this talk page?
 * If it was in any way, shape or for related to the TfD, any and all action to implement it now should stop and be taken either to an RFC or a new TfD. Yes, consensus can change, but the standing consensus seems to be that this template should stand as is.
 * Frankly, whether I agree with moving this to a mandatory subst template or not, moving ahead in the current manner reads as "We know better than the consensus" which is bass akwards from the general principles of Wikipedia.
 * Further, you're right, Rich did a nice job on lft, which should have been in a sandbox so he could point to it as a way to upgrade this template. Instead he's created at least two problems: 1) something that can bee seen as a pointed template creation, especially if an AWB is running to replace instances of Lifetime with lft and 2) a minor case of hopefully unintended misdirection since it looks like he cut-n-pasted the entirety of this template and its docs to create lft - the interwikis point here not to the new template. - J Greb (talk) 18:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I created a susbt: only template for those who want to use it. No one is being forced to use it. I have used it once myself, manually. It is not suitable for automatically replacing lifetime any more or less than {subst:lifetime| |subst=subst:} (which is to say marginally at best). Lifetime was defended vociferously on the grounds that it saves keystrokes. "I'd be upset if there was any move to make it take more keystrokes (or scrolling and mouseclicks to pick up the Defaultsort markup) to generate all those categories". YEs lifetime is attractive, yes we all thought of integrating it with person-data, yes we all thought of automatically propagating the birth/death dates into the four or five places (lead, body, inforbox, person-data and cats) that it ends up in. And there may even be ways to do it with current technology, but this template is not it. It hides data. Technical problems apart, that is its key drawback. And I understand those who say "well just educate the editors". Problem is, they have so much to learn already, I think we forget what it was like before we knew what a template and a category were, moreover this template is not trivial, for all it's mere three parameters. To use it properly you need to know the correct way to sort names, understand the implication of blank parameters, understand the keywords, know what is an acceptable value for each field, know where to look for collisions, and so forth. Moreover once it is in place, people carry on adding DEFAULTSORT and categories - if they get  a conflict, they may take out a correct DEFAULTSORT because they can't find the incorrect one. These duplicate items have been added literally thousands of times. Well I better stop before I get to WP:TLDR. Rich Farmbrough, 21:56, 8 September 2009 (UTC).


 * Now that I find that this discussion has finally moved off of users' talk pages and appeared here, here is my history with this issue. Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts was created in late November of last year.  I noticed it as it was being populated.  (It happens automatically.)  I am almost certain that I was the only person who was working on that category as I could account for all the reductions.  I never saw a mis-applied lifetime.  To this day, after resolving a few thousand DEFAULTSORT conflicts and adding a few thousand values for listas based upon the sort value of the article, I have yet to find a misapplied lifetime.
 * Try this one: lifetime on line 2 of the page.
 * The editors who use it seem to me to know how it is used and what it does. The only time I have seen lifetime involved in a DEFAULTSORT conflict, that is the first page I check each time I log in to WP, was when Smackbot had applied a DEFAULTSORT value that was different from the sort value in lifetime and had not yet deleted the lifetime.  (Smackbot's value was incorrect.)
 * It seems to me that this is a similar situation to WPB. A handful of editors who did not like the template decided that there was no call for two banner shells and made WPB a special case of WPBS.  It would have disappeared completely had not an editor thrown a fit.
 * Rich found some discrepancies in the manner lifetime had been applied. He got Magioladitis involved and the two of them have been discussing the issue on each other's talk pages.  Both have ignored repeated requests to move their discussion here.
 * JimCubb (talk) 23:29, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I am discussing this subject here the last 2 years. You can check the TfD, the RfDs and lots more. I discovered tenths of inconsistencies of lifetime (check above!) The discussion started here and not in some user page. Before Lifetime I have replaced tenths of thousands of BIRTH-DEATH-SORT and BD after consensus. Thanks and always assume good faith. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:47, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
 * It just may be that the assumption gets strained when the discusions do not happen on the template involved. And in light of the TfD last year, AGF takes a further hit when the major proponents of the removal/depriciation of the template are busy worrying the edges rather than dealing with the issue head on. And yes, converting out Lifetime, setting up an alternate template, and complaining about Lifetime, as a valid tool, being embedded in anothe template are worrying the edges.
 * Good intentions or not, how this has gone down does not look good. - J Greb (talk) 00:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * OK Let's clear two things first: One, the one who claims that I "ignored repeated requests to move their discussion here" has to prove it. I answered above. Two, asking for consensus for the creation of another template is at least... weird. Where is the consensus to create Lifetime as first place? Templates are always created like that. The creation of another template doesn't directly affect the fate of this one. I have to go to sleep. See you later.-- Magioladitis (talk) 01:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Creation here is easy. The review process for new articles is a joke.  Deletion here is meant to be hard.  That is why there are AfD, CfD and the other _fD pages.
 * If a page is placed in a category twice, does it appear twice in the category? No.  Does the category appear twice at the bottom of the page? No.  Is there any conflict, as Rich claims in his edit summaries?  No.
 * Lifetime seems to me to have been applied to pages in good faith. It has been applied with less rigor than some would like.  Category tags have not always been deleted.  Other sort criteria have not always been deleted.
 * Just for fun I looked at Rich's contributions to see the circumstances that existed when he replace lifetime with DEFAULTSORT and its associated YOB & YOD categories. The first of the most recent was on Alois Alzheimer.  On 2 September 2009 Magioladitis converted a correctly applied lifetime to a DEFAULTSORT and a Category:1864 births and a Category:1915 deaths.  The sort value did not change.  No harm was done except for the replacement of one template by another just because Magioladitis wanted to do it.  On 4 September 2009 an IP editor inserted a superfluous "aid to pronunciation".  On 8 September 2009, Rich moved the DEFAULTSORT down two lines with an edit summary that said "replace lifetime which is duplicating category information using AWB)"

I need to get back to Category:Biography articles without listas parameter. Would some one initiate proceedings against these two bumbling, bad faith editors? Seriously, for a change, Rich and Magioladitis seem to be bent on eliminating this template as an end solution but are getting in each other's way to the detriment of WP.

Happy editing!
 * JimCubb (talk) 04:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thing is about 8% of bio articles have "lifetime". But looking at your work on clearing up conflicts, of the last 25(* biography articles you had an edit summary including the word "Resolved" (as in Resolved DEFAULTSORT conflict) 20, 80% had a lifetime template in them.  The template is  causing most of the problems you see there, and who knows how many that get fixed before you see them. Rich Farmbrough, 21:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC). (* ignoring this one )
 * Comment -- Lifetime or BD is a convenient way of inserting the birth and death categories. Then only complaint seems to be that the inclusion of Defaultsort is causing confusion.  Fine: alter the template so that defaultsort is not part of it.  This will not add substantially to authors' work since defaultsort is available in markup.  Peterkingiron (talk) 16:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That is something that could be easily done right now. And before the "What about the loss DS on the existing uses" kicks in, it should be easy to run a 'bot sweep to add the DS based on existing Lifetime markup. Since the name is the 3rd parameter, there would be no harm to this template.
 * And just a side thought, Rich's lft can then be reworked. Since it is substitution only, it should have no trouble dropping just 2 lines - the DS and this template. - J Greb (talk) 16:49, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, the nature of lifetime leads me (and others) to expect certain classes of errors. (The next bit is vitally important for the way WP works to combat all types errors.) These classes of errors are more or less easy to find.  Because the easy to find ones are easy to find, and are fixed up (notably DEFAULTSORT conflicts blare in red on the page and I would expect are nearly all picked up in preview or postview, or by passing editors) there are very few around (even so enough are left that we have a category for them, and special Mediwiki functionality).  Because the hard ones to find are  hard to find, they cannot be seen either.  So people tend to assume there "is no problem".  In fact there is a systemic problem, which if left unchecked will get much worse, because, a.) articles gradually accumulate more duplicated data, and b. ) more articles get the lifetime template.  The only advantage of which is saving a line or two of source text (and sometimes not that).  Remember it is not saving render speed, disc space, or anything else.  What it is doing is sinking a mass of editors time into applying it, applying  duplicate parameters, fixing up the mess, and starting the cycle again.  I have no idea how much time Jim spends with the conflict, but his efforts would be spent better elsewhere if there were none (and I would lay money that the number of new ones have dropped).  And it's even harder to measure the amount of edits, never mind time that are used by others fixing up stuff, as we have no full history dumps any-more.  But enough evidence is there that problems do occur. Rich Farmbrough, 00:44, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

I believe that the greater problem is the sort value itself. Sometime tomorrow or the next day I will look at all that I have done with existing sort values, fixing and resolving conflicts, and have some numbers to present.

Until then please do not remove the sort value from lifetime.

JimCubb (talk) 21:58, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

So much for new comments at the bottom.

The true problem is not that lifetime is too hard to use for many editors or that it "hides" the sort value. The true problem is that many editors, including some in this discussion, do not understand how the sort value works and how it is to be applied.

Just in the last few days one editor in this discussion has
 * 1) Put three DEFAULTSORT values on the same template documentation page, two were the Greek letter "tau" (which, as a letter that is not in the English alphabet, is an invalid value) and the third was the page name that conflicted with an embedded sort value.
 * 2) Put a DEFAULTSORT value on three articles that I know of that are about Chinese persons and got them all backwards.

The claim that lifetime hides the sort value seems to me to be due to a lack of understanding. (Although it could be a straw man.) That is what templates do.

Look at the talk pages of the articles in WP:BIOG. The sort value for all but the pages in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter is set by the listas value in the Biog project banner. A lot of work went into the project banners so that the listas in other banners is pretty much ignored.

Look at the talk pages of the articles in Category:Biography articles of living people. How are most of those pages place in the category? There is the living in the Biog project banner. There is also the blp in WPBS. The former is more prevalent that the latter.

I am most concerned with the pages in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter and use the sort value on the article, whether it is provided by DEFAULTSORT or lifetime as a guide to the proper value of listas. When there is no sort value on the article, I have to try to create one. When there is an incorrect sort value on the article, I have to fix it.

As a side note, I truly resent being told how I should spend my time here.

Happy editing! Please get it right.

JimCubb (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2009 (UTC)


 * A couple of odds and ends I've been picking up out of this:
 * There seems to be a bigger issue beyond just "DEFAULTSORT on biographies". Jim just pointed to a case involving "τ" on templates. I don't think this should be important here since 1) Lifetime shouldn't be placed on a template page to create a DS for that page and 2) the MoS for sortkeys for biographies, and IIUC almost all other articles is to not use non-English characters. Non biographies shouldn't have the Lifetime issue (or is there a similar template for other occasions).
 * A simmilar situation was pointed up to Rich recently where an AWB run capitalized a dab phrase that had propagated into a DS. This created a conflict error since there was another DS on the page that had the dab as dab should be - in lowercase. Essentially the 'bot created the conflict error by incorrectly fixing the DS.
 * The issue of the Asiatic names seems to indicate that the 'bot adding/fixing DS in articles needs to be monitored in some way.
 * There maybe a "forest an trees" issue with what a template is intended to do. IIUC they wind up serving three functions:
 * Consistency - Boilerplate text, captions, infoboxes, navigation boxes, anything where a chunk of text and/or code is repeated on multiple pages. In those cases a template can ensure the material is consistent across those pages. The only consistency that I see Lifetime providing is grouping 2 categories together in the cat list.
 * Ease - Either in inputting information or in updating common information across pages quickly. Potentially, this template makes it very, very easy to move categories. It is also easier to use that keying in the DS and the 1 or 2 relevant birth/death categories. One keying run instead of 3, 2 of which you may have to stop and think to remember what the right category is called.
 * Page size deflation - Its been pointed out that just cramming the information into a template doesn't actually reduce load time or system demand when an article is accessed. Fair enough. But it does reduce the apparent file size of an article. That's the number most editors look at when trying to decide if an article needs a heavy pruning or to have something split off.
 * The ease of use and the "I feel good, I just save room on the article" are good reasons to keep this as is.
 * And that does leave something that is nagging at me again... the "It creates errors" statement. I'm wondering what exactly is creating those errors. How many are from editor error/action? An actual editor should see that whet they have entered has added bright red warning text to appear on the article. In most of those cases you would think that the editor would try to work out what they had done wrong and fix it right there. And that leave the other side, how many of these errors are the result of a 'bot either adding a DS that is in conflict with a good faith editor action or a 'bot "fixing" a perfectly fine DS? In either of those cases, the conflict is not going to be immediately addressed since the 'bot is likely not being monitored.
 * One last nugget to chew on: If the 'bot has fouled up the DS, especially a pre-existing one, then the only way for that to be immediately apparent is if the is a redundant DS on the page.
 * - J Greb (talk) 04:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Small comments since I am busy and with limited access to internet:
 * JimCubb's example that templates hide categories is wrong. These categories added by WPBiography are administrative categories. They should be hidden. I'll add a comment to the project. We have to add hiddencat to them. Templates usually add admin categories not just categories.
 * Easy to add functionality can be obtained by a subst only template.
 * -- Magioladitis (talk) 11:37, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

This becomes tiring, Jim you are welcome to spend your time on WP in any way you please, I am buy no means saying stop fixing these DEFAUTLSORT errors, that is a Good Thing that you are doing, and it needs doing. What I am asking you to do, and you can of course, as people seem to prefer, totally ignore, is to consider whether the option in which 80% of these errors did not occur might be better. As for the 3 sort orders on a page, one was for the template, one for the documentation, and one to override a template- τ is an accepted and documented sort value for template names. If someone hadn't removed one of these there would have been no problem - once again the drawbacks of having concealed DEFAULTSORTS in templates. Rich Farmbrough, 13:21, 12 September 2009 (UTC).

Yes, it is tiring.

First, there were three instances of DEFAULTSORT on a template page, lifetime was not involved, the first two were duplicates (τ, the Greek letter "tau") and the third was the page name. This demonstrated to me a complete lack of understanding of DEFAULTSORT by the editor who applied the values. As noted above, by both me and J Greb, only letters in the English alphabet are valid in a DEFAULTSORT value. The third value introduced a conflict with the other two which was apparently ignored by the editor who placed it there. There was no concealment of DEFAULTSORT. DEFAULTSORT was used. It was used incorrectly.

Second, it was observed above that 1901 provides the same information as without hiding information. HUH?
 * Parenthetically, the "subst:ltm" version is touted as being easier to enter than "lifetime". I count 9 characters in the former and 8 characters in the latter.  "subst:ltm" is 12½% larger than "lifetime" and actually is more difficult to enter.

Third, I have tried to get the categories that are added to talk pages to be hidden. That wall did not budge. Others are encouraged to make that happen.

Fourth, discussion points are much more valid if the topics are spelled correctly.

Again, Happy Editing! Try to get it right. The mess you leave reflects badly on the site, is often very difficult to find and will have to be cleaned up by some one. JimCubb (talk) 05:31, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yet again, subst:ltm is not hiding information because at the end in the source code you have the DEFAULTSORT and the categories. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:06, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Lets dispel one myth at a time. "only letters in the English alphabet are valid in a DEFAULTSORT value".
 * Technically valid? no, you can see it working.
 * Valid per guidelines? "To place entries after the main alphabetical list, use sort keys beginning with tilde ("~"). Other characters used for this purpose are "µ", commonly used to place stub categories at the end of subcategory lists; "β" for book subcategories; and "τ" for categorizing templates." This from WP:CAT.
 * Rich Farmbrough, 12:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC).

Yet again, "subst:ltm" is longer than "lifetime" by 12½% so no time is saved. Also, as a substitution. its effect does not appear in a Preview so any editor who uses it has to save the page to see what errors have been made.

As for the use of the "τ", I did not delete those even though they seem to be silly and redundant, setting off templates in categories that only contain templates and destroying the effect that any indexing would have on the page, Debresser deleted them. I only deleted the value that conflicted with the value that is embedded in the template. JimCubb (talk) 16:38, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I was above talking about saving time for servers. 2 bytes timing more is not a big problem. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Problem is most editors are looking at the size of the article. They'll be looking to shave characters where ever possible. And a subst template results in a higher size for the page than a non-subst. Remember the subst will be replaced by the DS and the 2 categories. The non-subst, which generated the equivalent result, will be preferred. - J Greb (talk) 23:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

And a small point on semantics here - there is a difference between "sort key" and DEFAULTSORT.

"sort key" is the value by which a page is sorted into a specific category. For any page on Wikipedia the default sort key is the page's name. This default can be overridden either on a case by case basis by adding a piped argument to a category call or for all categories on a page with DEFAULTSORT. Since DS changes the page default, it can be overridden, and totally ignored, by a piped argument to the category call.

Based on WP:SORTKEY and WP:NAMESORT, pages with names that include non-English characters need to use a DS or piped sort key to use the closest English equivalents. This would be the the sort key used among like pages. Both also have conventions to follow for names - family name then given name, D'Who becomes Dwho, McCall becomes Mccall, and so on.

Also based on WP:SORTKEY, non-English or special characters should be used when a page is being placed into a category where it needs to go to the top or bottom of the list. "τ", "μ", "β" and the like have a specific connotation when a page is placed outside of like pages. In the case of "τ", it is used to group templates categorized among articles. The last thing one would expect is for a DS to be added to a template page that includes "τ" since this would miscategorize the template within any template specific categories. "τ" would only be expected as part of a piped override.

For a 'bot to have left a DS with an improper default sort key is appalling.

- J Greb (talk) 00:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * IMHO, if the majority of categories are non-template specific then "τ" can be used in DEFAULTSORT. The most common categorisation (the "default" one) should be used. For the other categories editors have to use pipes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:51, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Btw, this edit is against consensus. I thought we agreed not to remove categories in favor of Lifetime. JimCubb, why wasn't it easier to just add DEFAULTSORT? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Did I read the last description of subst:lft (or whatever it is called) correctly? Does it really add DEFAULTSORT plus the birth-year and death-year categories rather than lifetime as one would think from its name? If so, it is truly deceptive to the point of being evil.

The guideline on this page is not to replace DEFAULTSORT with lifetime. Similarly the relevant guideline for DEFAULTSORT is not to place lifetime with DEFAULTSORT. On the page Magioladitis cites, there was no defined sort value. There was no DEFAULTSORT and there was no lifetime. Eleven letters in all-capitals was tiresome to type a long time ago. Now that I understand lifetime more fully than I did before and realize that it is not case-sensative, I am starting to use it. After I had typed it with the correct parameters, It was a simple of "Right Arrow, Shift+Down Arrow, Shift+End, Delete" keystrokes to delete the now extraneous category tags with a little more pleasure than was seemly. I trust that the lifetime has not been replaced in an deliberately disruptive act and specifically against guidelines.

Smackbot is only the most recent of the bots that I have found that take every person's name as if it were English. One of the early "inhabitants" of Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts was Ptolemy I Soter to which a bot had added "Soter, Ptolemy I" as the sort value. After I stopped shaking my head, I fixed him and the other 13 Ptolemaic kings, most of whom did not have a conflict, only the incorrect value.

JimCubb (talk) 21:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

In section Lifetime_vs_YOB_and_YOD_categories I am describing lots of problems caused by misuse of Lifetime. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Smackbot is still replacing template:Lifetime
I stopped the bot with the message that lifetime should not be replaced with DEFAULTSORT. That will not last long. Does anyone know how to stop the bot permantently? JimCubb (talk) 22:24, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming by blocking it, but I could be wrong.-- Giants27 ( c  |  s ) 23:02, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps raise this at WP:BON, especially if there was no consensus for the wholesale replacement of Lifetime. Also, it seems Yobot has now joined Smackbot on this. Dl2000 (talk) 23:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * BAG has approved the process. Check SmackBot XVII and Yobot 8. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Given that BAG has ok'd it, I'm good with it.-- Giants27 ( c  |  s ) 01:03, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
 * But BAG ok'd it without any discussion here, or even a pointer to the BAG proposal from here. To say the least, this comes as a surprise to those who monitor the Lifetime template, but not the Bot discussions. Dl2000 (talk) 01:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't really see any need for controversy. The previous discussions on this template were that those who favoured this template did so because some users found this template an editor's aid for entering the standard bio defaultsort and birthdate and deathdate cats. The substitution of the template and the bots maintenance allows these users to continue to do so but not misuse the WP:Template namespace by hiding the defaultsort magicword and categories and helps following editors see and edit those defaultsorts and categories. There is no loss of function. Double Blue  (talk) 01:33, 16 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I for one am quite happy with the bot replacing this template; I intensely dislike it (when used as part of permanent page source, not when subst'd). It is a classic example of a hidden side effect. More specifically, DEFAULTSORT is a statement with side effects and burying it in a template hides it; as a 30-year computer programmer, my experience is that side effects are necessary, but that bugs caused by hidden side effects consume a very disproportionate amount of debugging time. As far as anecdotal Wikipedia experience, well, I'm pretty much a sorting gnome; I haven't much concerned myself with how cats get coded, but that the sort key(s) is/are correct and that there's no DEFAULTSORT conflict. The majority of the conflicts I've seen (and yes, I also patrolled Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts from time to time when it first appeared) have involved a hidden side effect, either with lifetime or some other template including the DEFAULTSORT statement. My experience outside Wikipedia tells me that hidden side effects in code or markup inherently generate many more conflicts or bugs than do explicit side effects. Also, as a practical matter, a good percentage of the missorted articles I routinely fix are caused by well-intentioned editors replacing perfectly good existing DEFAULTSORT and categories with the lifetime template, and in the process either making a simple error (e.g. omitting a pipe, leaving the ":" at the beginning of the sort key) or not knowing all of the (far too arcane) key munging that is sometimes necessary (e.g. removing camelcase, replacing non-English characters, omitting disambiguation terms, inserting a comma in names that use eastern order, etc. etc.). Studerby (talk) 19:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)