Template talk:Old prod/Archive 1

Wrapping up
Well, this took less time than I thought it would ... see Talk:Carlos Rafael Uribazo Garrido and Talk:Tiombe Lockhart for examples of this template used with the WP:FLAG-BIO protocol ... Happy Editing! &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 04:42, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

New template: Olfprodfull
OK, I got the idea of  from   ... it just made sense to me, especially after my recent experience with the "Cuban artists" checklist, where several seconded PRODs were contested without comment.

Template:Oldafdfull &amp; Template:Oldprodfull
-

"'If you build it, they will come'" &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 03:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I like it. It should include some cat function, like Declined PRODS.  Do you need me to create a template page for you at Template:Oldprodfull?  MBisanz  talk 04:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx ... lemme play with it for a while first ... I'll just copy&paste a few to get a handle on how it effects my Watchlists. :-) &mdash;72.75.72.63 (talk) 04:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks really good, I think this would be a good idea if a Bot could add this.  MBisanz  talk 22:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * That's the ultimate goal ... I mean, the bot that flagged the PRODs on the Cuban artists articles by is what gave me the idea. :-)
 * The same bot that alerts the author can add the default tag ... then an editor who seconds or contests it just fills in the empty fields ... easy as cake! :-)
 * At first, I thought that  should be a required field, with a default of "and did not provide a reason." ... but Some Other Editor went around and edited them to provide one (since they were identified by userid) so I decided to just leave it blank if defaulted.
 * Some editors may take umbridge at being identified this way, so userid should always be optional, or maybe "suppressable"?
 * Is using the  template a violation of some privacy guideline? (Why don't more templates use it?)
 * The example above represents my current design (parameter names, anyway.)
 * Happy Editing! &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk)22:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Looks good, I think even if the second editor doesn't remember to fill in the template, the mere existence of the template will reduce duplicate PRODDS. I don't believe there is an issue user the user code, but it probably should be subst'd to reduce server load. I'd say the PRODDER shouldn't get anon., but I see no problem leaving the remover anon at their choice.  MBisanz  talk 02:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, it's soup! I had another manic episode and hacked it in a single marathon session ... the default is by another editor if a userid is omitted ... Happy Editing! 72.75.72.63 (talk) 02:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:Oldprodfull
This is what the "default" would look like, i.e.,  is omitted ... I plan on using it as a boilerplate for articles on the "Cuban artists" checklist where prods by the same editor were contested by the same editor on the same day, like &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 04:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

&mdash; Decided to leave default  as blank 02:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Seconded PROD
This is an example of a contested seconded PROD, showing defaulted parameters:

Yeah, I like how this looks ... now all I have to do is find the time to hack  and "make the magic happen." &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 02:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * See for an example of use. 22:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Template To-do list
Thoughts before bed ...


 * 1) ISO 8601 date format for MediaWiki support
 * 2) Only   is required  defaults to "in the past".
 * 3)  and   are also optional.
 * 4) User names without dates are not ignored.
 * 5) It's easy to find the  and   (as well as the   and  ), but the   and   may not be so obvious, or one may simply wish to allow anonymity throughout the flagging.

This shows the minimal use of the template ... a no-brainer, IMHO.

&mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 02:24, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Oldprodfull … boilerplate message to solicit feedback
Hello, ... please see this talk page and tell me what you think of my newly created  ... would you use it, or update it if you encountered it?

Also, what are your thoughts on my proposed WP:FLAG-BIO and other flag templates?

Happy Editing! &mdash;  21:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Template:Oldprodfull
Hello, ... please see this talk page and tell me what you think of my newly created  ... would you use it, or update it if you encountered it?

Also, what are your thoughts on my proposed WP:FLAG-BIO and other flag templates?


 * I just "discovered" Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed, so I'm hanging this template on some of the talk pages at random in the hopes that editors who have them on their Watchlist will take notice, and then I won't get accused of WP:CANVAS again. :-) &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Paularblaster
I think it's great - particularly to prevent re-prodding unprodded articles, but for other reasons too. I didn't realise what it was when I came across it at Talk:Winifred Freedman -- it somehow looked as though someone had posted a notice that they'd contested the prod, but had neglected to remove the prod tag. Now that I know what it is I would certainly use it. --Paularblaster (talk) 09:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Your contesting the PROD is what caught my attention ... I had been using a "dummy" boilerplate before I created the template, and have been gradually replacing them with the real thing. &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 13:18, 11 February 2008 (UTC)undefined

Corvus cornix
I like it, but I think there was a tfd for prod2, I haven't looked to see if it succeeded, so if it did, you don't need the second prod line. Corvus cornix talk  16:50, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I participated in that TfD, and it was one of the inspirations for this template. :-) &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 17:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

GDonato
Please do not WP:CANVASS as you have by mass-messaging users on their talk pages regarding the usage of one particular template. This would be especially inappropriate if they had no interest in the issue. A better option would be to post a note on a page which you think affected users would have watched. Thanks, GDonato (talk) 18:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:AGF ... These are editors who have either (a) contributed to articles where I am testing the template, or (b) have worked with me on other projects ... I have even set up a special area to record their feedback ... how is one supposed to gauge WP:CONSENSUS on an issue without soliciting comments? &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 18:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I am glad that these users are ones who will be interested in the issue. In future you could consider:
 * A page that they will have watched (the template talk page)
 * Village pump (proposals)
 * Other centralized discussion venues
 * I would say that them working with you on other projects does not necessarily guarantee their interest, though. Oh, and the template seems a good idea :) GDonato (talk) 18:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx fer the suggestion ... I'll post it at Village pump (proposals). :-) &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 18:29, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Thehelpfulone
I like it, but I was wondering how you found me, on Wikipedia, what article did I contribute to or what project did I work with you on? -- The  Helpful   One  18:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Oops! I must have encountered your comments on the talk page for Some Other Editor with whom I have worked, and thought that you might be a Good Source of feedback ... sorry for the intrusion if you are not interested. :-) &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 18:42, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

MBisanz
Looks good, would you mind if I took it over to WP:BOTREQ to how much of this can be automated? Sorta like a CSDWarnBot.  MBisanz  talk 19:00, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Go for it! I was hoping someone would know what to do with it once I built it! :-) &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 20:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I started "Template in search of a bot" over at WP:Bot requests ... let's see what happens! &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 21:20, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Nishkid64
The Oldprodfull template seem like a good idea. I like how it provides the reasons why it was tagged for prod deletion in the first place. As for flag-bio, there are already templates to contact a user about the speedy deletion of their article (they can be customized to whatever speedy deletion criteria it fails). The talk page template may be of use, though. Nishkid64 (talk) 03:26, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thnx fer the support! &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 11:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

EdJohnston
Hi 72.75.72.63. I did look at oldprodfull.


 * It's very large. (At least, the one you pointed me to, on Talk:Carlos Rafael Uribazo Garrido).
 * Consider waiting for some positive responses (at least from the people who know about the Cuban Artists debate) before deploying it outside the realm of the Cuban artists.

I was happy with the way you approached this debate, in that you tested the waters before resorting to the formal deletion mechanisms. You also used PRODs in a judicious manner, and you kept everyone informed about what you were up to. I'm disappointed that you took some negative responses to the PRODs as a reason to leave the field. (Or at least that's how I perceived it). With the Cuban artist articles, I felt you were undertaking some kind of a social experiment that might be instructive for use elsewhere in Wikipedia.

The problem I perceive is that the Cuban artist articles don't have editors who are 'positive champions' who really look forward to a good set of surviving articles. The closest thing to positive editors we've managed to recruit were the experts from WikiProject Visual arts who came over to offer some opinions. But I perceive that they were doing us a favor rather than coming to offer enthusiasm for Cuban art specifically.

So I'm left not knowing for sure what to do about the Cuban artist articles, nor your oldprodfull template, nor the debate on how to triage the articles, which I haven't (unfortunately) had time to do much on since I performed the original Google searches on the A-D artists. I think the people who've worked on this task view the effort as 'homework' rather than fun.

Do you think you have enough energy left to do a little editing on Cuban art (the article)? I think there is a link there to cubancontemporaryart.com. I imagine you're in a good position to list all the pros and cons of including that link! All this Google searching must surely improve your awareness of the main themes of this field. Can you tell that I'm winding up to give my sermon on deletionism? (just kidding.. :-). EdJohnston (talk) 22:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx fer your continued support, EdJohnston ...


 * "Cuban artists" checklist was a "temporary" OCD project for me, which has lost its appeal due to lack of interest by other editors ... Template:Oldprodfull grew out of the project, but it has applications far beyond this little corner of Wikipedia, and the "Cuban artists" checklist was just a convenient opportunity to give it some Real World testing ... I've switched to Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed (articles with a ) for my beta-test articles. :-)


 * The example I provided may appear large, but the default is just the template with no parameters, which is a no-brainer to use.
 * The template is for more than just the "Cuban artists" checklist, and the feedback is recorded at Template talk:Oldprodfull.


 * My manic-depression is entering the "down" phase (I have a birthday coming up) so I'll be pretty "inactive" for the next few weeks ... I think that my Flag templates and  can stand alone for a while .. I'll sit back and watch to see if other editors embrace their use.


 * Happy Editing! &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 16:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Terraxos
Hi there, 72! I just discovered this template, and I love the idea of it - now I think about it, I have no idea why this didn't exist before. It's such an obviously useful template, we should get it added by bot to every article that has been proposed for deletion in the past, as soon as possible.

I'm not so keen on the actual appearance of it, though - having seen its use on several pages already, it just seems to be too big and obtrusive. After all, let's face it: WP:PROD is not a big deal. The fact that an article has been prodded in the past means little: it basically means that one editor thought it should be deleted, and another disagreed. Yes, it's useful to know what articles have already been prodded, so as not to prod them again - but there's no need to cry about it from the rooftops, which is what this template seems to do.

The best comparison for it is with Oldafd, which it was clearly inspired by. An article going through AFD is a far bigger deal than one being prodded - yet that template is much less obtrusive than this one. I think Oldafd is a good guideline, then, for what this template should look like: it should probably be only one line, two at most, saying something like: "This article was proposed for deletion by User:X on DATE. User:Y reviewed and contested the request on DATE." Including the actual reasons for adding and removing the template just strikes me as unnecessary. Terraxos (talk) 05:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thnx ... the display of the template can get rather large, but when used with just user-ids and no dates or comments, it's not so bad ... besides, you can always use it with no parameters and just get the simple one-liner ... and if it does get deleted, then the size doesn't matter. :-)


 * Most of the feedback is that having the  can be helpful, especially when a PROD has been contested, because one does not have to sort through the history to find them ... OTOH, I guess there is some potential for abuse, and like Some Other Editor opined already, it can give the impression that the article's subject is more contentious than it may actually be. &mdash; 72.75.72.63 (talk) 16:21, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

-

Pharmboy
I am not sure if I would use it or not. Not against the tag, just not sure of the usefulness. So many articles get PRODs, and typically when they are stubs or new, and very often, for the wrong reasons. Not sure if adding the fact that the article was PRODed is that helpful. This would be the same for a previously tagged SPEEDY template, and for similar reasons. PROD only means ONE person thought it should be deleted (same as speedy). This contrasts with AFDs where the community itself participates. Any single user can remove a PROD or SPEEDY tag as well. I understand it is to prevent users from rePRODing an article that was already PRODed, but there may be different reasons for each PROD, and there is no policy that disallows adding the PROD tag on an article more than once for different reasons (that I am aware of). I dunno, I certainly may be missing the point and open to new ideas, I just haven't run across the issue at this time I guess.


 * You may be correct; this is kind of a "solution in search of a problem" ... I guess my thoughts were (a) this is handy for a deletionist who is documenting an article that will probably have to go to AfD, and (b) this is the kind of thing that a bot should be doing ... it's the seconded PROD that (for me) makes it most useful and informative ... to tell the truth, I'm not as enamored of it as I was when I created it, but I'm not willing to MOVE ON quite yet. :-) &mdash; 141.156.217.11 (talk) 15:50, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I found the TfD for Template:Prod-2, which was the original inspiration for this template ... combine all of the Keep arguments, and see if you don't agree with the consensus. &mdash; 141.156.217.11 (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

- Your message. - Your message. -

Recent changes
I figured out how to get ISO 8601 dates to wikilink automagically, and decided to replace  with   in keeping with the change in nomenclature from   to   (for Three-letter acronyms) ... for legacy reasons (like the instances on talk pages), the older parameter names are still supported, but not mentioned in the current documentation ... I'm changing the examples as I find them, to avoid confusion ... Happy Editing! &mdash;  20:22, 23 May 2008 (UTC) - "Moved the following sections from User talk:72.75.72.63 ... redirected that link to this page ... Happy Editing! &mdash; The Bipolar Anon-IP Gnome (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)"

My bot and this template
My bot has been approved to add this template to talk pages of articles that previously had a Prod and survived but don't have Oldprodfull already.--Rockfang (talk) 03:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Score, AnonIP will be so happy.  MBisanz  talk 03:48, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Kewl! :-) Happy Editing! &mdash;  00:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The Big Picture
Hello, fellow editors ... it occurs to me that some of you may not be seeing this template in light of a Larger Issue, i.e. deletions that may be Too Hasty ... please see Flag templates for deletion warnings for an overview of the Big Picture. :-) &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

When to use
Folks, I am in a minor disagreement with User:72.75.78.75 about when to use this template. Before he edited the documentation (see this diff), the instructions were to use it when a PROD had been contested. User:72.75.78.75 believes, and has amended the documentation to reflect his belief, that it should be used for contested PRODs and any PROD that is seconded with Prod-2. This position doesn't make any sense to me (why the distinction between "contested" and "pending and seconded"?), so I am seeking consensus. Thank you. – ukexpat (talk) 17:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Further point, isn't this template similar to Oldafd, i.e. a notice as to past, not current, PRODs? – ukexpat (talk) 17:09, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter when it is used. User:72.75.78.75 is just getting a jump on putting the template in, which probably makes populating it easier (the prod-ing editor can insert it, the seconder can add their info., and the contester can add their info.). If the PROD is successful, the talk page (including the template) will also be deleted, so in the event this template will only "survive" in contested prods, which is what you intend.  UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Please see Template:Deprod, which recommends the use of Oldprodfull, and Template:Oldprod which also references it ... but Most Persuasive is WP:PROD, which encourages its use (added by me on 2008-06-26, BTW. :-)


 * Please read some of the discussions earlier on this page, and you'll see that it was never restricted to contested PRODs ... my original design called for a bot to scan Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed each day and update the articles' Discussion pages.


 * It's not just for contested PRODs, but for seconded PRODs as well, hence the parameters ... i.e., it may be used for currently active PRODs, not merely the ones that have been contested ... and using the "default" template without any arguments to flag a contested PROD is pretty useless, IMHO.


 * Happy Editing! &mdash;  20:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I forgot to mention Template:Prod-2, which also suggests adding Oldprodfull (added by me on 2008-05-14. :-) &mdash; 72.75.78.75 (talk) 21:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes and your first example also added by you Template:Deprod through its documentation  in June. And a few See also's too. None of these are "persuasive" since they contain no reasoning, just instruction. It should occur to you that users seeing these may think they have consensus and have been widely judged to serve a worthy purpose, and so should be used. It should also occur to you that this is bad form. 86.44.26.92 (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I fail to see how being Be bold is "bad form" ... I created  and modified   without discussion, and like with all things Wiki, it is up to individual editors to use them or not, at their own discretion; implicit approval notwithstanding, e.g., Ignore all rules. :-) &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 22:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, the feedback from other editors shows that this template was not completely unilateral in its implementation. &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 07:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I should also point out (from ): "This is an essay containing the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Heed them or not based upon your judgment and discretion."In other words, if you don't like it, then don't use it. :-) &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No offence, but that's a lot of waffle. Yes, sometimes being bold is bad form, of course it is. I would suggest that when a VP proposal is largely ignored, it is bad form to then boldly implement a significant and wide-ranging change which is hard to undo, especially in view of how many comments solicited or unsolicited use some variation of phrases involving "too big", "huge", "bulky" etc. In one case you met such a comment with the rejoinder "Thanks for your support"! Indeed I do not have to use this template, but I do have to scroll past it and the myriad of other templates on a talk page in which it is in use. How many new users will do this? And why should we have to? Are you unaware of why WikiProjectBanners is in existence?  86.44.26.205 (talk) 21:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * One mark of a newbie is that they do not know that an article can be proposed for deletion only once, or how to search an article's history for a comment that may not have been left ... this puts everything in one place, but if you think that it's "Too Much" information, then by all means prune it when you encounter it, like I did with ... 'Nuff said! &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 01:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Too big, talk pages already too full
I think the idea that there is too much bulky stuff on talk pages that is not, erm, talk, has been voiced by many all over the wiki. Hance banner shells and what-not, yet the stuff keeps coming. In view of that, among other things, this template should have had wider discussion before being launched into the wiki. Where is the VP conversation, or other centralized public discussion, that points to a clear go-ahead for this? This kind of thing is ridiculous. I don't see why would-be prodders should not go through the edit summary history. 86.44.26.92 (talk) 18:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You can always edit the template instance and prune it back to the bear minimum; the nom editor, date, and reason, or no arguments at all, e.g., using comment brackets:


 * Which makes:


 * instead of:


 * That the talk page still exists is evidence that the PROD was contested by Some Other Editor ... the grizzly details can be perused in an earlier version of the talk page, or by simply editing the current version.


 * BTW ... "a colossal waste of time" is one of beau coup reasons that I can think of as to why I "should not go through the edit summary history" to see if an article has been PRODed before. &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 23:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Make this the default please.


 * Clicking on (older 500) a few times and searching the page for PROD is not strenuous. We are talking about seeking to remove an article from the encyclopedia here, not something trivial. 86.44.26.205 (talk) 21:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Sofixit ... like I just did with this article that I found by scanning Category:Flagged articles ... you might also have time to scan Category:Proposed deletion-endorsed for (active) seconded PRODs. :-) &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 00:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That isn't fixing it, that is fixing an instance of it. What we are asking for is to make the default the one line version. (Perhaps you can have a show function named "details" or "show" if you still think the extra information is valuable.) Are you asking me to make the template default to the one-line version? 86.44.16.185 (talk) 05:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 *  ... hasn't everyone read WP:OWN? When I started pushing bits as a Fortran programmer back in the 70s, we practiced something called "egoless programming" ... its cornerstone was, "You find it, you fix it!" ... one of the things that attracted me to Wikipedia was this "open source" paradigm, so yeah, I guess I'm saying, "If you don't like it, then change it ... and if Some Other Editor objects and reverts your changes, then deal with them, not me." :-)


 * BTW, this message talks about a bot that inserts the "minimalist" (i.e., empty) template into articles:"Add Oldprodfull to talk pages of articles that previously had a Prod and survived but don't have Oldprodfull already. "Maybe you can get the author to make a bot to "prune" instances by inserting comment tags in the legacy articles that currently contain instances ... although Talk:Neil Cicierega may be an exception that defines the rule (it's already a one-liner.) &mdash; 72.75.110.31 (talk) 03:07, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Dates dewikilinked
In 2008, Wikipedia stopped wikilinking dates. This template got overlooked somehow. Fixed. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Centered formatting
Hello, fellow editors ... As the original author, I agree with that centered formatting looks better for this template ... Happy Editing! &mdash;  19:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Collapsibled default requested
The output of this template can be unattractive and take up a lot of talk space. See, for example, Talk:Office robbery. Would someone please revise the template so that it defaults closed to a collapsed position. Thanks. -- Suntag  ☼  16:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, this particular example is kind of academic, since the article has been deleted by an AfD ... I can only assume that the comments in the template helped decide the outcome ... Happy Editing! &mdash;  17:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * We really need a collapse function on this template. See for example its use on Talk:Mahalo (word). Viriditas (talk) 01:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Purpose of this template
I really can't see the purpose of this template as is. I agree with the numerous comments above about it being large and obtrusive, and it has a scarlet letter quality about it in my view. This is especially true with the hugely excessive descriptive options.

Those extend to: links to user contribs, talkpages, dates plus edit summaries, wikilinks, for the tag placing, seconding..., and removal. Even the  vague-equivalent template only has two parameters. And AfD is a formal weeklong multi-editor procedure! The result parameter on that is basically "keep", "delete", "no consensus". Not, long rationale statement, discussion quotes, closing arguments, name rank and serial number, inside leg/dress sizes of participants.

It's completely irrelevant whether the options are Required or whether one use of the template can be edited after the fact. The fact is all the options to do all this are available, and at odds with both what proposed deletion is as well as common sense. –Whitehorse1 12:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I hate to be ironic, but this template should be proposed for deletion. It serves no useful purpose and clutters up on the talk page. Viriditas (talk) 01:44, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I am seriously thinking of WP:TFDing it. Aside from the "scarlet letter" brand it puts on articles, it's a big-ass notice about .  Any idiot with a bone to pick can slap a prod on any article they want to, for any reason, and if the article is still here, it means someone thought they were full of crap.  I could go use AWB right now and prod 10,000 articles in one day just to make a WP:POINT if I were a WP:DICK. It isn't noteworthy. It's like having a special, huge banner template for Someone once disagreed with something in or about some old version of this article.  Oh, wait, that's actually .  There ArticleHistory for articles with long histories of contention, in which multiple prods might be notable. But  template is worse than useless, it's disruptive and contrary to collaboration. The Old AfD full and related templates about AfD  serve a purpose, since the point to actual  or debates; this template doesn't do anything but a) piss off people who care about the article and b) alarm or confuse readers and editors into thinking there may be something suspect about it when there probably isn't. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 22:26, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just FYI, I remove this divisive and hateful template from every talk page I find it on. I've never once had anyone come to my talk page and criticize me for it. I wonder why? — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 22:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, there is a potential purpose, which is not contradicted by the fact that no one complains about deletion. If an article has been PRODed and the template was removed, a further PROD is wrong, according to WP:PROD.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 02:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * As the original creator of the template (nearly four years ago), I would like to "complain" about its deletion … as pointed out, an article can only have a WP:PROD once, and it can be very hard to find it in the edit history … and it does not contain "name rank and serial number, inside leg/dress sizes of participants", just the same three links found in most signatures … this often helps identify the article's creator as the editor who contested the PROD, something that is seldom obvious from just the edit history … although impossible to track (after deletion), the information in this template has also proven useful in WP:AfD discussions … besides, the "casual reader" rarely looks at an article's talk page, so it's only the most active editors who ever see it, so it is hardly a "scarlet letter" brand … as for removing it from article talk pages, it would be easier to write a bot to scan Category:Past proposed deletion candidates (which is populated by this template) and remove it from any articles where it has been in place longer than a week … since there are currently 5,321 articles in that category, it seems obvious to me that a lot of editors see the utility of it. Happy Editing! &mdash;  17:06, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly support the retention of this template, and leaving it on article talk pages indefinitely. It is useful as a handy record of (i) the fact that a PROD happened in the past, as this rules out another PROD, and (ii) the reasons given for deletion and for contesting it, e.g. as stated in the first PROD template and in edit summaries, as these are often worth citing at AfD. However, I propose that we should remove the documentation that provides for its use during active PRODs. The reasons for active PRODs are easily and quickly found from the history, and it is quicker to look them up there than to spend time filling in this template. My interest in proposing this change is that as a (new) admin I was about to delete a prodded page after 7 days, but found an unpopulated oldprodfull on the talk page, so I then had to go and check the history to see whether the current prod was the first or a second (invalid) prod. It would be clearer to use it only for contested prods. – Fayenatic L (talk) 20:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Re: active prods, it shows if there was a Prod-2 as well, which can be hard to find in the edit history. &mdash; 71.166.140.155 (talk) 01:46, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
 * But on an active prod, the fact that there is a Prod-2 would be highly visible on the face of the article. Documenting the Prod-2 in Oldprodfull could only be useful to record the identity, date & reason of the editor who endorsed deletion, not the fact of it. For it to be hard to find the Prod-2 in the edit history, it would be necessary for a prodded article to be edited a lot without deprodding, and in practice I've never come across this. – Fayenatic L (talk) 20:52, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My bad … I meant to say during RfC discussions, rather than active prods … you're correct that it's useless for active prods. As for being edited a lot without deprodding, I've seen that a lot when the author micro-edits it or there's a revert war. :-) &mdash; 71.166.140.155 (talk) 23:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Your last point actually suggests circumstances when it could be useful after all during an active prod, but I think it would rarely actually be used even there... so I'm going ahead with the changes that I proposed. – Fayenatic L (talk) 21:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Copy edit sentence
Propose a copy-edit to the sentence: From:	This article was proposed for deletion by an editor in the past. To:	This article was proposed for deletion in the past by an editor.
 * --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:33, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Old prod
I've handled about a quarter of the merge decision (archive) a year ago manually, incl. an oldprod redirect. Mostly replacing by, but there are of course Victorian English dates, wikilinked dates, no dates, the works. Please fix the rest, or post detailed instructions how I could convince a bot to handle exactly the two simple cases (no date or date=yyyy-mm-dd). –Be..anyone (talk) 16:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * , you'll need to be more specific about what you've done, and what you are looking to do. I'd be happy to help you when I can understand your request. —   16:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * That's as specific as possible, for an example pick anything summarized as "replace old prod" on what I did. –Be..anyone (talk) 16:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * What a coincidence. I was just doing this too. I created Old prod/sandbox as a proposed wrapper around Old prod full/sandbox, and the result can be seen at Old prod/test. If I put a safesubst: at the date call, does that look sufficient to subst it through, or do we need a more elaborate botty approach that finds the person who added the PROD if available in the revision history, (and the person who recreated the page as the contestor from the logs or history)? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 23:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
 * LoL, indeed, I stumbled over the issue elsewhere, so there are now lots of "nomdate" which would be "deldate" in your version. I think precision isn't necessary (otherwise it would be an oldid, not a date), because typical talk pages of PRODded articles have no long edit history. –Be..anyone (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Too much code
Why is there so much code at Talk:Minimal (supermarket)? Something to do with substitution fail? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:13, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Date format
after your recent change, the date requirement for nomdate is now more fussy than for condate; it is giving "Error: Invalid time" messages, e.g. at Talk:FRP Advisory. – Fayenatic  L ondon 13:16, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The requirements for both were the same. There was an invisible unicode character in nomdate; after removing it, the template displayed correctly. Due to the invisible unicode issue and the restricted date formats accepted by ISO date, I have reverted back to the previous usage. —&thinsp;JJMC89&thinsp; (T·C) 01:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

when to use... and when to remove
First off, the instructions for when to use are very unclear for editors not well acquainted with these processes. IF A and B but not C... whaaa...? Please add a natural-language summary "add this template when..." before the code, thank you.

Secondly, there are quite a lot of instances where an editor jumps the gun and creates an article well before notability etc can be established; naturally leading to a RFD. But later on, when notability etc has been well-entrenched, the risk of somebody suggesting the article to be deleted is minimal, and thus templates such as this one no longer serves a useful purpose.

What would be useful therefore is to add a section to the help that mentions when you can take out the template, often saving quite a bit of talk page header space/clutter.

As a practical example: Talk:Lost in Space (2018 TV series). Before airing, I can understand why someone would want to delete the fledgling article. But now, with a full season under its belt, I can see no reason whatsoever for deletion (and more importantly, that someone would get the idea to delete it). Thus, I boldly removed the frankly bloated and technical template. It would have been nice to get a green light from the help page here.

Note I am not questioning the overall template. I'm sure it has its uses, but that ain't on pages where deletion discussions are clearly a thing (things?) of the past. Cheerio CapnZapp (talk) 08:28, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I almost forgot about this. Since nobody has chimed in, I'm taking the right to edit as I see fit, maybe that will bring out the lurkers :) CapnZapp (talk) 10:42, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Good changes; except that I disagree with ever removing the template. The template serves to show that a PROD has already been done; and since a PROD cannot be done more than once, flags that it cannot be done a second time and than any deletion proposals must go through AFD.
 * I understand the take that some articles proceed to where no reasonable editor could propose deletion, but then we get into the meta-discussion of what constitutes reasonable. The better case is to retain it. TJRC (talk) 19:20, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Hmm. As a layman this particular reason comes across as very wonky. We don't have templates for all the stupid (silly, inappropriate, etc) things editors might do, so why have a template for this particular use case? Besides, it must be easy for an editor to not spot (or even understand) this template, and go ahead with the faulty PROD anyway. Trying to protect us from ourselves must be a fool's errand, especially considering the great rollback features Wikipedia offers. Isn't this just a case of overprotectedness? Especially on the kind of talk pages I have in mind: the ones where the header are full and cluttered by all sorts of templates. If that article was PRODDED way back in time when it was a stub but now cover an established subject, I don't understand what the value of keeping it is, compared to the value of removing it to help out with decluttering a dangerosuly overcrowded talk header...? But feel free to educate me otherwise :) CapnZapp (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * The point of the template is to warn off future prods. It provides a way for a potentially prodding editor to see that the article is not eligible. Generally, articles on which unsuccessful deletion attempts have been made, whether via PROD or AFD, continue to carry that record on the talk page. The logs don't show that, so that's pretty much the only way.
 * In the case of successful deletion attempts, of course, the talk page is deleted along with the article, and the outcome of that deletion is carried in the log. TJRC (talk) 00:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)
 * "The point of the template is to warn off future prods" - Yes, I understand that, thank you. I am not questioning this. I am not questioning the function of this template. I am, however, asking about the value of keeping it around for articles that no longer are likely to get PRODDED! If an editor is hell-bent on PRODDING an article, even a well-established one that has a snowball's chance in hell of actually being deleted, no template or talk page header clutter in the world can prevent that. So, I ask again (complete with spelling error :-) ... though if you feel irritated by my repeated posting, feel free to let another editor answer:
 * I don't understand what the value of keeping it is [on the kind of talk pages I have in mind], compared to the value of removing it to help out with decluttering a dangerosuly overcrowded talk header...? Regards CapnZapp (talk) 09:06, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 16 December 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: consensus to move the template as requested. Because of the history at the previous title, I have retained it at Template:Old prod/Old. Dekimasu よ! 18:57, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

Template:Old prod full → Template:Old prod – Move to COMMONSENSE title, removing the nonsensical "full". This could be seen as part of renamings to make template names descriptive and intuitive (Refimprove → More citations needed, cn/fact → Citation needed, etc). SD0001 (talk) 02:30, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support – I agree that this is a sensible proposal, as I've always wondered why this template is named "Old prod full". --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:22, 16 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Support- I agree that the current name is confusing. What is the "full" even in there for? Reyk YO! 18:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Support. The current name is a fluke of history. There used to be two templates, Old prod and Old prod full. Old prod was a special case of Old prod full, which had more parameter support, and was merged into it. Discussion at Templates for discussion/Log/2014 January 19. TJRC (talk) 05:39, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support as above. This version of Old prod shows how it used to be used, requiring only one parameter (nomination date). – Fayenatic  L ondon 21:01, 22 December 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Template-protected edit request on 16 December 2018
Please incorporate the changes from the sandbox. I've done:
 * Made the template time-sensitive. If  is older than 7.25 days from now, the original wording is shown (no changes made to that). But if   is within the last 7.25 days, tmbox type is set for deletion type notices (causes change of bgcolor and image), categorisation to Category:Past proposed deletion candidates is disabled, and wording is changed to "This page is currently proposed for deletion (DATE) by USER".
 * Created alias  for  . date is so popular as a template parameter that most people would expect it to work.
 * Text produced by the  and   fields, which were identical, is merged. So that   becomes an alias for ,   an alias for  , and   an alias for.

Note that #2 and #3 are just trivial fixes. The main part of the edit is, of course, #1. There is some consensus for it at Wikipedia_talk:Proposed_deletion. The intent is to make this template suitable for automated tools like Twinkle to add it automatically at the time of nomination itself. So that the usage of this template becomes prevalent and thus configure automated tools to disallow PRODing if talk page contains this template. SD0001 (talk) 10:53, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

See the testcases at Template:Old prod full/testcases. SD0001 (talk) 11:20, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

pinging users from the discussion. SD0001 (talk) 11:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Looks like a good and helpful development to me, but Im no expert on the technical side, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 14:25, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

PAGE ]]) 16:42, 17 December 2018 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 20:54, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support- particularly point 1. ¬¬¬¬ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reyk (talk • contribs) 18:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. I'm assuming the code works, my template-fu is too weak to confirm. Thanks to SD0001 for taking this on. TJRC (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Question: I'm not too familiar with how this template is used, but the time-sensitive aspects of this template won't update until the page is either purged, edited, or otherwise refreshed by the server. Would it be a problem if the coloring/wording change occurs a few days late? --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * You raise an important point. It's not just that it won't update until a server refresh but also that if someone deprods the article after 1 day (say), the template will continue to shout "This page is currently proposed for deletion" for a full 7.25 days. The ideal thing would be have the template wording on the basis of whether the prod tag is still there on the subject page or not, but of course this isn't possible to know using the wiki-markup. I am looking into whether Lua can be used to achieve this. SD0001 (talk) 20:14, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * On some investigation, I see that this template could be made significantly more robust and helpful by converting it to a lua module. I'll first need to learn that language though. Deactivating this edit request for now. SD0001 (talk) 20:35, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Although there is an extension that allows Lua to check categories (mw:Extension:CategoryToolbox), it is not installed on production wikis yet. Therefore, the only way to check whether the page had been deprodded via Lua would be to load the entire subject page's text using something like  and then parsing the content to find the PROD template. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK

Alright, I am reactivating the edit request. The trouble with with manipulating wording on the existence of the prod tag on the page is that when someone adds the prod tag the second time (long after the original prod is declined) the template would have no way of knowing that this is a second nomination (unless the nomdate field was set). Of course, we could still make it use Lua and account for various different scenarios, but for the time being as I am not very conversant with that language, I'll leave it here. This is a definitely an improvement over the existing setup.

Now, usage of the template becomes the following:

I am assuming that it takes roughly 7.25 days for an uncontested prod to be deleted (from the date of nomination) as suggested by at WT:PROD. We could definitely change this number if needed. SD0001 (talk) 04:56, 24 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:04, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * oops! I forgot to unbold the 2ndreason. Please change  →   in all the 3 places. The reason texts are being unbolded because they tend to stand out, though PROD tagging/untagging is not a big deal. And while you are at it, could you also update   near the end to reflect the present name of this template? Or better, could you give me the template-editor flag so that I can fix such things myself? It would also significantly enhance my productivity in template editing as it would enable me to preview changes to the live template (since only those with edit access can preview changes), removing the need to set up artificial testcases of the sandbox version in userspace. I do know my way around templates and modules and understand the risks associated with the right, and will not use it to make big changes to any protected template without discussion. Thanks, SD0001 (talk) 10:53, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * , The changes made by MSGJ have apparenly borked the template in a number of instances. Please see the ~300 talk-page entries currently in Category:ParserFunction errors. Deor (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am looking into this. SD0001 (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * As expected, the errors are due to malformed nomdate parameters on those pages. Any attempt to improve this template necessarily requires making the nomdate machine-readable. For this, it has to be in a format acceptable to the #time parser function. The date errors are variously being caused by junk markup, apparently invisible unicode characters and total junk in the date field apparently due to failed transclusion of older version of the template. There are no problems with the template itself. The right course of action should be to fix the dates (in which I'll take part). Please don't revert the changes. As I said, the problems are not with the updated template, but with the dates on the pages - a small fraction of the 9700+ transclusions that this template has. SD0001 (talk) 17:21, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your work on this. I'll slowly work my way through Category:ParserFunction errors and fix what I can. TJRC (talk) 21:24, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Done now. At least one other editor must have been doing the same, because that category melted away faster than would have been possible due to only my edits. TJRC (talk) 22:51, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The category melted away because all the changes made to the template were reverted. SD0001 (talk) 02:03, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Luckily, I had saved the list of pages from the category, which I have now posted to Template:Old prod/Pages with malformed date. Can you try and fix them? Much appreciated. You'll find mw:Help:ParserFunctions useful. The list has only the first 200 items though :( I neglected to save the ones not on the front page. SD0001 (talk) 03:00, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * It may have been a caching thing; I observed the list slowly getting smaller every time I refreshed and grabbed another handful of pages to edit. It didn't suddenly drop like I would have expected it to from reversion of the template.
 * If the only problem is that the revised template correctly causes the incorrect date formatting to be flagged, is that a problem? I'd rather work from a live list so I can see what still needs to be revised and so that I can ensure my edits worked. TJRC (talk) 22:15, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 January 2018
Please sync changes from the sandbox.

User:Certes has fixed the ~200 date errors (discussion); the 200 being the ones listed at Template:Old prod/Pages with malformed date (which is a listification of the first page of Category:ParserFunction errors as it appeared when the edit was live. We don't know which are the remaining pages (should be ~100) with the errors, so we can't fix them. They can only be fixed after the changes get implemented. Category:ParserFunction errors is quite well looked after by several editors. I too will take part. SD0001 (talk) 10:52, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've incorporated a fix into the template which will prevent the problematic invisible character from causing #time to give an error. So the number of pages with parser function errors after this gets implemented is going to much lesser. SD0001 (talk) 12:22, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Although we've edited out the invisible character, SD0001 has diagnosed that it arrives when copy-pasting a date from the page history, so it will reappear. I think this fix is the best we can do (short of enhancing #time or changing the page history format).  A Lua pattern such as "\226\128\142" (UTF-8) might be better then embedding an invisible code but I can't get that to work in practice, even setting plain_flag to 0. Certes (talk) 12:35, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done In future, this kind of error can be found and fixed using tracking categories. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:04, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the update. There's one complication: editors have been encouraged to set {{SUBST:ISO date}}, which evaluates to  .  That is indigestible to #time.  We've already edited such HTML tags out of existing uses.  I have boldly  the documentation to discourage use of ISO date.  If you disagree, please feel free to revert, but we might then need the template to strip HTML tags in a similar way to the left-to-right marker. Certes (talk) 14:03, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Inconsistent formatting
On Talk:Nut Tree one of the dates is displayed as 29 May 2018 and the other date is shown as 2018-05-29. Could we have a consistent format please? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:25, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * That's because nomdate shown is formatted using #time, whereas condate and declinedate are shown raw, as passed to the template. We could achieve consistency by (i) removing #time-based display formatting from nomdate, or by (ii) adding #time-based formatting to condate and declinedate as well. I'd rather suggest option (ii) as it would give neat and consistent output across all pages, though some more date errors may arise. SD0001 (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

"policy that says that an old-prod template, once placed, may never be removed"
I postulate the reason you can't find the rule, policy, whatever that says this template is not to be removed once placed, is because no such rule, policy, etc exists.

There is a policy, WP:PROD, and it says: [Proposed deletion (PROD)] may only be placed on a page a single time. But that isn't about this template. The purpose of this template is, per documentation, to to reduce repeated proposed deletion (PROD) nominations of the same article. Removing this template does not go against WP:PROD. Just because this template isn't there anymore doesn't mean it's okay to renominate a article for PROD.

Therefore I suggest that if any of you reading this is of the opinion that there is something (rule, policy, ...) that makes it a breach to remove an OLDPROD (please see above for well-reasoned instances when this might be the case) please amend the documentation to make this clear; providing references to the thing (rule, policy, ...) you support this by.

Otherwise my best guess is that it is, as with so many other decisions, up to local consensus on each article to decide which is more important: reducing future PROD noms, or (insert reason here).

Food for thought. CapnZapp (talk) 19:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there a reason why you want to remove this template from talk pages? SD0001 (talk) 21:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for asking. Copying this from the earlier talk section:

As a practical example: Talk:Lost in Space (2018 TV series). Before airing, I can understand why someone would want to delete the fledgling article. But now, with a full season under its belt, I can see no reason whatsoever for deletion (and more importantly, that someone would get the idea to delete it). Thus, I boldly removed the frankly bloated and technical template. It would have been nice to get a green light from the help page here.
 * So my answer is: because talk page headers can become large and unwieldy, in which case Old Prod are a good candidate for pruning (since articles with large and unwieldy talk pages tend to not be the kind of article targeted with PROD). Of course, a more philosophical answer would be why wouldn't we have advice on removal? Regards CapnZapp (talk) 11:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Although I don't feel strongly about it, I think it should stay. If anyone later is considering PRODding, it's a clear flag letting them know they shouldn't; and can be checked by automated tools like Twinkle.
 * I don't see an indication of a failed PROD a badge of shame or the like; if anything, it's a marker that the article has made it past at least one hurdle. TJRC (talk) 22:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)