Template talk:Refideas editnotice

Feedback
Hello, and thank you for your input! I proposed this template to make the refideas template more accessible to both people who want to improve articles, as well as people who are not sure if a page should be deleted; when this is implemented, everyone who clicks "edit" on a page with the refideas template on the talk page will get this editnotice. I am leaving this here until the end of October for testing, as per the suggestion here. Let me know how this is working for you, and if you have any questions or suggestions on how to improve this idea, this is the place to suggest them. :) BOZ (talk) 14:45, 29 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Are you aware of PAGENOTICE? This template can only be placed in page notices by admins, page movers, and template editors. Which also means, once the refideas have been used, only an admin, page mover or template editor can clear the notice. -- ferret (talk) 23:17, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm aware. Thanks ferret. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:39, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Is the goal to place this everywhere Refideas is in use? That's 17995 edit notices at this particular moment. -- ferret (talk) 23:41, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * The goal would be to have it show up automatically on any page where the refideas template is on the article talk page, much like how you get an editnotice when you edit a BLP, or when you try to create an article where a draft article exists. I'm not too clear on how that implementation would work. BOZ (talk) 23:48, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Right now we're just testing it on a few. If you're interested, ferret, the VPP thread where this came up was here Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Handy, but i'm a bit bothered that I see this only IF I am editing the article. If I'm simply reading the article, I don't get that notice. Would it be permissible to add that notice in the article following the "Reception" subsection? That way, if I'm reading the article, I'd see the prompt.Guinness323 (talk) 05:33, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Just making note of some positive feedback at User talk:Alexandra IDV and User talk:Haitch2PointOh, and some technical challenges on User talk:Ira Leviton. BOZ (talk) 15:50, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Firefangledfeathers, thank you again for your assistance. I think there should be two days left in the trial? I've gotten a little feedback but I was hoping for more. BOZ (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Just about two and a half days left. I think the next step would be to see if any of the ref ideas were used in the articles. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:54, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Gotcha. I don't think any were, but then again it was a small sample size. I'm sure I could have chosen articles more likely to be edited that way if I had any idea which ones to pick from. :o If the trial needs to be extended, is there a way we could get a list cross-referenced between which articles that have the template and are most frequently edited? BOZ (talk) 16:02, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Firefangledfeathers, I nearly forgot about this. :o OK, so the trial is over.  What is the next step?  Is testing on a wider sample of articles necessary, or can the template just be activated site-wide? BOZ (talk) 19:56, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * , tough times IRL and I'm having to pick my on-Wiki commitments carefully. I'm happy to brainstorm with you later, though you should feel free to work with others without me sooner if you'd like. Could you ping me in a week? It would also help if you could confirm that the edit notices all expired as they should have. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:19, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, I can ping you next week (if I don't forget), and I did check manually on all the pages and verified that each of the editnotices are expired. Most of the articles were not edited, but the ones that were I noted above on how I reached out to the editors who responded to my query. BOZ (talk) 21:40, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey there @Firefangledfeathers, how are things going for you now? Is this a good time to look at the template? BOZ (talk) 04:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Firefangledfeathers if now is a bad time, I don't want to keep bugging you, but can you please suggest the best place I can go for assistance with implementing this template? VPP technical maybe? BOZ (talk) 15:30, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hey ! Thanks for the reminder. First, I definitely think we need more technical assistance, and VPT seems a good place to go, though I'm not super familiar with norms there. My hope is that the edit notice can be made to:
 * All of that is beyond my technical skills, but some work spent on that part of it will save work on the implementation side. If we're asking for someone's help to work some tech wizardry, I do think it would help to have run a trial that shows some positive results. I don't know of a way to get the cross-categorization you mention above, but here are all the talk pages with ref ideas and I spot some high-traffic articles like Jazz and Puerto Rico and Star Wars (film). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:10, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * OK, that's brilliant. :) I will ask there. BOZ (talk) 20:18, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Before implementing this anywhere, please make sure the template page has good documentation. It's currently empty. Gonnym (talk) 05:56, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * @Gonnym thanks, but I have no idea what documentation would be used on the template page, as I've never made one before and did not know that documentation needed to be included. BOZ (talk) 06:06, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * A documentation should explain what this template does, how to use it, where to use it, etc. Since you are the one that created it, I'm sure you can explain these things. See Template documentation. Gonnym (talk) 06:08, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * So just a simple "We use this because of X"? BOZ (talk) 06:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm not great with complicated tasks, which is probably why I haven't done this before and am not likely to do it again. :D BOZ (talk) 06:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Feedback 2
This appears to be entirely unready. I noticed this over at Dennis Rader. There is zero explanation what the message is (it is a page notice, but not the normal kind but something autoinjected by an "unrelated" template). The documentation is miserable.

Please hold off deploying this until MUCH MORE quality of life improvements have been made.

The notice needs to explain its presence depends on the refideas template. Basically, add a link from the page notice to refideas' documentation, once it is no longer of subpar quality like now. How do you add the notice => you add the refideas template. How do you get rid of the notice => will removing refideas remove the template? (if not, how?)

The notice can't just point to a talk page with zero explanation. Talk pages can be HUGE. I can easily see editors tearing their hair out scouring dozens of talk sections looking for discussions on how to improve articles, not realizing they should be looking for a particular template often part of the talk header.

The notice should specifically call out where the editor should look for those references. The notice should specifically link to documentation that explains why the editor is seeing this page notice, and how to remove it.

Refideas should DEFINITELY have an option for "no page notice please". In fact, how about making that the default?

(I'm not sure adding page notices in this indirect fashion is even a good thing, but here I'm assuming the consensus won't simply be "let's forget the whole idea".)

CapnZapp (talk) 19:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I think that while this undocumented, uncategorized template is still in the testing phase, Refideas editnotice if exists should test for Refideas/sandbox only. Pinging . – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * We were in the testing phase for 6 weeks already (starting when Firefangledfeathers deployed it to individual articles's editnotices on September 29) and got no negative feedback. Of course now when I actually deploy it I start getting complaints. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:09, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi . Technically this template is not displayed on any article. The result of this test and other discussion is that Template:Refideas editnotice if exists, which does have some documentation, was added to Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Main. Many of your other points stand, but they should probably be taken to that other template talk page. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:25, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * This was partially wrong. This is a good place for at least some of this discussion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:35, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * On "can't just point to a talk page with zero explanation": it's supposed to point users directly to the refideas section. Is that not happening for you? It works for me at Dennis Rader. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:38, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Add class for styling
I suggest to add a class name like  so it can be styled with CSS, e.g. hidden with   in. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)