Template talk:WikiProject Arthropods

Template size
The size of this template is much much too large. I'm going to chop it down a bit. Kaldari 20:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * This template was so big and complicated, I just remade it from scratch. Feel free to revert if you like the previous version better, although I would suggest at least editing it down to a reasonable size. Kaldari 21:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

At another editor's request, I'm going to revert the template for now, until I have time to make a new version with more functionality. Kaldari 21:21, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's a bit big, that's true. But if streamlining it, please be sure that the functionality is retained, especially the rating system. --Sarefo 21:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I reverted, you just annihilated hours of work. As I said in my edit summary, I will try to get rid of some of it. However you should realise that talk page templates are commonly this size, if they want to accomodate article quality and importance assessment. The purpose of this tempalte isn't only to link to the wikiproject!


 * If you want to compare to other templates with article assessment schemes, see WPBeatles or WPSpiders. I will, however try to change it to a more manageable format without losing any functions ASAP. Iron C hris |  (talk) 21:28, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Have you seen this talk page? It's rediculous how much you have to scroll through to get to the talk page discussions. Check out the wave of the future. I would shoot for something closer to the example at right, than the monsterous Beatles template. Kaldari 21:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that some pages get pretty clogged up (though one could argue that it doesn't take much effort to scroll down). I do not oppose changing the format to something more concise, such as these Album and WikiProject Rugby union. But I definitely don't want to lose any of the functions of the template; note that both the above templates do not enable comments for improvement, for example, even though they are not much smaller. Obviously, the fact that this template involves ParserFunctions, magic words and lots of stuff that I don't understand makes changing format a tricky matter. As it is I'm having the greatest trouble preventing the text in the comments from overlapping over the importance box on the right. Iron C hris |  (talk) 22:45, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I managed to chop it down to about half its previous size though, especially without the "to-do" section and suggested guidelines. Iron C hris |  (talk) 22:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Try out the new version I created. It supports quality and importance assessment (although only quality is displayed in the box). It also supports comments for assessments. See it in action on Talk:Ant. Is there anything it's missing? Kaldari 23:20, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


 * From what I see it looks good, except that it doesn't show the importance level. Can you fix that? Iron C hris |  (talk) 23:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * At WikiProject Biography we actually found it more practical to keep the importance hidden (showing it only in the category assignment). The problem with showing the importance assignment is that the editors of the article always want to increase the importance regardless of what the project people think the importance actually is. Everyone feels that their pet article is more important than all the others, and no one wants their article considered "low importance" no matter how obscure it is. Until we started hiding it, we had to spend more time correcting importance assessments than making new ones. After we changed it, we could still make use of the importance assessments through the categories, so we didn't lose any functionality. But regardless, I'm not really an active WikiProject Arthropod member, so I don't want to tell you guys how to do things. I just wanted to explain why I left out the importance in the talk box :) Kaldari 05:09, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I fixed the template, everything is in working order now. I just thought about something: some WikiProjects use two different sizes of talk page templates, one "normal sized" one like this one, and one compact one like the one you showed above. If you still think that the template is over-large, why don't you create a compact version, on a page like Template:WPArthropods? Then pages that have multiple templates could use that one, and pages which only have the one template (the vast majority) can use this one. Iron C hris |  (talk) 04:40, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good idea. BTW, here's an example of the problem with transcluding the assessment comments into the talk page templates themselves: Talk:Spider. As you can see, for articles that have more than one project template, the material is duplicated. That's why most talk page templates simply link to the comments (as well as to save space). Although this might not be much of a problem for arthropod articles, it has certainly been an issue for other types of articles and I could imagine it becoming a problem here at some point. Imagine, for example, if templates for WikiProject Animals and WikiProject Halloween were added to the Spider page, each with their own copy of the comments. At the rate that WikiProjects are currently proliferating, I imagine most articles will soon fall under the jurisdiction of multiple projects. Einstein is already under 5! Kaldari 06:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)


 * That's true, and that would be another advantage of having a compact template. Thanks a lot for your input and help with formatting this template. Iron C hris |  (talk) 16:24, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Non-articles
Currently, yabby is a disambiguation page, and is thus excluded from the ratings system, but, although the text "This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale." appears correctly, the page is still put into Category:Unassessed Arthropods articles, which must be wrong. Could someone who understands the way the template works please alter it so that all the pages marked as not being articles are not listed among the unassessed articles? --Stemonitis 14:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Aha, Dab-class exists. Problem solved. --Stemonitis 15:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Requested Photos
Hello. Would it be at all possible for someone to add a photo-request section into the template? I'm concerned at the amount of WikiProject Arthropods articles there are crowding Wikipedia requested photographs of animals, while they should be in their own subcategory. Thank you. Doo -  dle  -  doo  14:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, a needs-photo to go with the audio one is a must. The problem is the insect photos have their own subcategories (so we need something like "insect=yes" unless we just use (which should itself be renamed), and arthropods don't even have one themselves. I can create an arthropods category but can't edit the template (there wasn't really any need to protect it (again?) anyway...). Richard001 (talk) 07:39, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've put a copy of the template in the sandbox. Perhaps you would like to add the components you want and then let me know when you are ready for implementation? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, does that seem to be okay? Richard001 (talk) 10:33, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Looks great! Synchronised. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:16, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Template does not use class= and importance=?
Why does this template not use class= and importance= like other templates? These are used for scripts that check an article's grade assessment without looking at the talk page. Gary  K ing ( talk )  04:28, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This has been fixed now so that the template accepts both (e.g.) A and class=A, although I would prefer it if people would switch to using only the latter. Richard001 (talk) 08:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Edit link not working
When I click on the "edit" link on Talk:Cockroach, I get an error: Firefox can't find the server at en.wikipedia.org{{localurl. Has something been changed? --Slashme (talk) 08:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages for Arthropods
The talk pages for Arthropods should have and not  so the appropriate categories appear at the bottom of the page. Using  means that the article shows the assessment but the categories at the bottom of the talk page do not show the class or importance. The Arthropods project should clarify this situation, and this template page should, too.--DThomsen8 (talk) 23:50, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Change photo requests to image requests
As part of a nearly-completed shift to distinguish requests for photos from requests for images in general, it is requested that this template be modified to place talk pages in "Wikipedia requested images of..." categories, rather than the old "Wikipedia requested photographs of..." categories. As such, please supplement all references to "photo(s) of..." and "photograph(s) of..." with "image(s) of..." in both the template and its documentation, while maintaining backwards compatibility for the old "photo" parameters. In particular, change "photograph or picture" to simply "image". Note that the "Wikipedia requested images of..." categories have already been created. Thank you! — s w p b T 15:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

PAGE''' ]]) 00:45, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Mock-up in sandbox. — s w p b T 14:18, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: per moratorium proposed at Category_talk:Wikipedia_requested_images_by_subject. Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK

Template-protected edit request on 15 October 2017
Please change  to   to enable additional assessment categories for pages not in article space. Plantdrew (talk) 02:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Primefac (talk) 02:19, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 September 2018: needs-image
Please change the line |note 2= to read |note 2= so that both |needs-image=yes and |needs-photo=yes populate the image request category. Nessie (talk) 01:42, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Also added image-needed & photo-needed. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:01, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 21 September 2018: Photos to Images
Please change: |NOTE_2_CAT        = Wikipedia requested photographs of arthropods to: |NOTE_2_CAT = Wikipedia requested images of arthropods‎

To reflect the switch from 'photos' to 'images.' Nessie (talk) 15:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Enterprisey (talk!) 02:42, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

"Template:Arth" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Template:Arth. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Magioladitis (talk) 11:55, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

Positional parameters
I would like to convert any uses of positional parameters with this template into named parameters, e.g. becomes

The reason is that this is more standard across all WikiProject banner templates, and now the class parameter is usually held in the banner shell, the importance essentially becomes the first parameter which can cause the template to break if the syntax is not handled carefully. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:07, 1 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Tracking category set up at &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:08, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:55, 3 May 2024 (UTC)