User:Jerzy/Current phase

This template can be used in several modes:

1. The usual straightforward fashion: provide only the three unnamed parameters: the numbers of the current "phase", the year, and the month (but don't mention the mode parameter). An example of the result is
 * Phase 4's future content is currently being accumulated at User talk:Jerzy, from discussions starting on or after 2009 April (or expected to continue from before that date), and will be copied to the subpage Phase 04 at a later date.

(In that case, you'll probably create the entry for the phase just ended by copying the one for an old phase, changing the dates and phase numbers, and maybe marking the links by hand.)

2. If the phase covers a single month, and doesn't require reference to a portion of the month's discussion that's been split out into a separate page, adding the named parameter using
 * |mode=convert

will work well. Probably the easiest procedure is to duplicate the markup for the phase just ended, changing the unnamed parameters in the upper copy, and adding the mode parameter in the lower one. It's wise in that case to also add
 * subst:

after the opening braces and before the namespace portion of this template's address. Since further changes to this entry would not be needed, this can avoid confusion from later unintended changes.

3. If the stock phrasing for a single-month phase doesn't apply, editing further, after saving according to 2 above can help. 4 below, however, is likely to be less confusing, especially if used more than once.

4. This use of this mode is distinguished from the previous three, in that the markup it produces is not intended to be saved directly. Rather, the editor first modifies the default-mode markup for the phase just ending by adding the named parameter, using
 * |mode=paste

but selects "Show preview" rather than "Save page". This editor then replaces the contents of the edit pane with the rendered version from the preview, and saves that markup instead. This is recommended especially for cases where the stock phrasing doesn't apply for the phase being ended, but is also helpful in that it dispenses with re-parameterizing the transclusion of this template to correspond to the phase just beginning (instead of corresponding to the one just ending). While it can obviate the use of mode=convert, its crucial purpose is to permit changing the text of the entry for the old phase to match special circumstances (usually a two-or-more-month duration for the old phase), without an intervening "mode=convert" save with "subst".