User:SlimVirgin/templates

Problems with citation templates:


 * 1) They're delivered in attractive packages with lots of parameters that are easy to fill in. (See the icons at the top in edit mode&mdash;click on the far-right icon to open the templates; or see the image, right). For example, there are 19 parameters for books, which editors often fill in whether the information is needed or not.
 * New editors complain that, because the parameters exist, they feel obliged to enter something for each of them, leading, for example, to citations that name the publisher of the New York Times. This becomes a bar to editing as new editors struggle to find information that there is no need for them to add.
 * 1) The consequent in-text clutter in edit mode makes articles difficult to edit, and close to impossible to edit for flow when there are a lot of them (click on "show" below for examples). As a result, the more citation templates there are in an article, the worse the writing tends to be. Articles become lists of sentences, rather than flowing narratives.
 * 2) They slow down load time considerably when there are large numbers of them; this is a particular problem when using "preview" or trying to retrieve diffs, which can easily take 10–30+ seconds to load. Copy editing often involves using preview many times before saving.
 * 3) Some of the templates use citation styles that don't exist outside Wikipedia.
 * 4) Citation styles in articles that use templates can be changed centrally without the authors even noticing.
 * 5) When they're added to a References section, every entry in the list starts with "c", making it harder to scan the list in edit mode to see where to add a new citation in alphabetical order.
 * 6) It's just as fast, if not faster, to write citations manually. The templates provide only an illusion of speed and ease.
 * 7) For information about slow load time caused by citation templates, see Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Citation templates (technical).
 * Also see Village_pump_%28technical%29/Archive_101

Examples
Some examples of citation templates in edit mode:

Heather Mills
Two sections below, as of January 25, 2010. Because of the citation template bloat, the page is difficult to edit and very slow to load.

Mills was born in Aldershot, Hampshire, to John "Mark" Francis Mills (a British ex-paratrooper) and his wife, Beatrice Mary Mills, née Finlay, who was the daughter of a colonel in the British Army. Mills' father was adopted at age seven and grew up in Brighton, where his foster parents had a grocery shop, although his foster-father also worked as a mechanic for a Grand Prix racing team. Her mother was born in India, during World War II, but was educated at English boarding schools. Mills' parents met at Newcastle University, and were married against the wishes of Finlay's father, who did not attend the wedding, and only saw his daughter once more before he died. Mills' mother spoke several languages and played the piano, and her father played banjo and guitar, liked photography (winning an Evening Standard award) and took part in numerous sports. He was very fond of animals (working for the RSPCA for a time) and Mills remembered her family always having a dog and a cat, as well as once having a pet goose and a white nanny goat that was allowed to roam the house in Libanus, near Brecon, which was a house Mills' grandparents had. Her family spent their holidays in Libanus and also lived there for a time. When Mills was six years old the family moved north to Alnwick, in Northumberland, but moved shortly after to a block of flats in Washington, Tyne and Wear, and then on to "Cockshott Farm," in Rothbury, Northumberland. Mills attended Usworth Grange Primary school, and then Usworth Comprehensive school in Washington. (She visited Usworth Comprehensive in 2003, as guest of honour at a prize-giving event and to support the school against plans for its closure).
 * Early life

Mills later wrote that she was kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a swimming pool attendant when she was eight years old, but her next door neighbour, Margaret Ambler, who was sexually abused by the swimming pool attendant, alleged that Mills' story was "nothing what she made it out to be", that Mills was never a victim, and the pool attendant did not commit suicide, as Mills had written. Although having received a letter from Mills offering £10,000 to stop a court case, Ambler complained that the story had caused her deep discomfort by bringing the incident to national attention, so she sued for breach of privacy, accepting an out-of-court settlement of £5,000 in compensation, and £54,000 legal costs.

Mills' mother left home when Mills was nine years old, which left Mills, her older brother Shane, and her younger sister, Fiona, in the care of their father. Mills said that her father once threw her brother against a window for making a mess on the carpet with crayons. The window broke and her brother had to be taken to hospital, where Mills' father explained that the boy had fallen on some glass in the garden. Fiona Mills said: "Our family were always short of money and our father demanded that we find food and clothes so we turned to shoplifting, learnt to hide from the bailiffs and became experts at domestic duties. I’m not ashamed to say that we were forced to steal because when you are a young child, you’d rather do that than face a beating from your father." (Their father disputed his daughters' allegations that he was violent towards them, later releasing home movies of family holidays in Lebanus, showing Mills playing happily). Mills later wrote that she often stole food from supermarkets as a child: "By ten I was an old hand. Pinching food was really quite easy I discovered." In 2006, she visited the Sainsbury's store in her home town and was refused entry by a member of staff because she had once been caught shoplifting there.


 * London and modelling

When her father was jailed for 18 months after being convicted of fraud, Mills left home with her sister to live with her mother and partner (Crossroads actor Charles Stapley) in Clapham, London, although her brother went to Brighton to live with his paternal grandparents. Mills later wrote that at the age of 15 she ran away to join a funfair, and then lived in a cardboard box under Waterloo Station for four months, although Stapely refuted this by saying that she occasionally left home at weekends to travel with a young man who worked for a funfair in London. During her stated period of homelessness, her school records indicate that she and her sister were both enrolled at Usworth comprehensive in Tyne and Wear until April 1983, and then at Hydeburn comprehensive in Clapham on 6 June 1983, where they both stayed until 2 July 1984. Mills remembered that a teacher at the Hydeburn school once said, "there's no hope for her at all", and that she left school with no academic qualifications. In the same year, her father had another daughter, Claire Mills, with a new partner.

Mills worked for a croissant shop, but was sacked, and vowed "never to work for anyone else again". She later wrote that the owner of a jewellery shop in Clapham gave her a job on Saturdays, but Jim Guy (the owner of Penrose Jewellers) later stated: "Everything she wrote about me was lies, I never gave her a job; she just hung around and made tea. She told me her father was dead. The only thing that was true was she nicked [stole] stuff from the shop", which Guy said was worth £20,000. Mills admitted that she had stolen some gold chains and sold them to buy a moped, and when Guy reported the theft, she was put on probation. Mills and her mother reconciled in 1989, but her mother died shortly after, during surgery for a minor thrombosis operation. She then worked at a casino, a sunbed salon, and the Bananas cocktail bar in London. Alfie Karmal (the son of a Palestinian father and Greek mother) was ten years older than Mills when they met in 1986, while she was working as a waitress at the Bananas cocktail club in Wardour Street, London. Karmal bought her new clothes, Cartier jewellery and paid for cosmetic surgery when she complained that her breasts were sagging. She later said that she had had a breast reduction operation, reducing her bra size from a 34E to a 34C. She reached the final of the Cinzano Model of the Year Competition, so Karmal, who had moved into the computer industry, set up a model agency for her, ExSell Management, although it was not successful. Mills later tried to sell it for £5,000 but could not find a buyer. In 1987 Mills went to live in Paris, telling Karmal that a cosmetics company had given her a modelling contract, but became the mistress of millionaire Lebanese businessman George Kazan for two years and took part in a photo session for a stills-only German sex education manual called Die Freuden der Liebe (The Joys of Love), in which she was photographed explicitly simulating sex with an equally nude male model called Peter Wilson. She received about £150. for the session. She also modelled for full-frontal nude photographs.

After returning to London, Mills asked Karmal to marry her. Karmal said yes, but on one condition: "I told her I couldn't marry her until she did something about her compulsive lying, and she agreed to see a psychiatrist for eight weeks. She admitted she had a problem and said it was because she'd been forced to lie as a child by her father." Mills had told Karmal that she had a driving licence, and three A-levels, which Karmal later learned was not true. On 6 May 1989, Mills married Karmal (who had two sons from a previous marriage) and moved into a four-bedroom house in Dobbs Weir, Hertfordshire. Although Mills proposed to Karmal, she later said that every man she has been out with "has asked me to marry him within a week." While married to Karmal, she suffered two ectopic pregnancies, so Karmal paid for her to go on holiday to Croatia with his children and ex-wife (with whom Mills had become friends) in 1990, but Mills ended up living with her ski instructor, Pogacar, shortly before the Croatian War began. Mills then set up a refugee crisis centre in London, helping over 20 people to escape the war. She drove by herself to deliver donations to Croatia, taking modelling assignments in Austria on the way to pay for the trip, later saying that she "worked on the front line in a war zone in the former Yugoslavia for two years where there were mines everywhere that weren't marked". Karmal and Mills were divorced in 1991, and Karmal now lives in Vancouver, Canada. Mills was later engaged to Raffaele Mincione (a bond dealer for the Industrial Bank of Japan) in 1993.

Gaza War
The lead as of July 5, 2009. It's impossible to edit for flow. Very slow to load.

The Gaza War, part of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, commenced when Israel launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip on December 27, 2008, codenamed Operation Cast Lead (מבצע עופרת יצוקה), with the stated aim of stopping Hamas rocket attacks on southern Israel and arms smuggling into Gaza. The conflict has also been called the Gaza massacre in the Arab world (مجزرة غزة). *
 * "Diplomatic race to stop the Gaza massacre" -
 * "Victims of the Gaza massacre of nearly 3,000 in the ninth day of the aggression" -
 * "Gaza massacre roused anti-Semitism in Europe" -
 * "Victims of the Gaza massacre of nearly 3,000 in the ninth day of the aggression" -
 * "Gaza massacre roused anti-Semitism in Europe" -

A fragile six-month truce between Hamas and Israel expired on December 19, 2008. Hamas and Israel could not agree on conditions to extend the truce. Hamas blamed Israel for not lifting the Gaza Strip blockade, and for an Israeli raid on a purported tunnel, crossing the border into the Gaza Strip from Israel on November 4, which it held constituted a serious breach of the truce. Israel accused Hamas of violating the truce, citing the frequent rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli cities.

The Israeli operation began with an intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip, targeting Hamas bases, police training camps, police headquarters and offices. Civilian infrastructure, including mosques, houses, medical facilities and schools, were also attacked, as Israel stated that many of them were used by combatants, and as storage spaces for weapons and rockets. Hamas intensified its rocket and mortar attacks against targets in Israel throughout the conflict, hitting previously untargeted cities such as Beersheba and Ashdod. On January 3, 2009, the Israeli ground invasion began.

International reactions during the conflict included calls for an immediate ceasefire as in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1860, and concern about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and the hindrances in delivering aid. Human rights groups and aid organisations have accused Hamas and Israel of war crimes and called for independent investigations and lawsuits.

Between 1,166 to 1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died in the conflict. The number of combatant and non-combatant casualties is a subject of ongoing contention. Casualty figures have been difficult to verify due to the limited amount of journalists allowed in Gaza during the conflict. In the days following the ceasefire, the BBC reported that more than 400,000 Gazans were left without running water. The BBC further reported that 4000 homes had been ruined, leaving tens of thousands of people homeless.

The conflict came to an end on January 18 after first Israel and then Hamas announced unilateral ceasefires. On January 21, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. On March 2, it was reported that international donors had pledged $4.5 billion in aid for the Palestinians, mainly for rebuilding Gaza after Israel's offensive.

Terrorism
The lead as of January 19, 2010. Impossible to edit:

Terrorism, despite considerable disagreement about a precise definition, is often considered to be deliberate violence or the threat of violence directed at innocent  non-combatants and governments to cause fear systematically to attract media attention for causes which may be political or ideological or religious and which are viewed as coercive. An act which meets many or all of these criteria is often considered to be terrorism. There is considerable disagreement about whether the term can describe government or religious leaders and whether the term should be extended to include wartime acts. Further, the distinction between terrorism and crime is hard to specify.

The term is charged politically and emotionally and has strong negative connotations. Its meaning often depends on the ideology of the user and the context of its use. Studies have found more than one hundred definitions of the term. At present, there is no internationally agreed-upon definition. Governments have described opponents as terrorists to delegitimize them. Some suggest that the term terrorist is so fraught with conceptual problems that a better term would be violent non-state actor. Terrorism has a long history and has been practiced by both right-wing and left-wing political parties, nationalistic groups, religious groups, revolutionaries, criminals, and others.

2010 Haiti earthquake
The first two paragraphs, as of January 25, 2010:

The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake. Its epicentre was near Léogâne, approximately 25 km west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The earthquake occurred at 16:53 local time (21:53 UTC) on Tuesday, 12 January 2010, at a depth of 13 km. The United States Geological Survey recorded a series of at least 33 aftershocks, 14 of which were between magnitudes 5.0 and 5.9. The International Red Cross estimated that about three million people were affected by the quake; the Haitian Interior Minister, Paul Antoine Bien-Aimé, anticipated on 15 January that the disaster would eventually claim between 100,000 and 200,000 lives.

The earthquake caused major damage to Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other settlements in the region. Many notable landmark buildings were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace (President René Préval, who was in the building at the time, escaped injury), the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Among those killed were the Archbishop of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Joseph Serge Miot; Justice Minister Paul Denis; and opposition leader Michel Gaillard. The headquarters of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), located in the capital, collapsed, killing many, including the Mission's Chief, Hédi Annabi.

Comparison of Windows and Linux
A large portion of the page as of February 14, 2010. Because of citation template usage (on top of the table markup), the page is difficult to edit and improve. Since the article is over 90 KB in size and has no consistent citation format, I provide two samples below (check the source code for how it actually looks): PleaseStand (talk) 02:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows dominates in the desktop and personal computer markets with about 90% of the desktop market share, and in 2007, accounted for about 66% of all servers sold (while not necessarily used). In server revenue market share, as of Q4 2007, Microsoft Windows had 36.3% and Linux had 12.7%. As of June 2009, Linux powered 88.6% of the world's most powerful supercomputers. In December 2008, Linux powered five of the ten most reliable internet hosting companies, compared to Windows' one.

Linux and Microsoft Windows differ in philosophy, cost, ease of use, versatility and stability, with each seeking to improve in their perceived weaker areas. Comparisons of the two operating systems tend to reflect their origins, historic user bases and distribution models. Typical perceived weaknesses regularly cited have often included the poor “out-of-box” usability of the Linux desktop for the mass-market, while Microsoft Windows' main drawback is susceptibility to viruses and malware due to its enormous market share and lack of security features that could thwart this.

Proponents of free software argue that the key strength of Linux is the degree of freedom allowed to the users: "the freedom to run the program [such as Linux]...to study...and change it...the freedom to redistribute copies...[and] improve the program, and release your improvements." Windows embedded devices are often configured without disk storage, and may be configured as a “closed” system that does not allow for end-user extension.

!Boot Loader
 * May boot to multiple versions of Windows through the Windows Boot Manager in Windows Vista and newer; or the earlier boot loader NTLDR in Windows Server 2003 and prior. Graphical configuration tools are available for both, such as EasyBCD for the Windows Boot Manager and MSConfig for NTLDR, which can chain load multiple non-NT environments, including Linux, by referring to volume boot records from those environments saved on the Windows partition.
 * May boot to multiple operating systems through numerous bootloaders such as LILO and GRUB. With these, it is possible to choose among multiple installed kernel images at boot time.  Graphical configuration tools for GRUB are available including KGRUBEditor (KDE) and GrubConf (GNOME). GRUB can also accept arbitrary, one-time configurations at boot time via the GRUB prompt. GRUB and LILO also support booting to non-Unix operating systems via chain loading; for a Windows and Linux dual-boot system, it is often easiest to install Windows first and then Linux because Linux installers such as Ubuntu's installer will easily and fully automatically detect and set up other operating systems for dual/multiple boot with Linux.
 * - valign="top"
 * }
 * }