User talk:JFG/sandbox/Launching

Less vertical height
After struggling without success to find a way to reduce the height of the ambox, I see two possible approaches: Is there yet another way to appproach this? (sdsds - talk) 05:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * continue working to reduce the line-heights of the text
 * put in place a "show details/hide details" function
 * I've tentatively hypothesized that the &lt;small&gt; markup is not appropriate for this template. It appears this markup makes the text smaller, but keeps the line-height the same. This template needs markup that reduces the line-height along with the text size. (sdsds - talk) 16:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I've reduced the table lineheight to 1.2em. If you want to play around with making it even smaller, then feel free. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 16:49, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect tense when failed=yes
As shown by the recent Falcon failure, the template uses future tense even when the failed=yes parameter is used: "Launch details: SpaceX will use a Falcon 1 to launch Trailblazer and two CubeSats (including NanoSail-D) for the American Air Force and MDA, and for NASA. Launch will occur from Omelek Island at Kwajalein Atoll."

In cases like this should we completely over-ride the generated text (i.e. use info= parameter), or fix the generated text to use past tense, i.e. "SpaceX attempted to use.... Launch was attempted from...."? (sdsds - talk) 05:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Should be easy enough to fix. I'll put a workaround in place, and then try to fix it completely later. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 05:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Resolved. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 12:32, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Role parameter gets ignored?
See the James Doohan article. Notice that the text supplied to the role parameter doesn't appear in the result. Shinobu (talk) 14:44, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Making launching inforboxes less obtrusive
Copied from User talk:Duk:
 * I noticed your suggestion in the edit summary for a revision of the Falcon 1 article (here) about making the Launching article message boxes less obtrusive. I somewhat agree with the sentiment -- they currently serve two purposes, but possible serve neither purpose particularly well. I suggest a good place to discuss it would be on the talk page here. (sdsds - talk) 02:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

In particular, like other "current event" article message boxes (see Current) they serve to notify editors about the increased likelihood of edit collisions. For that purpose it makes sense for them to be highly prominent on the page. They also serve to provide (sometimes considerable) extra information about the event in question. (In one case someone commented something like, "There's more information in the message box than in the article itself!") I wonder if there might be some way to decouple these two purposes? (sdsds - talk) 02:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Template talk:Launching/Falcon
 * Would it be possible to slim up this template. For example,
 * could "This article contains information regarding a rocket or spacecraft that is currently in the process of conducting a launch." be slimmed down to one line instead of two, maybe something like "Launch in progress".
 * can "Details may change as the countdown and ascent progress." be eliminated
 * just a thought --Duk 06:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Time format
I've tried to figure out how this template is working the date/time formats, but I'm not a template guru, lol. The issue I have with it is that it seems to automatically convert times into UTC, which is not appropriate in the Wikipedia space mission manual of style. Events that take place on the ground are given in the local ground time, events that occur in orbit are given in UTC. So when using this template and entering the correct launch day and time, it still shows as UTC. Would someone who is familiar with templates please add a Time-format field, and allow us to set the time zone for specific flights that way? All shuttle missions should have the launch show up as Eastern time, (KSC) not UTC, as that is how NASA works their countdown. Also, the documentation needs an explanation about what the Allow_Override field actually is and does, and how to use it, please! Thanks, Ariel  ♥  Gold  13:07, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It depends on your interpretation i guess. I see the box as a "Wikipedia" element, and as such, UTC is appropriate. It is indeed true that in articles, ground events should be in localtime (UTC), versus orbit events in pure UTC (and sometimes in "mission time") --Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:29, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess, it just seems like it would be more helpful if there could be an (optional) field that we could enter the local time zone the action occurs from, to help readers who don't understand or know how to convert to/from UTC (and there are a LOT of them out there!) I have a UTC clock on my browser, but even after all these years I'm still horrid with military time (24 hour) so I only know what time it is 12 hours out of the day, ~*Giggle*~ Ariel  ♥  Gold  13:46, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

GW, that looks great on STS-126 right now! just one little question, is there a way to make the date format consistent with American use? (America uses the format of Month, then day, then year.) So it would read November 14, 2008 instead of 14 November, 2008. I have my preferences set to that, but in this case they don't seem to be taking effect. If that would be a big pain, don't worry about it, it is still much more helpful to have the local time given, at least for the shuttle flights, as most readers following these flights are American. Thank you so much! Ariel ♥  Gold  18:53, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll look into it first thing tomorrow morning. I feel that UTC should be the primary time zone, but I would be happy to add an alternative as additional information - eg "20:44 UTC (21:44 BST)". The problem will be implementing this in cases where the launch occurs on different days in different time zones (eg. 23:30 GMT, 00:30 BST). A complete rethink of the implementation of launch windows will also be required, but I wouldn't exactly call that a bad thing. Converting to and from IST will be a nightmare (thanks to the extra half hour). Not sure about 12 hour clocks, but it could probably be done for the alternative time zone, UTC is usually presented in 24 hour format, and that format is more common here in the UK anyway. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 23:17, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. I've added four new parameters to allow an alternative time zone to be set. I've listed them in the documentation, but I will provide two examples:
 * " offset=+1|TZ=BST " - BST (UTC+1), 24 hour format
 * " offset=-3|m_offset=30|TZ=NST|12h=yes " - NST (UTC-3:30) - 12 hour format
 * Please note that the 24 hour format is internationally more common, so the 12 hour format should only be used for launches where both the rocket and launch site are either American or Indian the launch site is located in either the USA or India, as these are the only two launch-capable countries where I believe the 12 hour format is still more common. Other exceptions can be added as needed. The TZ option does not need to be specified, and if left blank, the offset will replace it (eg. UTC+1). I've deleted the "close" parameter, and replaced it with a note that the displayed time is the start of the window. It would have been too difficult to convert the close parameter, and the window end time isn't very important compared to the opening time. Anyone following the launch should know it anyway. Also, only the time zone of the launch site should be used, as that is the most important one with regard to launch proceedings (and before anyone asks, the time zone for Sea Launch is UTC+14). -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 18:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure why that isn't working. It should. I'll look into it later. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 19:06, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing that the automated system couldn't handle the parser functions in the template. I've set a parameter, which allows the format to be set. To use the US format, set it to "US". This feature should only be used on launches from sites in the United States. -- GW_SimulationsUser Page 17:08, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

When to remove?
When is this template (and it's related templates) meant to be removed from articles? I assume that once the launch is complete (especially given how obtrusive the template is) rather than at some later milestone in related missions. &mdash; Aldaron • T/C 18:30, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should be removed once the last spacecraft has separated from the carrier rocket, and the result of the launch is known. -- G W … 18:34, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. &mdash; Aldaron &bull; T/C 18:42, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Forgot to mention, with regards to rockets and launch sites which are still active after the launch, if the article has a one-to-one relationship with a specific wrapper for this template, removal from that article should be handled on the template subpage (using "show=no"), rather than by directly editing the article itself (this makes it easier to reinstall them for the next launch). -- G W … 12:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion about deprecation of "Future" templates
There is a discussion currently ongoing on the possible deprecation of this and similar "Future" templates at Centralized discussion/Deprecating "Future" templates. Comments are welcome. --Conti|✉ 14:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This is more of a "current" template than a future template, so should not be included in that discussion. -- G W … 15:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You're right. Chandrayaan-2 is the only use of the template that I fould that I would complain about, but pretty much all other uses of if seem to be perfectly fine. My mistake. --Conti|✉ 15:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know what it was doing on Chandrayaan-2, but that was completely out of scope and I have removed it. -- G W … 15:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Change requests
Hi folks, I was wondering if someone who's good at coding could make a few changes to the template, specifically: Thanks, Colds7ream (talk) 20:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Allow seconds to be taken into account in the launch time, to make it more precise.
 * Allow a time not to be set, so that the template can be used on flights which are expected soon but for which the exact launch time has not been published, e.g. the upcoming OTV-2 launch. For example, if the launch was set simply for a date the template could report that the launch is expected 'today'. Currently, if no time is provided, the code throws a wobbler.
 * The reason the template does not take seconds into account is simply because the complexity involved in adding them vastly outweighs the gains that would be achieved. In addition, it is designed to fail if a time is not input simply because it is not intended for use in situations where launch preparations are not known to be progressing. It is a "current" event template, not a "future" event template. -- G W … 20:53, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That said, if you want to set it to say "today", you could enable manual input using the "Allow_Override" parameter, and then use the "time" parameter to specify a time. -- G W … 20:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Clarity of wording
At the time of writing, this template appears on SpaceX CRS-1 with the wording:

"This article contains information regarding a rocket that may imminently be scheduled to launch, or currently be in the process of doing so."

that's hard to parse. Could we have it reworded to, say:

"This article is about a rocket, whose expected launch is either very soon or very recent."

which is also much shorter. I'd do so myself, but the template's functionality is opaque and I don't want to break anything. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:26, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Remove exploding rocket picture for "failed" launches
Per User:NorthBySouthBaranof's now-reverted edit, I don't think it's necessarily appropriate to have a random picture of an exploding rocket appear when the status is listed as "failed". While it is a cute feature of the template, it becomes insensitive in the case that a launch failure causes significant loss of property or especially if it causes a loss of life. The "failed" version should either have the same picture as the regular template or none at all. --Ahecht ( TALK PAGE ) 20:58, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The image does not show a fatal accident and helps to distinguish the type of event that is occurring. If a failure results in loss of life the template will probably be superseded by Current. -- W.  D.   Graham  21:49, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Recent edits and Category:Current spaceflights
In view of recent edits which seem to be attempts to recreate, which was deleted after this discussion, I have imposed a one-month semi-protection. Any change to the categorisation emitted by this template needs to be discussed first. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:21, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. In 2009, past content (!) of was merged into, not into  (as made now). There was no any consensus in that discussion. There are a lot of subcategories for current events: ,  etc. Try to explain, why spaceflight must be in parent category  only ? I think, it must be subcategorized under  (or , or another name). If some problem are with name "current" (events/flight), as discussed in 2009, then articles must not be included in this categories anyway. No logic to include "flights" under wide name of "events". 178.92.48.42 (talk) 12:07, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think there will ever be enough "current" events at any given time to justify a category. -- W.  D.   Graham  20:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)