User talk:Slambo/Archives/2014/September

Happy First Edit Day

 * Thanks! Slambo (Speak) 20:32, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Infobox parameters
Please do not remove unused infobox parameters diff unless they are irrelevant, WP:Wikipedia is a work in progress - anyone wanting to expand the article will now have to search and re-add the relavent fields.Prof.Haddock (talk) 13:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I get the work in progress bit; I've been editing on an almost daily basis for 10 years. My recent edits were primarily to replace deprecated parameters (I'm working through Category:Unusual parameters of Infobox locomotive template this week) and to clean up article code.  The main editing focus of an article for all editors, newbies and oldbies alike, should be the article body text and not the infobox data.  The infobox is a summary of common and comparable data from the article body and in general should not be longer than the body.  There are way too may stubs where the article body is one sentence and the bulk of information is presented in an infobox; the guiding rule here should be the Wikipedia article quality assessment scale.  I see no reason why future editors could not add the template parameters back in when they need them.
 * I understand that removing unused parameters from an article might hide the fact that they exist to new editors, but really it can and should be used as a teachable moment to new editors that they should look up the template documentation and add parameters as the data arises. Seasoned editors can and do copy information from article text into infoboxes (I've done this many times:, ,  and  for recent examples), and editors also add infoboxes to articles when they are not there (this is a common task for many WikiProjects), and there is no reason why these practices can't continue even if the unused parameters have been removed. Slambo (Speak)  15:29, 23 September 2014 (UTC)


 * (also for further discussion)
 * One of the reasons that I've stuck around for so long is the vast knowledge of all the editors. You are the second editor who has mentioned this to me as an issue, so rather than charge forward with more edits like I've been doing this week, I spent some time trying to find a policy document, guideline or essay that mentions the issue of removing unused template parameters.  I have yet to find any single document that addresses this issue, but I did find one entry from July 2013 in the Village Pump that is somewhat related.  I will continue to look for more cohesive documents, but am on the verge of taking this to a broader discussion to reach consensus.  My thoughts are, as mentioned above, that removing unused parameters places the editing emphasis more on the article body than the template, while your point is that leaving the unused parameters does not (usually) harm the display of the article and can help new editors to add information.  I think I understand your points, but I respectfully believe that working toward a more complete article body is a more worthwhile goal. Slambo (Speak)  18:57, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi Slambo. Got to here from your input on the talk page of Track gauge about deprecated parameters. I've also been working on renaming the deprecated parameters in the locomotive infobox, and also been working on improving GWR 5700 Class, and to a lesser extent, some other GWR and British locomotives. I certainly agree that the emphasis should be on the article rather than the infobox. A while ago, I made the mistake of adding references to the infobox (I'd found a number of values that were just plain wrong), and then was then steered in the right direction by User:Redrose64, (see rather long discussion at User_talk:Robevans123), and have worked to make sure that infobox values are in the article and referenced. I'd fallen into the trap of treating the infobox as part of the article, rather than a summary of it. This seems to be a problem with a lot of locomotive pages... To get back to the main point, as a relatively new editor (just over a year), I think I favour keeping the relevant unused parameters in the infobox, but would certainly like to see, as you say, "a broader discussion to reach consensus". Cheers. Robevans123 (talk) 15:56, 26 September 2014 (UTC)