Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Avoid using meta-templates


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was speedy keep. Policy is never deleted, even if it's deprecated. Sam Korn (smoddy) 15:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Avoid using meta-templates
Because there is no policy any longer, perhaps the best move is to delete the page. The only use of the page now a days is POV-puching and revert-warring, no good can rize from those ashes. → Aza Toth 16:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Archive. Like it or not, it's part of the Wiki history. It should be kept for the same reason we keep rejected policy proposals. --cesarb 16:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, but permanently protect - agreed that the history is helpful, but further argument over this issue is fruitless. Slap a "historical" notice on the top and lock it. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 16:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Archive as above I would favor a move to Conditional and nested templates to get active discussion to a properly neutral title, but that seems controversial. Simnply apply a rejected tag and protect, then start new discusuisons at a proper title with a link to the old page for context. Deletion would lose significant history. DES (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I second DES's opinion. Rename, archive, protect if necessary.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  17:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as archive — Put rejected on top and permanently protect. Create a new page (at Meta-templates?) for current guidelines. — Omegatron 17:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as archive — Put rejected on top and permanently protect. It's the best we can do with this crap. --Adrian Buehlmann 17:14, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * "permanently protect" - What has this wiki become? -- Netoholic @ 17:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep of course. This version was recently reviewed by Brion_VIBBER, and is obviously not "rejected" because there are active supporters of the basic premise, including developers Brion and Jamesday.  The page has already survived one deletion attempt. -- Netoholic @ 17:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Brion and Jamesday are capable of speaking for themselves.
 * Neto asked me to take a look at . I skimmed it quickly; it doesn't look terribly offensive, though I would play down the alleged "server load" and play up the "currently cache clearing of multi-level templates doesn't really work" a touch.
 * If the developers were "active supporters" of your premise, the talk page would be a lot shorter. — Omegatron 17:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Archive or Keep, duh. We don't delete our history, however retarded it is :) So my vote basically goes keep rather than archive, and archive rather than delete. Stevage 19:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as archive — Put rejected on top and permanently protect as per others. —Locke Cole • t • c 22:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Being a historical page is not a criteria for deletion, it means placing historical on it.  -- WC  Quidditch   &#9742;   &#9998;  23:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Keeep. Altough AUM may not be a policy anoymore, there are certainly many instances when AUM is a good thing and this is useful information.  Perhaps lowering this from a policy to a guideline is more approriate, as rampant or uneducated use of meta templates is confusing at best to the project, especially if we start getting deep nested ones.   xaosflux  Talk  / CVU  01:28, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * We've tried to reason with Netoholic, however he has repeatedly asserted ownership over the page against consensus (and has said that "a page by this name will always exist" when attempts to discuss moving it were brought up). Really, the only way to put an end to this and move on to discussing legitimate arguments against meta-templates is to delete or reject/protect this page. —Locke Cole • t • c 01:35, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Guideline status works for me. What's not acceptable are these template geeks that want to complicate things for the sake of "cleverness". -- Netoholic @ 02:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Please assume good faith and refrain from personal attacks. Incidentally, guideline status would be inappropriate as there is no community consensus. The correct tag to apply is historical. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 02:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * This deletion nomination was in bad faith, I think that's clear to everyone watching the situation. Calls for marking wirh "rejected/historical" are in bad faith because the page is obviously active and the basic premise is shared by several editors, developers and Arbitrators.  4-5 editors who have banded together to take this page down do not represent full community consensus.  The page attracts negative attention from those it has impacted --= template geeks who want to make things more complex than necessary.  I'm a template geek too, but I'm of the opinion that templates and their usage should be for the benefit of non-technical editors (historians, linguists, etc.).   -- Netoholic @ 03:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I've had enough of your repeated personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith against people who disagree with you. Either follow Wikipedia policy and community consensus or we can take this to dispute resolution. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 03:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * *yawn*, same tired old argument that didn't work on the WP:AUM talk page, and it's not working here. I have an idea: if you have so much support for this page, why are most people here voting to archive it and tag it as historical (or some deviation thereof)? Your days of using AUM has a hammer to push through your changes are over, okay? —Locke Cole • t • c 03:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I Hardly think i qualify as a "tempale geek" I have relatively few edites tot eh tempalte space. I think that WP:AUM has been, in effect, rejected as a policy or even a strong guideline. I think that a new guidelien or policy should be developed, at a page with a  more neutral name, by all concerned. My comments above and this comment were made in good faith, and I object to any implication to the contrary. I agree that "templates and their usage should be for the benefit of non-technical editors", but conditional and nested templates can often make the usage much simpler, even while the template code is more complex, so there are trade-offs, this is not a simple appeal for "cleverness". Indeed I haven't seen anyone defending donditionals on those grounds (cleverness), but rather on the grounds of their alleged usefulness, which seems reasoanble to me, even if we ultimately decide that some kinds of usefulness come at too high a price, or indeed aren't as useful as some thought. WP:AUM has been the site of a good deal of edit warring recently, and this should stop, although IMO page deletion is not the best way to achieve this. DES (talk) 03:21, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The concept of conditionals is different than the concept of nested meta-templates. The only problem is that the only way to do conditionals today is via nested templates.  The only reason for the recent edit warring is due to the these conditional templates being created in the last couple months.  WP:AUM (view the history) sat just fine as a guideline and basically unchanged from May to December.  Only after these conditional templates were identified as violating that guideline did things go crazy.  Rather than take steps to get conditionals built-into the software, the supporters of those took to efforts designed to bring the guideline down in order that they could freely expand that ugly, fragile, and poorly implemented conditional template scheme.  The first edit to challenge that guideline was an undiscussed removal of the guideline tag by the author of Template:Qif and other such constructs, just hours after I informed him of the guideline.  That's also the same person who nominated this for deletion, so you can see why I think this is all in bad faith. -- Netoholic @ 03:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * While it is true thsat not all meta-tempaltes are condionals, currently all conditionals use nested tempaltes. I don't think your characterization of the history involved is fair. There was dispute over the force and application of WP:AUM] prior to the advent of condtionals, and many nested templates were widely used. It was only after the developmetn of conditionals that AUM was tagged as a policy (based on presumed developer input) and used to try to force disuse of both conditionals and of non-conditional nested tempaltes. Prior to that AUM had been neiother policy nor guideline, but an essay expressing one set of arguments. I think we NOW need a guideline or policy on when and how to use both nested tempaltes and conditionals (which may change when and if conditionsal are implemented in the mediawiki software) but that page must sit at a title other than AUM. I would have prefered a move so that the history of AUM fed into that new page, but it seems that there is too much opposition to that, so mark AUM as "rejected" or "historical", or at most as "essay" and let's get on with discussing what pracice should be now. I fully agree that there should be some limits on the overly-complex or overly-clever use of tempaltes, but i don't think the current AUM is a good basis for such limits. DES (talk) 03:45, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * My error bove -- it was actually listed as a "guideline" in June 2005, but without community consensus, for "technical reasons" and with talk page comments that "this will never be enforced" and disputes as to the proper tag. DES (talk) 03:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The above thread is an example of exactly why this essay and its talk page should be archived and permanently locked. Crotalus horridus <SMALL>(TALK • CONTRIBS)</SMALL></TT> 03:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The above comment is an example of exactly why I'm not convinced you understand the wiki-way. I wasn't the one that elevated AUM to guideline, nor did I promote it to policy, though I agree with those steps. I don't care what the "status" of the page is so long as I can edit it freely, along with other editors that also believe it is best to "avoid using meta-templates".  -- Netoholic @ 04:19, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The history tells another story:
 * 2005-05-15 07:00:59 Netoholic (+proposed cat)
 * 2005-06-14 16:28:30 Netoholic (style refers to prose... this is a technical guideline)
 * → Aza Toth 12:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The fact that you purposely excluded the full history tells another. I did mark it proposed, which does not conflict with my statement. After that:
 * 09:59, 14 June 2005 Radiant! (guideline, for technical reasons (see talk page))
 * 14:04, 14 June 2005 Radiant! (ok, style rather than guideline)
 * 15:28, 14 June 2005 Netoholic (style refers to prose... this is a technical guideline)
 * Radiant! himself promoted it. -- Netoholic @ 14:20, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment This is certainly a heated topic, and deletion does not seem to be the solution. If the useful principles of this article that have a consensus (perhaps don't nest just to nest, or use subst: in nesting templates when possible) can be moved to a template manual of style page, then marking this as historical sounds good to me, if these can't be moved elsewhere, then downgrading this to something less then a guideline (suggested use?) and put in Category:Wikipedia_essays may be approriate, after editing it to a format that has a consensus.  MfD may not be the best forum for suggesting reform and reclassification of this page.  xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  / <sub style="color:#666666;">CVU  04:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Speedy keep. <sup style="color:green;">Blank <sup style="color:#F88017;">Verse 10:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * This isn't a vote. Explain yourself. —Locke Cole • t • c 10:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.