Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Tambayan Philippines/History of the Philippines (citations)

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 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous 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 discussion was  No consensus keep. The page is currently being used in several articles and deleting it out of hand would break the references in them. Also I am not convinced that there is any policy to cover deletion. I think that Gadget850 has it correct when they suggest that WP:RfC is the right venue. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 14:47, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Tambayan Philippines/History of the Philippines (citations)


This ever-expanding page is being used as an extremely non-standard referencing system by a small number of Philippines-related articles. In essence, the author is using it as a complete corpus of all citations needed for the articles in question and partially transcluding bits of it every time a citation comes up. It's not difficult to see why this system isn't being used elsewhere: it's already hit multiple technical barriers regarding its transclusion count, and at over a quarter of a megabyte and growing it's going to continue to cause visible performance issues (it's alright not worrying about performance until it's actually noticeable). As a collection of citations this may still be useful, but it can't continue to be used as a text-snippet template. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Performance: The entire page is transcluded, and only the selected snippet is displayed. Repeat for each use of a citation snippet and the article takes a huge performance hit. --  Gadget850talk 12:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you're basing these statement on, but it doesn't seem to include fact.

Yes, it's big, but actually it's shrinking, as I am working to move items to other places, e.g. cite isbn (which is only really available to modern works, and not historical works of reference).

If you had bothered to look at the page, you would see too that there are no transclusions within it - everything is inside a comment (which is perfectly valid as far as transclusion is concerned). Apart from the examples at the beginning, there is no demand on processor-time. Less, I imagine, than "real" templates such as cite isbn.

I am at a loss to know why a corpus of well-formed citations is a bad thing. I don't know what a non-standard referencing system is. Or more to the point, what a standard referencing system is compared to which this is "an extremely non-standard referencing system". I do know that the end-product, which is what counts (or ought to), is full, complete and identical citations in the articles where it is used.

You ought to apply Wikipedia standards to your own assertions - if there are performance problems, which I doubt, then show them.

John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Thu 21:00, wikitime=  13:00, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Please also indicate which part of the deletion policy this contravenes. And then explain what this means "The entire page is transcluded, and only the selected snippet is displayed". It's not actually true here, as I stated, most of the page is comment. But my thinking is that that exactly describes the transclusion process – extracting a small part (or snippet) of a greater whole.

John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Thu 22:19, wikitime=  14:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this issue is beyond the purview of MfD. The real question is: are transcluded references™ a proper way to add references to a page? I've seen this system elsewhere (and I did not note it at the time), and it is a system that many editors have requested: to be able to use a single page for citations. There is a better way to do this using the new section tag (which I created section to use with extra features but ran into a bug). Frankly, it is no different from using specific-source citation templates. By putting all the citations on one page, it makes it simpler to ensure they all are formatted the same. If this method is seen to be problematic, then it should go to RfC. --  Gadget850talk 14:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * if it were in template space would it be beyond the purview of TfD? Frietjes (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * delete per the deletion of source list, or move to template space, then open a TfD, then delete per the deletion of source list. Frietjes (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The main failing with the cite doi family is that unless you actually know the doi/pmid/(jstor) number, then you can't find the citation. This page links author name/work name to that, so you can readily ascertain the citation you want - you don't need to know the codes.  And if you don't find it, do something else – how would a template handle that?


 * I can't see anything wrong with this – it does not demand excessive resources to function, and a quarter a megabyte of storage is nothing – take a look at the page for Victoria's Secret, with its 190+ references, or Jessica Sanchez (runner-up in American Idol 11).


 * The head of page contains reasonable instructions for use.


 * John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Fri 21:03, wikitime=  13:03, 26 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward), Are you requesting outright deletion of the page, or meaning to insist that the author do something different with the material? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:00, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * If it can be article-ised, so be it. It plainly cannot continue to be used in its current pseudo-template form. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 18:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Salvio Let's talk about it! 10:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Is there a conversation about this anywhere else? It seems weird.  How did it get started.  Is the intention to prevent most others from being able to maintain some articles?  It seems to be transcluded 19 times.  Would it be suitable to substitute these transclusions, and threaten to block anyone who tries to again transclude snippets of it?  Does it contain unique information that would be lost if it were deleted?  Support doing whatever to stop this activity.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:54, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment, perhaps these sources can be added to a further reading section to the article History of the Philippines. As authors integrate these sources into the article as inline citations, the listing in the further reading section can be deleted.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:53, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete This is an abuse of transclusion. Transclusion should not be used to create new citation ecosystems like this. Shii (tock) 13:45, 10 June 2013 (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.