Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 May 8



Template:D (New York City Subway service)

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

The result of the discussion was no consensus. We do not appear to have a consensus on whether these should be used in articles. If they end up not being used, they can be renominated in due time. (nac) Alakzi (talk) 01:14, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * C (New York City Subway service)
 * D (New York City Subway service)
 * 4 (New York City Subway service)

These are maps of train services, not a map on an actual train line, so BS-map does not apply here. BS-maps on actual lines exist at Category:New York City Subway line templates. The routes of services are subject to change at any time, while lines are physical, fixed tracks that stay in one place, so it is not feasible to have geographical features on maps of train services, which are only the designations applied to rolling stock that show which lines the train will be using on that service. Also, these templates are not used anywhere. Epic Genius (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. The argument that these services are not actual lines (and I'm pretty sure the C Train I rode was not a figment of my imagination) is a straw man fallacy. There are articles for each, so there is justification for the diagrams. (BTW, BS-map is not limited to railway lines.) At worst they should be moved to User space until the author is ready to add them to the appropriate articles. (And frankly, it's a lot easier to understand a diagram than figure out a table that lists all the stations.) Useddenim (talk) 22:31, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The C or D train is also not a physical line, so regardless of whether they exist, it is not appropriate to describe a train service as having physical parts. Routes change often, so I'm not sure the BS-map is a good idea. There is a list of lines used in every single service article. Epic Genius (talk) 07:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * There's nothing in WP:RDT that says a diagram is restricted to physical plant and cannot be a service route. And IMHO a diagram is still clearer. Useddenim (talk) 11:25, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm aware of no principle that says BS-map can't be used for a service as opposed to a line. That being said, these aren't used in the mainspace and they should be categorized separately if they're retained. Mackensen (talk) 13:47, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment Where is this template being used, if at all? —Мандичка YO 😜 14:14, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The template is not being used anywhere, so maybe these three templates could be userfied instead of deleted. Epic Genius (talk) 15:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep: Both services and lines can make use of BS-map. The 3 diagrams proposed for deletion are i.m.o. far superior than any other alternative. Tuvalkin (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: If the templates are kept, then they must be frequently edited and maintained, since subway route designations change every couple of years. Epic Genius (talk) 02:44, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment: Perhaps I'm thinking of other templates, but I could've swore these and others were being used. Did somebody suddenly decide they weren't useful and remove them from the articles? -User:DanTD (talk) 04:10, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * It appears that the author assembled them from existing segments. And FWIW, WP:WikiProject UK Railways‎ doesn't have any problems with mixing mixing RDTs for physical lines and service routeings. Useddenim (talk) 11:29, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * They were being used on the line articles, which were named BMT/IND/IRT Whatever Line. Epic Genius (talk) 12:27, 11 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment: OK, just because these maps are for train SERVICES, not lines, doesn't mean we can't create maps for them. When something happens, we can change it. And besides, subway lines rarely change! Phil  roc My contribs 15:35, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That's true, subway lines rarely change. However, many subway services are subject to drastic change, like the M (New York City Subway service), so we need people willing to maintain and watch these service BS-maps. Epic Genius (talk) 20:58, 14 May 2015 (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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Cite isbn/978085112989

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

The result of the discussion was withdrawn by nominator. (nac) Alakzi (talk) 00:08, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Cite isbn/978085112989

Unused in mainspace. I suggest that we subst and deleted. (I suggest the same for 'all subpages of cite isbn which was replaced by other cite templates. I chose this subpage at random to check opinions on the matter. Magioladitis (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Please withdraw this; there is already an ongoing RfC on the matter. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:25, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Neutral because the nomination is not clear on why this template should actually be deleted. There are lots of templates which are not used in mainspace.  Please explain what this template is for and why we should care that it's not used in mainspace.  -- N  Y  Kevin   19:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Withdrawn pending wider discussion. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:02, 9 May 2015 (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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Gender

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

The result of the discussion was withdrawn by nominator. Template:Pronoun is no longer in use. Jc86035 (talk &#124; contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 11:40, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Gender
 * Pronoun

Propose merging Template:Gender and Template:His or her with Template:Pronoun.

Gender and Pronoun perform the same function: to find the gender of a user using their preferences. (They are not redundant, however, as Gender uses, while Pronoun uses  ; since changing one to the other may cause conjugation errors with verbs, a parameter would need to be added to choose one or the other.) Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 08:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

[Edit] Alternately, the templates could be replaced with he or she/he/she/they, him or her/him/her/them, his or her/his/her/their, his or hers/his/hers/theirs and himself or herself/himself/herself/themself (with the currently missing templates created for the additional combinations), if preferable, since it could be argued that using Gender and Pronoun is overly complicated. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 04:56, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

(For a demo of how the pronoun switch might work, see Pronoun/sandbox and its testcases page. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 14:15, 8 May 2015 (UTC))


 * Why? It seems much easier if you are typing a message to someone to type his or her or some of the related templates that you didn't nominate like He or she or them right in your sentence rather than using a complicated template.  (And by the way, you're transcluding the big TFD template into a whole bunch of places.)  His or her is an alternative to their for people who don't like the singular they.  Similarly, he or she and him or her, which you did not nominate, are the same thing.  "He/she" is not the same thing as "he or she".  If I write a message and say "he or she", that is my stylistic preference and I don't want someone to change my message after the fact to say "he/she".  Now, if you want to modify gender or pronoun to accomodate "he or she", "his or her", and "him or her" so that there is an extra setting that specifies "his or her" vs "his/her" and then use his or her as an implementation of that template, okay, fine, whatever, but (1) I don't think the easy to use his or her should go away and (2) I don't think you should change someone's text after they made it or do something that would cause "his or her" to not be available. --B (talk) 09:18, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've removed His or her. As for the the setting that changes the pronoun, that will definitely be added. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 09:32, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose merge as creator (of pronoun). These templates have slightly different functionality (him/her vs. singular they) and are widely transcluded.  A simple merge would alter existing comments, and adding a parameter would not prevent that.  We would need to keep one as a transclusion of the other, which would not significantly reduce the former's complexity.  -- N  Y  Kevin   19:17, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No current transclusions would be changed if they were merged; the wrapper could have all its instances substituted. Alternately they could both be changed to wrappers of the simpler templates they et al., and then substituted. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 04:56, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I see the merger notice is showing up in transclusions of unblock (that's how I got here). Is it really necessary to add little notice thingies everywhere and have a long discussion in order to achieve something that produces little, if any, benefit and may not even be achieved after all?  I think not.  Also, what Kevin and B said -- let's not alter existing comments or force people to use extra markup to get the desired result; it doesn't seem worth it.  On a tangential note, shouldn't there be an option in preferences to always use "they" instead of picking whichever gender-neutral wording is chosen by the template?  It would often overlap with existing usage, but override "him/her" etc.  Some people do prefer to be called "they".   ekips39 &#x2766; talk  19:45, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The setting in the preferences doesn't allow choosing between "him/her" and "they"; simply using the parser function without any parameters displays nothing. There really should be an option for choosing the pronoun, though. B originally put the notices in noinclude tags but for some reason Izno added them back; I'm not sure why. Jc86035 (talk • contribs) Use &#123;&#123;re&#124;Jc86035&#125;&#125; to reply to me 04:56, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * TfD notices are supposed to be annoying and draw attention to themselves. Otherwise, you could alter a template without consensus from the people who actually use it.  Naturally, this encourages weighing the value of your proposed change against the disruption implementing it would cause.  In this case, I'm unconvinced the former outweighs the latter.  -- N  Y  Kevin   15:21, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * about the preferences setting, yes, that's roughly what I said. Perhaps I wasn't clear.   ekips39 &#x2766; talk  19:07, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete if that is one of the options. I can't comprehend any reason why this would be needed. —Мандичка YO 😜 15:38, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the templates is so that you can refer to another Wikipedia user whose gender you do not know using the correct pronoun. Personally, I find gender and pronoun to be less intuitive because you have to remember (or look up each time) the parameters.  He or she, his or her, their, etc, are much simpler and make the wiki markup more readable. --16:00, 10 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by B (talk • contribs)
 * Pronoun and gender seem to be used almost never in actual conversation (they are used more in userboxes and thus have a lot of transclusions, but it doesn't seem like a lot of people use them in conversation). So I guess I would be okay with the second proposal of adding additional templates like he/she to fill out the missing alternatives and then delete gender and pronoun.  I don't see any huge benefit in doing so, though, unless there is something encyclopedic that we would like to use these template names for. --B (talk) 16:43, 10 May 2015 (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 template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.