Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 May 14



Template:Air China

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was delete. (non-admin closure) SST flyer 13:10, 22 May 2016 (UTC) Per WP:NENAN. Most of the links in this template are to articles with some slight connection to Air China. There are exactly three links to Air China articles, one of which is the parent article. ...William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 23:16, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Air China
 * Delete. Well it's not even being used at the parent article now. I don't see the point of links to each plane type covered each "hub". That would be ridiculous for every single airline page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:05, 19 May 2016 (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).

Template:Sync

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was relisted here. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 19:20, 22 May 2016 (UTC) This is a maintenance template with no documentation and no apparent uses that are important and unable to be served by other templates. I'm not sure if it duplicates Contradicts other or if it's a request to harmonise the exact text (i.e. copy a chunk from one article to another) or to do something else, but if it's the first, we can use the other template, if the second, this isn't really a maintenance-template-needed situation, and if the third, we can use cleanup with a rationale. Nyttend (talk) 16:30, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sync
 * Comment - I presume that by "no documentation" you really mean that the documentation explains how to use the template but not why. I think that the purpose of the tag is made a little clearer by the link to Summary style. It is applied to sections that cover the same subjects as articles and should therefore be summaries of those articles. Sometimes the tag is placed on the article page and sometimes in the summary section. I think that one reasonable use for the tag is to alert editors to "summary" sections that are better than the article itself (e.g., French popular music). In response, one could improve the article or merge it. If the template is kept, its purpose should be made clear in the documentation. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:37, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, by "no documentation" I meant that it has no explanation for what we're supposed to do with it. If the "how" were missing, it would just be a SOFIXIT issue; I'd take it to WP:HD with a request for someone to help me understand the parameters it takes.  Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment - Category:Articles to harmonize has 60 subcategories and less than 100 Articles. If the template is deleted, what becomes of the tagged articles? On the other hand, If the template is kept, its purpose should be made clear in the documentation is very well said by RockMagnetist. --DThomsen8 (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'd say that we can just remove the tag. Perhaps a bit more work, but...a bot could remove each template, leave an explanatory note at the talk page for each templated article, and perhaps even leave a note at the talk page of the user who added it.  This will catch any situations in which it's meant for contradicts other, and we really don't need maintenance templates merely for "the summary section elsewhere is better than this article" or vice versa.  Nyttend (talk) 00:13, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ RobTalk 22:29, 14 May 2016 (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).

Template:U.S. premium television services (variety)

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was relisted here. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 19:20, 22 May 2016 (UTC) Propose merging Template:U.S. premium television services (variety) with Template:U.S. premium television services (PPV).
 * U.S. premium television services (variety)
 * U.S. premium television services (PPV)

Overlapping content. Ambiguous criteria for including links to one vs. the other. PPV is a subset of premium (pay) television. Osubuckeyeguy (talk) 21:22, 14 May 2016 (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).

Template:Google Doodle

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was delete. Many editors who supported the use of this template claimed it was useful for generating new constructive editors in light of the traffic influx, but those supporting deletion argued we don't do anything like that on other articles with large influxes of traffic and argued this template was even vaguely promotional. There was no refutation for that last point. The creation of a template to place on talk pages may be appropriate, but this template is intended for mainspace, and there's certainly no consensus for adding this template to any articles. If any editor would like to have this template userfied to use as a starting point for a talk page template, I would consider WP:REFUND to be an appropriate venue. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 13:50, 22 May 2016 (UTC) I've noticed a couple discussions related to the use of Template:Google Doodle, which is now added to pages linked from Google Doodles. However, this template and policy seem to have been implemented without a consensus, and I have seen several users (e.g. ) raise questions about whether such a template is needed. Indeed, I feel that there are several drawbacks - they add no encyclopedic value to an article, are highlighting the action of an external party (Google) with no relevance to Wikipedia, and clutter the top of the page. What's the distinction between putting an article on Google Doodle articles versus other high-profile articles (or even FATD) that are likely to draw a lot of new users? It's a slippery slope, and there's no encyclopedic value (unlike the templates for recent news events, or those warning of potential biases) for cluttering the top of the *article page* with another template.
 * Google Doodle

I brought this issue to WP:VP but only got one suggestion to move it here to TfD, and wanted to bring this here for general broader discussion and see if we can reach a consensus one way or another. Rather than needing a consensus for deletion of this template, I think we can use this to gauge if there is a consensus for the addition of such a template to articles linked to from Google. If there's no consensus in favor of adding them, then I think the use of such a template should be deprecated (or at the very least shifted to the talk pages). Also pinging so s/he can chime in here too (we were in a discussion at Talk:Hertha Marks Ayrton; also see Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement/Google Doodle task force.) 2607:F6D0:CED:5BA:D022:17D9:F7C1:8AD9 (talk) 22:38, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Waste of time at Sigmund Freud today? Unless we in UK we're not enabled or something. I mean, what is the point? That link to 160th anniversary slide show by Freud Museum could have been added separately. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:09, 6 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment I see this as similar to current event and high traffic. Because the topic is featured as the Google Doodle of the day, means it will receive a enhanced amount of traffic. Thus, there would be likely to encountered edit conflicts, and new users to Wikipedia, so this will inform new users of some aspects of Wikipedia, as well as showing longer time users that they may hit edit conflicts (as current event already does for other types of high viewership articles) -- 70.51.200.96 (talk) 04:56, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * With one big distinction - high traffic seems to be placed on the **talk page**, rather than on the article itself, and current event serves an encyclopedic value (informing the reader that the article may be rapidly changing). also raises the good point that Google Doodles differ depending on the country and region, and it makes no sense to have a template that will just confuse readers of a given country. The English Wikipedia is supposed to serve readers from around the world and not just those from a given country. At the very least this template should be on the talk page, but I still think it should be historified and/or deleted. Plus there has never been a consensus to slap these on the articles themselves, and I know you're supposed to ignore all rules and all, but it seems like there needs to be a consensus in order to keep adding this template to articles. 128.12.246.6 (talk) 17:40, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I can see it has a point in terms of high traffic, and I realise it's only there for a day. But if that's the only reason it's added, it's a bit misleading. Especially if the doodle can't even be seen. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

The Google Doodle template has been a part of Wikipedia. I really enjoy seeing it at the top of wiki articles and don't want it deleted. I think that others can really learn from links it provides them about editing rules and such. Ilikeguys21 (talk) 02:00, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Comment First: thanks to you, Anon, for pinging me. I'd failed to notice your reply at the Hertha Marks Ayrton talk page. My apologies.  Second, that talk page is itself instructive.  Hertha Marks Ayrton got a huge amount of anonymous attention from the Google Doodle.  It had to be semiprotected for the day as a high-value vandalism target, and there was still interest in edits from non-confirmed users (as evidenced by the large number of edit requests dated to that day).  I expect that this pattern of "lots of anonymous attention, one-day semiprotection" is very common for links that get Google Doodled, or Slashdotted, or Reddited, or whatever we're calling it these days.  I think a template that warns editors of the disruption, and welcomes anonymous viewers from whatever other site, has value for that reason.  I agree that it's not encyclopedic: I think instead that it's a useful part of the user interface.  I also want to note that Google Doodle specifically is dated such that the template is only visible on the correct date (you can't see it on Hertha Marks Ayrton now, although you can see the link to this discussion - the template is still present in the wikitext as of this writing).  --  stillnotelf   is invisible  18:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete I don't think we should have it. We don't generally post thing on the page itself acknowledging the page. Even our featured article on the day doesn't say anything on the page itself. If the page is doodled/slashdotted/whatever, then we deal with it as it is, namely a potential report to WP:RFPP and the like. In December, Google news for some oddball reason linked to the discussed Articles for deletion/Donald Trump and Fascism page which created its own chaos but still didn't require any notice. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:55, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ~ RobTalk 16:56, 14 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Is there a way to get more notice for this to generate more discussion? TfD seems to not be a high-visibility place, unfortunately. Also, it seems clear that there's no consensus supporting the placement of this template on the article pages (nor has there ever been a discussion with such a consensus). My argument is that in the absence of a consensus supporting the addition of the template to the article, then it shouldn't be added and we could historify the template (but we could perhaps stick the template on the talk page as a compromise if there's any benefit there.) 128.12.246.6 (talk) 20:28, 14 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep (but reword), the partial-star graphic is too large and distracting, and maybe start with "This Wikipedia article is..." instead of the very unencyclopedic "Welcome to Wikipedia!", etc. Overall it's a good tool to attract new editors, but possibly not as in your face. Randy Kryn 11:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete The current wording ("you can edit it!") is not likely to stay accurate for long (as these articles often require semi-protection) It's distracting and ugly at best. OhNo itsJamie Talk 13:28, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep - perhaps revise and develop this, but individual Google Doodles are consistently the single biggest short-term drivers of traffic to any Wikipedia article. Every week in the WP:SIGNPOST for years in the traffic report there is some listing that says, "This was a Google Doodle, and for that reason, this article was one of the most popular articles in English Wikipedia this week." Other websites routinely pay $$$$$$ for this kind of attention. This kind of advertising attention is not something to ignore or dismiss. I can think of two reasons to vote "delete" on this - one is because a person may not like this particular template, and another is because a person might not like idea of acknowledging the advertising power of Google Doodles. Objections about the template can be addressed by further developing the template. If anyone objects to the idea of acknowledging the huge influx of traffic and the basic idea of having temporary notices to respond to that, then I would be interested in reading more about why it is a problem for Wikipedia to respond to this. If any other website were to try to purchase an advertising campaign which brought in the kind of traffic that Google Doodles bring into Wikipedia, the cost of that would be unprecedented. Google's front page is the most valuable advertising space in the world and Wikipedia gets the majority of the benefit of it. This is not something to waste.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  14:17, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't get why this particular daily thing matters and necessitates a giant honking notice on the top of the page. As I noted before, a few months ago Google news linked to Fascism and Donald Trump. No one even suggested a separate template to announce that. We don't have template for the top todayIlearned posts on reddit or when pages used to get slashdotted or a myriad of other ways of getting traffic. Should we have announcements for Google news, for when Reddit hosts a page, Digg (not anymore)? It seems odd to just say "well Google's doodles are so big that we need to tell the people who came here from their doodles to welcome them." It just feels more crass. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:34, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This particular thing matters because it is single most influential advertising campaign to Wikipedia articles. I would guess that it is 100 times more effective than whatever the second place advertising campaign is, so the difference in value between this and anything else is so vast that special attention for Google Doodles is justified. You say it exactly - "Google's doodles are so big that we need to tell the people who came here from their doodles to welcome them." If Google ever offered its Doodles for sale to third parties who would control them then they would easy sell for millions of dollars. Right now, Wikipedia gets the majority of the benefit from most Doodles, and it gets this attention for free. This attention is nice.
 * I would extend the same offer of a template to any other organization that was able to commit to supporting Wikipedia with a consistent, professional, $50,000,000 ad campaign that promoted Wikipedia's general educational and informational mission. It is unimaginable that any other organization could provide a service like the Google Doodle at this time, so I am comfortable only favoring Google for now.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  17:22, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * So it's because it's the biggest promotional tool now, we should market it? I've been here a decade and over the years, there's been one thing or another that has created a stir of new buzz for the website and the general rule here has been not to overtly go into the promotion so as to keep our neutrality. We have a separate task force just for the Google Doodle at Today's articles for improvement/Google Doodle task force. It's not that different than having an advertiser to me and the more promotional we want to be, the more difficult Google_Doodle gets over time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 17:56, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete: I don't see the point, other than self-congratulations. Featured Articles have nothing but a star, Good Articles have a similar icon. What's the point of a banner up for an article on a subject matter that an unaffiliated website brings up? Shall we put banners if CNN or Fox News does a special on an article? -- Veggies ( talk ) 14:41, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete per Veggies. Lots of articles have sudden huge in-flows of visitors.  So what?  The vast majority of these viewers are interested in the topic, not Wikipedia itself.  If you absolutely must, use the talk page template for "this article was linked to by a high-traffic website."  SnowFire (talk) 18:53, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete or minimize to make it less distracting. FallingGravity (talk) 19:38, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep I think the template should be kept. It is really helpful and might help some would-be vandals realize that they can contribute instead. I see nothing wrong with the template whatsoever and really hope that justice prevails here. NikolaTeslaCoil (talk) 13:54, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment. Vandals are like 0.0001% of readers of a Google Doodle who come here.  There's lots of "helpful" things we could say for such a small number of people - what's the weather in Los Angeles, why does popcorn pop, an essay on free content & software.  Surely someone is interested in it.  What about the other 99.9999% of readers though who don't care?  SnowFire (talk) 20:42, 19 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Duly noted SnowFire but every time a google doodle redirects people to the Wiki article, I see loads of vandalism from young kids, teens, and those with nothing better to do with their time so this banner makes a lot of sense to me.NikolaTeslaCoil (talk) 22:43, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, NikolaTeslaCoi. The thing is...  take Jane Jacobs as an example of a similarly somewhat obscure figure who got a recent Google Doodle.  She got 700,000 pageviews over 3 days as a result.  Some pageviews were from the same person, so call it 600,000 people total.  The page was semi-protected, but let's say about 10 vandals committed vandalism.  That makes it so that there were 10 vandals vs. 599,990 normal readers.  But wait, it gets worse.  How many vandals will actually be deterred by this message nicely asking them to play by the rules?  Let's, generously, say 3 of the 10.  In the same way, how many people who are unfamiliar with Wikipedia but interested in editing be convinced by an invitation to edit, and become productive editors, but wouldn't have without this invitation?  Let's say, again generously, one.  So now we're talking about a message tailored for 4 people out of 600,000.  Now, getting more editors is certainly an important goal - it's the lifeblood of Wikipedia - but so is being a useful resource that draws in the maximum number of readers possible, increasing the chances of the readers independently investigating how Wikipedia works.  There's been a lot of attempts before to try to solicit random readers to become editors, and most of them have reported very low rates of success - the result is a lot of short-term WP editors who make ~5 edits then move on.  Anyway, to be clear, your stance is totally fine, I'm just going into a bit more detail about why I'm skeptical this message will help much.  SnowFire (talk) 00:01, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep. I didn't see this banner before today, but I rather like it. I don't think framing this as a matter of having "encyclopedic value" makes the most sense, as that deals with the main content, not supporting elements. Given that (a) Google Doodles do draw a great deal of traffic, (b) providing new readers with a friendly introduction and orientation seems like a good thing, and (c) we're talking about a banner on one (maybe two, if there's more than one Doodle in wide circulation) article on any given day, I think the positives outweigh the minor concerns about slippery slopes or appeals to rigid principles. If it does lead to a proliferation of similar tags, we can revisit the whole class then; for now, I think worrying about that is just borrowing trouble. (One nitpick: I would suggest removing the "cheatsheet" link, as being a bit esoteric for an introduction, or at least moving it to after the FAQ. The others seem more germane.) — Shmuel (talk) 21:32, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The point is, normally we only have notices about the encyclopedia itself. Even the current event and other notices aren't so much an announcement to the world as a "this is a current event, come here to see" as a "the page itself will be subject to a lot of changes" kind of internal notice. And even then, it's based in part on it being in the news section on the main page. This is the only template I can think of that is literally a "we have this because someone else outside of the encyclopedia" has done something so we need to do something to bandwagon off them giving us publicity above and beyond doing what we've always done. To me, it's saying "we can't just do what we've always done, we should be doing other stuff to get publicity from Google and other places." It's literally the first time I've ever seen a mention of "we should do something to make sure that a third-party continues to do more for us." It's not advertising but it's not that far off in my mind. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:49, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that "we should be doing other stuff to get publicity from Google and other places" would be problematic, and I certainly am not motivated by any desire for them to do anything for us, but I don't parse the banner that way. I see it more as "we should be doing stuff to help bring on board some of these new potential editors who are visiting today!" — Shmuel (talk) 03:42, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete or minimize, per User:FallingGravity's reasoning. I happen to be the creator of the Google Doodle article itself, so I have a bit of a vested interest in its propagation, however I still think the current template is too clunky and overbearing, and skirts WP:PROMOTION a bit too closely for comfort (not that Google needs our promotion). Crumpled Fire (talk) 02:17, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment - this template is not used in any articles (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Google_Doodle). Normally, that would be sufficient reason to delete a template - unless someone has been removing it from articles while this discussion was going on. RockMagnetist(talk) 20:52, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There's no current Doodle so it's not being used right now. It was used for the last doodle and then not again. This isn't like Template:Press which is stored on the talk page for all time. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:03, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose any commitment to adding this to mainspace. Talk page or editnotice would be fine. --John (talk) 12:53, 22 May 2016 (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).

TV rating templates

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was delete (non-admin closure). ~ RobTalk 18:41, 22 May 2016 (UTC) Unused templates, the rating parameter of Infobox television is deprecated and has been removed. nyuszika7h (talk) 10:10, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * TV-Y7-FV
 * TV-Y7
 * TV-Y
 * TV-PG
 * TV-G
 * TV-14
 * Delete. Better to have one template, less subject to vandalism in my view. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:53, 19 May 2016 (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).

Template:Agusan Catholic Education Association

 * 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).

The result of the discussion was delete as unopposed. WP:REFUND applies. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 08:58, 21 May 2016 (UTC) No useful navigation; navigates only three articles. Sixth of March 06:37, 14 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Agusan Catholic Education Association
 * 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).