Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 October 27



Template:Periods in US history

 * 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 no consensus. This boils down to two questions. 1) is the template full of OR and 2) if yes, is it fundamentally unfixable? There's rough consensus that the template needs some work, but there is no consensus on whether it is unfixable. Editors can try to modify the template to address the concerns raised here. If it turns out that the template could not be fixed by editing, feel free to bring this back to TfD. (non-admin closure) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC) This list of "periods" is non-standard, but, crucially, there is no consensus among academic historians on how to delineate such periods or whether such periods necessarily should be non-overlapping (which this one, for reasons that are totally opaque, is). So we have what essentially amounts to either original research or a particular perspective masquerading as fact in this sidebar template. We don't need this as a navigational aid anyway. We can have a list with all the periods of time that were identified by reliable sources, but to have a non-exhaustive template like this is just not in line with WP:ENC. jps (talk) 17:48, 20 October 2020 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Periods in US history
 * Delete and replace where not already used by United States topics (or merge into US history, but that would still be a duplicate of the "topics" one). I'm not sure this template is OR, as the articles exist and are presented in the template for navigation purposes in a chronological order. They are also clearly related so are valid for a template. I however still think it should be deleted as it's a duplicate of other templates (as I mentioned) and also because its position at the side takes way too much space, while the bottom of the page is where these nav templates should be located. --Gonnym (talk) 19:24, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I will probably stand out as a black sheep here, but I have seen and used the sidebar and the list of eras does gel with the popular understanding of what the eras are (at least as far back as the gilded age). I think it provides very useful navigational value compared with the lengthy US topics navbox. For me at least, best option would be to keep - perhaps with a disclaimer that not all the dates are completely accepted - and second-best would be to merge into "US history" navbox. --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:42, 20 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Inclined to keep and fix. Much our "job" here at Pickyweedia is assessing what the scholarly consensus is, or as close as the world is getting to one.  So, we should be able to produce a list that includes all the periods that have such acceptance, and (within WP:DUE reason) any subdivisions that significant portion of scholars want to put a name to.  Perhaps more to the point though, the purpose of this template is not making a claim or educating anyone in a doctrine, it is helping WP readers navigate our highest-level overview articles on US history. If the articles are there, and  there is some demonstrable break between a) our dividing up the content into those specific articles, and b) how mainstream scholarship treats these topics, then the problem is at that  level, and will not be found in this template.  The navbox (which is reasonably concise for its type) is not a cause or determinant of our coverage, but only a reflection of it.  And I think we all know by now that when it comes to WP:SUMMARY, WP:SIZE, WP:SPLIT, WP:SPINOUT, etc. matters, that we sometimes have little choice but to be arbitrary where we make a cut or splice. (E.g., if stuffing all the content we have about an era into one article would make it ridiculously long, we have to find some way to subdivide it.  I agree with Gonnym that this should follow the major sources as closely as possible, of course.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete Some other editor created this, and in past edits I've done the best I can to at least try to make it a constructive template. But I think it's ultimately harmful to the encyclopedia by conveying the idea that there's a consensus about different periods in American history, when that isn't really the case. Maybe I'd feel differently if it had better periods (e.g. I still don't understand how anyone can think that period from 1965 to 1980 is best described as the "Civil Rights Era", especially given that crucial events from the 1950s and early 1960s are left out). Orser67 (talk) 03:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep And I wish I had the option to add an "eye roll" meme just to show how pointy this discussion is. If it needs fixing then fix it. But don't destroy something just because you don't like it or you personally don't have use for it. Each link directs to an actual Wikipedia page. How is that not useful?-- JOJ Hutton  11:43, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep and Fix The main problem seems to be taht there are exact years in it and there is really no reason why there need to be exact years in it anyways. It would be fins as 1820s-2040s or whatever for the eras that aren't easily pinned down blindlynx (talk) 15:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep It as a useful navigation tool for our historical articles. Overly specific timespans can be corrected through standard editing. Dimadick (talk) 11:16, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete per Gonnym. Firestar464 (talk) 06:40, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge as a section of History of the United States without dates per Blindlynx

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: The point from the nom about these periods not being universally accepted is worth considering, but I think it could be adequately addressed with just a footnote saying that there's scholarly disagreement about when these start/end and the template just reflects what our articles use. The issue I see, though, is that these templates flow from our actual articles, and our actual articles have quite a bit of overlap at some points. We thus have History of the United States, which is largely redundant to the periods template, but lists our articles of the format History of the United States (YYYY–YYYY), whereas the periods template tends to go for labels like Gilded Age, even if in some cases (e.g. post-war era) those redirect to a year-based article. In other cases, though, we get Jackosonian era going to Jacksonian democracy, which is a political philosophy, not an era. So the problem runs fairly deep here: we need to do a better job of organizing which content goes in which articles. Once we've done that well, the sidebar should flow from it easily enough. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 23:15, 28 October 2020 (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:Developments in Sri Lanka

 * 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 on 2020 November 4. (non-admin closure) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:46, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Developments_in_Sri_Lanka
 * 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).

Module:Language/name/data

 * 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; deleted by AnomieBOT ⚡  04:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC) These pair of modules were used by Module:Lang until a month ago when their function was replaced with other tables. These are now unused except in one user's sandbox which hasn't seen an edit in over a year. If they wish to keep it they can userfy it, but it's function is not needed on en.wiki as its been superseded by better and more correct data. Gonnym (talk) 17:13, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Language/name/data
 * Language/data/wp languages
 * 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:Infobox Iceland municipality

 * 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 after replacement/substitution. (non-admin closure) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2020 (UTC) Replace/Substitute with Infobox settlement nothing special what isn't handled by Infobox settlement, only few inclusions. Template:Infobox Finnish municipality had many more inclusions and was recently replaced. Created 2014, edited on three days in 2015 and then not touched by creator anymore. 2016 and 2017 four general editors fixed issues with the template and only 2020 a fith converted it into a wrapper. All this editing could have been avoided if Infobox settlement would have been used in the first place. TerraCyprus (talk) 01:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Infobox Iceland municipality


 * Substitute and delete per nom. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:47, 27 October 2020 (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:ACR top

 * 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) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 02:56, 3 November 2020 (UTC) Unused. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:39, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ACR top
 * Delete per nom. Unused and unhelpful. --Tom (LT) (talk) 00:52, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. It's historically been unused since the WP:ACLASS process is pretty infrequent anyways. &#8211; MJL &thinsp;‐Talk‐☖ 03:08, 27 October 2020 (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).