Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 September 21



Template:Infobox Israel 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 subst and delete. While I understand the concerns of the opposition (I find wrappers to be useful in certain circumstances) this is not the place to debate improvements of infobox settlement. There is clearly (both here and as a past precedent with similar wrappers) opposition to wrappers of said template, but based on similar concerns raised at other "settlement" wrapper discussions I think it would be a very good idea to re-evaluate whether infobox settlement needs to be revamped/overhauled/etc, or whether there is a place for settlement wrappers (as a general group, not on a per-template basis) to exist in certain circumstances. Primefac (talk) 03:00, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Post-close comment: I do realize that not all settlement wrappers have been deleted, and in some discussions there has been spirited opposition to deletion, but this is exactly my point - there is a clear divide of opinions on the matter, and while the majority of those involved in the discussions end up carrying the weight of consensus there is (or should be) a need to discuss these wrappers as a whole, so that similar huge/lengthy/contentious discussions can maybe be avoided in the future (though I realize it will likely be replaced by a huge/lengthy/contentious RFC). Primefac (talk) 12:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Replace (subst:) with Infobox settlement and delete
 * Infobox Israel municipality

"Israel municipality"-specific wrapper for Infobox settlement, there is no such wrapper for any other municipality in Asia, no "India / China / South Korea / Thailand / Vietnam / Pakistan ... municipality " wrapper. Subst:itution will reduce the maintenance overhead, reduce the cognitive burden for editors, and enable articles to benefit more immediately from improvements to the current parent template. 89.14.196.193 (talk) 11:01, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Standardising would help make the parameters more consistent. I note that it was turned into a wrapper in 2011, so visually it is already consistent. I notice that some functionality around IS is wrappered around / simplified, so I only wonder if removing the wrapper may encourage undesired visual inconsistencies (eg see impl of district), by requiring all local articles to paste in these repeated basic param values. An easy solution would be IS to have basic country-specific support to add this stuff in automatically when a usage indicates it's from Israel, for example (I may look into that at some point, it seems useful for other recent merges too) -- it's a fact that infoboxes with many usages end up with some weird inconsistent quirks on some pages, so more functionality being centralised in that respect seems to be good. We do similar stuff on other IBs to prevent these issues. Not a barrier to merge by any means, but something that should be done first perhaps to be less work long-term. I'm slightly concerned that all these IS nominations will end up with hasty implementations that create a mess. Yes, they should be merged eventually, but with some care. Nobody bothers reverse a mess if it happens, and it has happened before on some IB merges, and I think it's partially why some WikiProjects are so hesitant to submit to infobox consolidation. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:43, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Oppose afraid I will have to oppose, per my comments above, and because this merge would achieve the opposite of simplicity, currently.I'm still quite disheartened with what happened with the Australian states, and I feel some responsibility because I nominated it. There's only 13-ish so they can be cleaned up, but still, it doesn't demonstrate trust. I now see the Japan infoboxes wasn't the smoothest implementation, either. Plus, whilst substitution isn't the end of the world, blank params are unhelpful, and it can remove "note params" (eg I know the UK stations just comment out old years, and I can see why they might be helpful; in any case unilateral removal of these efforts isn't helpful). I also recall 's discontent with what happened with the Russian templates, and the issues with the joint Wikidata integration (some of which linger today, what, ~2 years later?).On merits this should be merged, and it is technically not a problem once changes are made to IS to stop needing the wrapper, but I have little confidence this will be merged smoothly given recent examples. It requires some prerequisite changes to IS, first. Blind substitution is not helpful. Look at Special:Diff/979596480 (which is a subst of Haifa) -- it replaces one param with a dozen complicated ones, this is not achieving simplicity or reducing cognitive burden for editors, rather the opposite. This is even worse than parameter inconsistency. If we're merging templates, especially when it's against the wishes of WikiProjects and many long-time editors (and there are valid reasons for doing so) it should at least be a competent merge, otherwise it's just inappropriate. Unless an editor with relevant experience demonstrates their desire to make this a proper, smooth merge, I'm opposed to it. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:01, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ProcrastinatingReader Australia has six states and three internal territories - if there is any problem with the substitutions carried out manually it would be easy to fix. But there seems to be no problems like weird code as demonstrated by your subst-example. Russia is the only country to have three wrappers, what substitution took place there? Japan is an example for a recent large substitution by scripts . Not happy with the raise/lower code, but otherwise? Re IS: repeating hierarchy in each usage is weird, this could probably be generalized. But it is maybe easier for programmers if fewer type-specific place infobox templates exist. Except for Russia, no country in Asia beside Israel seems to use a country specific infobox. In Africa it's only Cape Verde, created by a user who created several country-specific multi-type templates. 77.11.212.140 (talk) 06:35, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * can you make the template subst-safe to avoid Special:Diff/979596480 as mentioned by ProcrastinatingReader? TerraCyprus (talk) 19:23, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * In a word, yes. Taking an infobox wrapper and just slapping "safesubst:" at the front isn't how it's done; there's a method, and there are a few of us kicking about that know how. If it's an "easier" wrapper I can also just do parameter swaps using my bot. I would say, based on a recent clearout of Infobox city Japan, that if the wrapper is being used to add a large number of "static" parameters (for example, things like ja), then all those params will all be added in and might reduce "the point" of removing the wrapper. But to roll back to the initial question/request, any wrapper can be converted to a subst-only wrapper that will not add any empty parameters.Primefac (talk) 20:15, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Blank params is an issue but it’s not what I was getting at in the diff. The native language params turn into a dozen.
 * Translit - plus type1, type3, Lang info, all that good stuff.
 * Requiring local articles to fill in redundant params (1) and understand the syntax in (2) is definitely not an improvement. When I say prerequisite changes to IS, I mean it needs better support for this. Or a different way of doing it that is more friendly at local articles. But turning two simple string value params into that stuff is just confusing. And even if it wasn’t confusing, any control given to local articles will create inconsistencies, so params like district are likely to end up messed up over time. Merge is only a net positive if IS supports this stuff better, and by that point you wonder what was so bad about a wrapper? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:43, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * ProcrastinatingReader, why would "redundant params" be needed? Looking at first example from whatlinkshere, Dimona:
 * heb/Heb is redundant already now. ISO? Why does that need to be made by hand, shouldn't an ISO conversion be made by a template/module/script? Just provide "דִּימוֹנָה" and "he" and done. But it is needed for many more languages, Israel is the only non Roman/Cyrillic/Greek country to get an extra treatment? I would prefer to put all countries on equal footing and improve IS for all countries. TerraCyprus (talk) 21:33, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It is still an improvement over what it would be using IS directly, without a wrapper. Can it be improved in IS, yes, and it should be. That should be done before a merge of this. They can be done together, but the likelihood if this closes with merge someone just does a quick merge, rather than makes the changes to IS first. Whilst we're improving this functionality in IS, we might want to decrease the usage of blank params (eg for government) too - maybe can be done using location data templates for example. "Equal footing" is a bad way to look at it. Israeli places tend to have names in 3 languages, thus 'the bloat' hidden behind the wrapper. Just because some countries have to put up with non-ideal design doesn't mean they all should. IS should be improved first. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:52, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The current template is just weird:
 * there are six parameters on the right side, some hard to understand: name, hebname, arname, stdHeb, altOffSp, altUnoSp and nine on the left, straightforward. BTW: What is "translit_lang1_type2  = Translit."? It's a mess. Why for type3 two parameters are fed in, instead of having type4? ...why is Arabic not transliterated? Re "Israeli places tend to have names in 3 languages" - Say hello to India: List of languages by number of native speakers in India. No 2(!) country specific inboxes. TerraCyprus (talk) 01:50, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment At Template:Israeli administrative jurisdictions there is no type=municipality. 77.11.212.140 (talk) 07:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at first example from whatlinkshere, Dimona, no type is displayed. TerraCyprus (talk) 22:22, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Substitute and delete. per nom. Israel should be treated the same as the rest of Asia. TerraCyprus (talk) 19:25, 22 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Substitute and delete. Wrappers can be useful. To be useful they should have a transparent name, have transparent parameters so there is no barrier in using them and should be used in a high quantity. Is the name clear? As pointed out above, the name of the wrapper suggests it is for municipalities, but that type isn't listed. So the name isn't transparent, it obfuscates what the template is for. The parameter names don't use snake_case but CamelCase, violating Manual of Style/Infoboxes, that could be fixed, if some is willing to do the work. The names of the parameters are not transparent, don't convey what to use them for altUnoSp, altOffSp, stdHeb, hebname, arname .... etc. The template is not widely used, it isn't meant for all settlements in Israel. Articles for settlements in nearby countries use Infobox settlement directly, also for Israel itself several places use Infobox settlement directly. Substituting also reduces problems such as described at Talk:Israeli settlement/Archive 12. JelgavaLV (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment unmarked change of relevant text by one user, after reply to the text has been made TerraCyprus (talk) 02:04, 6 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).
 * Comment unmarked change of relevant text by one user, after reply to the text has been made TerraCyprus (talk) 02:04, 6 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).

Module:Leapyear

 * 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 ⚡  04:05, 29 September 2020 (UTC) Unused. * Pppery * it has begun... 02:49, 21 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Leapyear
 * Looks useful. Or is there another module that can do the same thing? – Uanfala (talk) 23:04, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
 * This looks like an unfinished test that, even if it worked, does nothing the  parser function can't do. * Pppery * it has begun...  01:59, 29 September 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).