Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 April 22

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Template:Scottish English

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) 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. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 16:58, 29 April 2023 (UTC) Propose merging Template:Scottish English with Template:British English.
 * Scottish English
 * British English

MOS:ENGVAR deals with National varieties of English, but Scotland is a subnational entity. Just as we would not have Texan English or Gujarati English as templates that are standalone from their respective national variety templates (American English and Indian English), there is no need to have a separate template for this subnational variety that is distinct from the national variety of British English, and the two should be merged into one template that reflects the national variety. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 14:45, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

My understanding of the purpose of the template is to highlight the presence of the inclusion of English usages that may be unfamiliar to users of different varieties and to bear this in mind in their understanding of the content and the possible urge to alter phrasing that otherwise may seem incorrect to them. The political status of the locus of that usage is not a consideration. MOS:ENGVAR refers to national varieties of English, not to those only of congruent nation states. There is a linguistic purpose to this template and its existence or otherwise shouldn’t be based on a political consideration. Mutt Lunker (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I will also note that Welsh English is presently a redirect to British English, which is an utterly sensible redirect. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 14:46, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Additionally, Use Scottish English currently redirects to Use British English, and I see no need for the talk page template to be any different. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 14:57, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: The nominator's argument about Texas English, which does not appear to have an article about it, may not be quite the right starting point. It may be relevant that Scottish English exists as an article that explains the differences. We also have Hiberno-English, for what it's worth. A possibly germane question is whether any articles at the English Wikipedia should actually be written using Scottish English that is different from British English; see MOS:COMMONALITY. Per that MOS section, we probably do not want to use the words "wee" or "bairn" as part of regular prose in articles, for example. What is a situation in which an article's prose (not just examples and quotations) should be written using words and constructions found only in Scottish English? – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:17, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Texan English does have an article about it, though, which notes pronunciation differences from other forms of American English as well as unique aspects of its vocabulary. I picked a fairly arbitrary dialect of American English for that example; one could easily substitute in Pacific Northwest English, Appalachian English, or Southern American English and the analogy still be as apt. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 18:59, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As a quick comment off the top of my head, and leaving aside the pedantic-but-not-ultimately-very-relevant fact that Scotland has not always been a subnational entity (and was nation in its own right to a slightly greater extent than Texas was), the number of distinctions between Scottish English and British English in general that would appear in written formal register is in all fairness probably quite small. Use of the word outwith is probably one of the most common differences, along with a few minor points of grammar and sentence structure that might seem a touch odd to unfamiliar readers but without being actively wrong. On the whole though I can't think of anything right now that wouldn't either 1) be so minor as to pass near enough to unnoticed, or 2) be discouraged by MOS:COMMONALITY regardless. XAM2175  (T) 01:59, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect as per Welsh English: I looked over a few of the articles tagged and didn't spot any special that needed a separate template. -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:11, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: There is no hard cut-off between formal English and a notional pure Scots, it's more a spectrum. It’s true that the instances of differences between formal English in Scotland and that of the remainder of the UK are fairly small but they are enough that certain words or phrases in Scotland-related articles, that would and do comfortably fit at the formal Scottish English end of the spectrum, are commonly “corrected” in articles here by non-Scottish Brits. The legal, educational and ecclesiastical fields have substantially different terminology, due to their distinct historical origin, many of which may appear the same as a word in non-Scottish, British English but with a difference in meaning, or so similar that it appears to be a typo or mistake (I’ve seen complainer “corrected” to complainant). I’ve seen The Kirk (the proper name for the body) corrected to The Church (small “k” kirk is probably a different matter). “Outwith” has already been mentioned above. Links for “turnip” are redirected to the wrong cruciferous vegetable, girdle changed to griddle. These are just those that occur off the top of my head and though they may be comparatively few, that they are targeted indicates that there is a purpose to a distinct template to indicate Scottish English usage, for certain articles.
 * So, on consideration, Oppose. Mutt Lunker (talk) 14:50, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Scottish and British English are two truly distinct dialects of English, it is like trying to claim Indian English and American English are the same and lumping them together. To lump them under the same banner is an absurdity in my opinion as the country of Scotland has a clear and distinct language development history from the more generic British English. The Texas English example is a Red Herring as American English speakers could easily understand Texas English, unless, of course, it can be shows that it is distinct enough for its own separation and therefor tag. Scottish English is difficult at times if not impossible to understand to someone unfamiliar with it who only engages in generic British English Scottish English also borrows from completely separate languages of Ulster-Scots, Lowland Scots and Scottish Gaelic, so it is clearly distinct from British English which is devoid of these influences and modifications. Sparkle1 (talk) 12:52, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Per above, I'm of the view that there are sufficient instances where those unfamiliar with Scottish English would benefit from a template that indicates that an article may employ unfamiliar spellings or terms, distinct from those employed elswhere in Britain, but the claim that SE may be "impossible to understand" would only be down to unfamiliarity with accent (not an issue in the written word) or the employment of Scots, so not Standard English. Mutt Lunker (talk) 20:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. In Scottish literature, which is a Scottish English article, there is use of "Kirk". This should be retained. The template makes editors aware that changing "Kirk" to "Church" is undesirable. Therefore the template is useful and used. —Alalch E. 14:41, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Sparkle1 and Alalch E. Summer talk 18:44, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per above. XtraJovial (talk • contribs) 11:00, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Formalising my oppose per Mutt Lunker. XAM2175  (T) 11:23, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose: there may be comparatively few matters of distinction, but merging the templates would create the absurd situation where a Scottish-focused article, faced with a choice between a form standard in Scotland or that standard in England, would be forced to choose the latter. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 10:04, 29 April 2023 (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:Ast

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) 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. ✗ plicit  14:46, 29 April 2023 (UTC) Unused, don't see where this could be used. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:36, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Ast
 * Oppose. See Latin Wikipedia, where it is used. Long answer: any section that is too long and switches between slightly different topics can benefit from this template. And, not less importantly, it can be very useful in talk pages. --Grufo (talk) 14:46, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment if it is kept, it should be renamed, as its current name is useless in explaining what it is. Such as triple-asterisk BR -- 64.229.90.172 (talk) 22:28, 22 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete. Shouldn't be used in article space and shouldn't be used in talk space. Gonnym (talk) 01:20, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And will you also bother explaining why it shouldn't? --Grufo (talk) 02:56, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We don't use personal visual styles in article space to break paragraphs. And in talk pages, that will also break the reply tool. When sections are too long, we use sub-sections. Gonnym (talk) 07:54, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We don't use personal visual styles: The templates that I create are often not customizable exactly for that reason, so when I create a template it is usually never “personal”, it has a standard look across all the pages that use it. In talk pages, that will also break the reply tool: I am not sure it would, but also it wouldn't matter; you would use ast for separating different independent blocks. By the way, we have hr already, ast is just a nicer non-customizable version of that; whatever critique against ast will apply to hr as well. --Grufo (talk) 19:16, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, hr doesn't attempt to look nice and is simply a separating line that can already be created with, whereas ast is a stylistic paragraph break making use of 3 green asterisks. Also, other Wikipedias don't have any precedence for things here. ― Blaze WolfTalkBlaze Wolf#6545 16:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete There doesn't seem to be any need for it. Section titles can be used if some sort of break is required. Nigej (talk) 05:40, 29 April 2023 (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:Transparency of media ownership in Europe

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template(s) or module(s) 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. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 14:15, 29 April 2023 (UTC) No longer needed, replaced with on all relevant pages. –Vipz (talk) 13:07, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Transparency of media ownership in Europe


 * I feel like keeping this as a wrapper template is going to be more accessible for people who don't know how to navigate the Europe topic template, so I would support converting this to a wrapper. — Red-tailed hawk  (nest) 19:28, 22 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete Replace with the Europe topic template. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:44, 25 April 2023 (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).