Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Understanding talk page templates

All articles on Wikipedia have a talk page to facilitate discussions for improving the article, and to resolve disputes related to the article without edit warring. In addition to these purposes, talk pages usually have several templates added to the top of the page that serve one of three functions: displaying the banner(s) of the WikiProject(s) which have classified the article to be within their scope, informing our visitors and new editors of the policies and guidelines to be observed on both the article and the talk page, and lastly templates which display specialized information unique to the article.

In the case of the first two types of templates you will find these on most article talk pages. The third type is rarer, as they pertain only to articles that have met certain qualifications or received certain honors. Below is a summary of the talk page templates, their code, and when they should be employed.

Note that the following is not an extensive or exhaustive list of talk page templates, as this page is merely meant to introduce you to the most common types of talk page templates you may encounter, and give you a brief description of their purpose here on Wikipedia.

WikiProject Banners
All WikiProjects on Wikipedia have a standardized banner that is added to the talk page of any article within the scope of the project in question. These banners list, among other things, the name of the project, the projects assessment of the article in question, and any associated task forces or work groups that the article happens to fall under. These banners add all relevant information into presorted categories for the WikiProject in question, which allows any WikiProject laying claim to the article in question to see where the article lies within its scope and what effort that project will need to improve the article.

Although all projects on Wikipedia operate toward the same common goal—improving articles within their scope—each project has a unique set of departments that work best for the project in question. Therefore, unless you are familiar with the project banners of other WikiProjects, it is a good idea to refrain from editing their talk page banners. Even something as mundane as an article's assessment can differ from one project to another: what may be a very obvious Start-class article for our project may be a C-class or B-class article by a different project's standards.

The Military history Project banner is one of the most used WikiProject banners on Wikipedia. It is added to an article by placing WPMILHIST on the talk page, and should be added below any existing templates if it is the first project template added to talk page, or below the last listed project template if other project banners already appear on the talk page. As a courtesy, if and when you add the template to the talk page of an article within our scope you should also fill out the assessment ranking and add any related task forces to the template before saving. In this manner, the banner—when saved—will presort the information into categories that will make it easier for the project members to see at a glance where the article stands in relation to our assessment standards and which task forces are in the best position to improve the article. A full break down of our templates' parameters can be found here, and any questions you may have concerning the template can be asked on our project talk page.

Standard templates
Standard talk page templates are those templates routinely added to a talk page to outline general policies and guidelines, or to clarify points of an article. These are typically intended for our visitors or for those who are new to Wikipedia, and are meant to help reduce common problems that veteran editors frequently deal with when newer editors attempt to contribute to a page.

Talk header
The most common template in this category is the talkheader template. This template, added to the very top of a talk page, outlines and links to the basic policies and guidelines that all articles and editors on Wikipedia are expected to adhere to, and if applicable will list any talk page archives on the page.

This template can be added by any editor to any article on Wikipedia; however, it usually appears only on articles that see a higher degree of traffic on site. This usually includes, but is not limited to, any article linked from the main page or any article on Wikipedia that rates about B-class or higher. Although it frequently appears on talk pages this template should not be added to every single talk page on Wikipedia; most of the talk pages here see little traffic and thus do not require this template as they are not subject to frequent posts from editors or visitors.

Dispute templates
Less common in appearance than the talk header template are dispute templates. These are intended to remind contributors that the material in the article and discussions on its talk page can boil over as a result of a wide-ranging view of opinions and beliefs held by editors in relation to the subject matter covered in the article. These templates are meant to be employed chiefly on talk pages that have received large amounts of chatter unrelated to the improvement of the article or other such off topic spam. Because of the general scope of our project, templates of this nature are usually found on articles that related to battles, campaigns, and wars, and in particular those which were controversial to begin with.

Dispute templates include (but are not limited to) notaforum, controversial, Controversial-issues, and calm talk. Unlike talk header, these template are designed to be adoptive to the circumstances of their use, so when users add dispute templates to an article's talk page they add the ones that in their best judgment are best suited to the situation. If you added or removed information in an article and your edit was reverted you may wish to check the article's talk page for these templates before re-adding or removing the information again, as it is possible that editors on the talk page have already reached a consensus on the inclusion or exclusion of your material. Alternatively, if you can find no such consensus, it may be a better course of action to ask why your edit was undone on the talk page before re-adding or removing the information again.

Article specific templates
There are a number of article specific templates that appear on a talk page as well. These templates usually denote a unique status conferred on the article as a result of hard work or circumstance, although in some cases the templates added may be as a result of events that occurred off Wikipedia.

Article history template
Perhaps the most common of the article specific templates, the article history template is added to articles that have passed either a GA, A, or FA-class candidacy or were involved in a Good Topic or Featured Topic nomination at least once in their history, including articles that were once part of the now defunct "Brilliant Prose" system (the forerunner of the modern Featured Article Candidacy system). Even if the article in question is no longer GA, A, or FA-class, the template will remain on the talk page indefinitely.

The article history template lists three things: the current state of an article (GA, A, or FA-class), the time line of promotion to that class, and the result of the process in question (i.e.: passed GA, passed FA, etc.). For both successful and unsuccessful GA-class and A-class assessments the updates to this template are done manually; in the case of the former by the person conducting the GA-review, in the latter case by the person closing the A-class review. For articles involved in FAC or FARC the template automatically updated by a bot run, which is triggered by the FA coordinators.

In addition to noting the status of the article in question, the article history template will also list the date on which the article will appear or did appear on the main page as the featured article of the day, and will list any appearances of the article in the "Did You Know?" section, on in the "In the news" section on the main page.

Main page related templates
Wikipedia's main page includes sections for items covered in the news, historical anniversaries, and a Did You Know section for the interesting facts from Wikipedia's newest or most recently expanded articles. If an article appears in any of these mediums then a template will be added to the talk page to note the article's appearance in one of these sections on the main page. These templates are intended to honor the appearance of the article in question on the main page. Examples include ITN talk and DYK talk.

Old afd template
The old afd template (oldafd or oldafdfull) appears on the talk page of articles that were once subject to a deletion discussion debate and survived the debate. The template states that the article was once subject to a deletion debate and was kept, and may include a link to the deletion debate page or the date for the initial nomination for deletion. On articles that have an article history template any afd related discussion will be noted within this template rather than on an independent oldafd template. Templates of this nature allow for contributors to the article to see what the major reasons given for deletion were and the suggested improvements that were offered to keep the article here, which allows contributors to work on the problems to improve the article.

FAQ template
The FAQ template appears on high traffic pages where certain questions among contributors and article maintainers are repeatedly asked and answered, and it is intended to help reduce the number of people who have to repeat the same answers to the same questions. Depending on its format the FAQ template will have an introduction briefly outlining the purpose of the FAQ on the particular page and then either list all questions and answer below this introduction or list the questions on lines with [show] tabs that can be clicked for a specific answer. In some cases the answers may link to previous discussions on a particular issue or to relevant Wikipedia policies or guidelines that apply to the issue at hand.

If you happen to encounter a template of this nature on a page you wish to make sure you read all the questions and their answers before contributing to the article. In this manner you will reduce the odds of your edits being reverted on FAQ grounds.