Wikipedia talk:TemplateData/Archive 3

Template:Census 2016 AUS/doc
I added some template data to Template:Census 2016 AUS/doc having successfully added template data to Template:Cite QHR/doc but the Census template data doesn't work in the Visual Editor yet the Cite QHR does. I would welcome somone else look at it and see what I have done wrong. Thanks Kerry (talk) 09:59, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * What can sometimes need to be done is a WP:NULLEDIT on the actual template page. So edit Template:Census 2016 AUS and press save, you don't actually need to make a change. It should work properly after that.--Salix alba (talk): 15:45, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! That made it work. I had thought it may have been something of that nature and purged everything, but either it didn't work or I didn't purge the right page. Kerry (talk) 00:59, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

Wikidata property usage proposal
I would like to propose a way to indicate that a template parameter can use a Wikidata property. TemplateData provides a "maps" key to specify a mapping to an external source. This could be used by the Template Parameters tool to determine if a parameter is truly missing a value by checking Wikidata for a value.

Example for IMDb name: --Bamyers99 (talk) 19:57, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
 * (one year later...) Bamyers99: Great minds think alike. This was proposed also in T69659/Wikibase/Maps TemplateData, and this convention is widely used in hewiki and possibly in other wikis and used by various tools. If your tool, or some other tool support it, can you please document it in Wikibase/Maps TemplateData. Thanks, Eran (talk) 15:20, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * (5 years later...), , I would also love to have a mapping between TemplateData and Wikidata. Has this been delivered? simon (talk) 14:01, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

TemplateData section too wide at Template:cite book
Please see this discussion. Any help is appreciated. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:16, 14 November 2017 (UTC)

Make TD collapsable
I propose to add an option "collapse". Optionally to be set in the /doc page itself. It is backoffice data stuff right? Over at "my" Infobox element, for example, things are getting out of hand visually. This is about desktop, don't know about mobile view. - DePiep (talk) 22:02, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is anything wrong with just putting it inside a Collapse top and Collapse bottom section. The software which reads it ignores other templates.
 * Another option is just putting the template data in separate page. For instance cite book has its template data in Template:Cite book/TemplateData and transclude that in the main template. There is no need to have the template data on the /Doc page. --Salix alba (talk): 22:25, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, sure, can do, I understand. But still, by principle: TD is a backoffice set, not a "show the editor the base code" issue. I there any, any advantage to the /doc reading editor? - DePiep (talk) 01:15, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Hi! Greetings --PerfektesChaos (talk) 20:58, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You might take a look at Template:Infobox university.
 * Please note that this is a TemplateData table.
 * Since you prefer chemistry, Template:Biochem reaction arrow alt text is presenting integrated TemplateData as well. Perhaps more appropriate for your eyes?
 * cite book was mentioned. The corresponding template in German Wikipedia is Vorlage:Literatur which shows TemplateData from the very first beginning.


 * That's Format TemplateData then.


 * - DePiep (talk) 21:45, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Parameterised parameters?
I've checked the archives and I can't find any mention of this…maybe I'm looking for the wrong thing. Anyway, what I want to know is how TemplateData deals with situations like with, etc, with , , , and so on: should it be possible to specify something like ? This would be inordinately useful for things like ProveIt, not to mention it would be nice if VisualEditor also knew about this stuff… Am I missing something blindingly obvious? TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 12:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I've been considering adding something like this to Module:TemplateData, which is a wrapper around TemplateData created on the German Wikipedia. AFAIK the current approach is just to write out the first ten or twenty repeats of the parameter manually, which of course makes the table displayed on the /doc page absurdly large. User:GKFXtalk 13:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a bug in about this. It been around for a while and not had any movement since October last year so I don't expect a quick resolution. --Salix alba (talk): 16:14, 22 March 2018 (UTC)


 * “page absurdly large”
 * Please see [ de:Template:Infobox Band] for this problem and a solution by scrollbar.
 * Next version of de:Module:TemplateData which is expected in April has already implemented a solution for vertically challenged TemplateData: The table of parameters and only that will be limited in height, then presumably equipped with scrollbar:
 * More easter eggs inside.
 * By  specification of a large number of similar parameters is not a big deal.
 * Almost never used parameters supplied for extreme cases only can be offered at the end of the TD list.
 * Nobody told me yet how to TD all the possible parameters of de:Template:Max.
 * Fortunately those are used only as helpers within template programming and not supposed to be used in main space, therefore no VE nor TD is needed.
 * Greetings --PerfektesChaos (talk) 08:38, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Add support for more sophisticated "required" options
One thing I've noticed when editing templates is that often, there is a parameter that is to be used in 90% of cases, and so is set as required in the TemplateData. However, for the other 10% of cases, a different parameter is to be used. An editor is required to use one or the other, but not necessarily any particular one. In other words, the status of the first parameter would be "required unless". One could conceive of a similar situation for "deprecated unless". I'm not familiar with Module:TemplateData, but would support for this kind of scenario even be possible?  Ergo Sum  15:20, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Not adressing your question, but I just want to stress that it is of course an error if a parameter is set as "required" if it's not required in 100% of cases. It could be set as "suggested", but not "required". Those mistakes should be fixed in the TemplateData of those templates. Do you have examples of these templates and parameters? --Jhertel (talk) 16:33, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I misspoke. I meant that for those 90+% of cases, one might intuitively set the parameter as required. No instances come to mind of this actually occurring, but it would not surprise me if there were such cases.  Ergo Sum  16:56, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay. 🙂 I'm refraining from answering your actual question as I don't have enough specific knowledge of those parts, but for all I know it would be technically possible; the question is whether it's worth the effort of implementing it. --Jhertel (talk) 17:13, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

This isn't really the place to request a change to the software, that better done with a bug request on, I'm not sure if many devs follow this page. It sounds like a suggested parameter is the best option. It might also suggest that the template is really trying to do two different things and it might be better to create two different templates. --Salix alba (talk): 17:37, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what is feasible, but I've been thinking about much the same thing. Basically, whether some parameters should be filled in depends on other parameters already being filled. The template I work with most is Speciesbox. It has status (for the conservation status of a species and status_ref (for a reference for that status). The vast majority of species haven't been given a conservation status, but for those that have a value for status, a reference really should be required. There are two ways to specify the species name in a speciesbox; either via taxon or via both genus and species. Usage of taxon vs genus/species is roughly evenly split. Neither option should be required individually, but it would be nice to check for speciesbox that have NEITHER taxon or genus+species. Another parameter pair is image and image_caption. No need for a caption if there is no image, but I would make a caption suggested if an image is present. Conversely, images are sometimes deleted for not meeting licensing requirements, but the caption associated with that image is left behind. If a new image is added, there's the possibility that the caption doesn't apply to it. If image is empty, image_caption should be too. Plantdrew (talk) 21:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Request for TD at Template:Graphic novel list
This is a request for TemplateData at Template:Graphic novel list. If someone here could add it, that would be helpful for a parameter modification project that we are considering. Thanks in advance. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:24, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Finding what is wrong with a long TemplateData code
So, I've spent a good chunk of my free time today making this table, and now it displays a "Bad JSON format" error when attempting to edit. Does anyone know how to check for errors? I recall manually doing one tiny edit somewhere, but I can't recall what. And for my bad luck, I did that edit before performing the first 'save' after creating the table, so I obviously can diff it to trace... The table is too large to do it all over again... Reh man  08:50, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I validated the json using JSONLint to find and then fix the problem. --Bamyers99 (talk) 13:17, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Bamyers99. You saved more than an hour of work for me. Cheers, Reh  man  13:28, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Making the TemplateData table customisable
Hi. If you have a look at Template:Infobox power station, you could see we have two separate fully fledged tables: one for the usual stylised parameters table, and the somewhat-dull-but-complete TemplateData table. It is possible to: Can these be implemented? If so, I'm sure many of us would dedicate more time in updating the TemplateData tables. I feel most editors (like me) don't bother putting effort on TemplateData because it just duplicates things, and that too with various limitations should one try to avoid the duplication. Hope I made sense? Reh man  23:59, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
 * 1) Add formatting like "  " to the table, so it could be stylised? Of course, the formatting would not effect VisualEditor users itself
 * 2) Add and mark rows in the TemplateData table so that visual editor ignores them. So that, for example, we could add the " " header to the TemplateData table (as seen in the Parameters table)
 * This is one of many long-standing problems with the design and implementation of Template Data. See and  and a 2014 discussion on this talk page and this 2014 discussion at Help Talk:CS1. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:44, 18 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. It's a pity is marked as "lowest priority". For Visual Editor to be reasonably successful, TemplateData should be a norm. Unfortunately, it seems like minimal effort is put into bringing the latter even close to a possibility.  Reh  man  08:01, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Template:Cite episode
Whenever I load this template via ProveIt, it only shows too fields readily: "series" and "source date". Is it possible to make other fields like "episode title", "episode article", "series article", "network", "season number" and "episode number" too readily available? Whenever citing an episode as a source, these particular fields are necessary to fill. According to, this is because ProveIt reads the TemplateData as entered. Apparently, whoever setup the template data only marked two fields as required, and none as suggested. Someone please do something about this. -- Kailash29792 (talk)  16:40, 3 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To anyone who has any advice, I first tried to manually add  by hand to Template:Cite episode/doc but got JSON errors. Then I tried to use the "Manage TemplateData" button instead to tick the "Suggested" box on the parameters, but nothing seemed to change on the page when I hit the "Apply" button, even after I hit the "Preview" button. -Furicorn (talk) 00:04, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * "Manage TemplateData" worked for me. After applying the changes, preview/save worked like normal. --Bamyers99 (talk) 00:20, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * , it works normally so thank you very much. Is there something you can do at Template:Cite interview since it does not show up in the ProveIt menu at all? -- Kailash29792 (talk)  05:04, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To add new citation templates first, you check if it has template data by looking at the bottom of the template page. If there's no template data, here are instructions for how to add it yourself. Once you've added it, or determined that the template already has data, then you can submit an edit request at the ProveIt source code page. Since looks like it alread has TemplateData, I went ahead and made the edit request and you can see if it's approved here. -Furicorn (talk) 05:53, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Which namespaces?
Does TemplateData work in namespaces User and Wikipedia? —⁠andrybak (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Template:Infobox radio station - duplicated/blank fields
When a visual edit is made to the template Template:Infobox radio station, certain fields show as duplicated in TemplateData. This affects the fields airdate, coordinates, city, frequency and name. One field is blank and one is not — but the blank fields overwrite any content in the other field when the edit is saved. The result is that otherwise well-meaning edits to radio station articles by users using VisualEditor will delete fields that are rather important in this template. (Recreated example in my sandbox)

Is there a reason this occurs? Raymie (t • c) 01:43, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Can confirm the issue. Tried to edit User:Raymie/sandbox using Visual Editor and airdate value got removed. See diff1 and diff2. —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:09, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * What's weird is that in the Visual Editor, I did not see a description for the  parameter. Despite Template:Infobox radio station/doc having a description for

"airdate ": { "label": "Airdate", "description": "First date of broadcast, using ", "type": "string", "suggested": true },
 * —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:12, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Tried to validate the JSON in TemplateData, found one issue: Special:Diff/902472643. Not sure if TemplateData is cached somehow, but haven't seen any effect yet. —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:21, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * This affects the fields airdate, coordinates, city, frequency and name. Another observation: all these fields are marked as "suggested" in TemplateData. However, field "Format", which is also marked as "suggested" does not seem to be affected. —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:26, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * One possible cause is that you need to do a null edit on the main template page every time the template data documentation is changed. I've just done one of these and managed to add the airdate sucessfully, although you might want to check. --Salix alba (talk): 03:01, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Huzzah! That did it! No field shows as duplicated now, either. Thank you so much! Raymie (t • c) 05:52, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Salix alba, unfortunately, null-edits are not available to regular editors for template-protected pages. Is submitting an edit template-protected a good way to request it? —⁠andrybak (talk) 06:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Yes a edit template-protected is a good way to request it. You could also ping me, I'm quite happy to fix these issues. --Salix alba (talk): 14:11, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Question about using TemplateData to make internetquelle compatible with the Content translation tool
Centralize discussion at  czar  15:38, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

Automatically identifying the parameters
In some Wikimedia projects, there is an automatic identification of the parameters and so they can automatically be included in the TemplateData content. It would be good clarify this possiblity in TemplateData. --BoldLuis (talk) 10:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

User confused by TemplateData showing capitalized parameters.
Users are getting confused by TemplateData showing parameters capitalized, when capitalized parameter names aren't actually supported. See Template talk:Speciesbox (26 October 2020), and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject_Birds (22 December 2020). Plantdrew (talk) 21:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is because the parameter label defaults to the parameter name with the first letter capitalized. If a parameter label (en) is added such as, then both the label and name will display the same. --Bamyers99 (talk) 21:55, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is possibly, although the original bug report is somewhat confusing to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:06, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

TemplateData parser module and other questions
I have two questions: 1) is there a module that can parse TemplateData - i.e. return a parameter name, label, description, etc. from the TemplateData JSON objects? and 2) can TemplateData be transcluded into the documentation instead of appearing in the actual /doc file and still be parsed correctly by the visual and wikitext editors which use TemplateData for building template calls? VanIsaacWScont 05:23, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

TemplateData Editor
I suggest include screenshots of TemplateData Editor. BoldLuis (talk) 19:04, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata property usage proposal update
Reply to Wikipedia talk:TemplateData/Archive 3: "I would also love to have a mapping between TemplateData and Wikidata. Has this been delivered?"

'''
 * per, a map naming convention has not been established. --Bamyers99 (talk) 15:17, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggested values feature coming soon to all wikis
From April 29, it will be possible to suggest values for parameters in templates. Suggested values can be added to TemplateData and will then be shown as a drop-down list in VisualEditor. This allows template users to quickly select an appropriate value. This way, it prevents potential errors and reduces the effort needed to fill the template with values. It will still be possible to fill in values other than the suggested ones.

More information, including the supported parameter types and how to create suggested values, can be found on the TemplateData help page and the project page. Everyone is invited to test the feature, and to give feedback on this talk page.Timur Vorkul (WMDE) (talk) 16:56, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Suggested wishlist item
Hi all! I encourage those of you who'd like to see TemplateData improved to go support the proposal Allow wikilinks and formatting in TemplateData at the wishlist. Cheers, &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 22:43, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

TemplateData needed at Template:US Census population
Are any page watchers here willing to create a TemplateData section for US Census population, which has 34,000 transclusions? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:05, 23 May 2022 (UTC)


 * done 🔥 HOTm̵̟͆e̷̜̓s̵̼̊s̸̜̃ 🔥  (talk) 16:02, 23 August 2022 (UTC)