Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates/Archive 2

Weasel words
I found WW while doing a cursory Scroogle search, and dusted it off and put it up to fact-like level, with documentation and mainsapce deactivation. Now I have discovered weasel-inline and its redirect weal. I think we should merge the latter two into the WW, as the other two are quite long and much more difficult to type than WW. Thoughts? Disagreements? hbdragon88 05:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Please keep templates comprehensible. is comprehensible.  and  are sheer gobbledy gook. --The Cunctator 20:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Strongly concur with The Cunctator. WW should simply redirect to weasel-inline, which is less wordy in its rendered version, allowing shortcut freaks to use "WW" and the template long-namers to use weasel-inline. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 09:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I propose that this merger take place (WW into weasel-inline) by July 30, barring any objections. That ought to be more than enough time for discussion. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 16:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * PS: See also the similar who/who? merge discussion at Template talk:Who.


 * I've also tagged weasel-name for merging into weasel-inline, as it has no separate discernable purpose at all. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 20:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would suggest merging weasel-name with who instead. Anomie 17:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Who/weasel merge discussion
There has periodically been discussion here and there that the weasel-inline type templates and who-type templates should be merged. I'm a fence-sitter on this issue. The pros and cons that I can see (others should feel free to refactor-in any additional ones) are listed below. My take is that while this is worth discussing now, no merger action should be taken between who and weasel-inline until all who-style templates are merged into who and all weasel-style templates are merged into weasel-inline, so we have only two templates to contemplate a more overarching merger of, just for our own sanity's sake. NB: The outcome of this debate either way probably will have precedential consequences for a number of other inline templates... —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 18:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Pro:
 * The templates are redundant, as they both cite the same guideline and serve the same purpose (identifying statements that need to be cited to a specific source).
 * Having multiple subtly-different templates for the same core purpose may encourage the creation of numerous other vaguely divergent templates from other pre-existing inline tags.
 * It is hard enough to remember what template to use for what cleanup purpose, and we do not need to add to this problem.


 * Con:
 * The templates actually serve different purposes: who flags, without prejudice, the fact that a statement lacks a specifically attributable source, while weasel-inline flags, with prejudice, that weasel words are being used, either out of sloppiness or outright attempts to mislead, push a PoV, promote original research, etc.
 * Having multiple, nuanced templates for the same policy/guideline is helpful, because most of those guiding documents cover a lot of ground and numerous related but different points; reducing all of WP:WEASEL to a single, generic template may make it harder for editors to understand the nature of the problem in their article or how to fix it.
 * Inline templates are largely used by long-experienced editors who engage in a lot of cleanup work and who are unlikely to forget the difference between two templates; also, if the wrong one is used, someone will simply fix it (if the article isn't fixed first), and both templates link to the same policypage, so simply reading it will make the article problem clear enough.


 * Comments
 * Neutral for now; I don't (yet) have a firm opinion either way. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 18:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oppose: Regarding the Pros, the first ("redundant") IMO is false as stated in the first Con. The third ("hard to remember") is false, as it isn't really; if anything, copy the first Con to both doc pages. I'm not sure I buy the slippery slope argument of the second Pro, and the merger of all the weasel-style templates into one and all the who-style templates into one would set a good enough precedent. Anomie 17:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: The weasel-inline and who? templates should both say " [who?] " but point to different places:  weasel-inline should point to WP:WEASEL and who? should point to Burden of evidence.  Basically, "Who?" is a more intuitive explanation than "weasel words" which is a term with which many people may be unfamiliar.  Bwrs (talk) 23:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'll add the completely unnecessary comment that whichever way this goes, 'who?' should really be 'whom?' - object case, not subject... -- Ludwigs 2  02:21, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Disagree; they are short for "Who said that?", so "whom" would be ungrammatical. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 23:59, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * hmmm... I took them as short for "To whom are you referring?", because I assumed it was a question for the editor.   But I suspect there are less useless things to debate on wikipedia - lol.  -- Ludwigs 2  00:18, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Two Template Solution
After seeing the who merger on the talk page, I thought about the  template, which I created. It was suggested that the Who? template's wording be used - [Who?] (i.e. Critics[Who?] say ...), however after pondering the situation, I realized that Who? isn't really the appropriate question. While most experienced users would probably understand it, I believe that the best wording clarity-wise would be [Such as?]. Whereas (for an experienced viewer) the who? question can be answered by "Critics", such as demands an example - and also prevents any misinterpretations whatsoever. However, as pointed out by SMcCandlish - "Such as?", while fine in most situations, would not be applicable in every situation. Thus, I believe should be used for those scenarios. No question could adequately address any of the scenarios, and because weasel-inline is not a question, it has an advantage. However the reason the template would not be ideal for all situations would be because it uses essentially jargon and thusly is horrendous from the clarity point of view. So I suggest merging and  (by situation said by SMcCandlish on said talk page), however moving the result to Template:Such as, while also redirecting the templates - and the wording would be [Such as?]. I also suggest keeping weasel-inline due to stated problem, however this would allow us to delete (redirected to weasel-inline,  (redirected to Such as),  (redirected to such as), (redirected to weasel-inline) and (this bloating template redirected to Such as) - all we would have to do is create such as?. I believe this plan would be full proof, and it will successfully clear out all of the messy weasel inline templates.--  daniel  folsom  18:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the issue raised at below would need to be settled first before consensus can be reached on something like this.  If consensus is pro direct address, then I think this would probably work, but otherwise we'll need a different solution.  As per our discussion on my talk page, there are cases where wording like "such as?" would work, and situations where it won't, when the WP:WEASEL violation is more subtle, so yes a more "generic" weasel-inline would need to be retained. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 14:05, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Wait - "There are cases where wording like "such as?" would work, and situations where it won't" - that's what I said - "SMcCandlish - "Such as?", while fine in most situations, would not be applicable in every situation. Thus, I believe should be used for those scenarios."--  daniel  folsom  14:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the lack of clarity; my post meant "I agree with Danielfolsom that "weasel-inline" would need to be retained, but think it is too soon to create "such as?" because there's a lack of consensus on what to do with "exhortatory" inline templates. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 00:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok how's this - instead of such as - we use - although that says it's for articles without citations - it would actually work with weasel words - more so than [Who?] or [Such as?] (2 examples: Critics[specify] say... and It is said[specify] that .... While it works slightly better in the first situation, it can still work in the second, however I would still say keep  around just in case.--  daniel  folsom  03:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No one's proposing to delete weasel-inline. Anyway, I see this is as still the same question. specify's future is also subject to the consensus discussion still ongoing about whether directly exhortatory inline templates are the direction we should be going in.  If that resolved in favor of direct address, then specify's poposed dual role would have to be figured out (remember that it links to a specific policy page, and while WP:WEASEL really is in fact derived from WP:V I'm not sure that's entirely intuitive to every editor.  That is, I think we'd be better off with something like who instead of operator-overloading specify. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 21:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

TFD started
Someone unaware of these discussion has TfD'd all of these templates: Templates for deletion/Log/2007 August 2; I've procedurally opposed, since consensus discussion with regard to what to merge into what was already taking place here. Could probably use more input, over there, however. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 20:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I got the TfD procedurally closed early, pending consensus discussion here. That means we actually need to arrive at said consensus. I am thinking of advertising this project a bit on WP:VP because we don't seem to have quite enough people to keep things rolling here. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 18:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Has there been any further discussion on this? If not, I'll TFD them again shortly, since that seems to be the best forum for getting enough people to comment. Grace notes T § 15:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

On Template:Dubious
I have real trouble seeing the positive utility of this template being better than a) editing (there are such things as search engines and libraries to research information; Amazon's Book Search is excellent for the lazy) b) commenting on the talk page of the page or the contributor who added the passage in question or c) using, which so far as I can tell, serves a near-identical purpose. With respect to inline templates, less is certainly more. The bias should always be towards actually editing the page in question rather than asking someone else to do work for you. --The Cunctator 20:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't feel superduper strongly about this one, but I note that the purpose of the fact template is to quietly flag something as unsourced without expressing any judgement value on it, while the point of dubious is to suggest that something is, well, dubious, and to direct people to the talk page to hash it out. It seems more probable to me that disputable and dubious are redunant with each other than either/both are redunant with fact. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 07:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
 * On closer inspection it seems clear that both dubious and disputable (slated for a merge; discussion here) are about Disputed statements and Accuracy disputes, which is a different issue from WP:V, which is what fact addresses. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 21:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Another way of looking at it, using your points a, b and c above: a) The point of the d-templates is that what to edit the article to say is in dispute; b) discussion on the talk page is already happening, and the d-templates are 1) to warn readers that the article may not be accurate in part, and 2) to alert editors that more sources need to be found to settle the dispute by determining which of the conflicting views is authoritative; and c) fact, as noted, doesn't serve particularly similar purposes at all. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 21:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge & rename
Two active discussions: Template talk:Dubious, Template talk:Dubious. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 13:31, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Dumb question
I know that somewhere there is some code that can be put around something (such as a discuss link in one of these templates) that will a) prevent the enclosed stuff from being printed and b) equally importantly, prevent it being exported in the database dumps used by mirror sites. I totally misremember where and what this code is. Help?!? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 00:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Consensus discussion on "direct address" style
It's come to plenty of our attention that these templates take basicallly two forms, and that one of them might be inappropriate (the matter to settle):
 * 1) Dispassionately identifying a problem in Wikipedian terms ("attribution needed", "weasel words", "disputed")
 * 2) Directly addressing the reader, either in an asking ("who?", "reliable source?") or a telling ("verify source", "cite this quote") manner, in often informal terms

We need to collectively decide whether the latter style should remain at all, and whether it should supercede the former. The pros and cons that I can see (others should feel free to refactor-in any additional ones) are listed below. This may be worth a notice for further community input at WP:VPP, directly people to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates (we don't want a separate discussion to form over there).

—  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 14:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Pro direct address
 * Clearer, simpler language, that is often shorter (even just one word!)
 * Inspires editorial action, by use of actively engaging, direct wording
 * These templates are already accepted WP:SELF exceptions, so that guideline is out of the picture
 * Inline templates are a special case, and do not necessarily need to be just like box-style templates


 * Con direct address
 * Dispassionate wording is more formal and not so long or obtuse that it won't be understood, and is phrased in terms of WP policies/guidelines, not opinional reinterpretations thereof
 * Equally inspires actual editorial action, because editors deal with templates, of all sorts, all the time, while readers who are mostly not editors will simply see an extraneous message telling them to do something, or asking a question, that they are not prepared to do anything about
 * WP:SELF is bent by consensus to allow cleanup tags, but this direct address is taking the inch and turning it into a mile
 * Generally, the larger cleanup tags do not use direct address; the usage here is a divergence from the accepted norm


 * Comments
 * Oppose direct address: I don't find the pro arguments very convincing, though they are fairly commonly raised on the talk pages of templates within the project's scope. My main concern is that, because they are inline, these messages are read by non-editor readers far more frequently than by editors, and we should not be exhorting general-public users of the encyclopedia to fix something. The purpose of these templates for the non-editor user is to warn them of a problem in the material. The editorial purpose of them is of course to spur fix-it action.  The dispassionate style does both without arm-twisting the readership. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 14:01, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Support Direct - the purpose of cleanup templates is not to be encyclopedic - it's to get the message to a reader that a line needs to be changed - and if it can "inspire" action then of course it should be direct. And we always try to have public users help with the encyclopedia - otherwise we would have non inline templates (like ) on the talk page. And most non-direct inline use jargon (like  - which if anything discourages readers from editing, which goes against the core principle: "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit". You seem to be somewhat biased against general editors as opposed to experienced, just because someone is just joining the project doesn't mean their contribution can't be helpful --  daniel  folsom  14:37, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Bias against J.Q. Public editors is not at all my thrust; it's the inverse: Direct address is unfriendly to the vast, vast majority of users with no intent to edit at all (it's not that it's "unencyclopedic", it's sort "anti-encyclopedic" from a reader's point of view); dispassionate problem annotation alerts them to an issue about the material without implying that editing-uninterested readers need to do something, and is also inspiring of action by editors (experienced and noob alike). I agree with you that some of the dispassionate ones are to wikijargonish, however. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 01:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I have a new proposal for the [Who] issue you might like -- daniel  folsom  03:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And this proposal would be...? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 22:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * haha, sorry, the one listed above- under the heading "two template proposal"-- daniel  folsom  22:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If we're going to continue using the direct style, it may make sense to use one template for confusing and have a parameter to say what the question is. I made this edit, but self-reverted on realizing that it might not be uncontroversial. —Random832 15:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Inline symbol templates
Should inline symbol templates like access icon (which produces ) be included in Category:Inline templates? – Tivedshambo (talk) 21:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd say list them in the "Similar but out-of-scope" section; while they are technically inline, they do not do anything related to the cleanup and dispute templates we're concerned with here. The scope could change over time, so it's good to know what templates of this sort exist. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 23:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I've made Category:Symbol templates (which contains icons such as access icon) a sub-category of Category:Inline templates, analagous to Category:Flag templates. – Tivedshambo (talk) 07:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal: Old fact into Update after
Old fact doesn't really serve any purpose not servable by Update after. All that needs to be done: Easy-peasy. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 18:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Settle on the language of the template (appearance in prose, and tool-tip)
 * 2) Update Update after's documentation to stop saying not to use it for dates that have already passed.


 * Actually, I think update is closer to old fact. The only difference between these two is whether the notice is a separate box or inline.  Since there are only a handful of references to old fact, I suggest we just substitute update and call it good. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Except a lot of editors strongly disagree with using large boxes like update to flag minor problems; thus the very existence of the inline templates in the first place. :-) —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 05:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm one of them. I don't see the need to flag an entire article for a three word phrase (As of XXX,...) if it appears only once in an article. I believe the inline template is needed, but merging seems best. I just think we should edit the Update after so that if the user doesn't include a date to update after, the template will just say Update needed. I don't see a need for two templates if Update after can be changed to fix this minor error. - Mtmelendez (Talk 18:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I strongly agree with the September 2007 SMcCandlish response to Rick Block and want to preserve "old fact". We need this as a small inline template that can be put right where the problem exists, not a big flag at the top of the article with no reference to a specific line or lines where the problem has occurred. I also don't like the "update after" because, where I'm using "old fact," the problem is I don't know when the fact went (or will become) stale because I don't know the date on which the fact was current.   -- LisaSmall T/ C  22:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Merging wayback templates
I've finally come here since I can't figure out what the right thing to do with these templates. Neither wayback nor waybackdate are seeing much use so merging them wouldn't be much trouble. I personally find that waybackdate has a better format and would be to be generally more useful. However, it uses site= instead of the more used url=† and if the date isn't provided it links to the list view. The other template, wayback, provides more text which makes it hard to use inside sentences but is nice for bullet points. It will always link to the most recent version and uses unnamed parameters which cause problems for URL that have equal signs in them. I would like to either deprecate one of the templates or merge them together. —Dispenser 02:22, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

† User:Ocolon provides some arguments for why it might be better. Although I'd have to disagree as I have to look for any link inside template with my bot.


 * Support merge, after fixes. Make merged version accept both url= and site= as equivalent. Go with shorter text (our general trend here with all such templates). Use "always links to most recent version" code.  Use named parameters, but support unnamed ones quietly for backward compatibility until such time as they are all replaced with a &#91;numeral&#93;=, even if a few URLs would be broken (they already are anyway; the only ones affected will be those that contain "=" and are already broken due to being used in wayback).  My opinion: Always merge, never deprecate, when at all possible, and this one is certainly easily possible. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 05:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Template:Idiom
I need an inline template which will mark patches of bad writing. This should normally simply be corrected; but there are occasions where changing the wording runs a risk of introducing error; and, in this case, on P. G. Wodehouse, an editor revert wars against all efforts at good writing, because he regards anything less clumsy than "England-born British writer" as POV. If there is another inline template which does this, please just redirect idiom appropriately. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

User sig templates
People in this project might be interested in WP:VPM, even though it's technically out-of-scope. —Random832 18:24, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Clarifyme template
Hi, I made a request at Template talk:Clarifyme, but I think that page gets little traffic. Could I encourage you to look at it please?

Could I also encourage you to look at Template talk:Clarifyme and express your opinion about this proposed change.

Thanks, Matt 03:17, 30 October 2007 (UTC).

Making article message boxes flexible
Could the people here who worked on fix have a look at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes? It is an idea to apply the following concept to message boxes: "Most inline notices use virtually identical formats. This template is designed to provide a single standardized format which can accommodate the different text, links, and categories of individual templates." Thanks. Carcharoth 11:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposal:
Inspirational page: The Torch, St. John's University. Ignoring most of the ways the page is a disaster, the newspaper has been around since 1922, but the page contains almost no info less than a year old. Do we need a template to the effect of "this page needs more focus on the entirety of the subject's existence"? - Richfife 16:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how that would be an inline template, since it seems to be a problem with the whole article rather than any particular sentence. Anomie 01:35, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Listing page?
Is there an easy reference page somewhere that groups all the inline templates together with the way in which they are rendered? Something like: might be useful (and likely prettier if presented in table form). Just curious, maybe I just haven't searched thoroughly enough to find it. - Tobogganoggin talk 00:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
 * fact =
 * or =
 * I doubt there is such a table, so we can change the current lists into tables. –Pomte 00:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki URL templates
Above is a short list of action that can be applied to a page and links to corresponding templates. The parameters name have not quite been standardized and are inconstant. Purge does not allow other pages to be purged. Watch does not allow different text. —Dispenser (talk) 01:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

clarifyme updated documentation
I updated the doc file for the clarifyme template, and I posted a message at the talk page asking for review and clarification (!) of parameters.

Second, I wish to flag up my support for Matt's suggestion both there and above in this page. Or something similar. -Wikianon (talk) 19:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Something wrong with clarifyme?
''If the clarifyme template, i.e., is used within an italicized paragraph, then that paragraph runs horizontally with no linefeed (in the Firefox browser, at least). Is there some way to fix that?'' --Farry (talk) 12:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This was a problem with fix and has been fixed. --——  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  11:38, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposing new template
I would like to flag quotes that are translated from a foreign-language source and that are difficult to understand, ungrammatical or say things that are likely to be challenged. It would look something like this:

Or, the cat parameter could be used to place pages into a new category, "articles containing possibly-mistranslated quotes." Would this be useful? Bwrs (talk) 23:18, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Reasonable, I suppose, but Fact with a comment would suffice wouldn't it? —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 22:38, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for template - 1911 Britannica Mis-scans
Non-Latin alphabet text is often mis-scanned from the 1911 Britannica. Having just fixed some examples of this in Nethinim I'm considering an inline template along the lines of User:Pseudomonas/Template:1911Mis-scan to allow people who are better able to deal with the alphabets in question to find and fix them. Pseudomonas(talk) 10:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable, but I'm not sure it's a great idea to create a new inline template for something that is, by its very nature, a limited and slowly vanishing problem. Some day, this template would no longer apply anywhere and need to be TfD'd. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 22:37, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

new inline template suggestion
I'm going to throw this out there, though I don't quite know if it should be implemented. I (personally) would find a lot of use for some basic logic tags: things like "doesn't follow", "negative reasoning", "mis-categorized", etc... these aren't actually a formal part of wikipedia policy, of course. but I think they are expected of any editor, and the tags might help specify specific problems in articles, and maybe save some talk-page squabbles. or maybe not... comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ludwigs2 (talk • contribs) 03:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Clarifyme already serves this purpose (among others). "Mis-categorized" isn't an inline template issue; that would be a page-bottom cleanup "box" template, I would think (or better yet, just fix the categorization). —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 22:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Fact template discusison needs comments
Two threads open:


 * Template_talk:Fact
 * Template_talk:Fact

Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 20:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

as a possible resolution to these discussions, I mocked up this template - at User:Ludwigs2/:cite_xt - that highlights large sections of text in a less obtrusive way. an example of how it might be used on a longish passage (grabbed the lead from the article of the day for this...). basically it marks the text needing fixing in gray (or a color of choice) and adds a tooltip. this one uses the 'vague' tag, but it will take most, if not all, of the tags derived from 'fix'.

Cygnus X-1 (abbreviated Cyg X-1) is a strong X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus.

This system may belong to a stellar association called Cygnus OB3, which would mean that Cygnus X-1 is about five million years old and formed from a progenitor star that had more than 40 solar masses. The majority of the star's mass was shed, most likely as a stellar wind. If this star had then exploded as a supernova, the resulting force would most likely have ejected the remnant from the system. Hence the star may have instead collapsed directly into a black hole.

Cygnus X-1 was the subject of a friendly scientific wager between physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne in 1974, with Professor Hawking betting that it was not a black hole. He conceded the bet in 1990 after observational data had strengthened the case for a gravitational singularity in the system.

arguably better than having a whole slew of fixit tags spread throughout the passage. could use some work, still, but I think this might be a useful addition to the array of tags we already have. -- Ludwigs 2 01:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I like the idea of being able to specify that information which needs citation, something that is lost when we use a more generalized 'unreferenced' tag for the section or article. As the text remains readable, the reader is allowed to see the entire article without what has been called the "ugly clutter" of 'cn' tags, while still noting the information needing citation, also helpful to a lot of readers. - Arcayne   (cast a spell)  02:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * after thought: it might be more user-friendly to offer this as a pair of templates (like hat and hab). easy enough to do, at any rate; it's just a question of how the annoyance of using two templates stacks up against the annoyance of finding that closing '}}' in the test.  also, since this template really just creates a   block, we can add options for other ways of marking text (highlighted background, margin bars like MSWord uses, changes in font, etc).  -- Ludwigs 2  17:27, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

general problem with Fix template and tooltips
just something I noticed that might be useful to address. HTML tooltips operate through the TITLE element - the template "vague" uses this to apply a tooltip to its text. unfortunately, the way links are expanded in wikipedia automatically adds a TITLE element to the anchor tag that shows the link in a tooltip, and there's no inheritance or CSS access to the TITLE element that would let those be unified. the net result is that the tooltip for the template only works where there's no link element (over pre- or post-text or the brackets). there are a couple of hackish fixes I can think of for this, but can anyone think of a cleaner approach? -- Ludwigs 2 07:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:Ec
Would ec come under the purview of this project? --—— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk  -  13:33, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep; added to list. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 23:16, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Superscripting of Template:Sic under debate
Whether or not to superscript [sic] is under discussion at WT:MOS. Someone unilaterally de-superscripted it, and an editrequest has been posted to undo this, since consensus was declared prematurely. Editors here may be interested in this discussion (both because it would introduce an inconsistency between this and the other editorial-comment inline templates, and because those opposed to the superscripting may be making a valid distinction that ILT would need to be aware of to prevent re-superscripting it later). Disclaimer: I do have a de facto position on the issue, namely in favor of the superscripting, since it has been that way for a long time with no objections, but I don't feel particularly strongly about it, only about the process issue of substantively altering a protected template without consensus; I'll go which ever way the general consensus goes on it. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 00:43, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for narrowed scope
Just for sanity's sake, I'd like to propose that the scope be narrowed to include nothing but inline templates that are:


 * Dispute tags
 * Cleanup tags
 * Reference citation tags (and the Cite.php system to the extent that we can have any impact on it with the developers)

to specifically exclude things that are:


 * Stuff that looks similar to inline tags, with their superscripting and stuff (such as coord and various typing-aid templates that happen to make use of superscripting (e.g. for exponents, fractions, etc.)
 * Typing-aid templates in general, that are usually not superscripted but are technically "inline" (specific-source citation templates, things like bracket and colors, etc, as well as flag icons and other inline images)

I.e., if it's not an editorial commentary of some kind, it should be outside the scope of this project, otherwise we'll have 10,000 templates to deal with, and there won't be any rhyme or reason to it.

Narrowing the scope necessarily means deleting a lot of claptrap off the project homepage. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 23:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Going once... —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 10:07, 6 September 2008 (UTC)


 * sure, why not...   -- Ludwigs 2  02:02, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

peacock
Can we get an inline template for peacock phrases? Karpouzi (talk) 14:10, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * We must have had one before - I'm actually a little surprised we don't now – lemme check around the deletion logs to make sure it hasn't been done before.-- daniel  folsom  15:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok - so it has existed before. Apparently consensus was that the template was needless, as peacock terms are easily fixable, unlike weasel words (it was compared to an inline template for spelling mistakes - which is obviously pointless because spelling mistakes can be fixed on-sight). (See the deletion discussion). Now, there were only four voices in that TFD, but I think that the points they raised are valid enough, so I would suggest against creating it, especially since, according to them, the tag was not often used anyway. But obviously I'm not the authority on this - so feel free to ask for a second opinion.-- daniel  folsom  15:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for looking it up. I'm surprised it was deleted, it really is up to the editor of the article in question as to whether or not the sentence is easily fixed and the template is useful or not. Put it this way, there was no harm in having it available. Karpouzi (talk) 19:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, 999 times out of 1000 peacock terms can be easily removed; it's not too hard to just remove the word "amazingly", and that makes them different than weasel words - which you usually have to research more.-- daniel  folsom  20:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

To whom?
I haven't followed closely the debate on the who line, but assuming they are going to stay, would it be possible to have a template reading "to whom?" or "according to whom?" as well? I thought about tagging a sentence that begins "Most remarkable is...", where who and by whom don't really make it. says who and attribution needed would have been fine if they actually read "says who?" and "attribution needed", but they don't, making those templates kind of pointless. -- Jao (talk) 09:02, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If the line " " in the definition of template who is changed to " ", editors will be able to specify a grammatically appropriate text when needed, as in " ". I just ran into an example in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe where the text has – without attribution:
 * "Prince Adam is a seemingly cowardly, blond muscleman".
 * Here "who?", "by whom?" and "attribution needed" do not work well. In contrast,
 * "Prince Adam is a seemingly cowardly,[according to whom?] blond muscleman"
 * is perfect. (See also Talk:He-Man and the Masters of the Universe). --Lambiam 10:45, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposal: inline Template:Incomplete citation
The proposal is to create an in-line template for cases like:
 * 3. ^ Seaton & Cordey-Hayes (1993). [incomplete citation] – example taken from Absorptive capacity
 * 4. ^ Chen and Liu 2004. [incomplete citation] – example taken from Brand extension

This should – just like – categorize the article as having unsourced statements. --Lambiam 09:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)


 * There is already citation broken which covers this ground (but is poorly named). I suggest we rename it improper cite - would that work?

Template:Disambiguate?
I propose that this template be made for when you come across a blue link to a disambiguation page but cannot fix the link yourself as you do not know which destination is the correct one. This would probably be most useful when acronyms which can stand for more than one thing are blue-linked. It Is Me Here  t / c 10:15, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * See template dn—or, in long form, ambiguous link. This looks like ABC&#91;disambiguation needed&#93; and automatically puts the page in Category:Articles with links needing disambiguation. 88.235.149.92 (talk) 19:37, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Ooh, thanks - I've now made it a redirect template. It Is Me Here  t / c 21:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

'Failed verification' template is broken
Template:Failed verification currently shows no text. It is a protected template, so I can't do anything to fix it. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:44, 4 February 2009 (UTC)


 * was this problem fixed? it seems to work fine on the few pages I've examined.  -- Ludwigs 2  04:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Template "issue" needs generalising
This is currently comic specific - should it be re-purposed for any  periodical? Then Comics issue for this job if needed? Rich Farmbrough, 19:26 5 February 2009 (UTC).


 * I know that's been on the to-do list for a while, but the few times I've considered tackling it I've balked. 'issue' means different things for different kinds of periodicals, and if you toss in different conditionals for different kinds of periodicals the things starts to become an unholy mess.  so far I haven't been able to get a clear idea of how to approach it.  -- Ludwigs 2  04:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

What do you do with "usless citations?"
What do you do if someone gives a citation, you check it, and you discover the cited material dosen't back up the statement at all, only giving the illusion of verifyabillity? Please place tb on my talk page when you have a response.--Ipatrol (talk) 21:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)


 * basically, you have three choices;
 * delete the citation and/or passage, with appropriate summary that it's bogus
 * rewrite the passage so that it matches the actual text of the citation (lot of work, that)
 * flag it with a fact tag for someone else to deal with (assuming that's not how you got there yourself).
 * which I'd do depends on a number of factors (how egregious the misquote is, what I know about the article, etc.). -- Ludwigs 2 04:30, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Why speak of the devil, the answers right under this section!--Ipatrol (talk) 04:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * lol - and I even responded to that. yeeEee...    -- Ludwigs 2  00:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Possibly misspelled terms
I am editing Effects of cannabis and I run across a word, cannflavin, which I suspect might be a misspelling, so I`d like to add a tag which looks like this: [misspelled?]. Now, as I make a Google search, the term appears to exist with that actual spelling. Nevertheless, I would propose this template for like situations. __meco (talk) 09:39, 5 March 2009 (UTC)


 * oh, no... if you think it's misspelled, look in a dictionary or on google and spell it correctly.  it takes precious little more time than adding a tag, and a tag is ugly and will (more than likely) sit there for months until someone else notices and does the 30 second job that you neglected to do.  I'm all for tags when there's a reason for them, but there's no real issue here that calls for others notice.  it's misspelled, or it isn't.

New template: Registration required
Hi folks,

I've created a new fix variant for flagging external links which require registration, as these are normally to be avoided. Any comments or suggestions, please let me know. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:30, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Inline templates for the names of people
I'm trying to locate templates for the inline (i.e. not infoboxes)) representation of the names of people, so that I can make them emit hCard microformats. So far, I know of Player, Soccer Player and, more generically, Sortname. Are there others? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 23:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any, but it looks like it would be easy enough to make. let me research it a bit.  -- Ludwigs 2  14:56, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there an inline alternative for Cleanup-IPA?
is overkill for articles where there's only one or two cases where International Phonetic Alphabet needs to be used. I looked in Category:Inline templates and couldn't find one that's appropriate. Anyone know of one? If so, please speak up and consider adding it to Category:Inline templates; if not, please consider creating one. Thanks in advance. 68.167.254.83 (talk) 06:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll create one, because this looks useful: give me a few minutes to figure out the best wording. -- Ludwigs 2  15:03, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * actually, have you looked at Category:IPA_templates? it would be just as easy to add the template that gives the IPA rendering than to add a template saying that someone needs to add the template.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC) scratch that, I misunderstood.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:13, 21 April 2009 (UTC)


 * need-IPA should do the trick. let me know if you want it revised.  -- Ludwigs 2  15:43, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick response. That worked for the article which prompted the request (Pulitzer Prize).  Having the language option is an added bonus.  For the  title, I'd suggest "IPA transcription needed for this word. You can help!"  Two other perhaps arbitrary suggestions: if there's no language supplied, maybe the default message should be "Need IPA" instead of "IPA?"  And since  links to Manual of Style (pronunciation) instead of linking to (Help:IPA), I'd suggest it's probably better to have them both link to the same advice, though I don't know which of the two is the better choice.  Thanks again.  68.167.254.135 (talk) (editing earlier as 68.167.254.83 (contribs)) 05:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * P.S. I'll work on the doc page and some see alsos in various places after waiting a bit to see what the final version looks like.  68.167.254.135 (talk) 05:35, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Done. I used the manual of style link (since that has a link to help IPA).  -- Ludwigs 2  13:44, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I just added need-IPA to a couple of "see also" sections of related templates. I stumbled on  during the process, and added it to Category:Inline templates while I was at it.  68.165.77.80 (talk) 21:59, 24 April 2009 (UTC).

Proposal: linkspam
Something like the following, though I couldn't find a category that applies: 

}}

Sometimes it is unclear if a link fits WP:LINKSPAM or such links may be disputed. In either case a inline tag would be helpful to identify the specific links while the issues are worked out. --Ronz (talk) 16:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Went ahead and created it: Linkspam --Ronz (talk) 22:15, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * well, honestly, I think it would be better if you just deleted links like that. adding a template will leave it sitting there until someone else notices, and that could take a while.  if someone wants to argue it's not linkspam, they can revert; no sense leaving it hanging around in the meantime.  -- Ludwigs 2  23:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the feedback. I agree.  My thoughts were for if a link is disputed, or if it's unclear. Tagging it also allows other editors to see what's under dispute.  I was thinking of using it for tagging spammed links that might be useful to keep, but no I think that might be better as it's own tag. --Ronz (talk) 00:44, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Tag to request an explanation of an external link
I came here looking for a tag and the above discussion is pretty close to what I want. My issue is not so much linkspam, but external links whose purpose I can't figure out. This is because many (perhaps most) external links on Wikipedia are dumped in unannotated, despite WP:EL saying "If you link to another website, you should give your reader a good summary of the site's contents, and the reasons why this specific website is relevant to the article in question.". If the link was annotated, it would be much easier to see if it was linkspam. And even if it's not linkspam, it should be annotated to explain why it is useful. So... is there an inline tag called "explain relevance" or similar. And if not, is it a reasonable feature to request? Peter Ballard (talk) 03:14, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

disputed-inline
Just FYI, I restored this template, which used to be a redirect to dubious. My rationale is at Template talk:dubious, if anyone would like to comment. Thanks, r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 14:58, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: importance?
I think an inline template that is the inline equivalent of Importance-section would be very useful. There are often individual sentences or small sections that need to be questioned for general relevance without tagging an entire article section. I don't know how to create templates, so if others think this is a good idea, I'd like to have somebody make this template. Peter G Werner (talk) 03:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * You could use the recently created undue-inline template, which I think serve a similar purpose as Importance-section. Laurent (talk) 14:01, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

New template: speculation-inline
I've created a new variant of speculation which can be used to flag individual instances of speculation inline. Comments and suggestions welcome. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:21, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Ending inline criticism
So you find some piece of text that says:

The Fnarglebot is a device designed to enflooglefly widgets invented by Dr Samuel Fnargle in 1932.

You read it and for some reason you feel that, well, it may seem to have the ring of truth to it (it's what every high school kid is taught in school for example), it, well, it needs some references.

Which is easier?

1. Changing the text to:

The Fnarglebot is a device designed to enflooglefly widgets invented by Dr Samuel Fnargle in 1932.

2. Changing the text to

The Fnarglebot is a device designed to enflooglefly widgets invented by Dr Samuel Fnargle in 1932.

3. Deleting the text.

The answer, of course, is (1), but (1) is unarguably the worst of the three options. If the editor is convinced the text is right, then sie's not going to delete any of it and will either leave it as is, unmolested, or will do (2). If the editor believes the text is not likely to be right, the right thing is for the editor to perform (3), which will remove text that may actually be inaccurate.

So, why do we have inline criticism templates? They actively encourage bad practice, and make articles look ridiculous and unprofessional.

IF we are going to have inline criticisms, is it not time that they're hidden by default, with a button appearing on each page that will "unhide" them for those who are actually interested in seeing ways that the article can be improved? --66.149.58.8 (talk) 14:18, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Wikipedia is a work in progress, and the reader needs to be reminded of that as often as possible. No one should be fooled into thinking that Wikipedia has more authority than it does. Wikipedia's authority derives only from the authority of its sources. When sources are missing, the reader needs to be reminded as obtrusively as possible not to trust what he's reading. The citations will be fixed, eventually. CharlesGillingham (talk) 23:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)