Template:ACE Question/doc

This template is used to lay out questions and answers for Arbitration Committee Elections candidate questions pages (e.g. "Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates/CandidateUserNameHere/Questions")

Usage

One instance of the template is used for each Q&A (usually a maximum of two): If more than one, they must be back-to-back, without a blank line between them, or incorrect numbering will result:

#{{ACE Question
 |Q=What is your name?
 |A=
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=What is your quest?
 |A=
}}

The candidate, when responding, adds their answer in the |A= parameter.

Parameters

• |Q= – Mandatory, and with content in it. This is where to write your question for the candidate.
• |A= – Mandatory, and blank when the template is inserted by the question-asker. This is where the candidate will write their answer to your question.
• |Sub= – Optional. This is for asking sub-questions, to respond to previous answers. Possible values are |Sub=2 or |Sub=3

When |Sub= is used, the results look like the following:

#{{ACE Question
 |Q=A first question.
 |A=An answer.
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=Another question, in response to the first answer.
 |A=A response, elaborating further.
 |Sub=2
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=Another question, in response to the elaboration.
 |A=Another response.
 |Sub=3
}}

2. A first question.

   An answer.

3. Another question, in response to the first answer.

   A response, elaborating further.

4. Another question, in response to the elaboration.

   Another response.

Troubleshooting

Because this uses a bunch of nested wikicode for list layout, it is fairly easy to break, e.g. by including wikimarkup-coded tables in a question or answer, etc. One example might be attempting to use {{Collapse}} (a table-based template) in an answer, which will just fail dramatically. The variant {{Collapse/HTML}} exists, which should work better.

However, something like that can still mess up the list code, for subsequent Q&As:

Mis-numbering:

If you find that the second (and any subsequent) questions are not numbered properly, try the variant template {{ACE Question/HTML}}, which uses raw-HTML ordered-list markup instead of wikicode ordered-list markup. It defaults to list item no. 2, since that's going to be the most common case needed. However, you can customize the numbered with |start=. To get the display to work properly, you will need to remove the leading # from {{ACE Question/HTML}} instances. This is most often needed when the previous question or answer to it contained complex markup, or when someone added a "Thanks for your detailed reply" sort of comment between the questions.

#{{ACE Question 
 |Q=What is your name?
 |A=Arthur, King of the Britons.  I have also used these usernames: [table or list inserted here]
}} <!-- Markup in that answer broke auto-numbering, so switched to "ACE Questions/HTML": -->
{{ACE Question/HTML
 |Q=What is your quest?
 |A=I seek the Holy Grail.
}}
{{ACE Question/HTML |start=3
 |Q=What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
 |A=...
}}

If it still doesn't work properly, try inserting a </ol> immediately after the }} that closes the previous Q&A template.

Mis-indentation:

If you find that the second or later Q&A is indenting too far for some reason, this probably means that some markup in the first Q or A content confused the parsing of the list code. Try inserting a </ol> immediately after the }} that closes the first Q&A template (or the second one if there are three Q&As and only the third is indenting too far.

Mis-listing:

If you are a trying to use a list inside your question or answer, and it's messing up the whole Q&A appearance, try replacing your embedded list wikimarkup with raw HTML equivalents: <ul><li>...</li><li>...</li></ul> for an unordered (bulleted) list; or <ol><li>...</li><li>...</li></ol> for an ordered (numbered) list.