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Template:Prettytable[edit]

Delete: The template was nominated for deletion (at least) once before. The situation has changed since: The template can now be substituted by class="wikitable". This class has been added to common.css and generates (almost) the same look as [[Template:Prettytable|{{prettytable}}]] did before it was changed to merely include this very class. This also applies to several other templates that are based upon this one:

— Christoph Päper 11:05, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Keep Besides being used on lots and lots of pages, I believe this template is one of the default ones included with the wiki software which means that users who cut their teeth on wiki editting elsewhere will be expecting to make use of this template. I have no objection to having people making efforts to subst this on the templates and pages that currently use it, but deletion will make wiki editting less friendly to the casual editor. Caerwine 13:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Um, how would those “default templates” work? Anyhow, I cannot see Prettytable being one of them. Christoph Päper 19:08, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • All I know is that I use several other minor wiki's besides Wikipedia and on all them, I've found {{prettytable}} available for use. I find it highly unlikely that someone has independently created the template on each wiki, so I presume that it was included with the software. At the very least, this template is going to need a long period of deprecation before being eventually removed. Caerwine 20:18, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, too well known, easy to remember and widely used. Dragons flight 14:03, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • P.S. Let me add that if you do delete this, you are going to have a lot of mysteriously confused users. Think about it, it appear inside the <table> specifier in the rendered page image, so one is going to get the redlink stuffed inside the table tag, i.e.<table Template:prettytable> which won't even show the redlink to users. This means that if you break this thing that everyone has been trained to use, then when people try to use it they won't even have any obvious way of knowing the template has been deleted. Dragons flight 14:17, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably delete. It's not really hurting anything, unless you're paranoid about meta-templates, but it's been intentionally obsoleted by the new class. Yeah, typing {{prettytable}} is a little easier to remember than class="wikitable", but after we've subst'ed them all, it will be easy for people to learn. You are free to suggest other class names, too. Originally was called class="prettytable". Obviously the ideal is to use templates for everything, but until someone writes better template caching, it's (apparently) a strain on the servers. — Omegatron 14:04, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Widely used (though mostly as subst:). Its presence doesn't hurt anything. We should just note that it is deprecated on the talk page. We should only delete it after it hasn't been used for a while, not while it's being actively used. Nohat
  • Keep. This is used on a TON of pages. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 00:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (obviously). Dunc|☺ 13:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep - I use it all the time and will probably go on doing so. Class="prettytable" makes less sense to non-HTMLers --Celestianpower hab 20:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment How about adding a message like "<noinclude>'''Depreciated, please subst: or use class="wikitable" instead'''</noinclude>" right on the template page (and on the talkpage (minus the noinclude tags)) at least. Then we can revist this some months down the road once people have hopefully started using the alternative. --Sherool 00:50, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep people must be able to edit Wikipedia without knowing HTML.  Grue  19:47, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Grue. Septentrionalis 19:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:LedZeppelin[edit]

Since I had two versions (the second of which should have been left alone under normal Wikipedia guidelines since it was smaller and nonredundant) of a Mike Watt template deleted, then let's see if there's any double standards in Wikipedia or not. With that in mind, I say... Keep It doesn't matter whether it looks ugly or distracting. A little more info on how the person looks can only be a helpful source. Not having the templates would be atrocious Delete. This template is certainly oversized and redundant, since the great majority of the links are in the article itself. Cjmarsicano 06:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Biography[edit]

  • KEEP -These boxes are not only nice and useful, but more often than not, they will lead the user -especially youngsters- into an unsuspected surf of facts. A sort of serendipity in the sea of Wikipedia I may say. People who don't like it, might as well just skip it! after all, what is a fraction of a second in the www?? it is a "MUST KEEP" User:SamsarinAgni Ahimsa User does not exist, vote posted by 24.9.42.149 (talk · contribs). Titoxd 00:26, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I am primarily a user, and only infrequently a contributor, but I find these infoboxes very useful. More often than not, I look up biographical articles in Wikipedia in order to find or check som singular fact about a person, rather than to read an entire biography. Deletion would surely reduce the accesibility of such articles. user:Daget User's only edit. Titoxd 01:01, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The bio box is very useful and gives you a quick bio glimpse of the individual, i.e. birth date, death date, etc. It is very functional. Please do not delete it. September 27 User:speedoflight
  • Keep - They're useful and succinct, stop being shallow and complaining about the 'ugliness'.
  • Delete - This template is a constant source of dispute between Wikipedians. Its inclusion/exclusion on individual biography pages has been argued over several pages including Talk:John Vanbrugh, Talk:Charles Darwin, Talk:Mark Twain, Talk:Douglas Adams and probably a number of others. Over the last year or so at least 8 editors including me have commented on the talk page that they don't like it. I don't think it adds anything useful to most articles, and makes some look positively ugly. Jooler 22:23, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nom. The facts in fhis info box are better in article prose, IMO. DES (talk) 22:34, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete its only function is to make Wikipedia look more like Boy's Life or HiLites magazines. "If you can't read the birth and death dates, here is a box to tell you what they are." Further, the "infobox" idea (inasmuch as there is an idea behind infoboxes) is that they present either "interesting side lights" or "the most important 'bite' of information." Following that logic would say that all you really need to know about a biography is when the subject was born and died. Heaven help us if that's what people get out of history. Geogre 23:37, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Personally I think it's a pointless eyesore. Ugliness may be in the eye of the beholder, but surely everybody will agree it's causing ugly edit wars—look at this. --Bishonen | talk 23:54, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think the fact that it 'causes' edit wars is reason to delete. One could apply that logic to any edit war or conflict and say "we should just decide this unilaterally my way, because we have argued about it too much." -Kwh 21:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Useless. Rivarez 00:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Geogre's reasoning. Some infoboxes are useful: countries and elements, for example, have a certain common set of vital facts that are probably better presented in a table than in prose. Biographies don't: birth and death dates work just as well in the first sentence, and the locations for each can be dealt with in the relevant prose; they're not the most important facts about the subject. Get rid of this. —Charles P. (Mirv) 00:17, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteUgly. Detracts from the lead. Adds no new information. Giano | talk 06:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I don't really see what's ugly about this, and it seems to reside usefully on many pages without dispute. It's nice to create a consistent style in which key quick facts are presented in a central place. Generally, no compelling reason to delete. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • N.b. there is a consistent place already: the lead. I'm not being sarcastic: it is biographical style to give dates right after the name. Why bust up the text to have a box to reiterate what's there in words 3 and 4? Geogre 10:15, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm aware of that standard, but at worst, placing the dates in the infobox as well can only help the reader. The infobox also features place of birth and death, which most WP biographies don't include in the lead, so not all the information is redundant in that sense. But more importantly, the "consistent place" at issue here applies not just to biographies but to all articles. The expansion of infoboxes means that it's fairly typical here for key facts and statistics to be presented in a condensed list format in the upper right of the screen. I don't see why we shouldn't have that for people articles as well; indeed for some types of people we do have uncontroversial infoboxes. Perhaps we can take a hint from those and add some more useful fields; one that comes to mind look at the President infobox is a spouse field. The arguments that this infobox is harmful seem weak to me, and I think it is helpful now and will become more helpful over time, so it seems worth keeping. Then again, I don't believe it "busts up the text"; as far as I see it sits harmlessly in the corner, and certainly disrupts the text less than the standard style, which places (sometimes substantial) parentheticals two or three words into the first sentence. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Such would be the argument for redundancy. "It can only help" to repeat and repeat and repeat, too -- to repeat with pictures, with colors, with blinking text, etc. The words are there. They're quire unambiguous. The misinfobox just breaks up the flow of the article, dislodges the hard work of editors who have found portraits and have those beside the lead, etc. The makers of infoboxes should not have the anti-democratic gall to try to dictate to scholars how biographies must look because they happen to have an idle moment and draw up a box with reiterative information. Geogre 13:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • If the creators of the infobox shouldn't dictate to scholars how biographies should look, why should you? Why can't the editors of the article choose whether or not to use this template? Christopher Parham (talk) 04:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • It's called redundancy, and it's not good. When the lead has the birth and death dates and place, if known, then the box is just a violation of the space of the article to say what is said just beside it. That amounts to redundancy, not digestion or highlighting. "Duplicate material" is a violation of the deletion policy in articles. It should be in the case of templates, too. If there is no gain by the visual information of the big box, then there is no value. In this case, it's just a big way to destroy the pictures and other forms of illustration to put in, instead, an entirely redundant box. Geogre 12:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • In considering this, I looked through the first fifteen articles on what links here for the template. Zero of them included all this information in the lead (though three did not have a traditional lead seciton). It's thus a stretch to say that this template replicates information that appears right beside it. In 6 of the articles, the template included information that was found nowhere at all in the text (Ayn Rand, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Douglas Adams, Dave Brubeck, Erwin Rommel, Friedrich Nietzsche). "Entirely redundant" is thus a mischaracterization. This also suggests that if the template is deleted, it will have to be very carefully removed from each article on which it appears to ensure no loss of information. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • Did it ever occur to you that someone might be bold enough to just move the info from the infoboxes to the text? Holy crap, what a poor argument! Peter Isotalo 06:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
                • Did it also occur to Christopher Parham that someone might have removed the information when they installed the infobox, as was done here?
                • I only checked Ayn Rand, but all the information in the text box was indeed in the article... Although her place of death was near the bottom. Perhaps this was because her place of death was uninteresting enough that it only deserved mention in context and not at the top? --Gmaxwell 03:37, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • IMO we are way overdoing the use of infoboxes, adn i thgink many of them tend to overly make arricl;es into cookie-cutter replicas. This one is IMO a particularly egrigious example. DES (talk) 15:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This is used on some ~400 pages so there does seem to be a considerable population of editors who like/accept it. Also, I am inclined to think that general decisions for how biographies are presented are better decided by improving Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies), than trying to confront the specific widget that people have been using. Dragons flight 08:56, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Be aware that the box's proponents (creator and editors, I assume) have been industrious in going around to insert it into every article they can find. The fact that 300 articles (generated by a 1911 dump, e.g.) have editors who aren't kicking the box out doesn't mean that there is a reason to keep it. Also, to use your own logic, it would be better to reform the style than to circumvent that by inserting a box to accomplish the same thing. It's the box that is attempting to make all biographies reduce to birth and death. It's less than useless, a typographical monstrosity, and is, on its best day, redundant. If someone thinks that all biographies should state the subject's love of sneakers vs. hard soled shoes, that someone should have to slog it out on the style pages, not create a silly infobox, insert it into every article conceivable, and then have people defend it here; it's the infobox that is attempting a content and style change without discussion. Geogre 10:15, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep because people use it.  Grue  09:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Since this template is in active use on just under 400 articles at present, I believe its clear that this infobox has become a clear standard. This infobox not only serves a stylistic purpose (it looks really sharp on printed versions kids may use in school), but can and should be used later as a method of gathering metadata on our biographical articles, much like what the German Wikipedia had the foresight to put into place (description in English). -- Netoholic @ 08:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The fact that people use it is not a sufficient reason for keeping it, just as ugliness is not for deleting. The only real question is, doe it add value? As per Geogre, Bishonen and others above, I cannot honestly see that it does. In fact it may well do the opposite by inviting the casual reader to imagine that by reading the infobox they have read all the facts worth knowing in the biography. Filiocht | The kettle's on 10:24, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Filiocht and others. Ambi 14:21, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Absolutely. -- Vít Zvánovec 15:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, birth/death dates may fit nicely into prose in the lead sentence, but places don't. Kappa 15:21, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: this serves several useful purposes. Firstly it serves to provide a standard format for displaying useful information which will apply to all subjects of biographical articles (no more "how am I supposed to include this info in the lede?"). Second, it provides space for a more meaningful introduction to an article: information on when and where someone was born or died is usually less valuable than what they did in between (no more "how do I spatchcock this info into the lede?"). Thirdly, it does actually make the biography articles look more uniform and professional, which is something we ought to consider for those who have to read the damn things. Furthermore, the fact that various editors are unable to restrain themselves from conducting edit wars over such trivia might well say a lot more about them than about this template. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 15:54, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment Take a look at Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford - this is possibly the worst example of over-use of templated infoboxes I have ever seen. 17:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Now that is really horrible. Who could possible think that improves an article? Perhaps (and just perhaps) on some scientific and mathematical pages these "facts thrust in your face" templates are useful, but on biographies and pages concerning literature and the arts, they are just a distraction that are of no use whatsoever. Giano | talk 17:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't see how using this template is any different from other infoboxes with much more information such as {{Infobox Company}}, {{taxobox}} or any of a number of others. It helps present biographical information common to all people in one standard format. slambo 18:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the dates and places of a person's birth and death are basically never the most important information about a person, so shouldn't be highlighted like this. Putting the person's name there is unnecessary too - it's in big letters at the top of the page, where it belongs! CDC (talk) 18:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This template provides no new information to the reader. It merely repeats information already present in the article. That information is not even the most important, it's merely the most amenable to being mechanically put in a box. By using a frame and a standard caption, authors have complete flexibility. With this infobox they're stuck in a Playskool straitjacket. I also deplore the way this template is being forced on articles as if it is mandatory that it be used. PRiis 19:27, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Although I don't really like this template, it is used on a large number of articles (see [1]). The decision on whether to use, or not use, the Infobox Biography template is NOT something that should be decided by a TFD vote, but should, instead, be done through a proper survey of the consensus opinion of Wikipedia editors (Wikipedia:Infobox Biography template survey?). BlankVerse ∅ 21:05, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per BlankVerse. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 00:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - unnecessary duplication of information. The fact that it's used on 400 articles shows that some users favour it, but 400 uses out of however many biographical articles exist, seems to be very small percentage. I agree with User:PRiis that the infobox has far less flexibility than a simple image caption box. It's standardised format often prevents the use of the most appropriate image or more importantly, the most appropriate caption. Rossrs 01:31, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep You guys have nothing better to do? How about offer a better template. Please do not delete this one... again, Wikipedians never cease to amaze me.. FranksValli 04:29, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Enhance This infobox would be quite useful if general biographical information other than birth/death dates were available in it. Plus, it provides a nice neat and consistent way to display a picture of the person in question. -- Tyler 07:53, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I've also watched idly as this gained some ground, but I never really supported it. The factoids from these can and should be integrated into article text, and they mean very little as such. The quotation thingy is mildly amusing, but irrelevant. --Joy [shallot] 22:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also need to comment on the number 400 - that's simply peanuts. When we started demolishing the people stubs category, it included almost 16,000 articles. Even if we round it very generously, this template is probably used on less than one percent of the articles it's meant to be relevant for, so wide acceptance really cannot be a criterion for keeping it. --Joy [shallot] 22:51, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment - it looks like despite the fact the majority of people dislike and even detest this box the number of people voting keep here means that it is not going to get deleted. That can't be right can it. Really we should have voted on its inclusion in the first place. Jooler 23:04, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If people want to use it in a bio, let them. Shanes 00:30, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for the reasons stated by Phil, Christopher Parham, Slambo, et al. Wikipedia mentality must advance more beyond a paper analog than just hyperlinks. The goal is to convey information in an understandable manner. Infoboxes (which many of those who oppose this one seem to oppose in general) are a professional way to abstract information buried within the article and to summarize and standardize the presentation of FAQ about that person. Substitute geography for biography and see if the purge argument makes sense: One can describe the location of Winfield, Illinois in words (it is at the Very Center of the Universe) but a map (so one can see it in relation to our eastern suburb, Chicago) helps quick understanding. Yes the GPS coordinates are somewhere in the text, but a map would give it quickly and concisely. So does a biographical infobox. I use the Wikipedia many times just to get a quick birthdate or deathdate. The dates should be in the lead, but sometimes are not. An infobox gives a form-to-fill-in that will help make articles comprehensive. I think this type of infobox should not only be kept, but enhanced to include burial places, spouses, etc. Will those who want to purge this infobox next want to remove the tables of descendants that appear near the bottom of many bio articles? By adding the biobox as a standard, instead of trying to purge it via this TfD process, we can take care of those editors who use their prejudices for sola logis to vandalize(!) articles containing a biobox. The template itself can be protected against them. Please don't dumb-down bios by removing helpful aids. --StanZegel 05:33, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
All right, this is just irking me too much to avoid responding... you say that it abstracts information buried within the article - no, it does not, because dates and places of birth are noted at the top and at the end of biographies, and quotations are in the quotes subsection whose placement is obvious from the table of contents. This is not buried, unless someone actually can't read. WordNet defines an abstract as a "sketchy summary of of the main points of an argument or theory". Surely someone's date and place of birth and death are not their main points?! You also said that it's the presentation of FAQ about that person - how are the dates and places of birth and death, let alone quotations, so frequently asked questions about people? Do semi-random places and dates really matter that much to a lot of people that they just absolutely need to have it all in one place and avoid reading the actual article? "I've no idea who John Doe is, but I must know where and when he was born in a gray box next to that silly biography of his!!" --Joy [shallot] 19:17, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Biographical infoboxes that contain images of paintings and photographs contain helpful information on the paintings and photographs themselves. Infoboxes make use of the diversity of web format as opposed to text only. There is a need for more diversity in presenting information not less. drboisclair 14:28, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, cool, I get to copy&paste a sentence I already used here. One does not need a separate template in order to include a right-aligned picture of a person in a biography. Read Wikipedia:Images for help on doing that. --Joy [shallot] 17:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep- it contains information that cannot be obtained at a "glance" otherwise, especially in large articles such as Mahatma Gandhi. The danger of it being deleted is that some of the articles (most probably stubs) may not have that info elsewhere. Again, as I understand it, the infobox is not a standard requirement. So, if some people do feel that the infobox is redundant in a particular article let them thrash it out on that article's talkpage. People entering edit wars on the info box issue in some articles should not be reason enough for template deletion. And people would enter edit wars only if they feel strongly about something - this does not apply to the infobox on lots of articles. ---Gurubrahma 05:53, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Ugly and unnecessary for biographies, and will likely continue to be the object of edit wars. Uppland 06:24, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, Improve, and Make Standard- About 380 articles show that it does have value. If it's ugly, make it pretty. The info given is very useful in immediately informing the reader of the subject's era and geographical location, which can aid the reader's understanding in reading by thinking about contemporary people and events. I think this sort of "contextual prompting" is something WP ought to do more of, not less. And let me say that I'm a little dumbfounded by the amount of rancor being exuded in some of these Delete votes ("make[s] Wikipedia look more like Boy's Life or HiLites magazines", "stuck in a Playskool straitjacket", "less than useless, a typographical monstrosity", "A bandwidth hogger"). I think it's a laudable thing if Wikipedia were to make itself readable and usable to the "Boy's Life" or even the "Playskool" set, even if these elitists don't agree. -Kwh 06:54, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, its not ugly, it looks good and summarises everything clearly. - Aaron Hill 12:49, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Vaoverland 12:56, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The result of deletion will be that biographies will use normal tools to put an image up rather than a template, and so will be encouraged to shape the article, images and so on to fit the needs of the subject rather than shoehorning it all into potentially irrelevant templates. — ciphergoth 16:07, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It's a useful tool and makes for some consistency on biography pages (a better solution than having editors create their own version on a page-by-page basis. I wouldn't object to seeing some sort of enhancement (color, additional ainfo...).--Lordkinbote 17:18, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. What has it ever done to anyone? Why not have a portrait with a biography? Isn't that standard? Portraits HELP, especially in the case of multiple people with similar names, so readers know which person's file they're viewing. Plus, portraits give us glimpses of someone's personality. MERR 14:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think it generally looks a lot better than a simple thumbnail, and it's an easy reference for birth/death information. Sarge Baldy 19:23, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This should be used or not used on an article-by-article basis. Consensus not to use it will be demonstrated by its not being used. In the meantime, Wikipedia is inconsistent. Septentrionalis 19:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Unneeded, pretty much pointless. Private Butcher 19:57, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Biographies do not need infoboxes. All info in them can be summarized in the article (all of it does not have to go in the first paragraph of the lead). / Peter Isotalo 20:27, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Absolutely useless, all the information is located in template is usually found within the intro paragraph. Articles without template looks alot nicer and is the perfect example of overuse of templates. MechBrowman 20:46, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, it is in used in may pages but could be improved. Andreww 21:16, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete pretty ugly and doesn't and it doesn't add useful information -- the date of birth and death of someone are not often the most important facts, imo, and they're always contained in the article anyway chowells 21:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep. Improve as necessary, but no reason for deletion. --Irpen 02:37, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. If you look up a name in a paper encyclopedia, what's listed first? The person's name, dates of birth & death, quick description of why he's important, and a picture. A two-second source of this info can't hurt. --zenohockey 03:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • CommentThat information is found is almost always found in the first scentence of all articles, which is why the template is useless, what people say this template is useful for is already there. MechBrowman 00:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Adds nothing but redundant clutter. Nuke this eyesore. Fawcett5 03:47, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Anyone else notice that the people who are voting "delete" are the people who write biographies, and the people who are voting "keep" are, largely (not universally), not? Imagine taking a month to make a FA of a biography, worrying over every element of the look and readability of the thing, making sure information is presented logically and clearly, getting it voted an FA, and then having someone add his kazoo part to the symphony so he can "improve" the article with a box that dislodges the photos, oversizes the text, reduces the whole to "two second information" and rips up the format of the whole article. When the "keep" voters make some carefully constructed articles, I hope they are just as glib when their own edit-warrior comes along to shove in an infobox that destroys all they've done. Geogre 14:46, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is an ad hominem argument because it focuses on the people adding the infobox and not on the infobox itself. I find the argument counter-productive. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is not true in all cases. I voted keep and I have written or started many biography articles, one of which, Franklin B. Gowen is a current Featured Article (and yes, it does use this template). slambo 14:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • If your point is that editors should dictate the content of the articles they write, I wholly agree, which is why I oppose your destructive actions in this case. You transparently don't care what the editors of biographies want; the edit-warriors you decry want it in every biography, and you want it in no biographies. Apparently none of you are prepared to let the editors of biography articles make their own choices. I'd ask voters to imagine an alternate situation in which a user creates a biography, gets it voted an FA, and then has someone delete a major part of the article's presentation. Hopefully, as I would, you would sympathize with the editors in both cases. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:15, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, my delete vote was justified on the grounds that the box is redundant and that it is not functional (does not fulfill the mission of the infobox). However, I notice that this moronic template has generated more votes than anything else on TFD. Why? Have the troops been rallied? Why? Look at the number of "keep: name" votes. Look at the numbers of people who appear to have been bused in from VfD. I know why so many delete voters have shown up: there are a lot of folks ticked off at the edit wars generated by this one particular box and its particular supporters, who have been willing to get blocked repeatedly to fight for shoving this into every article (and thereby generate that "in use in 300 articles" number). Why, though, are people who don't write careful biographies (or much of anything, so far as I can tell) suddenly here? Why are they suddenly impassioned that these edit wars continue? It was just a comment and an observation. If those folks ever do decide to write a long, careful article, I hope that they find their very own Netoholic to shove a massive template on them over and over again. Geogre 11:21, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • No conspiracy with me - I have a couple bio pages on watch. One day I went to the page and it clearly says at the top of the template box "The template below has been proposed for deletion" and it includes a link here. Also, I'm amazed by the elitism here on Wikipedia. If there are so many numbskulls like me who actually like the use of the template, then why not keep it? The point of Wikipedia is to make all this information accessible to EVERYONE in terms they can understand. This is supposed to be a majority vote, not just votes from users who've written featured articles (and presumably are the only ones who really know how to write articles). FranksValli 15:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I think these boxes are pretty useless. In the case of bios, probably the least interesting parts to me are the birth and death dates, so why enshrine them in a special box? Hal Jespersen 19:17, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, many people clearly prefer it. Mac Domhnaill 22:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. And many people don't, so that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that they're redundant (therefore useless), a form of dumbing-down, and ugly. --Calton | Talk 00:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, so in other words anyone who hasn't started something that has become a featured article doesn't know what the heck it is they're talking about? :P. FranksValli 15:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'd be at least one keep voter who has written a biography that has become a featured article (Franklin B. Gowen). slambo 15:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it should be clearly pointed out, one of the reasons this template finds itself here, is because at least two users were trying to force it indiscriminately on all pages. Regardless of comments and consensus on talk pages. These same users if reverted then created edit wars. Resulting in one FA biography being protected twice. There is undeniably a large percentage of editors who detest this template, what can be done to prevent this being forced on all pages, and a recurrence of edit wars Giano | talk 11:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Giano is obliquely referring to me. He was also issed off because I added his article to FARC, and is one of the main reasons I've gone off the air due to his constant assertions that I tried to "force" the template on the pages (I reverted the article several times, but then again I also added a note to the talk page and I never saw him respond on that talk page). - Ta bu shi da yu 12:58, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It might be a good idea to edit it a bit, but that applies to most of Wikipedia, and no-one's proposing we delete everything else :) - SoM 12:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: very useful for looking at birthdates and places of death and birth at a glance (these aren't always in the lead, and nor should they always be). Wish to make a comment to something I saw above, that some people are very industrious in adding the infobox (a shot at myself? who knows, I'll assume good faith on this one and assume it's not) - yes, I for one have been because I found it very useful. Why is it so bad that we add it to the article? They way this was written was if the people adding it were POV pushers or vandals... I hope that is not what was meant, but it seemed somewhat like it. I might note that the aggressive way certain editors attacked me over adding the infobox (and took it so damn personally that I added an article to FARC!) is one of the reasons I'm off the air most of the time. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:58, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: and consider come enhancements PASSIVE (Talk|E-Mail) 17:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Ugly ugly and it only appears to be used on articles no one is paying attention to, where it is added by a small set of people, elsewhere it is removed. --Gmaxwell 22:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: People use it. Why delete stuff that people use? If you think it's ugly, improve it. --Ryan Delaney talk 23:21, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unlike species, atoms, or even publically traded companies there are not many interesting facts which are common to most people. As a result the infobox is necessarily sparse to the point of useless, which makes it ugly. The best way to de-ugly it is to replace it with nothiningness. You claim that people use it, but as far as I can tell the only use for it is for a handful of editors to go around putting their finger-print on a large number of articles without actually contributing anything useful to them. In articles with active editors it seems to always be quickly removed. --Gmaxwell 01:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have since found some places where it is actually used, which shocks me because it's like a big clunky duplo block in our beautiful lego forest... I assume that such use was caused by a mistaken belief the use of this box was prefered. Yuck, in any case I was wrong on that point. --Gmaxwell 01:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Never understood the use for it. --Golbez 00:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep.--Kross 00:59, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. We already have infoboxes for pretty much everything else (and the information on those infoboxes should be found within the respective articles), why can't we have one for this too? It's meant to be a summary of information, useful to those who just skim articles instead of reading them in depth. If you think it's broken, {{sofixit}}. Titoxd 01:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Because the places where we currently have info boxes are on subjects where we consistently have more than two fields of useful information available. For biographys there simply isn't enough short facts that are both interesting and common to most people we write about. --Gmaxwell 01:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Two things: first, the infobox helps to maintain visual congruence in Wikipedia. I actually expect to see infoboxes in most articles nowadays. Second, I insist, {{sofixit}}. There's several things you can write in an infobox, for example, why they're notable (in one sentence... taking Albert Einstein as an example: Famous for creating theory of relativity), the name of their spouses (if known), and others... there's others with more imagination than I do. Titoxd 02:07, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
An infobox isn't a place to put large amounts of text, and for many people it is not possible to say why they are famous in a single phrase. Even in your example, it would be a huge disservice to the Albert Einstein article to claim that that alone is the most important reason that he is famous. Although, you're right there are more stats, but I didn't think people thought they were useful for biographies. I'll add them. --Gmaxwell 03:45, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've merged in a number of other stats from another biographical infobox. This is more in line with the intention of infoboxes. ... now it'll just be work to fill in the missing data. --Gmaxwell 04:01, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Changes shouldn't be made while this template is the subject of a Tfd, especially when the additions alter nearly 400 articles; is penis/breast size really pertinent to a bio?--Lordkinbote 04:22, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guess not, I was just reverted. So now it appears that the fact that it's been inserted on 400ish articles is not only an excuse to keep it, but one to prevent it from being improved as well. --Gmaxwell 04:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I guess my other objection (besides the penis/breast thing) concerns all of the other data that is likely not available for folks who passed on long ago; the few bios I've done have been for individuals who died a century or more ago, where it's nearly impossible to fill in those blanks properly. I am a "Keep" vote but will change to "Delete" or remove the template from my articles with these changes. Maybe we should have a "contemporary" template that incorporates your additional data.--Lordkinbote 04:35, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I hope that at least, though, this does put to rest the idea that its use should be mandatory, and stops the practice of people simply parachuting in, imposing the infobox, and then being belligerent about keeping it there. PRiis 02:08, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I think this is too broad to be useful. I can see infoboxes for specialized subsets of bios: US presidents, pro athletes, etc. -- but this is too broad to be useful. (Also, I think it looks awful; while that could I suppose be fixed, my preference is not to have it at all: I don't believe it adds anything useful to the page.) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 03:48, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I see this as extreme dumbing down of biographies. Infoboxes should be for information that is not presented in the text, not for duplicating information already in the text. (NB my main interest in biographical articles is that I wrote the featured article on Lord Dufferin with great help from User:Fawcett5 who also voted above to delete this template). Worldtraveller 13:39, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mentioning Lord Dufferin was not intended as an invitation for zealous infobox fans to add one to his page as well. Even if there is no consensus to delete this template by the end of this discussion, that absolutely does not mean that it should be added to as many articles as its proponents can find. Clear consensus at Dufferin is that it shouldn't be used. Worldtraveller 09:12, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Mackensen (talk) 19:43, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for all the reasons already stated. older≠wiser 01:18, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep - I happen to think it looks nice on the pages, and presents basic facts in a much more attractive manner than regular text. --Cholmes75 04:06, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I might agree if it managed to display a useful number of the basic facts, but it doesn't: It captures birth and death dates (and looks kinda morbid on living people) and no more. The problem is that the basic facts which are interesting differ from person to person. Sometimes it is possible to make a field specific biography infobox, for example we have some for porn stars and some for baseball players... but a generic one is necessarily of little value.--Gmaxwell 15:14, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Practically useless. Unnecessary duplication of information. Jensboot 10:56, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - It's nice and functional, no need to delete it.
  • This is a no consensus, clearly, although there is much in the debate that editors and users of this template would do well to read. After discounting people in the usual way, although I think most edits here are good-faith owing to the high visibility of the template, my numbers are 42k, 36d but that is much less important than reading through the discussion. -Splashtalk 16:24, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Notable Wikipedian[edit]

Violates avoid self-reference both by creating an internal link and in mentioning they're wikipedians at all. There are a few wikipedians that should have a link to their user page in their article's external links section (Jimbo springs to mind), but for most people who've edited wikipedia it just isn't that notable a thing about them and shouldn't be in the article at all (like User:Eric S. Raymond). --fvw* 06:37, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NB
This template has now been moved to the appropriate talk pages and converted to standard format. Further voting should therefore take this into account. —Phil | Talk 09:19, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Template:Public universities in Ohio[edit]

September 27 [edit]

Template: Public universities in Ohio

Delete: Redundant; a similar category already exists. Additionally, there aren't enough schools to justify the use of a somewhat large, somewhat unattractive template. Soltak | Talk 22:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC) 

   * Keep. Harmless template. --tomf688{talk} 02:18, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
   * Delete. Very similar to Template: Virginia Higher Education, which has a pretty strong delete consensus in the Sep 24 TFD. The idea is that templates like this take up a lot of space for very little benefit. This kind of thing is much better accomplished with categories. -- Tyler 05:52, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep. State of Michigan has the same template... Template:Public universities in Michigan would be a double standard not to put it for Ohio as well. --jason.isaacs 13:18, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

   I would say delete that one too, and any others like it. What function do they serve that caetgories don't? -- Tyler 18:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
   I'd have to agree with Tyler that the Michigan template should also be deleted, not used to defend the presence of a needless template. Your argument seems to be that because we already have one unnecessary thing, we might as well have several. Soltak | Talk 18:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

       One can navigate intuitively with the much smaller {{otherarticles}}. Delete. Septentrionalis 04:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

   * Delete and use the category. --Andy Janata 19:50, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep Rkevins82 - TALK 22:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep. Navigational templates, lists, and categories serve similar but distinct purposes. -- SwissCelt 04:27, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

   Templates that duplicate a category are only useful if they provide some form of organization that the category doesn't, such as chronological order or showing relationships between entries. This template does neither. It's an alphabetical listing just like a category, so what is its distinct purpose? -- Tyler 16:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

   * Delete template inappropriate for universities not unfied under a single institution. the category will suffice --Jiang 06:14, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
   * Delete, for the reasons given by Jiang. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
   * The unifying item is that they are all funded and supported by the State of Ohio as universities working for the common good. The template makes things more AESTHETIC! --jason.isaacs 14:148, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep, seems harmless to me as well.Hektor 20:43, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep. Useful and harmless. We can have templates and categories and lists. Unfocused 21:34, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
   * keep please templates like these can be helpful Yuckfoo 21:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
   * Keep, if editors feel this is better opened out on the page than tucked away in a category they should be able to use it. Kappa 05:45, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:Oldvfdfull[edit]

Delete: Obsolete template, not even needed for historical reasons due to the fact that all uses of this havee been using substitution so keeping this template leaves no purpose. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 04:54, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I only realized that after I put this nom up and after Zscout370 had already voted thus making it so I couldn't remove the nomination. Jtkiefer T | @ | C ----- 05:03, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Db-spam[edit]

It is a {[tl|db}} type template - but the reason given is: "''It is [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a soapbox|patent advertisement]]'''''". This is not a WP:CSD and so there cannot be any legitimate use for this template. It should be deleted. JesseW, the juggling janitor 19:48, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. There is a popular misconception that "spam" or "it's an ad" is a reason for speedy deletion, and this template will only exacerbate the problem. android79 19:52, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. People who stretch the speedy criteria piss me off, too, but the most blatant spam - articles which are only an external link - can be speedied under case A3. I've rewritten this template to reference that case directly; perhaps this will help to slow down improper speedy tagging (and deleting). —Cryptic (talk) 22:42, 25 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, but a template isn't needed. Spam is a speedy criterion. If the "article" is nothing but a link out, or if all it amounts to is that link (e.g. it might be a whole sentence before the link), then it is a speedy delete. Geogre 14:50, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • External-link-only is a speedy delete. Some spam amounts to much more than that and must be taken to AfD, per the current CSD rules. As much as I'd like to be able to legitimately speedy obvious spam, it can't be done under current policy, and shouldn't be encouraged by such a template. Given the current rewrite, this should be moved to Template:db-a3 following the convention for other like templates listed at CAT:CSD. android79 15:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or move to {{db-a3}} (to which a new {{db-nocontent}} should perhaps redirect. Much spam (in the sense of unwanted articles apparently created primarily for promotional purposes) is not subject to speedy deletion (and a fair amount of it can be converted to an NPOV article about a product or company), and many items that are deletable under CSD A3 are not spam in any reasonable sense, so the name {{db-spam}} is misleading and will tempt people to mis-use this where it deosn't apply. If moved, do NOT' leave a redirect from the current name, for the same reason DES (talk) 15:09, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to {{db-nocontent}}, simply because {{db-spam}} is too misleading. Titoxd 05:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Pop song 1 and Template:Pop song 2[edit]

These are very similar to the recently deleted Template:Stillman-Allen-Four Lads, like it this template autogenerates unexpandable song substubs. If all the information that it is possible to add is song name, group name, and year released, simply creating a list would be far more useful. - SimonP 02:14, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. They generate song stubs; whether they are inexpandible depends on the song. I tried three links; two of them were Till I Waltz Again With You and A Bushel and a Peck, which seem quite respectable small articles. Using {subst} with these templates should probably be encouraged. Septentrionalis 05:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Should discourage this rubbish way to create articles. violet/riga (t) 21:29, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extreme delete. If these templates were being substituted, I wouldn't be quite so vehement, but since the are not, we should guarantee that they NEVER get used. BlankVerse ∅ 09:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete so hard they never do it again. — ciphergoth 11:30, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Extreme Keep!!! I can't imagine why anyone thinks they are unexpandable. They have saved me endless hours of time copying the same text over and over. -- BRG 18:15, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • If used with subst, thses might be quite helpful - otherwise they tend to lock in format and content in ways that are IMO undesrireable. Therefore Delete unless a talk page is created with a usage section that 1) instructs people to always use subst; and 2) fully documents the parameters. DES (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please explain to me why you feel that there's a necessity to use subst with this type of template. I see no advantage to using subst here, and I've never used subst. (In fact, I don't know how to!) I can certainly fully document the parameters, though I think they're self-explanatory. -- BRG 13:14, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • It is important that Wikipedia articles are easy to edit. If someone wanted to add to the first lines of A Bushel and a Peck that it was recorded in 1949, for instance, they could not make this change, as the three facts that are allowed are hard coded into a template. Using subst would remove this problem, as would not using a template in the first place. - SimonP 13:37, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • First of all, it would be crazy to make the kind of edit you mention. The song was written in a specific year, but was recorded more than once, and each recording could have been done in a different year. (In fact, for "A Bushel and a Peck" there were major recordings in both 1950 and 1953.) And this would best be done by making separate paragraphs. (I've done just that in numerous articles!) Not using a template means a lot of copying and pasting, and before I created the template it was taking me two or three times as long to create each article as it takes now. -- BRG 16:20, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This is not what a template should be used for, as this part of the article does not need to be exactly the same. If you want to start a lot of articles in the same format, its called copy and paste. --Jason McHuff 21:13, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As to "copy and paste," I used to do it that way. This template ended up saving me a lot of time. May I ask you what you think templates should be used for if not this? -- BRG 14:11, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - templates should not masquerade as article content. If you want to use these for time-saving purposes, BRG, I suggest you move them to a sub-page of your user space, and defintely use subst when using them. Going to edit an article and finding {{pop song 1}} is not very useful for people who want to improve the stubs. Worldtraveller 09:17, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again I ask you, as I asked Jmchuff, what do you think templates should be used for. I can't see any valid reason to have the template feature if this type of thing is not its purpose. -- BRG 16:54, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, so long as it's always subst-ed. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:39, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and nag people to use subst. Kappa 15:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No consensus, but given the difficulty of editing articles generated like this, it is important to use subst:. -Splashtalk 02:45, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Citation style [edit]

Delete: There doesn't need to be a template for every incremental improvement an editor could make to the article. There are plenty of well researched, carefully written articles with references not in the Wikipedia style. Why should good articles start with an unsightly template? (I wasn't even aware there was a Wikipedia style, and I've been editing and carefully referencing articles for many months!) Joke137 15:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • delete There is a wikipedia policy to cite sources. there is no current wikipedia standard on what format to use in doing so, so this template is indiacting an alleged problem with no clear guidance for solution -- indeed it could be sued wheree editors simply disagree on prefereed styles. Wikipedia:Footnote3 is becoming more common, but cannot yet be called a standard or a guideline, IMO, and there must be a dozen differnt styles of citation in common use on wikipedia. as long as the info is clearly available, the policy is fulfilled. if it isn't, then a more specific note on the talk page would be better than this, IMO. DES (talk) 15:21, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No vote: I have made the wording less obnoxious. There is no Wikipedia style: The citation page linked to says there is no consensus; the footnote page is tagged as a guideline. But some people have to prescribe a law for all Wikipedia <sigh>. The pages seem to be sensible suggestions; this template may be useful in telling editors that these methods do exist. Septentrionalis 15:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree with nominator. ~⌈Markaci⌋ 2005-09-26 T 18:36:17 Z
  • Delete: The function of this should be handled with a talk page comment. We should be highlighting articles that need references, not picking at them for which style they have. Wikipedia has no single style, and I hope it never does. Every article must be verifiable and should be verified (cited), but styles are national, discipline, and cultural preferences. Geogre 11:27, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Iff kept, it should be made a Talk page-only template. BlankVerse ∅ 09:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep this template serves a useful purpose towards pages with egregious formatting issues. It is more specific than other templates like cleanup Klonimus 16:47, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep if used on talk pages, abstain from use on main page. Kappa 05:47, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep on talk pages only. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: There are guidelines for citations. Even though Wikipedia doesn't endorse APA, MLA, or Chicago, it does advise one to use a standard style. Many articles don't do that, and I can personally attest that the results are sometimes quite confusing. Many contributors don't know how to format a citation; the template links to example style, which in turns links to Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations. The citation style template may also apply when an article features many inline citations and an adequate References section, but doesn't take advantage of any markup that associates the two for fast, intuitive referencing; that's one situation in which Wikipedia:Footnote3 can come into play. Just as the body text and its presentation should be factual, neutral, and readable, so should citations (to facilitate verification, etc.). As for aesthetics, this template doesn't mar articles any more than the other boilerplate. – Ringbang 19:27, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Already enough fights over citation formatting without giving people a template with which to promote their cause. Talk page comments are enough. Also, see DES's comment. Dragons flight 19:33, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No consensus. -Splashtalk 02:49, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: Public universities in Ohio [edit]

Delete: Redundant; a similar category already exists. Additionally, there aren't enough schools to justify the use of a somewhat large, somewhat unattractive template. Soltak | Talk 22:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would say delete that one too, and any others like it. What function do they serve that caetgories don't? -- Tyler 18:43, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to agree with Tyler that the Michigan template should also be deleted, not used to defend the presence of a needless template. Your argument seems to be that because we already have one unnecessary thing, we might as well have several. Soltak | Talk 18:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One can navigate intuitively with the much smaller {{otherarticles}}. Delete. Septentrionalis 04:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Templates that duplicate a category are only useful if they provide some form of organization that the category doesn't, such as chronological order or showing relationships between entries. This template does neither. It's an alphabetical listing just like a category, so what is its distinct purpose? -- Tyler 16:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: Fair use music [edit]

Delete: Fair use should not be file-format dependent. Furthermore, fair use does not depend on exact length or codec quality. This template will convince people all music fitting the template's criteria is fair use, which is certainly not true. Much music that does not fit the criteria is fair use, and vice-versa. We also ought not provide free advertising to Ogg Vorbis. Superm401 | Talk 00:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. It is useful and important to categorize fair use music together. I would however rewrite with general guidelines rather than some arbitrary specific rules.--Pharos 14:26, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. We have lots of specific fair use tags, such as {{bookcover}}. dbenbenn | talk 17:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment I have edited the template to remove the references to Ogg Vorbis. and make it not file format dependant. I am not sure that the remaining criteria are suficient to reasonably suport a claim of fair use, but i think furhter edits could leave this as a useful template. DES (talk) 18:41, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. All the above criticisms can be dealt with by ammending the template. As for OGG Vorbis, as an unpatented, free format it's the official preferred audio format of Wikipedia. TreveXtalk 21:06, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our fair use templates should emphasise use, not media. So, I've moved the template to Template:Song sample and amended it to indicate the valid uses for a song sample, so keep now. JYolkowski // talk 22:07, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Surely all copyrighted music isn't a "song"; I don't understand the purpose behind this naming.--Pharos 23:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Music" is too vague to be able to specify an appropriate use. By narrowing it down to a "song", we can specify an appropriate use (i.e. commentary on the song itself). JYolkowski // talk 01:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • What difference should it make whether it has lyrics or is an instrumental piece? The exact same legal issue applies.--Pharos 02:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree with Pharos here. Surely the same logic applies to any music, as worded in this revision. Specifying an appropriate use for a general sample of music is not different from specifying an appropriate use for a song, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm more ignorant of the issue than I think, though. :) —HorsePunchKid→龜 05:45, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Can't "song" be used to describe either an instrumental song or one with lyrics? (If not, feel free to suggest a better word.) As for HorsePunchKid's comment, I believe that different plausible uses would apply to different types of music. For example, a sample of a song is likely fair use in an article about the song, similar to how {{comicscene}} or {{bookcover}} is likely fair use in an article about the comic or book in question. On the other hand, video game music might be fair use in an article about the video game, similar to {{game-screenshot}}. A jingle from an advertisement might be fair use in an article about the product, similar to {{promotional}}. My feeling is that we should create new fair use tags for such uses (assuming we actually have such uses) rather than trying to put all possible fair uses for all possible types of music in the same tag. JYolkowski // talk 21:38, 29 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • No, a song is something sung. "Music" seems to be the universal; all of the other terms I'm thinking of are either just as specific as song ("tune") or way too generic ("work", "piece", "recording"). "Musical excerpt", "musical recording"? — mendel ☎ 03:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the revised {{Song sample}}. Do not revert to the earleir version. DES (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep we need tags for music audio files as part of our image tagging project. Reword by all means but we need ways of filtering them out. Secretlondon 22:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - we need a way of seperating these from the images as User:Secretlondon said. Revise it if necessary, and as the image tagging project goes forward, probably more specific tags will be needed, but if it's deleted now what alternative tag could we use? There isn't anything else suitable. Rossrs 13:55, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Aircraft-jet-mil[edit]

Proposed as a templatised system for aircraft specs a few months ago, but a different template system is being developed. It's no longer necessary, and orphaned as well. Ingoolemo talk 04:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Retain I second GL's comments; perhaps, with variations, either can be used with civilian aircraft as well? E Pluribus Anthony 11:50, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    The new template system will hopefully be presented to Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft within a few hours. The new template covers military and civilian aircraft; planes powered by jets/rockets, props, both, or unpowered gliders; fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft; and both cargo and non-cargo planes. The new system will be able to completely supersede Graeme's system without need for multiple templates. Still, kudos to Graeme for pushing the template idea! Ingoolemo talk 18:48, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:WV Highways[edit]

Listify/categorify then delete: Identical to former TFD candidate Template:VA Highways, which is still sitting in the To convert to category section now. Howcheng 21:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Do not Delete This is Based off of the US Highway Template, and several of us are working on it. Someone Vandilised the WV Highway sites taking out hours of work, that had to be repaired. --71Demon 02:24, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • DO NOT DELETE What is the reasoning behind the decision to delete? Like 71Demon says, the WV State Highway template is bassed off of the US Highway Template, so I'm confused as to why it's been recommended for deletion. Could someone elaborate as to why it's been decided to delete this template and the VA State Highway one as well? --Caponer 02:27, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The reason that the US highway template works is because it only lists the primary routes. Imagine if someone was bold and did one of these for California and its 300 highways. Plus, I would imagine that there are routes listed on this template that do not exist... the template has all routes from 1-100, regardless of whether or not they exist. The US Highway template only has the highways that exist or were depracated, noting the ones that were. The US template doesn't list US Highway 0 because it never existed (for example). Also all of the links (the ones that aren't red) link to redirects because whoever created the template and a few of the WV hwy pages didn't realize that the WV highway articles are at "West Virginia State Route x." (I was the person who had to fix all of the "WV x" articles, so I know.) Finally, I would not consider the removal of the templates vandalism but productivity. Vandalism states that "Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism. Apparent bad-faith edits that do not make their bad-faith nature inarguably explicit are not considered vandalism at Wikipedia.". --Rschen7754 03:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This makes working on the highway articles as an editor so much easier, and helps maintain consistency in each, in addition to presentation to readers. Vaoverland 03:23, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete, because it is a redlink farm. Categories are the way to go when most of the links don't point to articles. However, I'm inclined to keep it if there are people trying to add the remaining articles. Titoxd 03:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The red link is only because we are working on them. It takes time to get all the information together to make good articles. It is easier to create the template box, then fill in the blanks. --71Demon 03:41, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Can you make articles out of all the state routes listed there? Titoxd 03:43, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Very Easily, that is what a few of us West Virginian's are trying to work on. The is my first negative experience with Wikipedia. It has already take 4 hours away from other entries I could have been working on. --71Demon 05:40, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Seeing that it is no longer a redlink farm, I change my vote to keep. I'd like to have full standarization of Wikipedia, but maybe it isn't a bad thing to have templates for smaller states. Titoxd(?!?) 02:01, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • The California, Washington, and Kentucky highway WPs do not use a box like this. The Interstate and US highway WPs have a box that only lists the primary highways. It is possible to do highway article edits without one of those- I've done it 2000+ times over. --Rschen7754 03:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yup. The Kentucky WP couldn't even begin to think about a nav box for its Primary Highway System...there are over 100. If you include Secondary, Supplmental and Named Highways (such as the Hal Rogers Parkway) there are nearly 3000--not that one would ever think about including every numbered Kentucky State Highway. Just the primary routes that cross the state and join large communities. I think a list could be used to manage the red links just as well from a project /todo page. My opinion, anyhow. >: Roby Wayne Talk • Hist 04:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Wayne, Thanks for you input. WV doesn't have over 100 Primaries, and only a handful of connectors. So it works well for us being a small state. --71Demon 05:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • West Virginia has 120+ signed state routes, and doesn't uses the classification "connector" to the best of my knowledge.Nboggs 05:52, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • When I was in a meeting 2 weeks ago in the WVDOH District 5 office. They were refered to as connector routes, I always check my sources of info before I make an entry. You do realize there is another classification of state highways in WV that use the round signs, and are not primaries like in the template. --71Demon 06:47, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • I'm only referring to the signed state routes (rectangular marker with black numbers on a white background) not the named county roads (road name followed by black number inside a white circle on a green background) or the very rare signed county road eg. County Road 21 thru Kanawha, Jackson, Wirt and Wood Counties (rectangular marker with black numbers inside a white circle on a black background) Nboggs 07:11, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The template is distracting and redundant. My vote is for a list and categories. Nboggs 04:42, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; it can be half the size if the "WV" is removed. --SPUI (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not Delete Why delete a project that peopel are working on that may contain useful information? (Unsigned edit by 65.78.109.83)
  • KEEP easy format to read -- (Unsigned edit by 152.163.100.6)
  • Comment There is a similar debate at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2005_October_2#Category:West_Virginia_State_Highways about the category. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs - count) 20:29, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete A category always trumps a template Soltak | Talk 21:32, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP I have found this template to be useful. Youngamerican 03:12, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, as per Soltak, Nboggs, et al. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:18, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It's just a HUGE list of meaningless numbers. Heck, for the one article that I rather randomly selected from the "What links here", the template was twice the size of the rest of the article. BlankVerse ∅ 11:29, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is not just a "HUGE list of meaningless numbers", to the people of West Virginia who frequent these state routes mutliple times on a daily basis, they are the lifeblood of their small communities and counties. The West Virginia editors are working diligently to complete the articles. I realize they are merely stubs now, but they will be articles in good time. I do thank you for your concern. --Caponer 21:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I can't believe this engendered so much debate. The reasoning for removal of this template is identical to that for Template:VA Highways, which passed with no particular rancor. Question: How many other states are using navigation templates for their highway systems? --Howcheng 16:02, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, as I agree with the above points. --Jason McHuff 20:28, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you, Mr. McHuff, your opinion is ever so graciously appreciated by the West Virginia editors who have spent time creating the template and working on completing articles for each and every West Virginia state highway. Your "I agree with the above points" has been a wonderfully in-depth and meaningful addition to this heated debate. Thank you. --Caponer 21:09, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I find this template useful.Hektor 20:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it is utterly silly to compare this to a scenario of whether California was to have a similar state highways template. West Virginia and California are two completely different states, and West Virginia is small enough to be able to get away with having such a useful template to make it easier and simpler to navigate between WV state route articles. I think it is a bit ridiculous that this little harmless template has sparked so much debate...let the West Virginian editors in West Virginia decide what is best for their state and its articles concerning their state routes. Everyone else can simply mind their own business. I think some people have nothing else better to do that undo the work of many dedicated West Virginian editors. --Caponer 21:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I'd just like to clarify a few things... No, I'm not trying to undermine the West Virginia State Highway effort... I just feel that the template is a bit difficult to use. All of the work I do on Wikipedia is geared towards either state, Interstate, or US Highways. I understand your frustration, as I've dealt with a few difficult issues in my California work. What I'm trying to do is establish consistency among the state highways pages so that they follow the same guidelines and structure (Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads.) This template is nonstandard and that is why it is being TFD'ed... I am not for the deletion of highway articles (but then I can only speak for myself). So yeah. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs - count) 02:10, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP - This is a simple, logical way of navigating. Almost sounds (from the comments made above) that someone doesn't want it just because it was someone else's idea. I, personaly think that every state should have templates like this. --Drunski 22:34, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

KEEP - I am surprised that in my absence, a few zealots have taken it upon themselves to undo the work done by the West Virginia contributors. As a contributor, I do see Rschen7754's point that there should be increased consistency among all articles of a similar nature, but at what cost and how much work will be at stake when people take it upon themselves to decide what is "consistent." As a West Virginian and fellow contributor on West Virginian topics, I feel that these contributors who created the WV State Route pages have used these template boxes because of the easiness at which it allows people to view all the state routes. Drunski and MountaineerFan66 reiterate this obvious fact. I also believe there is a lack of active social and sex lifes on Wikipedia, maybe some of these nay-sayers need to address other aspects of their lives, instead of taking their own personal frustrations out on the work of dedicated contributors. --Jhohenzollern 23:06, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ad hominem attacks are truly uncalled for. I brought this template to TFD because I felt, like Rschen7754, that consistency between how state highways are categorized in the different states is a good thing. After all, the VA Highways template was pretty much identical and was deleted almost unanimously (see discussion). If the consensus is that it's acceptable for WV highways to be listed in a navigation template, then so be it. Disparaging the intentions or motivations of other Wikipedians does not help your case in any way. --Howcheng 15:48, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The VA Template Deletion is not a valid argument. Serveral of us that worked on it, where trying to finish the WV Template them move on to the VA plate. To our dismay, when I voted to Keep my vote was deleted off the page, all be it I found out it late in the process. The WV Template is very consistant with the Highways, US, Interstate, and ADHS Highways all have similar templates which make for easy navigation. --141.157.157.105 22:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
* 'KEEP easy to use box, very useful  --Munchman7 16:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Wikipedia is not paper. MONGO 18:48, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is evidently no consensus. On numbers, I have discounted Nboggs, MountaineerFan66, Druksi, Jhohenzollern for having too few edits (and Jhohenzollern for turning up largely to be exceedingly rude). I don't find much weight in MONGO's argument since his comment appears to miss the whole point of the debate: it doesn't have to do with not-paper it has to do with layout, usefulness and presentation. Anyway, he's counted in my tally of 10d, 8k. But even reading the debate I can't see a consensus to delete.. -Splashtalk 01:15, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Talkheader[edit]

delete. A newbie must be welcomed anyway, a troll will ignore it anyway. So this template is an unnecessary burden for traffic. mikka (t) 17:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: Album infobox 2 [edit]

Delete: It makes unnecessary use of "fair use" images (album covers) when we're trying to cut down on this. It also increases the size of (already rather large) infoboxes, and slows down page loading ,especially for dialup users. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:33, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong keep: This template is most helpful in helping users browse through albums of interest they may only know by image and not by title. It also adds to the quality of the infoboxes. It is a most worthy infobox style. I also have dial-up and it doesn't affect my page loading at all. In addition, the increase in infobox size is really negligible seeing as the images in question are really small in size. BGC 17:35, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks BGC 20:48, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, per Mel Etitis --Surachit 19:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep --Anittas 23:05, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    It's perhaps worth mentioning that this user has been going to the AfDs, TfDs, etc. that I've started or on which I've voted in order to vote against me; for those interested I can provide an explanation. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep --Gitaroo Man 23:51, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Thus users' ninth edit; only two previous edits were to articles. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I must say, I don't like the way you keep undermining other peoples opinions. Everyone is entitled to their say, that's one of the key concepts of wikipedia. Tokle 16:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I fully concur with you, Tokle. But this is Mel Etitis's style of working. Apparently we're all supposed to roll over and get used to it. BGC 00:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Play nicely, children, or don't play at all! Noting the fact that a particular ID has only recently been created, and the usage of it since creation, is entirely reasonable in this context, since the job of closing these discussions includes validating the various votes as well as counting them. There have been in the past significant incidents where newly-minted IDs have been used to disrupt discussions, and snide remarks about people trying to ensure that this does not happen again are hardly conducive to civility, now are they? As the standup told the heckler: "I don't come down to where you work and tell you where to push your broom!". If you have a beef with a particular editor's manner, take it to their talk page: don't embroil the rest of us in your disgreements. —Phil | Talk 08:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I did not mean it as a personal attack on Mel, but seeing that he has posted a comment on almost all of those who have voted against him below, I thought it deserved a comment. --Tokle 09:30, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Remember that the "amount and substantiality of the work used" is a criteria used in determining whether images should be used a fair use, and these are small images that are being used. However, of course, we should also limit the use of fair use images as much as possible. I don't think adding an image, in addition to the text links to the previous and next albums in the chronology adds that much (although it does look nicer). The images also do not pertain to the immediate article, which is a consideration with fair use images. -- BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 00:04, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This template's whole raison d'etre is adding Fair-Use images to articles that do not relate to that image. Jkelly 05:23, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete for all the reasons mentioned above. Tuf-Kat 05:46, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now! per BGC. Part of the WikiPedia Albums project is involved with converting the albums using this template to the "new" standard. (See my user page for albums using this standard). Deleting this template would put the conversion behind. Wait until this template in question has been phased out. Cjmarsicano 06:32, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete after phasing out completed. FWIW I read This template's whole raison d'etre is adding Fair-Use images to articles that do not relate to that image above and boggled, until I realised that the comment referred to the addition of album covers for the previous and next albums by the artist/band (and in some cases even more than that) which is simply taking the mick. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per BGC. Most album articles barely have pics on them anyway, save the main one. I find it helpful and justified. 207.164.171.98 11:53, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    This address had been used for nineteen edits before this. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 08:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per Mel Etitis. Inconsistent with legal fair use standards, slows down page loading (even with broadband) when wikiservers are sluggish, and, given the impact on dialup users, inconsistent with purposes of Wikipedia according to JWales. Monicasdude 14:21, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The images about the previous and next albums can't be fair use because the are excessive, mere decorations. I don't even understand, how they would be useful in articles. If you want to know what a cover of a certain album looks like, you naturally see the article about the album in question. -Hapsiainen 16:54, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP! per Cjmarsicano. I like to surf the album entries on here. Let the WikiRegulars who participate in the Album Project change them over to the standard album infobox instead. Downwiththebass 18:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
They are still entitled to an opinion. BGC 20:50, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
But their inexperience should be noted. They are also more likely sock puppets than users with more edits. So why did you remove Mel Etitis' comment about such user? Such is suspicious. [7] -Hapsiainen 21:17, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Because some people's remarks are ridiculous and petty, and therefore, not constructive. Direct your self-righteousness at yourself. BGC 00:33, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Sock puppetry is so serious problem that they have an official policy about it. Searching for sock puppets isn't ridiculous or petty. -Hapsiainen 09:58, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I took a look at the articles on Cjmarsicano's user page and could not detect a difference in those infoboxes, and the infoboxes on pages like this, which bears the "template has been proposed for deletion" message at the top. I took a look at the code and noticed there was indeed a difference, but I can see no difference in the actual infoboxes. I was under the impression that the old infobox was that one with the visible borders and general.. ugliness, and that this was the new one and was to be used in replacing the old border-visible style. --DalkaenT/C 22:26, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. -- Mike Garcia | talk 22:37, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, it's entirely consistent with fair use to put a mini-album cover next to a link to that album's article, it's just what the music company would want. Kappa 05:51, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It looks great. If a user is browsing an artist's albums, then only one extra image is loaded each time (if they go up or down by one) - the other 2 covers were on the previous album's page. (assuming their browser utilises cache properly, of course) Also regarding system load, if this template has to go then does <gallery> have to go? They will both load the same number of images (asumming the user views all the album pages). Probably the only bad thing is that when you click on the image proper it takes you that images Image page. (though i think this is unavoidable) deanos {ptaaglek} 09:06, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Different size copies are different images in the Wikipedia server, so they don't get loaded as you wish. Gallery is markup, not a template. The images in the galleries should be useful for the article. I believe that small images in this template are not such. -Hapsiainen 09:58, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hapsiainen already voted on this issue just above. This vote should not be counted as an extra one. BGC 00:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I understand and see how it works now, thanks. So am i correct in saying the issue is not only increased traffic, but requires the server to actually create the thumbnail? Are these thumbnails generated everytime someone loads the page, or are they retained after the first creation? or do expire after a certain amount of time/uses? (to me, the only issue was server load; fair use, clutter & aesthetics were fine) —deanos {ptaaglek} 23:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The thumbnails are entirely discrete image files, which have to be loaded separately. Each image file requires a separate call to its host, increasing the load on the Wikipedia servers. In addition, whenever the uploaded image dimensions do not exactly match the dimensions called for in the template, user load time is increased -- and most of the thumbnail images uploaded for this template that I've checked out don't match up -- often significantly, as the user's browser must regenerate the image in corrected dimensions. Monicasdude 01:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I have no doubt using these images in this way can be considered fair use. The reason for including them is purely aesthetic, though. If this is not a good enough reason for doing it this way, then this template should be deleted. I believe this reason stands well enough on its own.
Considering the point on phasing out, it should be noted that this is a new template (that was made independent of the albums project. I tried to get a discussion going on the project site, and the little feedback I got was positive.) and that it is not being used extensively (as far as I know Bob Dylan, The Beatles and Nirvana are the only chronologies it has been used on), so phasing it out should not be a problem. Tokle 16:00, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The list has now grown to between 250 and 500 albums.here —deanos {ptaaglek} 23:38, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed that User:BGC has been adding this controversial template to articles during the deletion vote. -Hapsiainen 10:32, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've also noticed that a decision has not been reached yet and therefore users are free to implement the template as they wish. It's too bad a couple of users persist in acting in bad faith rollback editing. BGC 20:36, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in light of some of the above comments. I think it's a good, useful design, and I'd like to be able to implement it in some of the album articles I've already contributed to. --DalkaenT/C 23:53, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Unnecessary cluttering of infobox. Violates fair use by using album covers on pages not about those particular albums. RedWolf 01:46, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and not only because of d considerations or clutter, but because it's unwise to use images as navigational elements in MediaWiki - clicking on the album cover only takes you to the image description page and that's confusing :P -- grm_wnr Esc 19:18, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The album cover is not meant to be a link to the article, that's why the title is below it.BGC 19:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That still doesn' help from a usability point of view. You and I know that images never work as article links. Newbies don't. -- grm_wnr Esc 11:37, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, at least after phase-out is completed. If I am reading the meaning of fair use correctly, the cover images should only be used in articles about the album in question. On a somewhat related note, I often see album covers used in the article about the artist (e.g. Miles Davis). Also agree with grm_wnr's comment. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 20:33, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Apart from any fair use issues, we don’t put portraits on succession lists for people. Susvolans ⇔ 12:21, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Kappa above. Also, I don't see any good reasons why it should be deleted. --Andylkl (talk) 13:16, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, unnecessary duplication of {{Album infobox}}. The succession list should not have pictures. --Angr/tɔk tə mi 07:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, per Angr. Also, I think it looks rather stupid that the album cover appears twice in the same infobox. --Fritz Saalfeld 08:11, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Weak see below) Keep, Though I'm slightly biased having just spent ages filling a few of these templates out I think they look great, especially the album art. I'm not sure about the formalities of the fair use cover art debate but just about every magazine or anything I've ever worked on (even in the case of a really negative review, list or article) has just snatched cover art without thinking. If there's a real problem I understand though. To me the progression at the bottom is really helpful, especially with the artwork as people often recognise that better than a title. The size is really not an issue and the loading times are far longer on many other pages. Jellypuzzle 10:02, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
But when you added an album cover to a review (which is fair use), you added that album's cover, not another album's, correct? -- Gyrofrog (talk) 02:21, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I did just realise that made it a bad point, sorry. I also realised that deleting the template wouldn't have much effect as hopefully things wouldn't have to be re-written (only two lines taken out). I do like the look of the album art progression but if it's not fair use then it's ok to take it out. Jellypuzzle 09:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Doe that mean that you're changing your vote? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:44, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We want to get rid of the extra images in the albumbox template because they are not fair use. -Hapsiainen 19:20, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While I'm not entirely convinced that use of these images in this way isn't fair use, it's not really necessary. A simple list gets the job done well, since the pictures are already displayed in the albums' individual articles. Having only one album template also helps maintain uniformity, which, in my opinion, is important. — Prizm 10-08-05 11:52 CDT
  • Keep. It's definitely fair use. The extra amount of server load (generating and storing small thumbnails, and serving them) is negligible. And it looks really good. dbenbenn | talk 22:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • On prettiness: It hardly "looks really good"; it looks rather pretty, that's all. On fairness: As Kappa (above) suggests, this use of images isn't merely "fair"; it's likely to delight the copyright holder. (Or perhaps: Whether or not it's fair, it's likely to delight the copyright holder.) But to extend "fairness" to include anything that might help the copyright-holder's advertising is an appalling precedent for WP, inviting gigabytes of commercial images that could be claimed to be "interesting" but that are only secondarily (if at all) informative. On server load: As pointed out above, this use of additional graphics is wasteful. On navigation: The way these images are linked damages the usability of the resulting pages. In view of all this, delete. -- Hoary 02:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Copyright is a legal criterion not an editorial one and should not be "adjusted" to enforce editorial judgements. Kappa 06:46, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • So far as I understand this comment, I agree with it. Sorry if I misunderstood your earlier comment, but I thought you were suggesting either that "fair use" was extensible to rather irrelevant use if this irrelevant use was likely to delight the copyright holder, or that the limit to "fair use" could be ignored if the use was likely to delight the copyright holder. -- Hoary 07:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fair use factor #4 is "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work". Use in this template makes the album cover more valuable because it can only increase sales of the album. There may be situations where a use can delight a copyright holder and still not be fair, but this is not one of them. Kappa 08:09, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Pages should definately contain photos, and where better than at the top. Looks tidy and orgainzes the data well. I can see no reason for it's removal. --Fir0002 06:01, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • But the objection is to the way the template has additional images at its foot. (Are you perhaps confusing or conflating this template with another one that calls for a single image?) -- Hoary 07:08, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep unless one of you is a lawyer and can SPECIFICALLY SHOW ME CASE LAW STATING THIS IS NOT FAIR USE.  ALKIVAR™ 07:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Cjmarsicano. Let the associated wikiproject sort it out first, then delete if needed. Arturus 22:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Pictures are REALLY useful for identifying albums. KrisW6 01:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I'm inclined to doubt that this qualifies as fair use. Even if it does, I see little value in the template's presence, and I agree with grm_wnr that the design has the potential to confuse inexperienced Wikipedia users. —Lifeisunfair 02:08, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I'm not moved by the fair use argument, but this is a bad design from a usability standpoint and even more needless load time for those of us on dial-up. (Never mind that many albums have alternate covers, diminishing the usefulness of identifying an album by its cover.) Since there's already a more-elegant alternative infobox, there's no need for this one. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 16:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, utterly pointless and like stated there are many covers for some albums, leading to a neverending top of edit wars. Jobe6 17:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Delete, if this means that we fall back to use the template "Album infobox" instead of "Album infobox 2". Both have album art at the top, only "2" has album art at the bottom for navigating to other albums. While it's nice to navigate-by-visuals, album art confuses at this position because we are expecting "information about this album", which the album art are not. If this vote is about removing the infobox outright, count me as Keep. Oh, and please specify at bit clearer what will happen in the "Delete"-case - what will it be replaced with, please? Thanks. Peter S. 19:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Country flagISO[edit]

This is an unused duplicate of Template:Country flag. The creator's idea was to allow ISO abbreviations, for example via {{country|flagISO|RUS}}, which expands to {{country flagISO|RUS}}. But that isn't necessary, since one can simply use {{country|flag|RUS}}. dbenbenn | talk 17:21, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Relisting this since disagreement between the nominator and the author isn't really enough discussion to decide on. -Splashtalk 00:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep This appears to be part of a whole set of overly complex templates created by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Flag Template. The reason the template shows up as unused is due to the way the templates are set up. This template isn't intended to be used directly as best I can figure. It's called by a template and result is a template which then gets the flag for a particular country. Another reason for all this overcomplication is apparently due to the fact that they want to be able to specify flags using either the ISO three letter codes and the IOC three letter codes, and perversely, the ISO and IOC sometimes use the same three letter code for two different countries, such BRN, which the IOC thinks is BahRaiN while the ISO thinks it is BRuNei. I can see the need to keep the ISO and IOC uses separate, but given that the IOC use is a special case, I don't see why that can't be only one of the pair to get the special treatment. (FIFA also has its own set of codes, but the flag project hasn't chosen to do templates for it yet, thank goodness.) Caerwine 06:49, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The reason the template shows up as unused is due to the way the templates are set up." Actually, that's wrong. Despite the complication, any page that uses this template, even indirectly, will appear in the "what links here" list. And the reason I nominated this for deletion is that I'm trying to simplify the overly complex setup. If this is deleted, my next step will be to nominate all templates of the form Template:Country flag ISO alias FOO, for example Template:Country flag ISO alias RUS. There are about 300 of them (list). dbenbenn | talk 06:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, the test I just did, confirms your statement, tho I have noticed cases where templates don't like to show up in the editting aids, but perhaps that's just in the list of templates used on a page when the template is a redirect, which wouldn't affect this. There is a need to be able differetiate the ISO codes from the IOC codes and perhaps even the FIFA codes, tho the flag project hasn't tackled that as of yet. While the ISO codes will no doubt see the major usage of TLA codes, they aren't the only one. Not only that , but there are popular three letter abbreviations for countries such as FRG, ROC, ROK, and RSA that are not ISO codes and yet should probably be accessible via {{country flag}}. Thus while I do agree that it is silly to have two different ways to access flag icons by ISO code, in the interest of clarity, except in a few cases such as USA where the ISO code is coincidentally used popularly to refer to the country, I think it would make more sense to scrap {{country flag alias RUS}} than {{country flag ISO alias RUS}}. That said, unless there is some technical reason why it won't work, I think now that what should be done is to Rename this template to {{country flag ISO}}. (Note the added space between flag and ISO.)
  • No consensus is the only call here. After >2 weeks on TfD there's still no obvious decision on what to do. Perhaps a renom once things are clearer? -Splashtalk 23:36, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:npa4[edit]

This template is intended to be used by an administrator to inform an editor that he has been blocked for making personal attacks. There is only one problem: administrators do not block editors for making personal attacks. --Tony SidawayTalk 08:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: Barugo [edit]

Delete: A navigational footer template consisting completely of red links. These are links to barangays of a certain municipality. Barangays in the Philippines are small communities of about 1000 people, and typically they are not notable enough to be article-worthy. Coffee 07:10, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strong Keep. Don't bite the newcomers. Whoever this IP is, he or she created a marginally good stub article for the first of these communities listed already. Navigational templates can be nice development tools. Furthermore, there are hundreds of articles on communities with less than 1000 people in the U.S.A., thanks to that nifty bot that created them based on the Census Bureau data. Why should these communities be considered less notable? This thing came up for TfD the day that it was made. It looks like someone is porting these articles from another language WP. Give it time. --Mm35173 20:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • For what it's worth, it's been a week since creation and there are still 36 red links and only 1 blue one. Coffee 17:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • But that article is practically all the info that you can really scrape for all the barangays (40,000+) in the Philippines. The barangay articles would therefore look like database entries instead of encyclopedia articles. No sense in using Rambot-style editing since there is no other substantial data about barangays that you can use such a robot on other than population and officials. Also, I can assure you that there is no ongoing porting from other language WPs (the Philippine-Language WP have sort of agreed to start articles in English before translating to local language WPs). --seav 11:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Instructing newcomers that they shouldn't create pointless templates is not biting them. / Peter Isotalo 19:53, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete "Don't bite the newcowers" isn't a legitmate excuse for keeping crap. Soltak | Talk 19:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, valuable template, these communities should all have articles. Kappa 19:32, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, per Kappa. All general-purpose political subdivisions should have articles, and this template is basically a list of those that need them in a particular area.  BD2412 talk 23:54, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Neutral. But at a minimum all the extraneous disambiguation should be removed--"x, y, z" shouldn't be used when "x, y" is unique. 24.17.48.241 08:27, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete. I don't want a precedent of having each and every barangay having its own article, and templates to match. 99% of the 40,000+ barangays are non-notable. At best, you'd have this stubly info for each and everyone: "X is a barangay of municipality Y, province Z in the Philippines. As of 2000, the population is N in M households." Rambot-style edits are not good since the national Philippine government only keeps population and household statistics. No area, no breakdown of income classes, no history, no culture, no nothing. Maintenance would be a nightmare. --seav 11:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • At worst they might look like Rambot entries, but these things all have times of first settlement, times they became baraguays, etymologies, description of the land, what the economy is based on, and features like schools, churches, fish sanctuaries etc, all of which are interesting and none of which require maintainance. Kappa 13:59, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

      • My point is that there is no centralized database from which to get all of those information. The Rambot method will not help. The only information you can get for a rambot to play with is: population, number of households, and the barangay officials. That's basically it. I'll give two more arguments why creating an article for each and every barangay is nuts:

        1. The City of Manila has 897 barangays. All named like Barangay 1, Barangay 2, Barangay 3, etc. Each one is typically 1 city block in size, about 4 hectares. It's crazy creating articles for such. Most are homogenous enough in quality that I don't find any good reason to give an article to each and every one. Not worth it, and article management will be difficult. (Pasay City and Caloocan City have the same situation.)

        2. Why stop at barangays? Why not create an article for every populated block itself? They all have time of first settlement, first zoning classification, etymology, description of the land, etc.:

        Block 7 is a residential block of Arbortown Village of Barangay Karuhatan, Valenzuela City, Metro Manila, Philippines. It was named such because the Arbortown Management decided to go with a numeric naming scheme. The land is relatively flat with less than 3 degrees of slope. Since Block 7 is classified as light residential/commercial under the city's zoning scheme, the economy relies on property and commercial taxes from it's residents who occupy 60% of the 10 available lots in the block. 2 residents have also put up Sari-sari stores within their properties, Aling Lydia's Sari-Sari Store and Samson Cafeteria. These provide consumer services for the block and other surrounding blocks like Block 6, Block 9, and Block 10. Block 7 is bounded by Narra Street to the north, Acacia Street to the east, Ipil-Ipil Street to the south, and Arbortown Avenue to the west, the main motorway of the village. The block was first settled in 1992 (at Lot 4) with the arrival of immigrants from La Union province who decided to relocate to the metropolis in search of opportunities. Other settlers have similar histories.

        That plausible article above is even less of a stub than the barangay articles already created, yet very, very few people will argue that we want such articles. There is a line we need to draw somewhere. Articles on U.S. places have the benefit of a centralized U.S. Census database filled with detailed information and ripe for harvest by the Rambot. The Philippines have no such database with nowhere near as rich a data as the U.S. one, and I very much doubt that there will be such a database in the short- to mid-term future. --seav 11:45, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • Whoever is writing these stubs is doing a good job. He is putting links to local government web pages in there, which gives other editors a source for future content. He appears to be following the perfect stub guidelines. We already have rambot articles for similar communities in the US. See Argenta, IL. I've been to Argenta. It is a midwestern town, about 6 blocks square, with less than a thousand people who all work somewhere else. There are probably thousands of hamlets just like Argenta, but each has its own article, thanks to the rambot. And you know what? I think that's just great. Someday, there will be a map interface to Wikipedia where you can go and click on geographic locations and link right into articles (hey Google, are you listening?). It will be really neat. There is absolutely no reason the same functionality shouldn't be available worldwide. If every census place in the US gets an article, then so be it for all nations. --Mm35173 16:13, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete As per seav. --Chris S. 12:17, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Majority of links are now blue, as for notability IMHO all real vilages, settlements, subdivisions and what not are worth an article WP not being paper and all that. --Sherool 15:47, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This has been discussed at the Philippine Village Pump, and the decision was not to include all the barangays. The only notable information on those barangays is already there, and that information is no more than a set of database entries. Furthermore, many barangays in the Philippines are rather seen as being homogenous with the city they belong in--notable accomplishments are rarely attributed to someone from the barangay of X, but from the town, city, or province of Y. Even articles on well-known figures rarely mention the barangays they lived in. If this article were to be kept, then it would mean that there is no reason to exclude articles on every block and street in Wikipedia--in the Philippines, barangays are about as notable as streets. --Migs 16:03, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No consensus, just about. The final comment might mean this can be revisited in future. -Splashtalk 20:34, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Template: delete [edit]

Delete: After several days of [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Deleteing {{tl|d}}|discussion between several users on the Administrators' Noticeboard]], I've decided to nominate this template for deletion. There are several reasons why {{d}} should be removed and {{deletebecause}} should be moved to its place:

  • Prevents bad speedies. Any article tagged with {{db}} requires a reason to be given for its speedy deletion. Users who are speedy-tagging a page for a wrong reason need to tell us why they are doing so. A bad reason listed as the criteria for deletion would help admins save a little bit of time when going through Candidates for speedy deletion.
  • While {{d}} is a time-saving device for RC-patrollers, a quick reason such as "attack page", "nonsense", "newbie test" or others can be typed in two seconds, which is often less than the load time for a page nowadays.
  • The use of {{db}} does not require the knowledge of the CSD by letter. As said above, the reason can be short and still help an admin. Although if the user wants to quote the CSD, there are a plethora of new templates available now for that purpose: {{db-a1}}, {{db-a2}}, {{db-a3}}, {{db-a4}}, {{db-a5}}, {{db-a6}}, {{db-a7}}, {{db-a8}}, {{db-g1}}, {{db-g2}}, {{db-g3}}, {{db-g4}}, {{db-g5}}, {{db-g6}}, {{db-g7}}, {{db-g8}}, and {{db-g9}}. Note that deleting {{d}} would not require the use of these new templates.
  • Finally, {{d}} can be abused to circumvent CSD policy. Speedy deletion is supposed to have a narrow scope, and tagging {{d}} on a page can be used to hope for a lenient admin who will delete the page, even when it is a bit outside the CSD.

Titoxd(?!?) 01:51, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete. Encourages end runs around the speedy deletion criteria. --Carnildo 06:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - and I can't be bothered giving you any reason! --Doc (?) 07:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment OK that was me making a point, but you get it. {d} is constantly being used as shorthand for 'I don't like this article, but I can't be bothered reading WP:CSD or doing afd - maybe someone will speedy it'. Frankly, anyone doing RC patrol should read up on the CSD or forget it. There are shortcuts for almost all CSD {{nonsense}} {{nn-bio}} {{blank}} {{empty}} {{G1}} etc - and if you can't remember them fine - use {{db}} (which would be moved to {d} anyway if this suceeds). Why should RC get to be lazy, and those admins deleting speedies have to do all the mind-reading? --Doc (?) 07:59, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
But, if the nominator had to think 'on what grounds' he'd probably realise that it wasn't one. --Doc (?) 17:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. In many cases the reason an article should be deleted is blatantly obvious (e.g. content is "Hello!!! My name is George Bush!". Let's give the New Page Patrollers a break, there is no need to force them to memorize all the different templates we have such as {{nonsense}}, {{empty}} and so on or to make them manually fill in a reason using the {{sb}}-template. Using one of the more specific templates is nice of course when the reason is not immediately obvious (in particular recreations of AFDed content should not use a speedy-delete template without stating a reason), but for clear and blatant vandal pages, the good old {{delete}} is a good catch-all. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete While I wouldn't have made this nomination, and I don't expect to get a concensus to delete {{delete}}, I agree with the nomination reasons above. Since I have been doing work on actually deleting speedies, i find more invalid speedies tagged with no reason than with any of the reason tags -- although I have found a number with various reasons. Anytime I find a page taggged with {{d}} (or one of its alternate names) I 1) check it more carefully than I otherwise would; 2) enter the specific reason for the deletion in the log if I delete -- if a specific tag is used and shows up in the content section of the log, I may be saved this step; and 3) leave a note on the talk page of the person who tagged it, asking that person not to use {{d}} in future. Reading such a note will take the person at least as much time as using a reaon would have. DES (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Sjakkalle --Monkbel 16:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. When the reasons for deletion are obvious (for instance, a redirect from a page named "xxx on wheels!" to "xxx"), this template is useful. --cesarb 16:55, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - it works. --Henrygb 00:53, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per DES Septentrionalis 01:04, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP shouldn't the admin doing the deletion make sure that the deletion follows CSD rules? 132.205.45.110 16:39, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Editor should provide a reason rather than making admin find one. (SEWilco 17:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC))[reply]
  • Keep we should strive to make RC patrol more effective, not less.  Grue  18:10, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Adding a short reason doesn't take that much energy. Superm401 | Talk 18:13, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. — Dan | Talk 15:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. It is always preferable for editors to cite the CSD criterion they are using. However, requiring them to do so for even the most blatantly worthless bad-faith article just makes trolls more effective. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - if it is removed, people will just put {{db}} or worse, quote an invalid reason; what we need to do is watch for invalid deletions based on this, which having this template makes slightly easier(as in, you can search for {{d}} and review those ;-) ) JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep I have made my views clear that {{d}} is an extremely useful template that should not suffer the same fate as itself ;-) Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk | WS 15:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The best person to state the reason is the nominator since s/he must already have a reason, the admin's job is just to verify it. I myself have switched from using "d" to "db", it doesn' take much effort to do it. --Vsion 04:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I use {{db}} myself. But its presence is no reason to entirely delte the simple delete template. The Land 11:49, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The name is more straightforward than db, and anyone who uses good edit summaries shouldn't be leaving much questions when they use it. --Idont Havaname 19:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Various "Vandal Warning" templates[edit]

Delete': Explained below -- (drini's page|☎) 08:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect per discussion below. -- (drini's page|☎) 14:20, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The above templates are just copies of the standard Test templates: {{Test}}, {{Test2}}, {{Test4-n}}, etc... with the sole addition of 4 tildes (~~~~) (please see the templates history for the nominated version) obtained through an ugly hack. Besides, such templates are not editable without long pain, as the 4 tildes turn into signature as soon as you edit the templates which explains why on the templates my signature shows up (it was converted when I added the TfD tag). Since this is merely a duplication of standard templates, I nominate them for deletion under criteria T2 (redundant) -- (drini's page|☎) 08:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Redirect them to the standard templates then, if they must go. I like typing the short "vw", and it's a better mnemonic for vandalism that "test". —Michael Z. 2005-10-14 11:03 Z
  • REDIRECT as Michael above. —Phil | Talk 15:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP THEM... They save time. I would of added the autosignates to the normal but some users did not want that and have automated it... There are instructions on the vw talk page that I put to edit it... [[User:Adam1213☺Adam1213☺|talk 15:45, 14 October 2005 (UTC\* Whether eveyone wants to use them or not they save time and should be kept --[[User:Adam1213☺Adam1213☺|talk
  • Redirect to corresponding Testn templates. Titoxd(?!?) 16:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect - just to make sure the consensus is clear. JesseW, the juggling janitor 22:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Redirect and fix any bug or misfeature which allows one to insert a raw ~~~~ on a page. --cesarb 22:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually i think that a rewrite, so tht they were not simply clsoes of the test series, but more appropriate for obviosuly vandalistic activity might be a good idea. i particualrly like the varients which allow for a parameter to indiacte the nameof the article where the problem occured. That can both inform the user and any admin or editor subsequently viewign the talk page. So Keep and rewite. DES (talk) 22:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The name of article extensions already exist in the Testx-n series of templates, it's not something new. --pgk(talk) 12:56, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will make the templates translucent. They will barely take up any space and you can edit the test ones if that is wanted. Also planning to have it know when to put or now regarding article instead of n for that (preceding unsigned comment by Adam1213 (talk · contribs) )
  • Redirect to appropriate testN templates. Having to maintain the same copy in two different places is a well-established Bad Idea; people will forget to update one or the other and slowly they'll get out of sync. I can't support DES's suggestion of two strains of templates, one for misguided tests and the other for intentional vandalism, because RC patrollers including myself have proven themselves poor judges of good and bad faith when in a rush. — mendel ☎ 03:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/Redirect typing ~~~~ isn't that onerous, there is more to RC Patrol than being superfast. --pgk(talk) 12:50, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • going along with the updateing problems .... I will make it translucent... It will be a redirect 98.8% just it will have autosign as well. --☺Adam1213☺|talk 13:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirecting to the Test templates is a good idea. It's redundant, but still should not be deleted as the names are convenient. -- Daverocks 13:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • the new ones are translucent. They are the same as redirects just they have a signature below. This gets rid of the point that they need to be updated to what the test series is

--☺Adam1213☺|talk 13:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC) - Thanks for the suggestion...[reply]

  • Redirect - or delete. These are templates-within-templates. This creates a hideous drain on the system. In addition, the templates are redundant, and I don't like promoting laziness through autosigning. The templates exploit a pug in the software which is liable to be removed soon. Rob Church Talk | FAHD 15:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect per several others. Using "vwn" can be easier for some people than typing out "testn", but why would anyone let a template do the ~~~~ part for them? That function can be easily breakable just by editing the template. Still, there is a purpose for them, and "vw" does makes more sense than "test" for vandalism that isn't really considered testing... Wcquidditch | Talk 00:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I tried to explain before the templates are now trascluent. You can edit the test page that it goes to and it will update. You will no longer need to edit the templates at all. --☺Adam1213☺ Talk WWW 05:32, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • But that's exactly the problem! "Transluscency" just means templates-within-templates, which, as Rob Church rightly said, creates a hideous drain on the system. Sure, you might think the signature part will never "stuff up" because we supposedly never need to edit it anymore, but the way it works is not how the MediaWiki software was meant to work and exploits a bug in the software. Redirect. -- Daverocks 08:40, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I could have it one the template instead... What does everyone want... Transcluent or the warning in the template??? --☺Adam1213☺ Talk+|WWW 10:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redirect, too much automation (and especially template nesting!) is evil. Alphax τεχ 11:24, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The test series is so rarly changed that they could be non translucent...
How about this idea I make the v series with autosign and the vw series becomes redirects or the opposite. better if v series is redirects and these are kept.... --☺Adam1213☺ Talk+|WWW 13:17, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you recreate these tempaltes under the "v" name, they will just be redirecte too, because the same arguments on this page will apply too. -- (drini's page|☎) 19:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Not "translucent". Not "the same as test." No auto-signatures. Redirect. FreplySpang (talk) 16:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Why not make a v series instead of taking my vw warnings??? or this could become the v series... --☺Adam1213☺ Talk+|WWW 22:39, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you recreate these tempaltes under the "v" name, they will just be redirecte too, because the same arguments on this page will apply too. -- (drini's page|☎) 19:14, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: Cuba infobox [edit]

  • Delete: Needless template that will be used only on the Cuba article and whose sole content is a single reference to Template:Infobox Country. Caerwine 20:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. All Latin American countries now are using the template infobox, why should Cuba be different. Some were and some weren't using it before today, and some already had a template they were using and others didn't. Whatever, there is no reason to delete this. it makes editing easier in the article, and makes the box vandals from newbies, SqueakBox 20:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As the history of the Cuba article has shown this will not affect Infobox vandalism, as it previously has had a custom infobox, before being switched over to the Infobox Country template, and that article had just as much infobox vandalism before and after the changeover. It also does not make editting any easier as far as I can see. Caerwine 20:28, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It will save wikipedia disc space because the history will only be spread out over the template rather than the whole article (it not being able to be in a section). It wasn't put there to combat vandalism but to make editing easier just by not having a box of code. Many newbies who don't have experience of computer code find such box text intimidating. There are curently, I would guess, about 120 of these templates at wikipedia already, SqueakBox 20:31, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries has been trying to standardize the Country infoboxes so that they use Template:Infobox Country, what you are doing goes against the policy of that Wikiproject and will encourage unstandard Country Infoboxes. Yes, Template:Infobox Country, is a bit intimidating for newbies, but frankly given the high visibility of the country articles, I don't mind a bit of intimidation if it encourages newbies to start their editting elsewhere. Caerwine 20:44, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment See specifically this discussion for even more raesons why the consensus is that country specific infoboxes are a bad thing.Caerwine 20:47, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep unless it is possible to type "|" on a keyboard in three or fewer keystrokes. NatusRoma 22:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC) This was meant for the above discussion of {{delete}}. NatusRoma 19:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment On my standard US keyboard '|' is a standard keystroke (Shift-'\'). In any case, it wouldn't be needed to type a '|' when editting an existing usage of {{Infobox Country}} in a country article. Caerwine 22:27, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In this part outside the US it certainly is a two finger command, and in English too, SqueakBox 22:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. See my reason below. --Hottentot
  • Delete. Single use template. -- User:Docu
  • Delete see my reason above. --Mairi 01:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per #Country Specific Infoxboxes that only redirect to Template:Infobox Country above. — Davenbelle 12:18, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep along with other country infoboxes. --Idont Havaname 18:47, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • An Emphatic Keep. The standardized template (template:Infobox Country) is excessively bulky, wasteful of space, and aesthetically unpleasing (rather like your average Wal-Mart), and often include information irrelevant for that country. The standardized template is extremely anglo-centric and Western-orented, and does allow for inclusion of important regional parameters. For example, mandated parameters in the standard template include such things as GDP (with no fewer than five separate varieties, "official" languages, and "coat of arms". First of all, not all countries have a coat of arms (e.g., India). Nevertheless, on the India country page, the national Emblem of India ((the Lion Capital of Asoka) is listed in the standardized infobox as "Coat of Arms". This is unacceptable and misleading. In addition, such things as GDP and "Official" languages are rather close to being meaningless in such primarily rural, diverse, and non-Western nations such as Bhutan, Somalia, Laos, et cetera. Such parameters as "average daily caloric intake" or "list of common languages" would be more acceptable. In Bhutan, for example, the "official" language is only spoken by a very small minority of the Bhutanese populace, and does not describe the linguistic norm in that country. In these cases, then, customization is needed. This customization is highly facilitated by having unique, diverse templates for each country to cater to its own unique characteristics and needs. Let the hawkers of the unattractive, boxy, and wasteful "Wal-Mart" template stick it on their own country sites (and maybe their own personal user pages) rather than their patently unacceptable mandate that it be used everywhere, for every country. Saravask 22:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Country Specific Infoxboxes that only redirect to Template:Infobox Country[edit]

{{Argentina infobox}}, {{Angola infobox}}, {{Austria infobox}}, {{United Kingdom infobox}}, {{India infobox}}, {{Canada infobox}}, {{Spain infobox}}, {{France infobox}}, {{Singapore infobox}}, {{Mexico infobox}}, {{Bolivia infobox}}, {{Suriname infobox}}, {{Infobox Philippines}}, {{Infobox Australia}}, {{Chile infobox}}, {{Mozambique infobox}}, {{New Zealand infobox}}, {{Infobox Bosnia and Herzegovina}}

I think that's all of them in addition to {{Cuba infobox}} below. Each of these serves the "purpose" of segregating off the infobox from a single article into a separate template used only by that article and does so by then invoking {{Infobox Country}}, it would be simpler and help avoid the prospect of these infoboxes becoming nonstandardized again if Infobox Country were invoked directly the appropriate article. The consenus reached by WikiProject Countries was against having Infobox templates for each country. Caerwine 21:54, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep all. It is not all of them, or even beginning to be all of them. This is an utterly partial list. Why is the Unitted States not on this list. Partiality againsty these countiries by partially choosing only some strikes me as perverse nationalism. why has he chosen my country and not his own? SqueakBox 22:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wow, you need to calm down. For one thing, a cursory glance would tell you the US template is no longer used, it's an orphan. But hey, you keep chasing those boogymen! --Golbez 22:07, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This is a listing of all the templates that reference to Template:Infobox Country. (Either that or What links here is broken.) There are a large number of countries that have not yet standardized their infoboxes to fit the format of Template:Infobox Country. Some of those countries do so by having a single country infobox template. Obviously they cannot be replaced simply by Infobox Country, as the data they have that Template:Infobox Country does not use has to be placed into the article text, and data that they don't use that Template:Infobox Country does use needs to be located first. As articles have had the preparations done to enable Template:Infobox Country to be used instead, there have been a number of TfD's for no longer used templates, including a former {{Cuba infobox}} that was previously deleted upon its replacement by {{Infobox Country}} Caerwine 22:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all. The whole reason why we have Template:Infobox Country is so we can have a simpler code that doesn't have to be in a separate template like all of the above. Not having the code in the main page just makes it more difficult to people that don't know about templates, such as newcomers. --Hottentot
  • Keep Those new Country infoboxes are the worst design ever. When you fix any errors that are embedded in that code, they break- and then you have to chuck the whole thing or just do it by HTML or even with the old code. Also, if newbies do anything in that new infobox code you constantly have to fix it because the design fails. I'm all for keeping the separate infoboxes. P.S. having the same info in Template or not only would add something like 2 bytes total to Wikipedia. I think it still only takes 2 bytes to create a file on a Hard Drive. If anything, archiving pages with vandalism would be more of a problem to Wikipedia's Hard Drive space. CaribDigita 23:05, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. These merely invoke Template:Infobox Country (not duplicate it), none of them act in any 'non-standardised' way, and all of them avoid having large slabs of infobox code at the start of every country article. --bainer (talk) 00:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Unless this deletion proposal saves work, it appears to force additional work on 120 articles. How is this deletion proposal a constructive action? Ancheta Wis 01:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Thebainer. There seems to be some confusion here as to what these templates actually are: if they were found in What links here then they use Infobox Country not anything else. These templates, as Thebainer said, avoid having large slabs of infobox code in articles making them less imposing to edit.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 02:35, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all per above. Changing to a different system would be unnecessarily onerous and difficult. Brisvegas 03:54, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as above. Also the stated reason for this nomination is somewhat misleading, these are not Redirects per se. I believe the consensus has been reached, can we speedy keep these? --Vsion 04:12, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as bainer and Cyberjunkie said. Convert other country infoboxes to this form as it provides the best of both worlds: 1) The infobox structure is not contained in the article making it easier to not edit the main article without accidentally breaking the infobox. 2) They invoke the standard country infobox providing standard structured information on each country. This provides neat separation between people working to harmonise all country articles (through WikiProject Countries) and people looking to maintain "their" country's article. --Scott Davis Talk 04:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Single use template. -- User:Docu
  • Delete. They serve no legitimate purpose other than to block off template text, and frankly, if you can't edit an article with template text, I'm afraid of you editing the article anyway.--naryathegreat | (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I created the one on Philippines, since India had one and that article was a featured article. The usage of that template didn't seem to prevent the article from becoming a feature article, so I can't see it being too much of a problem. I don't like the fact the template has to use another template, but have you seen how big the country infobox can get and how many parameters it has? Keeping it there results in a lot of unnecessary clutter that is extremely daunting for some anonymous users to read, let alone edit. If you want we could just hard code all the information in the templates instead of invoking the infobox. --Jtalledo (talk) 20:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I added 30 or so of these infoboxes yesterday, and other than at Cuba nobody has minded or even commented on them, SqueakBox 20:25, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all and subst:. --Wikiacc (talk) 21:27, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all as per above. --File:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 21:46, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all and subst. Metatemplates are bad. --Golbez 22:00, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Furthermore, I will go through these and if there is nothing added - i.e. if the template consists ONLY of a call to Infobox Country - then I will transclude them. --Golbez 22:03, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do suggest, however, that Template:United States infobox be deleted as well, for being an orphan. --Golbez 22:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, removes potentially intimidating code from the lead of an article.--nixie 09:32, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. I believe that exposing the template parameters on the country page can subject it to some undesirable results. It can be hypothesized that probably a newbie might accidentally change parameters and not know how to change it back or the parameters could be vandalized. Also, I believe in a user-friendly Wikipedia, so not exposing the parameters can as well remove relatively intimidating code from the edit box, which can make it more user-friendly. -Akira123323 12:56, 17 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Having a separated infobox for each country will help editing to look more user-friendly and will prevent new users to accidentally remove parts of the code with undesirable results. These ones are better. -- AlexCovarrubias
  • Keep all removes annoying code from the articles. Páll (Die pienk olifant) 02:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. Standardize naming of {{Infobox Bosnia and Herzegovina}} to {{Bosnia and Herzegovina infobox}}Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:20, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keeep all, limits vandalism and removes obstructive code from main article. Slac speak up! 02:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - single use, and metatemplates are bad. I don't think it's that hard to ignore a chunk of template code at the beginning of an article (I certainly do it all the time, and people have to do it for things such as deletion ones); and having a seperate template makes it harder if someone wants to edit the content of the template. --Mairi 01:29, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all and take issue to Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. Off-loading the infobox to a template (or subpage). is a good idea. — Davenbelle 10:30, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. as per AlexCovarrubias above. But names can be standardized. --Pamri • Talk 11:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. They're good, useful, and provide much information concisely. --Idont Havaname 18:45, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all. Templates are intended to be used in multiple articles, not just one. Wikiacc (talk) 19:10, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • An Emphatic Keep Them All. The standardized template (template:Infobox Country) is excessively bulky, wasteful of space, and aesthetically unpleasing (rather like your average Wal-Mart), and often include information irrelevant for that country. The standardized template is extremely anglo-centric and Western-orented, and does allow for inclusion of important regional parameters. For example, mandated parameters in the standard template include such things as GDP (with no fewer than five separate varieties, "official" languages, and "coat of arms". First of all, not all countries have a coat of arms (e.g., India). Nevertheless, on the India country page, the national Emblem of India ((the Lion Capital of Asoka) is listed in the standardized infobox as "Coat of Arms". This is unacceptable and misleading. In addition, such things as GDP and "Official" languages are rather close to being meaningless in such primarily rural, diverse, and non-Western nations such as Bhutan, Somalia, Laos, et cetera. Such parameters as "average daily caloric intake" or "list of common languages" would be more acceptable. In Bhutan, for example, the "official" language is only spoken by a very small minority of the Bhutanese populace, and does not describe the linguistic norm in that country. In these cases, then, customization is needed. This customization is highly facilitated by having unique, diverse templates for each country to cater to its own unique characteristics and needs. Let the hawkers of the unattractive, boxy, and wasteful "Wal-Mart" template stick it on their own country sites (and maybe their own personal user pages) rather than their patently unacceptable mandate that it be used everywhere, for every country. Saravask 22:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly is the template "policy" you refer to?--Cyberjunkie | Talk 12:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1) No metatemplates [Templates calling other templates]; 2) No single-use templates, except where used on policy/procedural Wikipedia-related pages. If this isn't recorded somewhere, it should be, the metatemplate issue has been brought up often on the Pump. No one's forcing use of Infobox Country on your pet nation's article - but we're saying, don't make a metatemplate/single use template. Keep the code in the article, that's all we ask. --Golbez 20:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep in mind that I only nominated those single article templates that did nothing except use the {{Infobox Country}} template. If the template doesn't fit the needs of a particular country then it shouldn't use it, except as a atarting for creating its own infobox. Caerwine 05:42, 20 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Arab subdivision[edit]

Delete: This template contains only four links and it is unlikely that there will ever be significantly more. Furthermore:

Keep:

  • imarah is not a redlink
  • mintaqah has not only two links on it and is not a mere dab page
  • muhafazah is not a duplicat of governorate. Furthermore consensus was reached to keep guberniya (russian) seperate from governorate. Are arab governorates worth less? Are they less important than guberniyas? Or french département?
  • wilayah is not the only genuine article

Instead of deleting the template it and the articles should be extended. A similiar template could be created for russian subdivision terms. These templates easily bind together related articles. It does not harm anybody. But helps the editors. User:Timwi already deleted this template by abusing his admin rights. He did not ask any involved person before nor did he put up "see also" references, linking the terms together. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:06, 18 October 2005 (UTC) AND Tobias Conradi (Talk) 03:14, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Imarah was a red link when Timwi submitted this template for comment. Now it's just a redirect to Emirate, itself just a paragraph of text with a couple of links.
  • Mintaqah has more than two links, but that doesn't mean it's not a candidate for being a disambiguation page. See Lincoln, for example. Don't assume that "disambiguation" is somehow a denigration of your work or a demotion of your page.
  • Muhafazah clearly duplicates the information in Governorate. The extra information could easily be merged into Governorate, if it is deemed appropriate to do.
Let's keep the discussion civil and factually accurate. I have no opinion (yet) on the deletion. —HorsePunchKid→龜 04:18, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • it seems you speak with me - Tobias. I never thought the number of links is any relevant to decide whether the page is dab-tagable. Anyway, is the dab-tag relevant to template deletion as implied by User:Timwi? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 05:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • when I visit governorate I see content that is not on muhafazah. When I visit muhafazah I see content that is not on governorate. The statement that one is a duplicate of the other is therefore wrong for my computer.
  • is it any relevant that imarah was a redlink when User:Timwi posted his claimes? I think the template-deletion decision should take into account the most recent status. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 05:32, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I wasn't clear. By "duplicates", I did not mean "completely duplicates everything and contains no other information than what is duplicated". I just meant that it is largely redundant. I thought this was fairly clear from my acknowledgement that if necessary, some information would need to be merged into Governorate. It is relevant to point out the timing of the red link because you seem to be using it to discredit Timwi's motivations instead of just pointing out the obvious fact that you have (rightly!) fixed it. Side note: please try not to interleave your comments with mine; it makes things harder to follow in the long run. ;) —HorsePunchKid→龜 05:44, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
for interleaving: thanks for pointing this out. :-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. A fairly useful template, IMO, especially to people who are interested in Arab subdivisions but have no clue what other subdivisions exist—for these people the template provides a clean and easy way to review the whole set. Its inclusion into the {{Subnational entity}} template is possible, but it may (and will) make that template cluttered and unwieldy as more national entities are added.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 20:23, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
??????? do you vote for delete muhafazah? I think this is the wrong place. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 02:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm referring to the template. If the terms represent unique types of subdivisions, they should be added to {{Subnational entity}} directly; if they are merely Arabic terms for subdivisions already present in that template, then they do not require a separate template. Kirill Lokshin 10:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
of course they are unique types. But there are maybe 500 unique types around the world (and more). They cannot all go into {{Subnational entity}}. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:36, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment by the creator. I thought of making series for different languages, like it exists on Template:Subnational entity as far a I can see the latter really has been a success and animated others to add english terms. There are lots of foreign terms around. See List of terms for subnational entities Maybe the terms can be grouped to make the templates bigger, e.g. the slavic terms may have something in common. Arab probably will stay a smaller template for some time. If you merge the content into worldwide translation pages you cannot give easily an overview to the reader about the terms used in one language region. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 06:05, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Wikipedia is not the right place for a collection of foreign-language terms used in other languages. If the subdivisions in all Arab countries are referred to in English as either governorates, provinces or anything else already present on {{Subnational entity}}, then the Arab terms should only be redirects to those, and your template becomes redundant as the articles are already linked by {{Subnational entity}}. – Timwi 16:04, 18 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • since they are as far as i know official terms, translation is not that easy. Same terms are translated different. Furthermore, there are whole article series that use foreign terms and there were heavy discussions on whether to translate the terms or not. Take a look on Subdivisions of Russia. Oblasts are nowhere translated. Same with Ukraine. Maybe dive a little bit more into the subdivisions stuff. As mentioned above for guberniya it was decided not to merge. if template deletion is based on merge and deletion of subnational entity terms, then go through this process first Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:28, 19 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template:User du-0 [edit]

See: m:Incivility; Wikipedia:Civility, Wikipedia:Wikiquette, Wikipedia:Assume good faith and m:Don't be a dick.
Comment: This TFD listing is arguably a violation of an ArbCom ruling against Davenbelle stalking Cool Cat - see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Coolcat, Davenbelle and Stereotek. As such, I've removed the TFD notice from the template itself - David Gerard 18:39, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was that appropriate? Having the notice on there alerted users of this template that it is up for deletion. Without that alert, users may log on one day to find that it has been deleted, without ever having the chance to take part in the discussion.—Gaff ταλκ 02:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. For heaven's sake, this is a joke template. Communities have jokes. Wikipedia is a community. As one of Cool Cat's mentors, I'm a little perturbed by Davenbelle's apparent determination to ignore the advice of the arbitration committee. --Tony SidawayTalk 02:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment: I've created and am using Template:User du-1. Which I think gives a better and important message, and doesn't contain a category - David Gerard 16:48, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
When will we be voting on that one?—Gaff ταλκ 02:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
An A for effort, but it's still inherently uncivil. To me, this is no better than starting every conversation with every new person I run into with "Are you a dumbass?". Don't get me wrong, I get the joke; I just don't see any need for this whole attitude to be condoned by having it in the Template namespace. It seems pretty clear to me that this is the kind of thing people will eventually start to take seriously. —HorsePunchKid→龜 02:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. It's a reminder that working on Wikipedia means you will have to deal with people you consider destructive idiots just as if they weren't. This is difficult, but it's also obligatory. I suggest that what you perceive as "uncivil" in stating this is that the eternal nature of human stupidity is not pleasant - David Gerard 13:01, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I should add: alternate wordings (that don't make it even longer) are most welcome. Edit this template - David Gerard 15:07, 25 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
re joke comments: "jokes" such as this serve the project how? — Davenbelle 08:40, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Lets see. It points out commets from dumbasses are not welcome. While it is a "joke" it goes along with m:Don't be a dick and m:Bash. It is a joke template given "dumbass" is not a real language. It benefits the project by discourageing dumbass comments which are by nature dumb. --Cool Cat Talk 23:21, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
My experience with Internet dumbasses is that warnings like this do more to goad them into action than to discourage them. ;) —HorsePunchKid→龜 01:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You going to nominate Wikipedia:Department of Fun next? ~~ N (t/c) 23:33, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It does not say that comments from dumbasses are not welcome. It says, "This person does not understand dumbass (or understands it with considerable difficulties, or does not want to speak dumbass)". This would imply that dumbass comments be directed elsewhere. This is an important distinction.—Gaff ταλκ 03:44, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Assume good faith. — Davenbelle 02:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
According to arbcom you have been hounding me. The case closed and that was one of the results and now you are trying to get a template on my userpage deleted and you come and post random policies. Tell, me how is your continuing hounding benefiting the project? Leave me alone damn it. --Cool Cat Talk 02:45, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to be on the pages of at least 9 different users. It is not unique to Cool Cat's user page. DES (talk) 03:02, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Userfy. People have the right to use it as a joke on their user pages, but it doesn't deserve the endorsement of template namespace placement. Superm401 | Talk 00:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. Its a joke. Its not uncivil. Writing "you are a dumbass" is uncivil. Posting a template that says "this user is a dumbass" on anothers userpage is uncivil. Also, this template is useful in the following way: Some people find a sense of humor to be indicative that a person may be approachable, easy to talk to. This makes it more likely that the user might be asked a question by a newbie, who has this posted next to the smiley face template that says that the user is happy to help out a newbie. (Where I first saw this template in use) Personally, I find the user pages that have like 4 different languages and all other "official" looking templates to be a little cold, sterile and off-putting. As a user with less than a month of experience, I would be more likely to ask a question of somebody with this template on their user page. Just because you do not understand another users method of communication (in this instance, humor) does not mean that their language is invalid.—Gaff ταλκ 01:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would be much less likely to ask a question of a user with this template - if they don't understand 'dumbass', then they are implying that they won't really understand any question asked by someone with less knowledge, and at the very least are indicating a willingness to attack question(ers) as stupid. I think it's counterproductive. -- stillnotelf has a talk page 04:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: History of literature [edit]

Delete: This template is large and intrusive. It takes up half the screen and is very long and has a giant out-of-focus picture of unrelated books. Examples at Matter of Britain and Latin literature among others. Stbalbach 18:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed. Delete, or replace with something much smaller. - SimonP 18:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • This my first template. I created it a few days ago and have now tweaked it to a smaller width and image. It would be more constructive to post a message to me suggesting changes rather than going straight to the most extreme option available (i.e: deletion) we're all trying to make this encyclopedia the best it can be. Going straight to the deletion option without even discussing the matter with the person who's created it is destructive. I hope the smaller image and slimmer box is an improvement. I can, of course, take a different photo with a new selection of books, or leave out the image altogether. Constructive suggestions please... --wayland 14:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • We sometimes mistake curtness for rudeness. While I understand your comment, also try and understand that often XfD is sometimes used as "speedy cleanup". This may or may not be appropiate, but it is certainly true. Wikipedia is very large, many of the people who do thankless jobs are very busy, and sometimes shorcuts are taken. Do keep up the good work! Oh, and...
  • Keep but clean up. - brenneman(t)(c) 02:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The arguments above indicate cleanup and editing, not deletion. -- SCZenz 02:31, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete after listifying. BlankVerse ∅ 10:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep cleaned-up version. Filiocht | The kettle's on 10:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Template: welcome5 [edit]

Delete: We already have more than enough welcoming templates, we don't need every single user to make a seperated welcome-template..it'd be flooding Wikipedia with superfluousness -- SoothingR 07:46, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

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