Template talk:Vermont

message: with 250-ish towns, listing them all in the template was getting unwieldy and taking a lot of time to load. I added a link to the towns in Vermont page instead, added a few more thing to the template and left it alone. I hope that's okay with folks. Jessamyn 03:08, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  slimmed down template 

message: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates lists and displays all 50 U.S. state (and additional other) templates. It potentially can be used for ideas and standardization. //MrD9 07:25, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: U.S. state templates

message: Hi. I saw that you have been working on new designs for the template. I think a smaller footer version would be great, but I think some of the design choices that you made make it very hard to read [blue links on green and smaller text] so I thought it might be a good idea to move sample designs in here while we worked on something more final. The template goes on the bottom of a lot of pages, and if you're trying out new ideas it might be a good idea to make sure the final version is usable and readable, at least somewhat. Here is the copy of the version you were working on. I really like how it's smaller, and has the state seal, but the collection of small boxes and similar colors makes it hard to read and the extra HTML makes the code hard to edit for future changes. Do you think we can find a middle ground? Jessamyn (talk) 13:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't like the formatting changes, but I am for changing the order to Capital, Regions, Counties, Cities, Towns.  I also think the header links could be changed to Government, Geography, History, Culture, Economics.  Or something along those lines.  --Thetrick 00:46, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think those are both good suggestions. Do you want to try to work up a mock-up and put it here and peopel can offer suggestions, if they have any. Jessamyn (talk) 01:10, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: new template suggestion

message: There is currently an ongoing discussion regarding standardization of state templates (primarily regarding layout and styling) at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. states/state templates. An effort was made earlier this year to standardize Canadian province templates (which mostly succeeded). Lovelac7 and I have already begun standardizing all state templates. If you have any concerns, they should be directed toward the discussion page for state template standardization. Thanks! — Webdinger BLAH | SZ 23:01, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Standardization of state templates 

message: I propose changing the city names as displayed from "Barre City", "Newport City", etc., to just "Barre", "Newport", and so on.  The reason is that the places are actually called "Barre" and "Newport", not "Barre City", etc.  I understand that there are surrounding towns of the same name, but since the template clearly says "Cities", I don't think that that should cause any confusion.  Still, being an outsider (from New Hampshire), I want to check the feelings of the community before I make a change.  Any comments? Ken Gallager 21:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I have seen at least one place where "City" is added (the City of Barre web page), but it's clearly in the context of having to distinguish the city from the surrounding town.  "City" would still be unnecessary in the case of this template. Ken Gallager 16:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  City names 

message: I would like to see festivals moved to their own template. The items here have been geographic to date. I would like to see geographic continue to be the focus of this template. If we convert to being WP:PR for festivals, there is no telling where it will end, but no point, in any case, of having every town in the state, an advertisement for some festival which is not in the area. That does not seem appropriate here. Student7 (talk) 19:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Festivals

message: Now the template has become overly cluttered IMO. "Projects" are poorly attended and they tend to arrive at stupid ideas sometimes. The only thing to do is to join them and try to get some sense there (sigh). The current template is designed to be placed indiscriminately at the bottom of everything Vermont, syrup, cows, people, and clutter up the bottom of articles generally. The problem is that no one will look at it when it is so crowded. I used to use these to navigate between geographical places. Can't hardly find them now. Student7 (talk) 12:16, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Cluttered template

message: I posted the following under the self-styled "standards" discussion project. Since the only person who will be reading this is probably the one who has made all the recent changes without warning but will scream "standards" when I complain, it will probably be futile to post it here. But anyway:
Called subtopic "A different approach"
Just discovered that Vermont template is being changed beyond all recognition. I used to be able to use this navigational template before someone tried to turn it into a pseudo-portal. It is less usable now and will be ignored as all tediously lengthy lists are.
One "standard" you ought to discuss (there are college texts out there that have already recorded this determination) is how long should a list be before users stop regarding it as "friendly?" There is a specific answer to that question. I do not have the text in my hand.
Vermont's template (I don't see it above, please hide, if it is) looks like this now:
The first item says "topic". Apparently a catch-all phrase. The first items seem to be "articles" not links to other articles as the name "topic" implies. The editor also assumes that people using this template want the potpourri items first not specifics. I rather doubt that.
In the good old days, Vermont was geography first and maybe only, before everyone tried to piggy-back on this successful template.
Now it is a junkpile that gets added to everything indiscrimately like maple syrup, cows, lord knows what else.
I wish you guys would stop. People looking at a geographic template want a navigational template to other geographical items. Doubtless the same with political articles, government articles, etc. Fine if you want to have an olio line at the bottom that will give access to a different type of navbox. So there could be a real topics line, and be able to navigate out of geography to politics, for example. The boxes would all be named differently, "Vermont-geography", "Vermont-politics" etc. The politics box would have a topics line to get to geography. That sort of thing.
Festivals are normally just c-of-c WP:PR. Since they have articles, fine, but with its own template, it doesn't clutter up a geographic template or a politics or government one. Just a simple topic on each template with "Festivals" on it to get out of the current topic.
In that way, we wouldn't have monster boxes all over every single state article indiscrimanately taking up gobs of white space, sometimes more than the tiny article! Student7 (talk) 12:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment from supposed "standards" project