Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Archive 11

message: Please stop the double spacing between the text and the stub template.  It is against MOS and it is NOT necessary.  The stub templates are clear enough breaks from the articles.  There is already enough space between the text of the article and the stub template.199.126.28.20 05:46, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My own personal experience - and that of those I've asked - is that the single empty line makes the code a lot easier to read, and it makes stub sorting easier by reducing copy-paste accidents that are more prone to happen if you have both categories, stub template(s) and interwiki links following each other without any breaks at all. Valentinian T / C 09:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm talking about two lines of space separating the preceding text and the stub template actual text, not the wikitext.70.74.35.53 06:37, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which is neither a distinction, nor a difference.  Alai 19:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Ditto, V. And I think the double spacing is the least of WP's formatting worries. It pales in comparison to all the misspellings, bad formatting, and horrendous grammar... Her Pegship  (tis herself) 22:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I can't think what the MOS has to do with this:  this isn't formatting of article text, this is formatting of markup code.  As stub templates often look horrendous when jammed right up against the preceding text, especially if it comes right after a paragraph of text, I'd suggest just the opposite:  please always use two blank lines before the first stub template.  (At least until such time as the CSS coding of the tags is changed to make this unnecessary, concerning which there was a flurry of discussion some time ago, but so far as I know, no action.)  Alai 18:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed, the Manual of Style is neither relvant here nor does it address what 199.126.28.20 seems to think it does.  In response to Valentinian, I find it hard to credit that anyone would genuinely feel that "Blah blah blah<return>" is somehow "easier to read", much less "much easier to read", than "Blah blah blah<return><return>", whether we are talking about the rendered view or the code view.  I've heard of dyslexia, but not disblanklinea. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 22:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But we want consistency.  If double spacing is not allowed anywhere, why do stub template formatting have an exception?70.74.35.53 02:00, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So far as know, there's no such general "rule".  Going from "not a good idea between paragraphs" to "mustn't be allowed anywhere" would be a case of false generalisation.  Alai 02:14, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

text: I don't believe he said that.  Alai 23:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right.  For one thing, double spacing is generally avoided, as a guideline, which is not an official policy, and secondly virtual all rules of any kind in most contexts have exceptions, and in Wikipedia I would have to say that working around display problems so that pages look presentable would have to be one of them. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 02:09, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The anon later commented on my talk page that he was referring to double spacing occurring between "the preceding text and the stub template actual text, not the wikitext." Valentinian T / C 05:38, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, I have no idea what the point is.  Is there some offending example to look at?  How would this even happen other than by a stray  inside the stub template's code? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 09:13, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Double spacing 

message: This is to propose the idea of stubs that deal with repertory theater companies and the actors affiliated therewith. It would be filed under Entertainment, Theater/Stage, Film, and Television, and would include lists of member actors of the repertory theater companies.
Parker Gabriel 21:36, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the proposals area; try WP:WSS/P. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 23:03, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actors-repertory theater companies-stubs? 

message: In a number of cases, we do some "lumping" of countries in a way that often doesn't correspond to the structure of the permcats, due to size considerations.  This is fine, but what could do with further examination is on what basis we define these "lumpings".  In particular, we oculd do with a bit of 'democratic centralism' about whether we're using the UN geoscheme or not.  (Or what point in between using and not-using.)  Alai 18:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with the idea of implementing the UN geoscheme. Now that we've created geo- templates for most of the African nations and politician- templates for all of them, making the transition should be relatively simple. But it might be an idea to jot down a list of which country goes where in order to avoid inconsistencies, e.g. relating to Africa's minor island nations. Valentinian T / C 21:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good idea to me, too, as long as we're consisten. FWIW, as far as the geo-stubs are concerned, I've been slowly making upmerged geo-stub templates for most countries - the only ones without them now either have naming or politics-related problems associated with them. In the case of Africa, everywhere has a geo-stub template except for Mayotte and Western Sahara (political concerns) and the British Indian Ocean Territory (naming problems). In any case, as I've suggested elsewhere (Wtalk:WSS/P), the usfulness of having five separate subcontinental categories for Africa's geo-stubs is becoming less and less all the time, and ditching them might yet be a reasonable option. Grutness...wha? 23:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What tends to happen, though, is it just gets pushed down a level (or thereabouts), and we end up with similar issues with the Southern African politicians, Eastern European buildings and structures, or Latin America and the Caribbean schools (say).  But if the "old" subcontinental categories are on the way out, much the better the time to implement new such on a more consistent basis.  Alai 01:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Good point, but see also my comment about potential problems at the SFD for . Grutness...wha? 01:59, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To generalise from the particular:  the geoscheme in every case uses integral countries.  (Unlike, say, using continents...)  Alai 03:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Btw, I generally don't think it will make sense to subdivide Europe into smaller segments (N, W, E, and S). On the other hand, Africa will remain a headache if we don't chop it down somehow, given the number of countries. I have the politicians in mind here. Africa was a major headache, and Asia will remain a bother, given that we still lack a lot of templates here, and due to the death of StubSense. Btw, it looks like StubSense's death is related to something relating to Interiot's counters. One of the two errors is due to a temporary fix in the code.  Valentinian T / C 06:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it'll be required less often, if at all, for Europe.  I'm not necessarily saying we should be making any more of these than we are at present, just that when we do, we should follow the UN geoscheme (in cases where there's no suitable permcat parent).  Alai 02:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree completely. Valentinian T / C 09:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  UN geoscheme 

message: A bot request was posted at Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 51#Assessment bot which could be a great help to stub sorting. Give it a gander. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 05:29, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment bot 

message: Some time ago, Thomas Macmillan sorted the entire material relating to African politicians by country, creating templates for next to all of these countries (if I remember correctly, Western Sahara is missing due to its status as a disputed territory and so are a few minor French islands near Africa). South and Central America are almost done as well, and I'm thinking about creating upmerged <country>-politician-stub templates for the Asian nations. Trouble is that I haven't done a proper count of this material for quite a while. Should I do a count for each of them and list them all on WP:WSS/P or is this too bureaucratic? My guess would be that  would be only template that might cause problems, but on the other hand, we already have both  and , so I don't think we'll see any real problems here. Thoughts? Valentinian T / C 21:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, moving this post to WP:WSS/P . Valentinian T / C 09:37, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Upmerged templates for Asian politicans? 

message: I have proposed a speedy delete criteria for a duplicate stub type. This will make things much easier for Grutness. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speedy delete for a duplicate stub type 

message: As you can see on :Category:Southern United States road stubs, the five subcategories use two different sortkey methods, when both should be using the same format. Which one, if any, is considered "canon", if you will, for WSS? --TMF Let's Go Mets - Stats 06:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know if we have an actual canon as such. I think "...stubs|*United States" was the original format, but most of the recent material omits the star (= "...stubs| United States" ). I think the latter format is the one mostly used on the generic categories, and I personally use the format without the star. Valentinian T / C 15:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We don't have an established practice, for no better reason than we've failed to establish a practice.  Either is OK, and certainly preferable to no "top-sorting" (or the rather bizarre "bottom-sorting" with \mu which I've seen on occasion, which seems to be just entirely confused).  Obviously, it should be consistent within a given supercat.  I'd vote for "*" across the board, on the basis that " " is typically reserved for the "main article" of a category, and is (I think) slightly less likely to be removed by some random editor who doesn't get what it's there for.  But I'd be content with either, if it gets us towards a bit of democratic centralism (comrade stub-sorters).  Alai 16:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  uses µ, which I think is ridiculous, because you won't see the subcat till the last page. Also, * adds a separation that is not explained (and looks slightly odd). I personally feel that all subcats (not just stubs) should be given " " qualifiers so that they all show up on the first page of the category without separators.  ~ JohnnyMrNinja 16:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but the sorting of stub cats within permcats we're at least consistent about, whatever the merits of it as a strategy.  If all subcats were top-sorted, I'd have no objections to making the stub cat the last of those (say with "*µ", " µ", or some such) but generally, they're not, and people would probably object if the stub cat "jumped the queue" ahead of all the other subcats.  Top-sorting subcats in general would need to be discussed elsewhere.  Using "*" doesn't add a separation, an inconsistency between "*" and " " introduces that.  (I'd imagine more use "*", but I might be wrong and/or biased.)  Some times that's desirable, though (say with a stub type that's split both by nationality and by occupation/genre/other).  Often, it's just people rowing in opposite directions.  Alai 18:20, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sortkeys for stub categories 

message: Something was brought up at bot requests... There are currently two types of stub on Wikipedia, assessment-stubs and template-stubs. This is an odd double standard. I would think that either both should mean the same thing or there should be two different terms used. I have brought it up at the village pump, so please add any thoughts there. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 17:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We've been arguing that here for ages. Having the assessmen-style templates called "Stub-Class" was a silly mistake from the beginning, since the stub system had already been in place for a considerable time. That's the reason why there's often a lot of confusion regarding what stub templates are among Wikiprojects. Grutness...wha? 00:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two types of stubs 

message: Anybody in need of a laugh? Try checking out the topic of this deletion nom. Valentinian T / C 23:55, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need a laugh?  

message: Hi all - there's rumblings over at Template talk:Expand about changes to ,  and  which may be worth commenting on by stub-sorteing regulars... Grutness...wha? 00:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Expand and Sectstub templates

message: I proposed a stub July 17th (book-arts-stub) and I can't seem to find what happened to it.  The link in my "contributions" page takes me to the July stub proposals , which have been archived.  When I click that link and search for book-arts I find nothing.  I've also googled for it using site:en.wikipedia.org and didn't find anything.  Where should I go to find out what happened with the proposal?  You can reply here, I have this page Watched. Thanks! --Bookgrrl holler/lookee here 15:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like it was lost in the process of page archival.  The concluded discussion was in this revision (it was closed as "create upmerge template").  Alai 18:11, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  book-arts-stub 

message: Hi there!
I have noticed the Maribyrnong River on "Wikipedia" and I am very happy to have  my local River included. However I can not find any entry's regarding "Canoeing/ Kayaking" on this River nor "Rowing" activeties. Thera are two Canoe Clubs and Rowing Clubs situatet on our River! Fred Jordan ( life member ) "Essendon Canoe Club est. 1925". <canoefrd@operamail.com.au>  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.101.175.201 (talk) 01:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure why you posted this here, since it's not in any way connected to the stub-sorting wikiProject, but... if you have information on that article, fix it. Just click on the edit link at the top of the page and edit the article. Grutness...wha? 06:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maribyrnong River /Victoria / Australia. 

message: Hi all - there is now a full list of nation-level (and nation-like, non-ontiguous or autonomous region-level) geo-stubs listed at User:Grutness/Geo-stub list. All of them are regular names, after NG fashion, at least, and there are now only a small handful of (mainly uninhabited) regions without such templates - all of which are currently awaiting naming suggestions on the proposals page (int, hint). Given that the geo-stubs are AFAIK the only near-complete by nation (and etc.) split of templates, these can perhaps be used as guides to the naming of similar splits for -bio- -politician- -hist- etc stubs. Grutness...wha? 00:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Full list of "nation-x-stub" names 

message: I recently added the missing "top-level" stub templates to the text of :Category:Sportspeople stubs. I noticed that there are lots of second- and third-level templates missing, e.g. , , etc. Do you think it's worth adding all the missing second- and third-level stub templates as well? DH85868993 16:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, I'd add them to the subcategories - mentioning  in  and  (or whatever it's called) rather than in the top level category.But we don't have a hard and fast rule on it one way or the other. Grutness...wha? 23:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Category:Sportspeople stubs 

message: Every so often, a new sub-category is created for a stub category, and the user who creates the sub-category doesn't have time to fully recategorize the stubs. I think we should have a template to place on such categories, which should look similar to the following:
	
This category is in the process of being split.
If you find any stub which seems to belong to :Category:newtype stubs, please recategorize them.
What do you think about this? Od Mishehu 10:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. Grutness...wha? 23:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

text: That seems sensible, and indeed would correspond to one of the sections of the "to do" list.  I wouldn't use that appearance, though, as it's too similar to , and also bear in mind that very often multiple subcats are created at once, and such cases tend to be the ones where re-sorting is most strongly indicated, so the parameter should probably be free text to allow for a description of this, or a parameter list, or something along those lines.  Alai 02:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As to the look, I note that the various deletion templates recently got a new look, and it's possible the merge and split ones did as well. Something along the lines of the "split into two articles" template (whatever it's called) may be a reasonable look. Would it also be worthwhile adding a link to the WSS to do list, or is that too "self-referential"? Grutness...wha? 07:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Stub categories are already self-refs, so I wouldn't see that as being a concern. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 09:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What I might be inclined to do is to have that template feed into a meta-category (or is that a meta-meta-category by this point?) of , in a similar way as do  and , and put the to-do link on that category page.  But that's just a nicety.  Alai 15:48, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds eminently reasonable. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 16:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A template for a stub category which is being split off 

message: I just made a proposal concerning this project at the village pump. Go there and discuss it, if possible. --CrazyLegsKC 05:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal 

message: I noticed that there are some categories misnamed.  Instead of , and , the names are  and .  Should these be changed (and if so, how?)  Also, the figure skating cat has a few subcats which are similarly misnamed. Neier 13:18, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They probably should - categories like that are usually deliberately named so that they can include coaches and the like. The way to do it is to tag them with  and list them at Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion for discussion on the names. Grutness...wha? 23:20, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misnamed? stub categories 

message: There's an illustration used in a stub template that's I like to suggest a change to. What do I do? Thank you. --24.211.242.80 00:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub template photo 

message: From the functional spec we generate good script.
this is comes from devlopers. 
writiing script is testers work for good quality script see below points
1. give brief information about the tool
2. give environment req to test
3. any kind of data testing and limited data testing to be mentioned in description.
4. any types users should be mentioned.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.195.187.198 (talk) 12:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to write a script 

message: You may have noticed that the background colour for the stub category page boilerplate has changed;  apparently it's been using markup intended for talk page templates all this while.  I can't say I'm much taken with the new scheme, but that might just be the imprinting of having stared at thousands of 'em over time.  There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Category message boxes about some sort of standardisation, but the current level seems to be approximately 'none'.  We should probably given this some thought, at any rate.  Alai 17:42, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've restored the former colour. I personally found the old look much easier to read and the recent edit seems to have been motivated by a an editor trying to give the template two different looks depending on whether it is used on talk pages or other page types. I don't follow the logic in this modification since the template isn't intended to be used on talk pages at all. Valentinian T / C 17:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: And User:PEJL has already reverted it again citing that the colour is inappropriate for non-talk pages. It would be nice to see input from other editors regarding how which template they prefer, but for my sake it could be spotted green if people fancied such a look. Valentinian T / C 17:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (ec) I made the original edit. The motivation was that I saw the template used on a non-talk page. I assumed the template was at least sometimes supposed to be used on talk pages, because it used talk colors, so that's why I used the conditional. If it's never to be used on talk pages it theoretically doesn't need a conditional. (It is used on quite a few talk pages, and on those pages, the talk colors blend in well with other templates.) Either way, the template shouldn't use talk colors on non-talk pages. Any other color scheme would be fine. --PEJL 18:02, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I've not heard about a "talk colour" before, and I don't see the point in trying to impose one. In any case, the current white is simply way too anonymous. This template's purpose is to be a visible warning against the creation of odd templates and categories that will merely make our work harder, but in its current shape, this template is as visible as a hole in space. Valentinian T / C 23:18, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Talk page templates for info on "talk colors" for templates, and Talk:Pinkerton (album) for an example of a talk page with such templates. Perhaps a style similar to  (compared to the current style which is similar to ) would work for you? --PEJL 23:35, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I originally made the box that colour IIRC. At that time, the colour was used for all such templates on talk pages and non-talk pages such as categories. Hence its use/ I've no objection to a change of colour, though it should be something else that is both unobtrusive and noticeable (if that isn't an oxymoron). Perhaps apple green or something similar? Grutness...wha? 23:37, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm fine with both green, silver and orange. The main issue is to avoid a template that is too anonymous. Valentinian T / C 16:29, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd certainly also prefer any of the above to the status quo.  Alai 16:28, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The current white colour is too anonymous. How about we try with a nice green and see what happens? Valentinian T / C 20:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The moss green above, perhaps? The text isn't as obvious in the other two, and text boxes like this are usually a pastel-ish shade. Grutness...wha? 22:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The moss green one was the one I had in mind. I've been bold and updated the template. It might benefit from a thin outline, though. Valentinian T / C 08:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Colour scheme for {{tl|WPSS-cat}} 

message: There has been very little feed back regarding the Ordering the School stubs for United States as found on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types with the discussion question asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types#Ordering the School stubs for United States  Before being bold and just doing it, I would like a bit of feed back first. Maybe I was asking in the work place, so I am added a request here as well, Thank you in advance for your consideration of this subjectDbiel (Talk) 12:19, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the suggestion you made on WP talk:WSS/ST. Sounds sensible. BTW, not too many people probably monitor that talk page - especially since the stub type list has been split into subpages, which is probably why you didn't get many responses. I've added one of those "consider commenting here instead" banners to the top. Grutness...wha? 23:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ordering the School stubs for United States 

message: Hi all - I've nominated this for deletion at tfd - it was created by someone unaware that expand and stub templates aren't used together, and I'm having difficulty finding the actual documentation relating to it (several places which say "the documentation needs changing to show this", but no evidence that it's actually been done). Any input would be welcome. Grutness...wha? 23:06, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|nostub-expand}} 

message: What about trying this on the stub types list? I used it on the category page for  and it's really handy. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 20:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They'd be really handy - if they worked in Safari, which they don't. I can't get at any of the information in the table in , unfortunately, and anyone else using an older form of Safari will be in the same situation (I've complained about similar tables in articles on the help desk in the past with no success :( All that appears there for me is a thin unclickable line. Grutness...wha? 23:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No joy. :( I have reverted it. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 23:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Collapsible tables|Collapsible tables]] 

message: Should we categorize Diplomats under a pure bio-stub or should the politician-stub do the trick? I am having this discussion here. We should come to a consensus on this issue.--Thomas.macmillan 15:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Diplomats quandry

message: Hi all - I've just been looking through Special:Wanted categories toi see if there were any stub-related concerns there, and I discovered three cqategories which had been renamed or upmerged but which didn't have their articles move when the templates were changed. I've tried null edits on the templates, b ut there still seem to be a lot of articles in  (which should be in ),  (which should be in ), and  (which were upmerged somewhere). The music producer one has over 100 unmoved stubs. Can't see what the problem is... any ideas? Grutness...wha? 10:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed (with copious null 'bot edits to the articles, and a handful of ones by hand).  This sort of thing seems to happen from time to time:  I'm assuming it's caused by some sort of flakiness in the job queue, with some things "falling off" of it.  (It can't only be the size of same, since it's hardly a month behind.)  In order to avoid this happening, the best thing would be to make the template changes, then re-check later and delete only when it's actually empty.  I realize that's not very convenient, since it basically involves multiple handling for the same task, and doing the job at a machine pace, and is frequently going to involve a significant delay due to job queue size.  (But just try telling anyone that over at WP:TALKTOTHEDEVHAND.)  However if this is not done, these sorts of job queue problems will show up from time to time, as will some article that turn out not to be template-populated at all.  Alai (talk) 21:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with category changes in templates 

message: The list of "to be created"s is getting big. Should I delete anything from 2006? From the last 6 months? Last rolling year? Your thoughts, please. Her Pegship  (tis herself) 21:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brevity being the soul of wit... 

message: Excuse me if this is a common problem. However, :Category:Video game gameplay stubs is a new stub category. Stub articles are not appearing in it, for instance Action point. Why is this? Thanks for your help! SharkD (talk) 09:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Two reasons: firstly, see above (the section "Problem with category changes in templates"), second, for some reason it was marked with a stub redirect which should have been deleted ("Video-game-gameplay-stub" - the template is at ). There shouldn't be anything using that old template name. Grutness...wha? 11:13, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Make that three reasons. That f**king Asbox rubbish was involved yet again. I removed it and replaced the template's text with the older standard stub template format, and all the articles appeared in the category. The sooner we get rid of Asbox, the better. Grutness...wha? 11:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Part of that was my fault.  I deleted the category and moved the template, but didn't have enough time to change all transclusions to use the correct template.  Sorry about that!  ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 23:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: S'alright - it's the sort of thing I would have expected you would have used a bot for, given the number of them. Sadly, it seems to be a fairly common occurrence lately that old names aren't being orphaned and deleted as p[er normal (have a look at my recent additions to WP:SFD. Grutness...wha? 23:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If there's something that requires a "touch" or a "template replace" bot as a result of an SFD, please let me know, since even in a "lull" I should be able to do it relatively promptly, and with minimal effort compared to doing it by hand (or indeed, semi-auto with AWB).  Anything more complex I'll also have a stab at, but with less of a "performance prediction".  If you want to run your own for the same purpose, feel free to pick my brains, and I'll certainly support an BRFA to that effect.  (These days the bot approvals group seems to reacted to earlier criticism of "process" and "delay" by becoming an exercice in racing each other to speedy-approve, so that's hardly needed.)  On asbox, what Grutness say.  Time to declare the absurdly-large "pilot" over, and start systematically reverting them?  (Maybe just subst'ing would suffice, but I'd have to double-check that.)  Alai (talk) 21:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stub articles not appearing in new stub category 

message: There's a proposal over at the village pump to simply ban stubs.  Caerwine Caer’s whines 00:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Village pump 

message: Most maintenance projects use a date parameter to indicate articles that have needed attention the longest, but not this one.  How about repurposing  as follows:
1. With no parameters   serves to mark newly located stubs for us to sort.
2. When that stub is first sorted, then in addition to the subject specific templates, it keeps adds a parameter, i.e.,  that would place stubs in categories such as .
3. When the date parameter is present, the article would not be placed in  nor would it add the blurb text unless another parameter such as sorted=no were present.
This would enable editors to focus on stubs that have remained stubs for a long while.  An alternative would be to add code to every stub template to do this, but I doubt that we'd want to or be able to ensure every stub template has the necessary code. Caerwine Caer’s whines 00:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Repurposing {{tl|stub}}

message: I've noticed a handful of these edits lately. Any idea what's going on? Grutness...wha? 05:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Betacommand has also been removing the edit action links himself with AWB.  A number of editors have suggested on his talk page that he stop and get a consensus first.  Should this go to the Village Pump? — Swpbtalk.edits 22:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

text: It's already been brought up at the Admins noticeboard. Hopefully something will be done about it soon! Grutness...wha? 22:57, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is Betacommandbot up to? 

message: As people have noticed, I started removing the external link in stub templates. They do not anything that is not already available on the page. But they also cause a problem. When you search for improper external links, that link back to wikipedia, IE self refering links in the mainspace, Special:LinkSearch is flooded with extra links from every transclusion of a stub template. There is only one method of checking these and that is to manually load every single page and check the actual edit text. That is why I started removing the external edit links in templates. Are there any proof that the extra edit links actually do anything beneficial. βcommand 16:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since your concern is that there is no way to determine that these references are due to stub templates without loading the page, that is easy to fix without resorting to eliminating such links.  Instead of using [ expanding it] for the link in stub templates, if a dummy parameter were added, say stub to make it [ expanding it] then there would be a easy way to determine which external links are presumably coming from stub templates without having to check on the link.  Such a dummy parameter has no effect on the action of the link but does serve to flag the link. Of course that presumes that the good people who provide the MediaWiki software don't start using stub as a real parameter, so it would be wise to check with them to see if we could reserve a nonsense parameter for such a purpose before making use of it. Caerwine Caer’s whines 18:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

text: that will not address the issue, as the main method that I use, and many other users use is WP:AWB and that does not see the actual links, it just gives a list of pages. βcommand 18:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And where does this list come from? I don't use AWB myself, but I would think that if it is detecting external links transcluded from a template that are in an article that point back into Wikipedia that it would be powerful enough to discern which links have particular parameters in their URL.  At worst it might require alteration of the wikicode above to put the stub parameter as the first parameter instead of the last parameter if AWB is only capable of parsing initial substrings. Caerwine Caer’s whines 19:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

text: If you look at this you will see URL linked from page. AWB does not parse the link it just gets the page name. βcommand 21:10, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I see from its user manual that AWB is able to filter its lists in several ways, including removing all entries from a list that occur in a second list.  So if the [/w/index.php?stub&title=&action=edit expanding it] link were changed to [/w/index.php?stub&title=&action=edit expanding it] then this should generate an exclusion list that could be used to make a filter. Caerwine Caer’s whines 21:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

text: for now that will work, at least until I can get the devs to make a better solution. βcommand 21:25, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It probably would have been better to have gone a little more slowly, as to be certain of consensus before you went ahead and started implementing this. For one thing, the devs might well have preferred a different link parameter be used. Caerwine Caer’s whines 23:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit links