Template talk:WikiProject banner shell/Archive 1a

message: Ah, a sigh of relief.  Seven to one - can someone check my work on Talk:Pashtun people before I go crazy?  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks good. Raul654 18:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And for the "before" version, see how the page looked prior to double surgery.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Does anyone else think it's getting a bit ridiculous?: "Categories: Wikipedia featured article candidates | Wikipedia former featured articles | Wikipedia good articles | Wikipedia CD Selection-GAs | WikiProject Afghanistan | A-Class Ethnic groups articles | WikiProject Ethnic groups articles | High-importance Ethnic groups articles | Unassessed Central Asia-related articles | WikiProject Central Asia | WikiProject Pakistan history articles | Unassessed Pakistan history articles | Unknown-importance Pakistan history articles | Unassessed Pakistan articles | Unknown-importance Pakistan articles | A-Class India articles | A-Class India articles of unknown-importance | Unknown-importance India articles | Wikipedia Version 0.5 | Wikipedia CD Selection-0.5 | Wikipedia Release Version | A-Class Version 0.5 articles | Social sciences and society Version 0.5 articles | A-Class Version 0.7 articles | Social sciences and society Version 0.7 articles" Raul654 18:50, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem I have is that some categories are useful, and I don't know how we determine which are and which aren't.  I check FFA and FAC categories regularly, and find three or four misplaced or incorrect nominations each week, so I can see a use for at least some categories. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of those are needed for WP 1.0 bot to function correctly; they're not really intended for actual editor use.  It'd be nice if there were some way of having hidden categories on a page, but no such luck yet.  Kirill Lokshin 18:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Who cares if talk pages are littered with categories? :) Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 05:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pashtun people practice

message: I'd like to hear what people think we should do about selected versions 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0? I can see four possibilities:
* Incorporate it into ArticleHistory (like Maindate, DYK, 'etc)
* Incorporate it into this template
* Treat it as any other wikiproject
* Create a third (and probably final) meta-template that incorporates selected versions, deletion nominations, and whatever other common occurrences I can't think of at the moment. 
Any thoughts? Raul654 19:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Treat it as any other WikiProject, it goes in this template.  Please keep it out of ArticleHistory, which is complex enough to install.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, they're not really WikiProject templates, not having an associated WikiProject in any real sense of the term; this template is intended specifically for those, and I don't really think we ought to use it as a catch-all for anything else that happens to be on the talk page.  Having said that, all of those can probably be combined into a single "release version" template; it'll just need parameters for which versions to take in.  I'll see what I can put together as a PoC. Kirill Lokshin 19:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK - since I had added V5 to Pashtun, and was told it was OK, I thought it was.  I see Circeus has already corrected my mistake, and now Pashtun is back to having a skipto template and a V5 template.  No more clean talk page.    SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:21, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I readded the Skip template because even with the merged banners, the ToC still was not visible in 1020x800.  is certainly the most cluttering template present. Circeus 19:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I stand corrected:  was the most cluttering template XD Circeus 19:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Frankly, I'd prefer to delete template:talkpageheader entirely. It serves no purpose, it should never have been created, and it should never be used. Raul654 19:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:   Amen - I'll agree to that!!! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 20:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The talkheader template instructions say: "Using the template is suggested for talk pages that are very active or have had policy violation problems. This template should be used only when needed. Do not add this template to every talk page. In particular, it should not be added to otherwise empty talk pages." - unfortunately, it is in use on over 25,000 talk pages (I stopped clicking on 'next 5,000' on the 'what links here' thing after the fifth time). I'd support the deletion of this template as well, but wouldn't a bot be needed to tidy up those 25,000+ pages? Carcharoth 00:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Like Sandy, I too would prefer not to have a separate selected-versions template. Raul654 19:27, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you're going to have all sorts of miscellaneous templates (e.g. the various "this article was cited in X newspaper" stuff, etc.) up there anyways. Kirill Lokshin 19:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which would argue for folding the most common ones into a common template. Raul654 22:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or several common templates.  There's no reason why we should jam everything into a three-template model at the expense of having the third template composed of things that have no connection to one another except for the fact that they're all represented by talk page banners. Kirill Lokshin 22:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The more I think about it, the more I think selected versions appropriate in the ArticleHistory template. It's finite, small, and easily enumerable set of states (none, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0), which are very much related to the concept of reviewing articles. As such, I think I'm going to see about getting it implemented there. Raul654 03:08, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Make sure to preserve the message about GFDL images that is in the CD selection One.Circeus 18:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: As per Raul654's request, a test implementation of ArticleHistory containing support for v0.5, v0.7 and Releaseversion can be found at User_talk:Dr_pda/Sandbox. The extra text does make the box somewhat bigger, particularly if there's already a Main Page date in there. Also the v0.5 etc templates contain class and category parameters, which have to be included into ArticleHistory to maintain equivalent functionality. The test implementation does not handle the CD selection or things like . Comments? Dr pda 01:26, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just one - drop all the bolding. It's unnecessary, distracting, and tacky. Other than that, it looks great (as usual) Raul654 01:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Some articles may be in more than one CD selection. Also note . Another approach is to create a second toggle box (inside ArticleHistory) containing "misc" templates, that could be passed in as parameters without change. This would allow the same article to be tagged with 0.5, WPCD, and CoreTopic without incorporating code for multiple options here. (V0.7 seems mostly un-used.) You might have parameters misc1= misc2= This would also allow any combination of CD selections. Gimmetrow 02:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Do you have an example of an article that's tagged with more than one selection template?  As far as I know, the selection sets are incremental; everything in 0.5 is automatically in 0.7, and so forth. Kirill Lokshin 02:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Moving it into the show/hide area sounds like a pretty good idea, actually. Although I do agree with Kirill that versions are supposed to be exclusive (although I think he got it backwards - things in 0.7 should be in 0.5, not vice versa). We could also incorporate a WPCD=yes option at the same time. Raul654 02:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, basically, 0.7 = 0.5 + (added articles). :-) Kirill Lokshin 02:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  Talk:Sun has core topic and V0.5. Many of V0.5 or V0.7 have WPCD, eg Talk:Fish, Talk:Baseball, Talk:Cheese. Why did they all use different CD images? Gimmetrow 02:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  They're unrelated.  Core topics is different from release versions (0.5, 0.7, 1.0), which is different from the external WPCD project. Kirill Lokshin 02:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  Well, that's fine then. If the CD selections are like wikiprojects, just put them in the meta project banner bin. By this I mean, why not just put all these CD-related templates (V0.5, core topics, WPCD, etc.) in the big banner here, if people want to? Gimmetrow 03:33, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What to do with selection versions?

message: How does this work with small=yes?  I tried it out at Krazy Kat, and it seemed like if there was a way the banners could, if they were all made to work with small, stack up inside the template a lot easier if the right float aspect could be tweaked, maybe through a css class?  Seems to me maybe this could be a step forward for the banners, mandating them to be built as small.  Okay, it's a dream, but I'm curious. Hiding Talk 18:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I would appreciate it if this template could be modified to allow "small=yes". Then it could be employed on pages such as Talk:Supernova. Thank you. — RJH (talk) 18:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I am not sure that this is a better idea than small=yes for gaining control of unruly talk page headers, but if people do like this, is there a way to get it to itself work with small? I also think having a collapsible small thing would be cool for its own sake. :) ++Lar: t/c 17:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What exactly do you mean by "work with small"?  If you mean including small banners inside, it already does that.  If you mean collapsing to small size in its own right, that would be possible, but only when all the banners inside were also using the option.  Or do you mean something more complicated? Kirill Lokshin 17:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did.  I had the idea that the banner could accommodate two small project banners per row, if the technical aspects could be arranged.  But on reflection, that was probably naive wishfulness. Hiding Talk 20:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not really doable (neatly) unless you turn off the float:right in the small-talk CSS class (which will break all the pages that use it at the moment), or force all the banners to support explicit alignment. Kirill Lokshin 20:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I thought the float:right would kind of kill it.  It's way too much hassle to recode all banners just for this. Hiding Talk 10:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not all that conversant in CSS... Would the float right float the small box to the right of a table cell?  Or an enclosing div? -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 21:48, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

text: You could table it, I guess, but then that's dependent on all banners being small compliant to allow the tabling to work. Hiding Talk 10:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  Maybe I'm crazy and this can't be done, I'm not that good with css... but I was thinking that if you told this box to be small=yes that it would make all the containing banners be small=yes (as if they had that parameter) as well and it would be the same width as a small banner, and positioned where small banners go, just as if it were one. I'm not suggesting that it hold a bunch of small banners arranged horizontally... does that help clarify? ++Lar: t/c 23:37, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The contained banners would need to be called with the small=yes option to generate small banners. While that can be done, it takes a bit of extra code to make it happen automatically. (One way to do it is discussed below.) Gimmetrow 02:37, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, each template needs to have its own small and large versions to allow the template call small=yes to work.  What it basically does it acts as a filter: you code two versions of the template and make one of them dependent on the call of an "if" function with the keyword "small" acting as the target for "if".  So every template needs to have been written to use the "small" call. I'm nopt sure you could code the template to insert the small call into each inserted banner, either.  Well, I mean, techinicaly I think you might, but the method of doing it would be more complicated than the editor adding it to all banner templates when they add this wraparound template. Hope that all that makes sense, my programming is over half my lifetime away. Hiding Talk 10:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. this only works if small is already supported in the embedded templates. Note that I have been informally (and on a spot check basis) converting templates that don't already support small whenever I find them. I'd been thinking about doing some toolserver automation (my first project there so likely to be slow to get done) to find ones that need it (because they are used on a long talk page and don't yet support small=yes) but am not sure if that's needful, I get the sense that swift progress is being made on converting them all already... Kyrill, is that true in your judgement? ++Lar: t/c 16:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This thing basically makes the small function null and that is the reason why I personally love it. Not sure why small option is even being discussed as in my humble opinion this little template outmodes it. Quadzilla99 20:05, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Quadzilla -- the small option was an attempt to clean up talk page clutter. It was ill concieved and failed. This template makes the small option obsolete, and its use should now be considered deprecated. Raul654 20:24, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

text: It's incongruous, cluttered looking, and if you have a high resolution computer screen (like me and mine's only 1680 x 1050) the boxes become too small. Quadzilla99 20:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To which I'll add - the reason it was ill concieved is that it was an attempt to reduce talk page clutter concieved and exexcuted by the very people with a vested interest in keeping those talk pages cluttered. The result was something that was a true hack (in the computer programming sense), it was an aesethetic nightmare, and it didn't really make pages uncluttered. Having the wikiproject people come up with an anti-clutter solution is sort of like having the NRA write gun control legislation - it's an insurmountable conflict of interest, and the results are not pretty. Raul654 21:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree whole heartedly. I'm an avid member of the NBA wikiproject and a semi-active member of the NFL wikiproject so I'm not anti-wikiproject, but talk pages are not meant as billboards for advertising wikiprojects. Quadzilla99 21:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's rather a POV characterisation of what project banners do. ++Lar: t/c 17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what's POV about it. Rather just hazard a guess could you just explain what is POV about it. Keep in mind that if you visit the NBA wikiproject you'll see I am very active there and have invited 10+ people to the project. Quadzilla99 21:17, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No slight of YOU was intended, just that I think "billboards for advertising" shows a certain POV about what those banners are for. My POV is that they're not advertisments at all, but rather that they convey important information. ++Lar: t/c 22:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I have already cited elsewhere on this page, the Wikiproject council is quite clear that the primary (if not only) use of the wikiproject template is indeed for advertising purposes. Raul654 22:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting that you read that discussion in that way, Raul654.  I read the first part that the tags are advertisements, which then changes to talk about the content of the tags - specifically the article rating.  So perhaps the tags do convey more than just advertisement... -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:00, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So your view, in rose-colored glasses, is probably something like, "they convey very important information to the reader about a group or project that is dedicated to improving the type of articles in question." How is that not advertising? because it's something good? Advertising isn't defined by value judgements, an ad by coca-cola and the public ad campaigns in the 1980's for AIDS awareness are still both called advertising. What you're saying is that these are good things and therefore should be given billboard like status on every talk page. Which, of course is an entirely different argument. Your argument should be something like, "Yeah it's advertising but the product/idea is so good that the advertising space is well deserved and merited." Quadzilla99 23:16, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Small doesn't reduce talk page clutter; it just puts it on the side rather than the top, and makes it harder to read.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree that it doesn't reduce clutter. Conversely, I feel this option takes important information that ought to be visible on a talk page, and hides it. Plus, IIRC, load time was a concern of yours. This option doesn't help load times at all, everything is still loaded full size even if hidden, while small (by using smaller images) does in fact help load time. But more importantly, your comment fails to address my point, that some folk here act like there's consensus that small is failed. If that's so, please point me to where that consensus was determined. I'm not yet seeing it, and I'll continue to convert stuff to small when it makes sense to do so, I guess. ++Lar: t/c 17:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Small option doesn't reduce clutter, it just moves it to the right, and makes it look more incongruous. Must be nice to have a low resolution computer screen also Lar. I have a 1680 x 1050 screen which is nothing compared to the ultra high resolution screens that are out now and 20-20 vision (with contacts). The small option boxes are very hard for me to read from the distances I normally like to sit from my computer screen. Quadzilla99 21:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not following you there. I happen to run 1600x1200 and wear bifocals and don't see the merit in your argument about sizes, and as for clutter, I think things that take up the whole width of the page are more cluttered than things that don't. To each his own, really... Further, I think you assume a bit too much about me. But again, you miss the real point of my comments. Where is the consensus that small has failed which has been asserted above? I looked and didn't find it. ++Lar: t/c 22:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure I could consult an optomologist to prove this but from where I sit from the computer (about 30 or so inches I just measured) they're unreadable without squinting to a person with 20/20 vision on a 1680x1050 15 inch screen. Quadzilla99 23:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Small