Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion/Archive 7

message: Where can I read about the outcome of the Great User Box Wars? I see a lot really silly userboxes since coming back from a short break and no user boxes on TfD? --Pjacobi 19:50, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most seem to get speedied and then get taken to WP:DRV/U these days. :P —Locke Cole • t • c 01:04, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  User box wars 

message: Well, Babel-XX is gone for 21<=XX<=50, but there's still quite a few left for XX<=20.  I'm thinking we just substitute them.   is a hideously ugly template that can't be substituted.   is incompatible with the numbered Babels, unfortunately.  I guess the only other alternative is to replace the Babels with  and , but that will take a little bit more coding.  Your thoughts?  --Cyde Weys 06:34, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hrrrm? I don't think we should substitute Babel-1 through Babel-20 onto user pages. The whole point of templates is to standardize formats and remove the complicated markup from the page. We could have a bot convert all the calls of Babels 1 - 20 to Babel-X (or Babel-N or Userboxtop/bottom with a bit more work)... but I don't think we can delete them all because of the 'portability' issue. That is, users on sister projects (of all languages) and other language Wikipedias haven't all adopted Babel-X, Babel-N, et cetera. They still have Babel-1, Babel-2, et cetera exclusively and expect those to work when copied over to English Wikipedia. Thus we probably need to keep some form of these templates around for now, if only as redirects to Babel-X. Actively spreading the alternatives to the various sister projects/languages might eventually allow full retirement of the numbered Babel templates. BTW, Babel-X could be made subst'able (any template can), but... why would we want to subst it? --CBDunkerson 12:13, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Babel templates 

message: Comments were removed from this project without justification.  Please restore them.  --24.20.49.179 03:06, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments Removed 

message: *Don't delete stuff from MY user account, I'm NOT happy about this. Now you promise to not delete it or ELSE!
--Abyab 18:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: .....uhhh? Homestarmy 00:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Don't you dare! 

message: Recently, the deletion of userboxes has been controverisal, and I'm all for community consensus of deleting them, but all the userboxes for deletion on the page are swamping the real article-based templates. We need a subsection Will (E@) T 19:47, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Userboxes are just templates. --Tony Sidaway 19:48, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I know that, but I think it deserves a subsection at least, so we can divide the two types of templates. I doubt users would want to scroll through 20 userboxes in a row. Will (E@) T 20:01, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  One could merely section the TFD page itself, unless that would unnecessarily expand its length.  Another option would be to sub-page it, as in Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Userboxes.  In retrospect, I think that the subpage option (Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Stub types) would have been better for Stubs than Wikipedia:Stub types for deletion.  One argument used for stub types to distinguish them from 'standard' templates also applies to userboxes, that they constitute template—category pairs in most cases. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How about UfD (Userboxes for Deletion)? 

message: I don't think these should be closed yet, as discussion is still going on at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Yet_more_userboxes, Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below_2, and Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#All_userboxes_below_3. Can closed discussions be reopened? TheJabberwʘck 01:54, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cyde, not everyone agrees with the notion 'everyone wins' that you state here. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Regardless of whether I agree with you, that opinion might not be the consensus that emerges from the voting. By that logic, you could go ahead and subst: and delete every user template on this page, ignoring the ongoing voting. TheJabberwʘck 02:12, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: You are correct. The deletion of these templates was improper (i.e. deletion over clear consensus to keep, closing by involved parties, et cetera). I have restored Template:User sumofpi as an example case and taken this issue to the administrator's noticeboard to seek a resolution. --CBDunkerson 11:23, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Closing userbox deletion debates 

message: This page is becoming a nightmare. With so many userboxes being proposed for deletion (many of them seemingly for no reason other than WP:POINT), it is very difficult to wade through them to find the templates that really need debating. Yesterday there were 73 templates nominated, and of them only five were ones in article space, which surely are the ones that should have priority. Swamping the page with userboxes, the vast majority of which, though unencyclopedic, don't do any actual harm, is doing harm to the processes on this page. I wonder just how many WP editors who would normally snd some time weighing up all the tfd debates here are currently taking one look at the daily list and simply not bothering. Something needs doing, and quickly - before this page is totally unusable. Grutness...wha? 04:47, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * You do seem to make a WP:POINT by nominating bunches of userboxes for reasons which are IMHO random and frivolous while your previously stated objective is to remove all of them. Why don't you do it the proper way, that is by a change of policy? Friendly Neighbour 08:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *You've entirely discredited yourself in these matters with your constant bad-faith accusations of other people's intentions as well as your "votes" consisting entirely of non-policy-related justifications and disruptiveness (i.e. "Oh but it's funny").  I don't need to say anything in response to you; you've said it all already.  --Cyde Weys 08:24, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *It seems you are an user who can freely assume bad faith and get away with it. This is exactly what you did above. I do assume good faith and think your anti-userbox crusade is caused entirely by your sense of humour which seems tangential to mine. I also assume good faith and deeply believe that your bad-faith accusation against me is not a first step to blocking me permanently. Friendly Neighbour 11:02, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

text: * So the complaint is essentially that almost every userbox is: "Unencyclopedic template, simply not funny, no point in having around.".  They are certainly not encyclopeadic - but they are user boxes - intended for use on user pages.  They are not supposed to appear anywhere in articles - so it doesn't matter if they are unencylopeadic.  If you see one in an actual mainspace article - delete the thing from the article with extreme predjudice.  (Unless of course it's an article about userboxes in Wikipedia.)  Are they unfunny?  Well, people's senses of humor differ greatly - some I find funny - some I do not.  You cannot say how I feel about them.  If I find it funny - then that is simply a true statement that you may not deny.  So what you mean is that they aren't funny to you.  So does something have to be funny to absolutely every human being on the planet in order to count as funny or do you think that somehow you were elected Judge Of What Is Funny?   If so then there is no humor left in the world and we are all doomed.   However, if you take the view that so long as a few people find it funny - then it is in fact funny - then we must assume that both the author of the template and all of it's users find it funny - so we know for sure it's funny to someone - and it's just sad that you don't like it.  OK - so we're just left with "no point in having it around" - well, some people find it worthy of keeping around - so why should it be removed?  Are we concerned about the few hundred bytes of disk space?  I don't think so.  I personally donated $100 to Wikipedia this year and I'd like to make it clear that my contribution is to be spend entirely on disk space for storing userbox templates.  With disk space running at about $1 per gigabyte right now - I think I personally funded the entire userbox storage space for all eternity,   Are we worried that these are an evil force that is corrupting the youth of today?   Look - you expect people to come here and write an encyclopedia for NOTHING - no payment - no reward - not even a by-line for chrissakes.  The very least you can do is leave them one tiny corner of this dry tome into which they can inject a little fun and frivolity - blow off a little steam - have FUN.  User pages are precisely that - and the meme of collecting little templates is hurting absolutely nobody - and helping just a teeny-tiny bit to encourage people to stay here and contribute.   So please stop being Mr Grumpy and let's get back to some real work.  It never ceases to amaze me how people who hang out here will spend so much of their time and effort on some microscopic crusade when they could be using that energy to write another article or bring an existing one up to featured status.  Please - give up this crusade - it's just annoying everyone. SteveBaker 03:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Kudos to Steve's words. I second (and third) them completely. Deleting templates that aren't hurting anybody (seriously, "the server"? ... c'mon man) and that are actually fun shouldn't be a priority. Creating and improving articles should. Let's go do that and let the userboxes be. They're cute as they are now. --many Revolutions 08:31, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: userbox nightmare

message: I just noticed that Fake User and Cyde Weys is the same person so his vote shouldn't count being the nominator. 132.204.207.108 18:04, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What an odd accusation. I'm hardly administrator material. In short, no. Fake User 21:03, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Eep, WP:NPA..... Homestarmy 17:10, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template deletion