Wikipedia talk:Templates for discussion/Archive 2

message: Okay. I've cleaned up all discussions older than five days, and put them in the /log/deleted or /log/not deleted as appropriate, and stuck them in the holding pen. Two were added back to the top for more discussion. Whew! Radiant_* 08:54, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
:Great job! --MarSch 12:08, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Massive cleanup 

message: My personal opinion from a rather randomly look at articles in the Template namespace is that we are probably nominating about half the number of templates that we should be. I was rather surprised to see the number of nonsense and unused templates that exist. It may be worthwhile to start a more organized effort to help clear out the Template namespace (something on the same lines as the Stub-sorting WikiProject. BlankVerse ∅ 05:22, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, people should use their userspace more. How do we change this? Do you suggest that we tag all templates with some category? I don't see how that would help. --MarSch 12:13, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

text: Subst: only templates should at least be documented as such on their Talk page (and also probably documented with a comment section on the main page as added protection). BlankVerse ∅  13:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many templates 

message: *I think it should be a week. --MarSch 17:35, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Straw poll: five vs. seven days

message: This is a rather strange bug... if you move Template:foo to wherever (for instance when userfying a template after WP:TFD discussion), Talk:foo is moved along. Radiant_* 08:17, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
*Brion Vibber has informed me that this has been fixed; the fix will be incorporated in the next upgrade. Radiant_* 10:08, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
* Presumably if you clear the "move talk page as well" check-box you won't tickle this bug. Yes, it means the talk page (if any) has to be manually moved separately, but that's clearly better than tickling this bug. Noel (talk) 16:19, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  move bug 

message: Why is relisting a Template acceptable? I have seen several comments that a template should not be relisted, but I occasionally see one relisted. If there is not enough interest to have voters vote to delete it should be kept and if some think it really needs to be deleted, listed again after sufficient time has passed. I removed the relisting of Template:Otheruses5 and it got put back pretty quickly. Am I out of touch re this issue? Trödel|talk 22:25, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Relisting 

message: I'm not sure, maybe it's just me, but does anybody else find the holding cell to be a useless step in the TFD process? What's the real purpose of having it there? As an admin, I really don't feel comfortable just blindly deleting things that are in there.  I have to go through the logs, and find whatever templates were listed there.  Then, I have to read the votes to make sure that I'm not making the wrong decision.
Additionally, there are often templates in the holding cell that have not yet been depopulated.  I have to make sure this is done also.  So if I still have to check all these things, what's the real purpose of the holding cell? I see some templates being logged after having 1-2 votes.  The way I see it, the holding cell only stops people from voting after a strict 7-day limit.  Is there really any harm if a template is listed for 10 days just to make sure that a clear consensus has been established? I find that the holding cell simply stops the voting procedure prematurely.  I think that templates should go straight from TFD to the log, and they should only be logged after they've been deleted.
If you go through the logs, I think that you'll find that a great deal of the templates logged as deleted actually still exist.  I therefore see little reason to believe that the holding cell leads to faster decisions.  If there's no admin available to delete it, then why not just leave it on TFD for a day or two? It'll allow more people to vote rather than closing this window of opportunity when there's no harm in keeping it open (besides TFD getting large, but that can be resolved just like it has previously). -Frazzydee|✍ 03:48, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I thought the holding was the place for a template to go after its discussion has been logged. Then someone has to check for uses and put it under "ready for delete" or "to be orphaned". All these small steps make it easier for different people to take a few steps. --MarSch 14:14, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it makes it easier, but I find that sometimes in our quest to keep the TFD page small, template entries are sometimes removed when there are not enough votes to delete the entire template.  Other times, there really isn't completely clear consensus, but it is removed from the TFD page anyways.  Is there any way that we could make it so that people can vote during the period that it's in the holding cell? -Frazzydee|✍ 15:03, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How about another section for these things which are unclear? This way they would get some more attention=votes  for a while. Actually it might not be such a bad idea to have a section for all templates which managed to get a keep vote. These we can discuss, while not having to wade through all the other stuff. If this works it might be a great way to improve vfd. If we really want to ignore nominations with no keep votes, we need to make a horribly obnoxious tfd-template so people notice when it is stuck on a template. Then we would only have to look at the templates for which there is controversy. Okay, where is the viper? Somebody wake me up :) !!! --MarSch 15:10, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holding cell 

message: I know I have been vocal opposing a few of the recent deletions lately, (and caused them extra work) but I wanted to make sure I publically thanked User:Radiant! and User:MarSch for all the work they are doing to find rarely used templates, process them, and keep this page in a readable shape.  
As I have read more about the particular templates I care about, I have seen so much evidence of their dedication to a thankless job and good work. Furthermore, my objection to a couple of things and silence on the many good things you both are doing doesn't reflect my actual gratitude for wikipedians like you that are willing to do the "heavy lifting" and time consuming tasks that needs doing and generally aren't enough people to do them. 
So, THANKS to both of you for keeping Wikipedia running smoothly and for helping "take out the trash" regularly in cleaning up forgotten, unused, archived and duplicate templates. 
Thanks also to the admins who do alot of the actual deletions: User:Ugen64, User:Frazzydee, User:Grutness, and I am sure I am missing others - User:Netoholic thanks to all!
Now back to your regularly scheduled controversies :) Trödel|talk 13:51, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Kudos to Trödel for a mature, responsible, and heartfelt display of Wikispirit and Wikicivility.  We need more editors like this. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 14:49, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Trödel, I guess you have just shown that Template:Headingstalk is just plain wrong :-) --MarSch 14:25, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not wrong, just the exception that proves the rule :) Trödel|talk 03:33, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thank you Radiant! and MarSch 

message: I think orphaning should mean, removing from articles. But outside articles templates may also be transcluded, but are mostly just linked to, which shouldn't come as a surprise, since most templates are meant to be used in articlespace. I don't think links to dead templates should be removed. Am I wrong? --MarSch 14:20, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, you're not wrong, but without looking at the source of each link it's hard to tell whether it's a mention of (with a link to) the template (e.g. on a talk: page) that we can ignore, or what. I don't recall the exact details, but on some of the templates I just deleted I did find some live usages (e.g. on User: pages) that I had to deal with before I could delete the templates. Yes, I could have just deleted them, and let the various users fix things up when they discovered the problem, but I'm not comfortable with that. (OMMV.) And links from actual pages (e.g. in Wikipedia:) I think definitely need to be dealt with. Noel (talk) 16:30, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I tweaked the instructions on the "to orphan" section a bit to try and clarify this; please improve my halting efforts! Noel (talk) 16:44, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is orphaning? 

message: I've switched to transcluding the header (even though it's slightly more expensive computationally for the servers) because it's relatively lengthy, and we're using a lot of disk space including it in every version of this heavily-modified page. (A complete copy of the page is made every time an edit is done, no matter how minor.) Since disk space is one of the resources we are struggling with, it seemed like a good tradeoff to use a little more of other resources to cut down the amount of disk space used. Noel (talk) 16:34, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: good thinking --MarSch 15:14, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page header transcluded

message: Please take a look at a proposal at User:MarSch/deleteproposal for changing the deletion process. --MarSch 14:24, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that this is a great idea for pages like VFD where there is such a ridiculously high load, but I think that TFD is small enough to manage at this point.  There are currently 9 entries on TFD- surely people could find the time to vote on only 9 cases.  Maybe if the lag time for stage 1 were smaller there would be a greater benefit for TFD, but I still think that we can manage with the ol'fashioned way for now.  If we adopt this approach, then we must also realize that it may translate into less eyeballs, since some people will divert their attention away from stage 1.  In summary: Good for big places (VFD), bad for smaller ones (TFD). -Frazzydee|✍ 15:39, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Frazzydee, I have copied your comment to the corresponding talk page. --MarSch 17:10, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  a proposal for a different process 

message: WP:SFD is now up and running. I'm adding a template box to the tfd and cfd pages to keep people here informed of what's going on over there (whether this continues or not will mainly depend on how well sfd runs). Grutness...wha? 00:31, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Stub types for deletion

message: Why was this tempalte not deleted? I count 4d and 2k. Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/Not_deleted/June_2005#Template:Otheruses5 --MarSch 01:07, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: hmm, I've done a bit of "investigation" (*grin*) and it looks like it was pending deletion by an admin at one point, but Cantus voted keep and moved it to the "not deleted" archive.  Maybe Cantus himself can explain? But please remember that TFD isn't just about counting the votes or else a bot would be doing this.  The main purpose is to discuss whether the community thinks a template should be deleted or not.  Theoretically, a template could be kept with 100d and 1k (although very unlikely). -Frazzydee|✍ 01:22, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  otheruses5 

message: This is a very minor & probably nitpicky thing, but I don't think that we should have those quick "6d 3k" type tallies in the holding cell.  It just encourages people to delete the template without reading the discussion.  Admins should be reading the entire discussion and getting a feel for consensus rather than jumping to conclusions and voting primarily based on the tallies.
I know it's a tiny thing, but I think that the tallies do more harm than good, and shouldn't be used.  Besides, admins would have to double-check them anyways. -Frazzydee|✍ 23:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delete/keep quick tallies in the holding cell 

message: Would it be a good idea to facilitate substitution by making it possible to say ?--MarSch 13:58, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  subst: 

message: Given recent series of template forks (in particular, people who created a smaller version of, say, Template:Npov because they didn't like the original's layout) would it be worthwhile to make those speedily deletable? And if so, by what wording? I've heard the suggestion a couple of times, so some feedback would be useful. Radiant_>|< 18:18, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC) (what on earth happened to my ~ key...)
**Not on these general terms. We just yesterday had a case where a user was working on a template, had something to eat and it was nominated for deletion. If the fork has been unused for 3 months, then yes. (With mention and subst on the main template's talk page, so any good ideas don't get lost in the process.) — Sebastian (talk) 18:39, 2005 Jun 23 (UTC)
:Maybe we should educate people in the create new article screen. --MarSch 14:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Template forks

message: I'm a bit stuck on what to do with .  Although there was clearly consensus to delete it, the first two votes were made based on the assumption that it would be used instead of .  Besides those two votes, the only other vote was to userfy the template.  Does anybody else see themselves using this template? There seems to be little harm in keeping it, but if it's only used by one person then maybe it should be userfied. -Frazzydee|✍ 23:49, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By the way, see the discussion here. -Frazzydee|✍ 23:50, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: {{tl|Copyrightproblem}}