Template talk:Ambox/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

→

Archive 5

HTML markup instead of wiki markup

Internally this meta template uses HTML markup instead of wiki markup for the table code. That is the usual way we make meta templates since wiki markup messes with the possibility to use parser functions and special characters in parameters.

Sure, one can force wiki markup to work by using things like {{!}} etc. But in the end that increases the pre- and post-expand sizes of the template. Thus causing more work for the Wikipedia servers.

To make the code dependant on other templates like {{!}} can cause problems if they are changed. Even if their functionality isn't changed even a minor edit to them causes all articles that use our template to be dropped out of cache and re-rendered. And since this template is used to create article message boxes that would mean a big part of Wikipedia...

Also, wiki markup table notation is more picky about where line breaks occur in the code than HTML markup is.

Personally I also think that HTML tables are more readable in this case, since here we have lots of other functions using braces and pipes like {{#if:{{{image|}}}|{{{image}}}|}.

Wiki markup is not better technically. Wiki markup is just there for the convenience for article editors.

--David Göthberg 06:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

While we're not supposed to worry about performance, and {{!}} should seldom (if ever) need to be edited, I do agree that HTML markup is the more robust way to go here. For example, if someone uses {{!}} in their text parameter instead of | or <nowiki>|</nowiki>, it can screw up wikitables while HTML tables handle it fine. As for readability, if I were really concerned I would get rid of some of the comments like "<!-- else -->"; if someone can't read ParserFunctions well enough to figure that out…. Anomie 14:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ehm, I am guilty of putting those "<!-- else -->" statements into the code. I have been programming since 1982 but I am new to MediaWiki parser functions so my eyes still don't read them well. Especially when they are nested in several layers like in this template. Now I know how people who are new to C/C++/Java feel when they say "just a lot of braces and parentheses". --David Göthberg 21:36, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Protection

Per a request at Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation [1], I have fully protected this template with cascading enabled since it is a part of all new article issue boxes and thus at high risk for abuse. Feel free to adjust this protection. -- Flyguy649 ^talk _contribs 19:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I've turned off the cascading bit due to it blocking any edits to the /doc subpage. High-risk, high-use template don't ever get cascading anyway. --MZMcBride 19:53, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Question

Many templates that I've come across are now being converted to use {{ambox}} and some of their icons removed/replaced. Why is this occuring? Is it some new policy? Thank you. -- RattleMan 06:14, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, these new designs were discussed and created within the Wikipedia:Template standardisation project. --David Göthberg 06:38, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I do like it, but as always with such sweeping moves, it would have been advisable to seek wider input before going live. Why wasn't this announced on WP:VP/P beforehand? Don't get me wrong, you won't get any objections from me, but experience shows that people will insist on debating stuff. When converting the templates, make sure to leave a link to {{ambox}}, so people will at least know where to come and not start debates on dozens of unrelated pages. That said, I think this standardisation does make for a more professional look, well done. --dab (𒁳) 09:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

This project was actually started at the "Village pump policy" several weeks ago. It has since been announced on a LOT of places, including Village pump proposal, the Wikipedia mailing list, the "Signpost" and many other high traffic template related talk pages. The only place we thought of but didn't do was to request a "watchlist message". You know, the small messages that sometimes come above our watchlist announcing some important site wide thing. We probably should have done that, right? But I guess we didn't feel the need since we already received so many visitors to Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation and all pretty much just "agreed" and "liked" it and said "do it!" and so on.

I myself joined the project two weeks ago since it was announced at MediaWiki talk:Common.css.

--David Göthberg 09:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

that's alright then, sorry. As I said, I like it too. I had just never heard of this project (and I haven't exactly been off-wiki these past few weeks). No problem. --dab (𒁳) 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Where was this decided?

This is horrible. The colouring book system looks as if someone make a mistake with their wiki markup unless you take the trouble to locate this parent template in the edit history of one of the existing templates (as I did). Where/when was it decided to turn Wikipedia into a colouring book? Nualran 10:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Read the previous section and follow the links from there. --David Göthberg 10:22, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

hum, the new templates are rather less colourful than those we used to have. If I have a concern, it is that they will be more easily overlooked, precisely because they look so sleek. The glaring red and blue boxes used to give the articles an unfinished, dodgy look, which was mostly what the template message was trying to impress too (unity of message and delivery). Announcing that an article is crap in a professional sleek way strikes me a little bit like receiving an announcement in a sexy female computer voice that your plane is about to crash ("your article content this morning is absolute bogus cobbled together by clueless trolls. have a nice day..." --dab (𒁳) 19:37, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Have you heard the warning voice in modern air planes? It actually is a sexy female voice. Since it is easier to hear among other noise and makes the pilots less stressed. And that applies here to, we don't want to stress our readers. So why not present warning messages in a sleek professional looking manner? And thanks for giving me today's best laugh: "Your article content this morning is absolute bogus cobbled together by clueless trolls. Have a nice day..."

--David Göthberg 20:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I hate the little sidebars in articles. I guess they are ok in talk pages where it is the norm to have multiple templates stacked ... but I .really. don't like them in articles - they look terrible. --B 04:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Missing icon

Resolved

 – Server issue.

For type=style, the icon is missing. At a blind guess, I'm assuming that the image that looks like "[[wiki]]" was the intended one, but you tell me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, the detault icon for orange "style issues" is the Image:Broom_icon.svg but sometimes Wikipedia do not render some images for some hours but they usually come back. I have seen it for years. It seems to happen more often during high load. And it happened a lot the last few hours with our images here. I think it is a simple priority setting in the servers, when they are too busy they render the text but skip the images. --David Göthberg 11:36, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay; that explains what's been going on with flag icons lately too, then. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Well done.

		What a brilliant idea barnstar
		-- Jeandré, 2007-09-15t14:38z

Yeah, this template is freakin sweet. However, instead of requiring users to know the names of alternate images, how about expanding the number of possible types? Why isn't there a POV type that automatically uses the unbalanced scales image? I'm not highly familiar with this, and associated, templates; are there only 8 total images to worry about, concerning this issue? Xaxafrad 21:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is intended to be used manually at all. The point of this template is to be transcluded from other templates with more mnemonic names such as {{cleanup-gallery}}, {{peacock}}, {{coatrack}}, {{trivia}} etc. --dab (𒁳) 11:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There isn't enough good things said on talk pages. So let me add my 2¢: This is a great idea and it looks wonderful. Those two things rarely go together. Good job in execution, folks!—Markles 00:39, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll reiterate: this template is freakin sweet. Sorry I don't have a sweet barnstar to go with the comment. I was just throwing out a stupid suggestion (I find that if I do that often enough, sometimes one of them isn't as stupid as the rest). Now that I know how Ambox works through transclusion, I'll state that the whole Wikimedia software is freakin sweet too. Awesomeness abounds. Xaxafrad 03:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Please be careful, here - 2007-09-15

Today, lots of pages are being modified by changes to this template. The changes seem to be having relatively random and surprising results including no tag image, no outlines, etc. Can work on this template please be done in a sandbox? -Harmil 19:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Example page: Cryptographic hash function -Harmil 19:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

1. Image problems = Not our fault, some Wikipedia servers have had problems for the last 24 hours or so.

2. No outlines = Caching problem in you web browser. Our fault but should go away in some hours. Our editors should have waited 24 hours from our CSS code was added to MediaWiki:Common.css but they were so enthusiastic that they were unstoppable. Go and test your browser cache at Wikipedia:Template standardisation#Browser cache and follow the advice there.

3. And of course the human factor = Some faulty conversions of templates. Some of the editors doing the work are not that experienced with template code.

4. And the admin factor = One admin dropped by and did a weird edit directly to the production code without testing it in a sandbox first. Why don't admins use sandboxes?

But this template itself is well tested by many persons in several sandboxes for some time. It does what it should as long as it is not altered.

--David Göthberg 19:55, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

FYI, Cryptographic hash function's image was fixed by going to the image page on commons and purging. Anomie 20:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is a known trick. I did so several times last night for several of our images. But an hour later they were gone again. According to the devs in the chat some of the servers are going up and down because of full swap disks. They are working with the problem. --David Göthberg 20:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Project-space templates?

Should {{ambox}} be applied to project-space templates like {{policy}} and {{backlog}}? I don't see any reason why not, and I've experimentally applied it to a few ({{nutshell}}, {{backlog}}, and {{essay}}, for starters), but I figured I'd ask here before I go any further. Zetawoof_(ζ) 00:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Template standardisation The general idea is, let's finish one thing, before we start other stuff i think. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Heh. Well, nothing wrong with jump-starting the process, I guess. Although they all got reverted... Zetawoof_(ζ) 09:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

imageright

For me imageright doesn't seem to be working atm. Anyone else see the same issue ? --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 00:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Worked fine for me in {{essay}} after a bit of futzing. Point me at the template you're having trouble with and I'll have a look. Zetawoof_(ζ) 00:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

New colors

Is it just me, or does the new "content" color look a bit too much like the "serious" color? szyslak 01:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

There have also been a number of complaints about just how bold the colours are. Presenting some alternate options for (slow, calm!) discussion would be a good thing I think (and was raised during the development). Something like those found at Wikipedia talk:Colors#Colour generation guide might be worth considering. --Quiddity 05:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

The color was changed to "tomato." I agree that this was far too similar to red, so I switched to "tangerine." —David Levy 05:25, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Just for reference, here are the change diffs: orig, new, which already helps a little with the over-boldness. --Quiddity 05:30, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, {{ambox}} does not contain any colours. It is just a thin wrapper for the .ambox CSS classes in MediaWiki:Common.css. (But ambox does handle the default images.)

Secondly, any colour changes should first be discussed at Wikipedia talk:Article templates, consensus reached and then can the .ambox classes in MediaWiki:Common.css be updated. Are you reading this David Levy?

--David Göthberg 13:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I am. Given the fact that I changed the orange and yellow selections to make them closer to the originals (after AzaToth modified all five hues without discussion) and the green (added after almost no discussion) to bring it in line with the others, I don't know why you're scolding me. —David Levy 09:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, technically you should have reverted Azatoth, not come up with your own colours. I didn't check very carefully which colours you and he did. I just noticed that the end result was not the same as the agreed upon colours. But I have to admit I think your colours work as well as or perhaps even better than the originals so doesn't matter to me on that level. What I oppose is the wild editing without first seeking consensus. And yeah, the green colour was added with way to little discussion. And the name of the class was not even discussed at all I think. (I find the name weird but haven't come up with a better myself so.) --David Göthberg 10:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. It doesn't make sense to revert such an edit (particularly one purported to address a problem) purely on principle. AzaToth probably should have proposed the changes ahead of time, but it isn't as though they resulted in a massive outcry from the community. Therefore, I simply addressed the problem that I observed (the deviation from the intended color scheme) by adjusting the hues to more closely match the originals (while hopefully not reinstating the bleeding problem that AzaToth reported). My edit could be considered a partial reversion, so your argument actually is that I should have gone further. As I said, there simply wasn't the demand for such an action (which I otherwise would have performed), so how would that have been beneficial?

Also, as Quiddity noted above, there were a number of complaints that the original hues were too intense (which presumably is what caused the aforementioned bleeding), so it isn't as though this issue was completely undiscussed.

Incidentally, I agree with you regarding the editing of Template:Ambox. I've carefully tested changes ahead of time, and I wish that everyone else would act in kind. —David Levy 12:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

imageright

{{editprotected}}

{{#if:{{{imageright|}}}
  <td class="mbox-imageright"> {{{imageright}}} </td>
}}

should be changed to

{{#if:{{{imageright|}}}|
  <td class="mbox-imageright"> {{{imageright}}} </td>
}}

to make it work. Thanks. Ms2ger 09:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Wild editing or Why can't admins read?

{{ambox}} is now production code and used on perhaps 100000 pages. Right at the top of its documentation it says:

Remember that you can conduct experiments, and should test all improvements, in either the general Template sandbox or your user space before changing anything here.

Still this template has been subject to wild editing by several admins. Which of course has led to that ambox is currently broken. (See the {{editprotected}} requests.)

Can't admins read? Or do they not know what "sandbox" and "user space" means? Never heard of "test before you deploy"?

So let me give you a little help. Here are links to two subpages in your own user space:

Special:Mypage/Test1   Special:Mypage/Test2

You can copy the ambox code to one of them, then test inclusion and usage of ambox on the other one. That is how professional programmers do before they deploy code to millions of users. Oh, and that also means you can show your code to others and have them debug it before deploying it. Nifty, isn't it?

--David Göthberg 13:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Please maintain civility. Sarcasm does not instruct, it simply serves to turn people defensive. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 16:18, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Take it easy. Even if warning templates are disfigured or nonfunctional for half a minute, it's not the end of Wikipedia. This template is new, and there's bound to be some fiddling. Just as long as many eyes are watching it, we do not have a problem. --dab (𒁳) 16:26, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

J.smith: Well, I mean seriously what I wrote above. Those admins need to learn about testing before deploying.

dab: Should I take it easy? I think it is the wildly editing admins that should take it easy. And let's see, ambox has been broken since yesterday. The {{editprotected}} request about one of the problems have been up for seven hours now without any admin honouring it. And each time someone fiddles with ambox a fair part of the entire English Wikipedia is affected. I say we do have a problem.

By the way, I forgot to add in the text above that by using sandboxes one can show off the code and seek consensus about the changes.

--David Göthberg 16:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

/me pesters the IRC cabal to get the {{editprotected}} taken care of. ;) Anomie 17:19, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Paragraph breaks and padding

The code <td>{{{text}}}</td> in this template used to trigger a parser bug(?) that caused paragraph breaks in {{{text}}} to be ignored. I fixed this by putting the open and close tags of the table cell on separate lines, but this has revealed an additional, if minor, problem: when there are multiple paragraphs in the text, slight extra padding appears above and below it.

This is due to the fact that, when there are multiple paragraphs, the parser generates <p> tags for each, and main.css defines a 0.4 em margin above and 0.5 em below each <p> tag. I'm not sure how this could be worked around: it would be easy to remove the margins from paragraphs in notice boxes via CSS, but then there would be no gaps between the paragraphs either. I guess the real problem is that no <p> tags are generated unless there's more than one paragraphs; if they were, we could just eliminate the margin by adding a corresponding amount of negative padding to the table cell itself.

So, here's a challenge for you template and CSS wizards: figure out some way to ensure that <p> tags are always generated for text inside {{ambox}}, or find some other way to keep the padding always consistent. Note that the solution should also work, or at least not break too badly, in the case where the text is wrapped in a <div> or a table. Good luck! —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:04, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know why you're under the impression that the padding was added only to templates containing multiple paragraphs. It was added to all of them (and I checked in both Firefox and IE6). I first noticed the problem on {{merge}}, in fact.

I experimented with removing the padding from the CSS code to compensate, but I was unable to fully offset the difference. (Of course, I'm no CSS wizard.) —David Levy 03:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, and it seems I was wrong: the <p> tags are generated even for single paragraphs. Fortunately, that means this can fixed using CSS. Let's see... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ilmari: First of all, you should have tested your edit in your own user space, not on production code that runs on perhaps 100000 pages.

Secondly, this is a problem with all templates that take text parameters, it is not ambox specific.

Thirdly, if you had bothered to ask we could have pointed you to the standard solution: If you want to input text with special formatting as a parameter to a template, then enclose it in DIV tags. Like this:

{{ambox
| text = 
<div>
One line

Two lines
</div>
}}

And yeah, we probably should document that too. We just have it in the example at the bottom of the ambox doc.

--David Göthberg 03:30, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I am fairly certain that this is not a problem with all templates that take text parameters, merely those that wrap the text in a table cell using HTML rather than wikitable syntax and that don't include a linebreak before the text. It's really a bug in the MediaWiki parser's handling of <td> (and related) tags, the template context just makes it more noticeable (since it would be trivial to work around otherwise). Your <div> workaround indeed works, but doesn't actually address David Levy's concern, since any messageboxes using will still have that extra padding. Anyway... —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

(ec) One solution would be to wrap the text in <div style="margin: -0.4em 0 -0.5em 0">; unfortunately, while this should work perfectly for MonoBook, it may leave some padding for other skins. This is somewhat tricky to handle, since at least the Classic skin doesn't define any padding for <p> tags at all, relying instead on the browser default (which is usually 1em, but is not guaranteed). It might work to simply override the margins, using CSS code like:

table.ambox div.mbox-text {
    margin: -0.4em 0 -0.5em 0;     /* compensate for paragraph margins */
}
table.ambox div.mbox-text p {
    margin: 0.4em 0 0.5em 0;       /* MonoBook default, needs to match the above */
}

Of course, we could then override this further in skin-specific CSS if necessary. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 03:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Ilmari: You made me doubt my old test results so I reran them. Here are some different calls to /Testbox1 with one parameter that then is used in two tables next to each other. So the exact same input is used both left and right. Blue ones are wikitables, green ones are HTML tables:

Note that blues and greens get the exact same padding problems in most cases, except for case 4 where the green HTML tables do better. And I see no difference in paragraph break behaviour at all. So sorry Ilmari, but wikitables have more problems. You should perhaps test things in your own sandbox before you think you are certain?

--David Göthberg 07:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the problem only occurs with two paragraphs:

Besides the div solution above or manually using <p></p> to lay out the paragraphs, you can also force the linebreak as needed with a or <nowiki/> followed by a linebreak at the start of the template:

Anomie 12:24, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Colour sidebar

I'm not seeing the colour sidebar when I try to add a type to Template:Refimprove...I'm not seeing it at Template:Unreferenced either, and the type parameter is being used there. What's going on?! -- Reaper X 03:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried bypassing your cache? —David Levy 03:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

That was the problem. You guys should consider add a note like they do at Wikipedia:Article templates#Browser cache. If that was here, my problem would have been cleared up long ago. Cheers. -- Reaper X 03:35, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I took the liberty of adding it myself. Cheers. -- Reaper X 05:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice idea Reaper X. I took the liberty of simplifying your addition somewhat. No need to leave my old "tech talk" in that notice box. --David Göthberg 06:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Why not fix it in CSS

Instead of edit-warring over whether this should support multiple paragraphs properly or not, why not add a CSS rule so that paragraphs inside an ambox don't have margins except between paragraphs

table.ambox p { margin: 0 }
table.ambox p + p { margin-top: 1em /*or whatever the margin is*/ }

After all, even on a single-paragraph ambox, the content is semantically a paragraph and should thus be in a <p> tag rather than as bare table cell content. --Random832 12:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

If only IE6 happened to support adjacent sibling selectors, this would be a good idea ;) Ms2ger 17:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Background color on internal project pages

{{editprotected}}

Per the hastily archived discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes/Archive 2#Background color on internal project pages, please add a switch to change the background color to gray when the box is displayed outside the article namespace. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 03:46, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

When/where was it decided that this template should be used outside the article namespace? —David Levy 04:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Should we be using this template on non-articles at all? --- RockMFR 04:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Temporarily disabling edit request. The background color should not be hardcoded into this template. If this is to be implemented, it should be done with a CSS class. Actually, now that I think about it, this can probably be done in MediaWiki:Monobook.css, since that is the stylesheet that uses the blue background on non-article pages, right? --- RockMFR 04:28, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here is some code that should work at Monobook.css. Please check:

/* Article message box template styles */
table.ambox {
    background: #f9f9f9;
}
.ns-0 * table.ambox {
    background: #f8fcff;
}

--- RockMFR 04:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

But this template was created for use in articles. Again, I ask when/where it was decided that it should be used elsewhere. —David Levy 04:45, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would make perfect sense to use this same template style on image problem tags as well, and it would also be useful when using the merge tags on internal project pages. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This definitely is something warranting advance discussion. I (and others that I've seen comment) disagree that it makes sense to use the same style in other namespaces. It's beneficial to have specific styles for the talk and article namespaces (and others in the future), as this makes it much easier for people to understand where a tag should be used. —David Levy 04:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Image for "growth" type

{{editprotected}}

Rather surprisingly, the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes#Image for "growth" type has shown overwhelming support for changing to . Please make this change on the ambox template. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Done. —David Levy 04:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Minor alignment request

I think that image=none should left-align the text with the images of the other options. I think the problem must be in the CSS. --Eliyak T·C 08:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, these things are set in the CSS code. But:

1. Either you are thinking of having the left edge of the text in non-image boxes to align with the left edge of text in the boxes that do have an image. And for that we have a parameter: image=blank.

2. But more likely you meant you want the left edge of the text in non-image boxes to align with the left edge of the images in the image boxes. And that is much harder to do. Since different images have different width and we want the left edge of the text in all image boxes to align. Thus we must have a fixed width for the image box. Currently set to 52 pixels. But then the only natural place to place the image in its box is to centre it, otherwise the images look misaligned compared to each other and even compared to their own message boxes. And since the images have different width (even when they have same height) then their left edges do vary. So there really is no fixed place for the left image edges to align to. Sorry.

--David Göthberg 08:54, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Removal of growth color

Hey, there seemed to be a pretty firm consensus here to remove the extra green color for growth. The activity there has largely died down, and this is a pretty bold move, so I wanted to give a last chance for more discussion. If no one objects, I'll take the previous discussion as consensus, and slap an {{editprotected}} onto here. --Ybbor^Talk 22:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Templates currently using the green style should be changed over first - should be easy enough to find them by checking Image:N write green black.svg. --- RockMFR 23:27, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't follow. Shouldn't we just change the code in this template for the "growth" parameter? This would also allow users to change it to green in their CSS if they really wanted to. --Ybbor^Talk 23:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

That might not work very well, given the strong possibility that the templates currently designated "growth" will be split between "content" (orange) and "notice" (blue). —David Levy 00:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I think some of the now green message boxes will be yellow too after we change them. So yeah, we can not just change which colour is shown when the "growth" parameter is used. But they don't seem to be more than a handful. Oh, and I think I agree, we should remove the green colour. What we can do already now is to loose the green examples in all our docs and start converting the boxes. Should we do that now? --David Göthberg 00:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

sure, there's already fairly strong consensus for removal. --Ybbor^Talk 00:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Here are the green message boxes I found so far and what colour I think they should be:

{{Expand}} - ?

{{Expand-section}} - ?

{{Histinfo}} - Orange

{{popcat}} - On category pages, isn't that kind of project space?

{{orphancat}} - On category pages, isn't that kind of project space?

{{uncategorized}} - Yellow

{{Orphan}} - Yellow

{{RRevised}} - ?

Don't know if there is any more, just did a quick look around. --David Göthberg 00:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the ambox styling from {{popcat}} and redirected the redundant {{orphancat}} to it. —David Levy 01:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say "revised" is almost definitly blue. I'm leaning yellow on the expands. In the interim, can an admin remove the "growth" example on this page? --Ybbor^Talk 01:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the "growth" example. Non-sysops can edit the documentation page, incidentally. —David Levy 01:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I just came across {{underconstruction}} and {{inuse-section}}. I'd say that both should be switched to blue. —David Levy 01:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

And I see that they did use blue until the green color was added. —David Levy 01:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I say leave green alone. It had its own category and fit nicely in the big picture (just look how much trouble you are having assigning other colors to these templates), and most of the objections raised were really procedurial. Renata 04:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Any difficulty reassigning these templates reflects how little they have in common (which is why they shouldn't have been grouped together in the first place). The "growth" connection is rather tenuous.

No, the objections aren't procedural. If I (and most others) felt that the end result was good (despite the haste with which the green color was added), I (and most others) wouldn't argue for its removal. That's why we waited to see how things went instead of immediately yanking it out. —David Levy 06:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Renata: Well, some of them were very easy to assign to other colours. And green to many of us means "All OK" and that is not how the colour has been used here. I can image green boxes being used on top of articles that have featured status or something in the future. (No idea what tagging they have now.)

Anyway, I found three more that needs handling. Though just one of them is currently green. Is my colour suggestion correct?

{{Expand further}} - Blue

{{Isrev}} - Blue

{{CUR-CHICOTW}} - Blue

--David Göthberg 10:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I switched over {{expand further}} and {{CUR-CHICOTW}}. I'm not sure what to do with {{isrev}} (which appears to be an article template, despite its talk page styling). —David Levy 10:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

What the...?!?!

Pink is already covered by the red hue group. Cyan is already covered by the blue hue group. Both of those hue groups are already used in amboxes. Green is a major hue group, and it isn't being used. --  Denelson83  20:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

"We got to have green somewhere in this code" Really? We have to have it in the code? What will happen if we don't? Will the serveers crash? Will Jimbo not love us anymore? Is there a particular need for green, or is it just a pretty color? --Ybbor^Talk 21:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I thought the consensus was that we wouldn't really use green for anything, as it indicates "all is well". {{Uncategorized}} is a stylistic problem, so it uses yellow. {{Expand}} is a request (notice) for expansion, so it uses blue. What would we use green for? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Using Ambox on Category templates

Thread moved from Template talk:Popcat. Please see Template:Popcat and its revision history.

1. This is a category page template, not an article template.
2. The "growth" classification was added without consensus and is being removed. —David Levy 12:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Why do you insist on reverting this template's conversion to the Template:Ambox style? I have searched through the Ambox discussions and docs, and I cannot find anything that says that it can only be used on main-space templates. The Category namespace is part of the encyclopedia, in that it is seen by end users (non-Wikipedians), so it should follow the same style. There is no logical reason to do otherwise. —gorgan_almighty 12:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• As clearly indicated in the template's documentation, "ambox" is an abbreviation of "article message box." The style was designed specifically for use in the article namespace (just as another style was designed specifically for use on talk pages). A major benefit of this is that it makes it much easier for users to understand where a template is intended to be used. —David Levy 13:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• I'm afraid I find your logic pedantic to say the least, and I'm going to open this issue up for wider debate by moving the thread to Template talk:Ambox. —gorgan_almighty 13:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Pendantic?! What part of the term "article message box" is ambiguous or confusing? If you'd bothered to read the previous discussions from this talk page and Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes, you'd already have known what I've explained to you. —David Levy 13:25, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Firstly, please be WP:CIVIL. Secondly, I have disputed your edits, which means that wider consensus must be found, instead of heavy-handed unilateral actions by you. Thirdly, please direct any future comments on this issue to Template talk:Ambox#Using Ambox on Category templates. —gorgan_almighty 13:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• 1. I'm not being sarcastic. I'm seriously asking you to explain what the term "article message box" means to you. You referred to my logic as "pedantic to say the least," and I'm asking you to explain how it's pedantic to state that the "article message box" style is intended for use in articles.
  You claimed that you "searched through the Ambox discussions and docs, and [could not] find anything that says that it can only be used on main-space templates," but the information is right there in front of you. Wikipedia:Article message boxes even contains an explicit statement that project namespace templates "are not within the scope of this standardisation effort," and you're acting as though I'm making this up.
  2. What "heavy-handed unilateral actions"?! —David Levy 13:47, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Most of your questions are answered in my reasoning below. The term "article message box" to me means a message box which is used as part of the encyclopedia. As I have defined below, Categories are mainly part of the encyclopedia, they are not project pages. Note that the name "article message box" can be changed if necessary (although I don't think it is necessary), as the Ambox template should be defined by its purpose, not a literal interpretation of its name. "heavy-handed unilateral actions" in this case is reverting a change when there is clearly no consensus to do so, instead of trying to establish a wider consensus on the issue. —gorgan_almighty 13:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• 1. I'm not saying that we should use the template strictly in articles because it happens to be called "article message box." I'm saying that it's called "article message box" because it's intended to be used strictly in articles.
  2. There is consensus for this. It has been planned this way from the very beginning. What you're doing is tantamount to demanding that I "establish a wider consensus" for the notion that shoes are intended to be worn on feet and not hands. (To be clear, I'm not implying that your idea is ridiculous, but rather that it's plainly contrary to the established setup.) Consensus can change, of course, and you're welcome to seek consensus for your proposed modification. (I'm certainly not attempting to stifle discussion.)
  Regardless, what makes your reversions sacrosanct? I find it absolutely stunning that you've accused me of committing "heavy-handed unilateral actions" when you were the first to revert today (without any attempt at discussion at that point, as opposed to my first reversion of your edit, which was accompanied by an explanation on your talk page). —David Levy 14:16/14:27/14:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• I understand your POV on that particular issue. In explanation: I saw a template that had not been 'Amboxed', and I 'Amboxed' it without checking the history to see if it had been done previously. I had no reason to assume that it had been done then reverted. The first I knew of it was your somewhat abrupt message on my Talk page. —gorgan_almighty 16:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• 1. I realize that you were unaware of the previous edits at the time of your first reversion. But then I made it clear that this issue had arisen before (and explained why), and you decided to revert again. Now you're accusing me of committing "heavy-handed unilateral actions" (as though your reversions somehow were sacrosanct).
  2. How was my message "abrupt"? I explained the situation. What should I have written? —David Levy 16:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully we can draw a line below the uncivilness above, and move on. —gorgan_almighty 13:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

If "uncivilness" were a word, it would describe your behavior. I don't know why you've invented the quote "kinda like project pages" and attributed it to me, but I don't appreciate it. —David Levy 14:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• I hardly think I have been uncivil here. Your exact words were: "{{popcat}} - On category pages, isn't that kind of project space?". —gorgan_almighty 16:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry my mistake, that comment was actually made by David Göthberg not you. —gorgan_almighty 16:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

---

Actual discussion of the pros and cons of using Ambox on Category pages

Just to re-emphasise my reasoning: Categories are part of the encyclopedia, they are not the same as project space, as has been suggested further up the page. As part of the encyclopedia, they are viewed by end-users (non-wikipedians) and should therefore use the same template styles as the mainspace uses. In this case, the Ambox template. What do others think? —gorgan_almighty 16:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

As noted above, a major benefit of dedicating this style to articles only (as has always been the plan) is that it helps users to recognize the namespace in which a template belongs. Therefore, I would prefer that we designate a different style for category page templates (which needn't interact well with the article templates). I see no benefit to doing otherwise. —David Levy 16:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Category namespace isn't solely for articles, so it's not in the interest of this project. _→AzaToth 16:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree with David Levy - keep the category templates out of this standardisation project (for now). If ever necessary, there can be another/new standardisation project for other types of wiki pages, and the result should look different from what WP has now, like article templates and talkpage templates. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is probably better if we standardise the category message boxes separately. Since categories are used both for articles, templates and even project pages and so on. The discussions so far have been that the next standardisation project should be the project space. (And exactly what "project space" means will have to be defined too...) But there's nothing stopping a group of people to start discussing "category message box" design. Personally I don't mind if we use the same or similar design for message boxes on category pages and on project pages. But it seems some prefer to have a different look for each name space.

--David Göthberg 23:46, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Maximum width problem

The existence of a maximum width in this template seems to be causing a rather ugly effect on some templates. For example, on the {{nofootnotes}} template (when viewed in 1280x1024) the last word of the sentence needlessly wraps onto a second line, making the template look rather odd, and causing it to take up more room on the article than necessary. To correct this problem, would it be possible to add a maxwidth property to the Ambox template, which would override the default maximum width? —gorgan_almighty 12:21, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

We can't really correct for size-specific aesthetic flaws for 2 reasons: There are too many different combinations of screen-resolution and font-size in use by the world, and this would prevent the standard-width ambox stacking effect from working properly. --Quiddity 18:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the green "growth"?

{{editprotected}} I think we need the green growth back in there, it made those messages stand out from the others.
--FastLizard4 (Talk•Links•Sign) 03:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It was removed from MediaWiki:Common.css, so an editprotected request here won't do any good. It was determined to be unnecessary; see WT:AMB for more. Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:01, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict)There was consensus reached both on this page and on the standardization page for its removal. This has been in practice for some time (relative to the life of the change anyway). --Ybbor^Talk 04:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}
Shouldn't the growth code be removed from ambox too? — Jack · talk · 18:43, Saturday, 6 October 2007

 Done - I kinda liked the way it looked, but we can always re-add it if the need arises. Nihiltres^(t.l) 19:25, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

{{editprotected}}

[[ru:Template:Ambox]], please. — Kalan ? 05:10, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Done. The docs subpage isn't protected though. ;) --Quiddity 06:02, 13 October 2007 (UTC)