Template talk:Signpost/item

Documentation

Documentation moved to Wikipedia:Signpost/Template:Cover-item/doc

.. Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:37, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Please add Signpost category

{{edit protected}} Please add [[Category:Wikipedia Signpost templates|{{SUBPAGENAME}}]] to this page, in between the noinclude tags, so that we can keep track of the project pages. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:34, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

done. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:02, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

Add discuss link

Would it be OK to add links to the discussion pages? Currently Special:RecentChangesLinked/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-04-30 only shows edits to the 'Wikipedia:' pages, allowing people to watch each edition being compiled prior to publication. It would be nice if RecentChanges also showed comments being added to each edition of the Signpost after publication. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:47, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Stray closing div tags in current single-page edition, but needed in older editions

I have been working on fixing Linter errors, and the current single-page edition, Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/Single/2018-12-24, has stray closing div tags that were never opened (they are after the "reader comments" links at the end of each article section). In an attempt to fix this problem, I edited this template to remove the closing div tags from sections 40 and higher. That worked, except that it broke Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Single/2012-03-12 and probably other single-issue pages in the archives, leaving each subsequent section nested inside the preceding div tag. I have reverted my edit to this template.

Since the stripped tags in the current issue do not do any harm, I am going to leave this note here in case anyone stumbles across this problem in the future and attempts to resolve it in the same way I did. The fix, if one is desired, will require a better edit than the one I attempted. – Jonesey95 (talk) 10:08, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 26 February 2022

Please copy the contents of Wikipedia:Signpost/Template:Cover-item/sandbox (compare) into the main template. It adds an additional option for the first parameter, "10", which shows the talk pages of Signpost articles. I am planning to use this in the near future with a bot for reader feedback (BRFA not filed yet), but I imagine this could be useful in other scenarios as well. Thanks, 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 02:21, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

 Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 19:13, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

ifexist

In the template, there is

<!--
 The following if exist check does nothing visible,
 but it does create a link for Special:RecentChanges
 to use and follow discussions
-->{{#ifexist:Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/{{{3}}}/{{{4}}}||}}

is

What does this mean by create a link for Special:RecentChanges to use and follow discussions? The usage of {{#ifexist}} has placed a lot of pages in Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls. If the purpose is to create a link, I can't help but feel a more direct method would be preferable (and {{#ifexist}} might not always give a link). ― Qwerfjkltalk 12:35, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb, who added it here. Qwerfjkltalk 12:38, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Something like [[Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/{{{3}}}/{{{4}}}|​]] might be better instead (​ being a zero-width space). ― Qwerfjkltalk 13:40, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

There's a easy and trivial solution to this (nest the {{#ifexist:...}} check inside an '{{#if:{{NAMESPACE}}|Wikipedia|...}}'), but I'm not authorized to implement it because it hasn't gone through a several-months long technical review from the Signpost staff. (See also this.) Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:38, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Or even more targeted, {{#if:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom|...}}. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:50, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, what is the purpose of this? Qwerfjkltalk 16:51, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

To enable the monitoring of recent changes to the current/next issues in the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:52, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Headbomb, I apologize if you've had some negative interactions with The Signpost in the past. This change looks non-controversial and improves the performance of the servers, so I would go ahead and do it without needing to seek approval. If it means anything, I'm putting my metaphorical stamp of approval on it. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 18:47, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh it would absolutely be beneficial and uncontroversial. But the editors of the Signpost have decided that refinements and new ideas that are beneficial and uncontroversial is undesired unless it comes from their minds. So I will let them deal with it, given external input is seen as unwanted and dangerous. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate our sincere apologies for the truly hostile treatment of a positive contributor, Headbomb. I admire your vast contributions to technical areas, and am horrified that you received such a reaction upon bringing forward a suggestion. I was not a part of The Signpost back then, but I now am, as an Editor in Chief. I wholeheartedly hope that you can reconsider joining the team; you have my back for anything you need. 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 04:24, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb: Same as EP. I don't know exactly what is going on with this template here (I am on vacation at the moment and would rather touch grass than look at parser functions) but I think it would be smart to let you fix all the shit that is messed up with the Signpost templates and co-endorse this happening. jp×g 21:55, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

See User talk:EpicPupper/Archive 4#Signpost. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:12, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 24 April 2022

Implement the above. Qwerfjkltalk 20:14, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

 Not done I'm not exactly sure what you want changed, but that's why we have a sandbox where you can show what you want done and make sure it works with any tests. Please make the change in the sandbox, validate it, then reactivate the edit request. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:35, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@Xaosflux,  Done (diff). I was referring to this comment (though the #if: is wrong, it should be #ifeq:). ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:43, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

(As I said above, the reason so is
[t]he usage of {{#ifexist}} has placed a lot of pages in Category:Pages with too many expensive parser function calls.) ― Qwerfjkltalk 20:45, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

@Qwerfjkl: Is there a reason this isn't just <span style="display:none;">[[Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/{{{3}}}/{{{4}}}]]</span>? Or am I missing something here? -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 09:26, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb? ― Qwerfjkltalk 15:14, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Probably would work just as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:16, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Deactivating; refocusing through a new request below. Cheers! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 15:00, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 May 2022

Please copy over the sandbox; it removes an expensive and unneeded parser function call. Here's a diff of the changes; see above for further discussion. Cheers! 🐶 EpicPupper ^{(he/him | talk)} 15:00, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

 Done Primefac (talk) 08:39, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Documentation

I took a shot at commenting some of the code in this template, but a few parts remained obscure to me. @HaeB: @Headbomb: Any thoughts on the parts I couldn't decipher? There were a couple blocks that just don't seem to ever output anything. jp×g 04:06, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

For context, I didn't create any parts of this template and am not familiar with its innards. I assume you are pinging me because of my notes from 2010 (which someone moved to the template's documentation page). But as far as I recall these were mainly the result of me trying to figure out the template's parameters from existing uses (plus maybe some conversations with Pretzels, the template's original engineer, similar to those at User talk:Pretzels/Archive 1).

Looking into the template's version history though, my guess would be that at least some of these weird switch statements are obsolete leftovers from previous experiments, see e.g. [1][2]. Presumably they can be safely removed now (famous last words ;)

Maybe ask at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) if there is a template expert who would be willing to look over this?

Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Right now there's so many comments in the code that it's become unreadable. I might have time later to create a version without comments that I could make sense of.

Why is the current documentation not adequate? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:55, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

If a big wall of switch statements that have no output under any circumstances are kept in a piece of code for thirteen years, my assumption is that the code isn't adequately commented for people to know what is going on in it. For example, the very beginning of the template before I wrote comments was this doozy:

{{#switch: {{{1}}}
 | 1 = {{#switch: {{{2}}} | 1 = | 0 = }}
}}{{#switch: {{{1}}}
 | 1 = <li>{{#switch: {{SUBPAGENAME}} | {{{4}}} = <span style="color:#444;">'''{{{4}}}'''</span> | [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/{{{3}}}/{{{4}}}|{{{4}}}]]}}

Sure, it is theoretically possible to figure out what this does in conjunction with the four or five other templates in the transclusion inheritance chain, but even to me it was quite confusing, and speaking practically, it seems like it has also been confusing to everyone who's edited the template in the last ten years (or else they would have removed the first switch statement, which doesn't do anything). jp×g 15:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

• I've removed some of the moldy spaghetti here and here. If anything breaks, we can re-add it, but testing in my sandbox indicated that none of these had any output. jp×g 15:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Headers

Is it possible for full transclusions to add the label of what article this is like “News and Notes” at the top? Aaron Liu (talk) 11:34, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

Where my templatestyles lovers at

@Izno and Pppery: I forgot which of you was the big templatestyles head. Well, whichever of you it was, I didn't always understand the purpose in doing it, but now I do, and I am now on a quest to fix all the CSS in Signpost templates. You think there's a way to incorporate the inline styles in this template into a stylesheet? I am willing to do the work myself but it seems kind of complicated so what are teh best practices? jp×g🗯️ 21:45, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

It was Izno. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:53, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I have looked at this one before and just shaken my head. Of course it is possible. Should you? Yeah, probably. Would I do it based on this template? No, probably not. You have 5 or more radically different output formats and some of them are documented as intended for places other than this wiki. I'd honestly suggest making up a dozen different templates each with an appropriate style sheet and then removing the use of this template in total (or retain as documentation for the series).

As for an appropriate style sheet for each case, that may be no style sheet. You'll have to figure out the apparent external use, which may not be friendly to an ad hoc style tag versus inline styles.

If you don't go down that road, you're probably looking at Template:Signpost/item/two-column/styles.css, Template:Signpost/item/two-column-single/styles.css, etc. anyway, because your output formats are intended for different locations ultimately, so you can dodge extra CSS load (not that it matters a ton). Izno (talk) 22:30, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

piccies and blurbs

Trying to wrap my head around the idea of providing piccies and blurbs through this template, but not 100% on how to implement it. One thing is for sure -- that I would have to go through the revision history of WP:SIGNPOST to actually figure out what the blurbs were, since they don't... seem to be recorded anywhere... lol. This is more of a rambling note to myself. jp×g🗯️ 21:51, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Becoming increasingly annoyed by the unbelievably bizarre implementation of the two-column thing in this template -- there's literally dozens and dozens of special cases when there need to be TWO. I am going to try to fix this because it's horrible. jp×g🗯️ 02:18, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Hey there! Is there anything preventing us from merging the sandbox into the main version? Aaron Liu (talk) 19:06, 27 December 2023 (UTC)