Template talk:Thomas Dixon Jr.

Names and Related sections

I removed the names and related sections because the connections are unclear. Not every person linked to another should be included in a template. The template should include the essential information. In this case, an author's published works should be included. Someone they met or influenced should not.--User:Namiba 17:09, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

@Namiba: Undoing vandalism is not edit warring, no thanks for the insult. I took your change to be vandalism, and still do. I do not agree with your limits on what should go in a template. Look at Template:Uncle Tom's Cabin. Template:Jesus Template:Franklin D. Roosevelt contains all his relatives (you took out Dixon's brother). To say that Dixon is unrelated to the Ku Klux Klan is flat-out wrong. They based their costumes on the cover of one of his books. The same for Lost Cause of the Confederacy. The fact that he was a student at Hopkins with Woodrow Wilson, that not only did they take a class together, they were buddies, is important both as showing Dixon's influence or shared background with Wilson, and showing an item in Wilson's background that led to him segregating the Civil Service. I could go on. The point is, are these links possibly helpful to a reader, or are they unhelpful time wasters.

If you have some policy statement that defends your view of a template, that people influenced don't belong, I'd appreciate a reference. I looked and couldn't find one. deisenbe (talk) 10:30, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Some of them belong, but definitely not all. A. C. Dixon and Leroy McAfee make sense as contemporaries and family members. Including Hambright is debatable since he died long before Dixon was even born but I could be persuaded to include him. I could also probably be persuaded to include D. W. Griffith. Overall, my sense (and I've reached out for help because I honestly don't know if there is a guideline on this) has always been that templates should be reciprocal; if we link to Eugene V. Debs here, then it should make sense that it would be included at Eugene V. Debs. In the article on Dixon, it mentions Debs once and there seems to be no other connection. The same with Roosevelt and Rockefeller. Dixon isn't even mentioned at Walter Hines Page. I do not support including Woodrow Wilson. I agree that Dixon is related to the Klan but again, not every influence or connection is relevant. Dixon isn't a world figure like Jesus or FDR. His books were not nearly as influential as Uncle Tom's Cabin either. We do not need linkcruft.--User:Namiba 15:40, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I am unfamiliar with the template's subject and do not have time to delve into studying the disputed links. I'm driving by in response to the posting at Help talk:Template to note the existence of Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Navigation templates (WP:NAVBOX) and its guidance such as:

Good navboxes generally follow most or all of these guidelines:

1. All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject.
2. The subject of the template should be mentioned in every article.
3. The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent.
4. There should be a Wikipedia article on the subject of the template.
5. If not for the navigation template, an editor would be inclined to link many of these articles in the See also sections of the articles.

By the way, I truly do not know if this applies to the character of these links, but I'll mention also Wikipedia:Handling trivia#Connective trivia. Best regards--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)