Template talk:Tracking category

Example of ALTTEXT

Call example

{{Tracking category|inhibit=y|ALTTEXT=This is an example of 'alternative text which ''may be italicized'' {{I2}}Spaced vertically{{S|10}}or spaced and even spaced out horizontally. {{I0}}and such effects from typing-aids templates.|CATS=[[Category:A]] [[Category:B]] }}

results in

{{Tracking category|inhibit=y|ALTTEXT=This is an example of 'alternative text which ''may be italicized'' {{I2}}Spaced vertically{{S|10}}or spaced and even spaced out horizontally. {{I0}}and such effects from typing-aids templates. |CATS=<nowiki>[[Category:A]][[Category:B]]}}</nowiki>

Example above removed from template page // FrankB 08:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What are you talking about? McLerristarr | Mclay1 10:12, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Purpose

"This is a tracking category[.] It is used to build and maintain lists of pages—primarily for the sake of the lists themselves." Do lists have feelings, or am I misinterpreting this template? Hyacinth (talk) 23:00, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

@Hyacinth: They're called tracking categories because we use then to keep track of information, usually in order to find out which pages have, or do not have, a particular item of information. For example, the template {{short description}} has code that adds articles to Category:Articles with short description, so by examining that category we know which articles are using that template. Another example is {{infobox London station}}, which has code that adds articles to Category:London stations without latest usage statistics 1617 - but only when the |railexits1617= and |raillowexits1617= parameters are both empty or missing; in this way we can find out which articles we still need to add usage statistics to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:10, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Empty category

@Gonnym: about this, I had filed Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/MalnadachBot 14 to remove the duplicate {{empty category}} from category pages that transclude this template. Considering that a lot of tracking categories are often empty and to prevent admins from unnecessarily deleting them (see Bearcat's comment in BRFA), embedding it in this seems like a good idea. Will you consider restoring it and letting the bot remove duplicates? ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 03:08, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

This is the kind of unnecessary hassle that can be avoided by embedding the template. I have restored it since the bot has been approved for trail and all duplicates will be removed soon. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 06:25, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Add parameter "template"

What if template {{Tracking category}} had an optional parameter |template=, which produced additional output, something like:

This is a tracking category populated by the template {{example}}.

?

Examples of similar templates:

• commons:Template:Autocat
• Template:Wikidata tracking category

Examples of where it would be useful:

• Category:Wikipedia never substituted templates
• Category:Restricted titles (brackets)
• Category:Articles using infobox body of water without image

One issue I can foresee, is that if it's a single parameter, it won't be simple to support categories populated by multiple templates, like Category:Hatnote templates using unusual parameters, which is populated by two – {{for}} and {{other uses of}}. —⁠andrybak (talk) 17:43, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I was just thinking this myself as I thought it already had that function. I'll add the basic function for one template. MClay1 (talk) 09:08, 28 July 2024 (UTC)