Template talk:Virus navs

Too many four character abbreviations

|col1 = M: VIR

|col2style = text-align:center;background:white;
|col2 = virs(prot)/clss  

|col3style = text-align:center;background:silver;
|col3 = cutn/syst (hppv/hiva, infl/zost/zoon)/epon

|col4style = text-align:center;background:#ccf;
|col4 = drug (dnaa, rnaa, rtva, vacc)

Wat?

Please replace those wikilinks with these longer, more informative, more WP:COMPREHENSIVE forms:

Medicine, Virus, (topics, protiens, classification), Skin conditions, systemic diseases, HPV, HIV & AIDS, Flu, Chickenpox & shingles, Other diseases, Symptoms, DNA virus antivirals, RNA virus antivirals, Antiretrovirals, and Vaccines

I suggest the four column format is unhelpful and arbitrary, and this template should be converted to a single line of prose. Thanks. 70.59.16.167 (talk) 04:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Note: I have asked for assistance from the users of WikiProject Medicine. --ElHef (Meep?) 22:08, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to this request as these templates are meant to ease navigation of related articles. The abbreviations are simply unintelligible to the average reader. Is this the sort of thing you're looking for, or something more complex?

--RexxS (talk) 01:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That is far superior. EJM86 (talk) 03:01, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

This requires a much wider discussion, as it is related to all medicine-related navbox links. It should not be changed here in isolation. Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Edit requests on medical templates for the scope of this issue, and keep discussion there until a greater consensus can be made. --Scott Alter (talk) 02:32, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There were no reasons given for keeping the unintelligible abbreviations, so I'm doing this. EJM86 (talk) 03:01, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted this. This template is linked on thousands of pages and the change introduced an embarrassing spelling mistake. I agree the current version isn't ideal, but please discuss at least on Wikipedia:WikiProject Viruses and Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine before making any changes. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:03, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Please read the essay Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus". It contains some sage advice and illustrates clearly why the onus is on anyone who reverts to do so for solid reasons. I think it ought to be obvious that the number of pages linked does not make a difference to whether an edit is an improvement or not. There has already been a notification of the problem under discussion at WT:WikiProject Medicine since 30 April and a couple of discussions were initiated at Template talk:Medicine navs in April 2010 and August 2011 but petered out. It would be a shame if the chance to improve this template - and it is in need of improvement - were stalled for another couple of years simply because of the sort of inertia that is already proving so damaging to the project. --RexxS (talk) 20:10, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The template is linked on every single virus page and the relevant project was not notified at all!!! Personally I think a viable solution for WikiProject Viruses might be simply deleting this template altogether, or at least removing it from the main virus template. Any functionality that is needed could be added as text to the main viruses template in a thoughtful, joined-up fashion. The current suggestion simply is not workable in context. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

If you're suggesting that editors have to notify relevant projects before they edit, then I suggest your concept of WikiProjects does not match mine. WikiProjects do not own either articles or templates - and if a particular template is important to particular editors, then the onus is on them to keep it on their watchlist. I appreciate the value of WikiProjects very much, but I'm not prepared to give up the basic principle of "anyone can edit" just to pander to WikiProject members who can't be bothered to watch this template. --RexxS (talk) 20:50, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

This is finally being picked up, ElHef, EJM86, Scott Alter, Espresso Addict, and anyone else who comes here. As you can see, this template is still in dire need of improvement. It's barely usable right now. There's a discussion about this here and you can find the proposed new version here. If you want to contribute before the improved version goes live, please to so on these pages. PizzaMan (♨♨) 12:25, 28 December 2014 (UTC)