Gonnym

Clickable button 2

Is avoiding the redirect really necessary? There's no harm in having them and you're blowing up my inbox. Primefac (talk) 15:02, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not necessary in the technical sense, no. I do however find a "2" version of templates misleading and confusing even as redirects. On related note though, if in future TfD discussions I need to be precise in what I want to happen (as in "merge, replace all versions of redirects then delete template and all redirects") let me know. Gonnym (talk) 15:07, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I seem to recall the "2" version was the template more widely-used, which is why it was kept in-situ. In a majority of TFD cases the redirect is kept from a merge when the template names are similar, but in this specific case if there is a problem with the redirect existing I think RFD would be the best place to go rather than editing thousands of templates to avoid said redirect. Primefac (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Template:Особа

A tag has been placed on Template:Особа requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section R3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a recently created redirect from an implausible typo or misnomer, or other unlikely search term.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Language template categories

Hello, Gonnym,

So I wouldn't take over HouseBlaster's talk page, would these language template categories be better tagged as CSD C4 or should they stay CSD C1? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:42, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

I feel like they fall somewhere in between, but C4 with IAR is better here as it speeds up the process of the TfD (and hopefully the next phase). The lang-xx templates that were placed in them were deleted with a valid TfD process, which means that they are permanently empty until someone decides in the future to create something that fits that category. Gonnym (talk) 09:41, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, Trappist the monk went ahead and deleted them all but left no deletion summary explaining why. Some admins work that way. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 05:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

TOC

Hello. Why do you think a table of contents is always needed? Many stubs have very small leads, then a short history, and then the round-ups (References etc.), often enough to view on one full screen. That's why the "no toc" code is available and often used to unclutter a page. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:07, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Anyone using the new, default skin, does not have any issue with ToC clutter as the ToC is placed on the left-side menu. Editors wishing to hide the skin on older skins, should use their css page to hide it and not create a worse editing experience for the majority of editors and readers. Gonnym (talk) 11:33, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:WikiProject Short descriptions pages

A tag has been placed on Category:WikiProject Short descriptions pages indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. ✗plicit 04:17, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

ArbCom 2024 Elections voter message

Hello! Voting in the 2024 Arbitration Committee elections is now open until 23:59 (UTC) on Monday, 2 December 2024. All eligible users are allowed to vote. Users with alternate accounts may only vote once.

The Arbitration Committee is the panel of editors responsible for conducting the Wikipedia arbitration process. It has the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors, primarily for serious conduct disputes the community has been unable to resolve. This includes the authority to impose site bans, topic bans, editing restrictions, and other measures needed to maintain our editing environment. The arbitration policy describes the Committee's roles and responsibilities in greater detail.

If you wish to participate in the 2024 election, please review the candidates and submit your choices on the voting page. If you no longer wish to receive these messages, you may add {{NoACEMM}} to your user talk page. MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 00:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Template query

Hey, I'm undoing my previous use of {{lzh}} so it can be deleted. While I'm doing this, do you think {{py}} or {{hani}} should be deleted also? I think the two are slightly different but that could be myopic on my part, so I want to ensure I'm not clogging the space for maintainers. Thanks for the work you do! Remsense ‥ 论 02:16, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

If those templates can be replaced with {{Lang}} or {{Lang-zh}} then yes. Gonnym (talk) 08:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm dense, but is the core point that only {{lang}}, {{langx}}, {{transliteration}}, and {{lang-zh}} (etc.) should ever be used for language tagging? I am not clear on what exactly is the boundary for unacceptable technical debt or potential confusion here, to the extent that I feel bad because I really don't want to make an annoying issue out of it. Remsense ‥ 论 09:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Basically, for the past few years we took templates that are very similar and had a language specific template, merged them into one template, and deleted the language specific one. See these related TfD:

• {{ISO 639 name}}: TfD
• {{In lang}}: TfD (part 1) and TfD (part 2)
• {{Globalize}}: TfD
• {{Contains special characters}}: TfD
• {{Wikt-lang}}: TfD
• {{Langx}}: TfD

The point here is to reduce the need to create and maintain (fix, update, categorize, document, etc.) these templates. Ideally, Lang-zh should also really be merged into lang, but that currently isn't the case.

Also, I requested at Template talk: Lang for lang and langx to have the same secondary functions with the difference between the two to only be the language label (but got no response atm), if that does happen, then Template:Lang and transliteration would also not be needed, as the default lang template can be used (like langx is used).

Probably, the next batch of templates that should be investigated if still needed, are the sub templates of Template:Script. It seems to me that either we need those font fixes, and that should be automatically part of {{Lang}}, or we don't. I can't see a reason where we have a mixed case like that (like we currently do). Gonnym (talk) 09:37, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly a position that one can argue with—but I would say the Sinosphere orthographic situation is bespoke; there is not another situation in the world that has similar requirements and expectations for display. Per below, I suppose I would struggle to see the benefits incurred from merging {{lang-zh}}, given you've only made the template everyone uses more complicated for no benefit to most, and i don't really see how it clearly benefits editors, readers, or maintainers in practice. Remsense ‥ 论 10:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

If I can speak in defense of my own idiosyncrasies here for a moment (though they are not entirely my own, I will stress), I do not understand how templates like {{lzh}} can incur an unacceptable technical debt or potential for confusion in the context of how templates are generally used across the site. I was not witness to the times where the ecosystem was clearly a terrible mess of incompatible bodges that made life worse for both editors and readers, but I do not see how the parsimony that helped clean that mess up should therefore be taken as far as technically possible above all other considerations.

I know this is going to sound silly, but I feel the need to stress that when one is editing articles that make heavy use of non-English text, each template call being 5–8 characters shorter is genuinely an enormous help in reducing the cognitive difficulties when trying to refactor, copyedit, or really understand the intricate material in question.—I will freely admit "enormous" might be a characterization particular to me, I know it for certain that others can also attest this benefit to one degree or another. Is there not a meaningful distinction in your mind between previous reinventions of the wheel that can easily fall out of sync and break at several points, and very simple shortcuts that require minimal additional documentation and are fairly common practice in the template space generally? Remsense ‥ 论 10:12, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I personally, and I'm very blunt here, can't understand editors that have a problem writing a few more characters. If that is an actual problem one has, I doubt editing on Wikiepdia is really for them. Gonnym (talk) 11:30, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't—I'm happy to write tools that do the typing for me. The point I'm articulating above is about reading and refactoring, not typing. I trust you don't actually mean to say editing isn't "for me", so I'll let that be. Remsense ‥ 论 11:37, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't implying anyone and especially not you as I have no idea what or where you edit and only interacted with you I think twice. I'm talking generally, as I've been around this area on the Wiki for years. I think template wrappers can be useful in (very limited) certain areas, and in others harmful.

WikiProject banners, that have been turned into wrappers because the rational was that it would help editors, have turned out to be a nuisance. We end up with dozens of duplicate banners each day because editors see a talk page with {{WikiProject United States}} and eventhough it has |DE=yes and the task force is clearly shown, they still add {{WikiProject Delaware}} and we end up with duplicate banners. So one user might save time, other users end up wasting time cleaning after them.

Now lets look at {{lzh}}, that is a wrapper of {{lang}}. What happens if we add new feature to lang? One needs to edit lzh in order for that template to support it (we actually don't really need to imagine, as lzh only supports the basic lang with text). Not a big deal. Now multiply that by 1400 templates that we just had. Still not a big deal? Now multiply that by around 8000 ISO 639 codes that are currently available.

Looking for another real world example of valid templates, not wrappers, using a horrible outdated system? Election table templates like those at Category:Election and referendum infobox templates are created by random editors for every possible scenario they need. These are often copy-pasted without any real thought behind. That's ok. I wanted to add tracking category for unsupported parameters as I've encountered these quite a few times, but after looking into it and seeing that I'll need to edit each and every one, I just gave up.

Wrappers, broken parts of tables, or other similar templates, just make for a horrible back-end experience, which in turn, affects the end-users who want to use these, even when you think it doesn't. Gonnym (talk) 11:57, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that {{lzh}} is marginal; I've already said I'm happy to wind it down. I guess my main point here is, as someone who also has some technical understanding if not as many years of experience—I would ask that you consider there are meaningful factors to consider other than the ones you yourself find most nettlesome. I appreciate the maintenance work you do a lot, but I feel I have to be adamant that there are situations where other factors more plausibly justify the occasional creation of a simple wrapper template. You obviously have good reasons for having the general positions you do, but I can't help but see the extent of the application here as overly dogmatic. Remsense ‥ 论 12:06, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Lets look at this the other way, can you give a few examples of where you think a wrapper is very helpful? Gonnym (talk) 12:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Sure, sure. {{zhi}} (a shortcut for {{lang-zh|links=no}}) is completely indispensable for me, given that links aren't meant to be used almost anywhere outside the very first sentence of an article, so the parameter needs to be set most of the time. If I'm editing terminology-heavy prose, example-heavy prose, or a table in a language-related article, it is hopefully intuitive that there is reduced visual clutter, even if you don't get that it's a priority for me like that. Remsense ‥ 论 12:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a nice but bad example. I asked for a wrapper, and you gave me a redirect. While I'm not a fan of redirects, that isn't this topic. However, even in this example, I'll say that I doubt Module:Lang-zh really needs to exist, now that Module:Lang has been updated. "Zhi" also as a template name for what you meant for it to be is a objectively very bad name as that is a language code for a completely different language which has a much better case for using it (see {{langx|zhi|test}} → Zhire: test). That redirect might (and probably will) end up at RfD for that exact reason. Gonnym (talk) 12:24, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I am confused. {{zhi}} redirects to a descriptive name but of course functions as a wrapper of {{lang-zh}}. I have not seen the new capabilities of Module:Lang though; I would be tickled if it can do everything I need from {{lang-zh}} but am not sure how to investigate whether that is the case.

If I may, if you throw the template up at RfD because of the overlap with a poorly known [...] language, I am going to be distinctly annoyed. I am trying to come to a shared understanding, and now it feels a bit like I am being taunted for having priorities at all distinct from yours. Remsense ‥ 论 12:30, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

You can be annoyed, but that has nothing to do with my editing patterns before our current discussion (see for example Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2024_October_8#Template:Lang1). When dealing with language codes, we shouldn't takeover a language code of another language just because that name is easier to use. UK would mean for most people the United Kingdom. If say we had a language template title "uk", would you use it for the UK or would you use it for the actual Ukraine language that uses that as its ISO? The fact that no one until you needed a template name titled "zhi" shows that there really wasn't a need for a such a name.

And terminology matters. "Zhi" is a redirect of "Zh-no-labels" which is a wrapper of "Lang-zh", which is template access point of the module "Lang-zh". Those distinctions matter.

I don't know what better name you would like, but probably, the first thing I'd do is rename all related lang-zh templates to match the parent, so "Template:Zh-no-labels" would become "Template:Lang-Zh no labels". Then to fix the redirect and to not clash with other ISO languages, I'd rename it to something else ("Lang2-Zh" or something. "Langx-Zh" will be a bad name as it would work the exact opposite from {{langx}}). Gonnym (talk) 12:42, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

It has to do with you seemingly preferring to prioritize hassling me over multiple dimensions of exceedingly low-stakes marginalia while I'm trying to have a candid conversation with you so we might come to some shared understanding as concerns actual problems. Remsense ‥ 论 12:48, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

So you've come to my talk page, I keep answering your questions (while you haven't really given me a wrapper example as I've requested), but I'm the one hassling you. You can kindly show your way out then. Gonnym (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Type parameter in Infobox short story

Hi, could you document that change in the Uses and Parameters sections? MichaelMaggs (talk) 11:04, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I've already added documentation to it. If it isn't good enough, you are free to tweak it, the page isn't protected. Gonnym (talk) 08:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Right. The transclusion wasn't showing up on Template:Infobox short story but after forcing a refresh it now is. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:30, 20 November 2024 (UTC)