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Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2009 November 28

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November 28

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Template:Infobox Philippine municipality

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete after replacement by {{Infobox settlement}} Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Philippine municipality (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant, as Infobox settlement should be used instead. Sang'gre Habagat (talk) 13:13, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Current TDs

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was Keep. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:48, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Current TDs (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
Delete. This template has apparently been applied to the article on every current Teachta Dála (TD), i.e. members of Dáil Éireann, the lower chamber of the Oireachtas (Parliament) of Ireland. It consists of a link to every current TD, all 166 of them.
Just because a template can be created doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so. This one has been done very well, but it's too big and it's not needed. Every TD is categorised by which Dáil they served in, and each such category includes a list of TDs. For current TDs, it's Category:Members of the 30th Dáil, and the list is at Members of the 30th Dáil. So that's two mouse-clicks away from every article.
Set templates like this are great for small groups, such as sports teams. But when the set gets bigger, their size adds unecessary payload to the article. The wikimarkup is big enough, but when it is served to the reader it is rendered into HTML, which much more bulky: in this case its adds 23K to the size of every article it is added to. Because it is part of the page body, the the template cannot be cached separately by the browser; it just makes each page bigger.
The playload of this sort of uneccessary template isn't much of an issue to readers using broadband, but it slows down wikipedia-reading for those on dialup connections or using mobile devices. Some of the latter pay per Megabyte, so this sort of template costs them money. When we already have a good list two mouse clicks away, why add this burden?
Note some precedents:
If two clicks through the category system is considered to be too onerous for raders, why not just put a link at the top of the "See also" section to Members of the 30th Dáil? That adds negligible payload. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • marginal Keep it is collapsed, so i would not worry about size. Its not doing any harm. While I agree that it is of little benefit, the cost is its creation and maintenance, as long as another editor pays that cost in terms of their time, I'm not going to object. If it gets out of date and no one looks after it, then there will be a case of deletion - but until then - keep. Nonetheless I remain open to persuasion. ClemMcGann (talk) 02:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ireland-related deletion discussions. . --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I'm having trouble understanding your reasons for deletion. You first said you want this template deleted because we already have a category and a list that covers it. Yet, my interpretation of WP:CLS is that categories, lists and navboxes are synergistic, each one complementing the others, and thus we should NOT delete Template:Current TDs just because Category:Members of the 30th Dáil and Members of the 30th Dáil already repeats the list of links. Secondly, you said we should worry about the payload of others, and yet WP:PERF says we should not worry about performance and WP:LENGTH#No need for haste says we should not take precipitous action the very instant an article exceeds a certain size. Therefore, IMO, your reasons to delete immediately are a bit invalid. And I'm ignoring the other deletion discussions based on WP:OTHERSTUFF. Is there any other Wikipedia policy or guideline I'm missing that might help support your claims? Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. First, WP:PERF and WP:LENGTH are not relevant. WP:PERF is an essay, not a policy or a guideline, and in any case it refers to server load. I didn't refer to server load: my concern is with readers. WP:LENGTH#No need for haste refers to splitting articles, not to splatting templates onto them, so it doesn't seem relevant either.
      As to WP:CLS, see WP:CLS#Navigation_templates, which notes that templates can "5. Take up too much space for information that is only tangentially related", and "6. Include the full list of links in every article, even though often many of the links are not useful in some of the articles". Both those points apply here, and the latter is particularly relevant, because while a reader of an article on one TD may be interested in all other TDs, their interest is more likely to be focused — for example on other current TDs for the same constituency, on previous TDs for the same constituency, or on party spokespersons. None of those three questions are answered by the template, and they are all things which lists do much better, because a list provides the context which is missing from a template.
      Complete-set templates such as this work well for vertical series, such as a list of holders of a particular post, because they can illustrate the succession series. However, horizontal series templates are useful only for smaller groups, because they don't lend themselves to enough detail to allow useful navigation. So a template for members of the cabinet would be useful, because it could provide links to articles that are immediately relevant, and offer context to those links, by listing post as well as names. That sort of detail is not possible on large sets such as this, without massively increasing bulk. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep. It is long, but as Zzyzx11 says above, navboxes complement lists and categories. It's collapsed, so it's not doing any harm. Some people probably find it useful. It's download weight is not as big as it seems -- all output from Wikipedia's servers is gzipped (compressed) at the HTTP level. I stuck this template into the sandbox and noted the length of the HTTP Content-Length header as 8855, then blanked the sandbox and recorded it again to get the approximate size of the basic Wikipedia page frame, as 4461. Subtract and you get about 4k. • Anakin 03:31, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep w/comment: I helped create this template, and I think that the template is needed in its intended purpose. We have these templates for some other countries' current national legislature members, and I'm not as worried about the downloading of extra content as long as we can keep it in a suitable length limit and style of delineation. --Toussaint (talk) 04:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. See WP:OTHERSTUFF. The fact that some other country's national legislatures use this sort of template doesn't mean that it's appropriate here. Per my reply above to Zzyzx11, templates like this for a large group remain of a manageable size only by stripping out much of he contextual information which makes them useful: in this case, the template is just a a bare list of names divided by party, so it is useless to anyone looking for other TDs in the same constituency, or looking for party spokespeople on particular issues.
      The fact that large group templates like this can be created doesn't answer the question of why they should be created in any particular case, or what particular navigational purpose they are supposed to serve, and I notice that your reply doesn't try to address that crucial question. It seems to me that complete-set templates such as this tend to appear because they are relatively easy for editors to to create, not because they answer navigational problems for the reader.
      In this case, the reader would be much better served by a smaller set of more focused links, such as to a) other TDs for the same constituency b) full list of Members of the 30th Dáil; c) Ceann Comhairle and Leas-Cean Comhairle; d) a list of ministers; e) committees. That sort of template would offer less of the marginally-relevant information and therefore be less bulky, but it would also offer much more of the more-directly-relevant info. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep - The template is useful, as it affords the reader the list of TDs by party and convenient navigation links. The nominator have themselves created many nav templates for Seanad Eireann (upper house of the Irish parliament), like this one Template:Members of the 21st Seanad. These contain approx 60 links, why is 60 ok, and 166 too many? Is there a size limit for Template links? I not convinced by this argument by think of the people who only have dial up. Its a weak argument, lets strip everything then that adds to article size, including the Seanad templates. Btw, in this discussion [1], BHG argues for the deletion of Navbox template because it adds one extra mouse click which is hassle for the readers. Yet here, BHG argues for the deletion of Current TDs because the Members list is only two mouse clicks away from the TD article. But that's TWICE the hassle! Snappy (talk) 15:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. Snappy, at this point I don't think that I would defend the nav templates for the Seanad against deletion: they seemed like a good idea at the time, but have become cluttersome on too many articles. I might even nominate them myself. However, the important difference is related to size: because of the number of entries in this Dail template, it has been created without the crucial bit of info on each TD, viz. which constituency they represent. What use is this template to most readers if it doesn't provide that info? And how big would it get if that info was added?
      In 2½ years time, there will be a new Dail. What do we do then — rename this one to {{TDs of the 30th Dail}}, and add another template of 166 links to each TD's article, and then end up with one of these templates for each Dail, adding over 1000 links to the articles on long-serving TDs?
      The mouse-click issue you raise is a red-herring. That discussion was about a non-standard template which unnecessarily hides part of the content of an article; removing that impediment to usability is not a reason to justify transcluding every possible related list into an article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:04, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Reply - BHG, you are raising speculative arguments here. This is a template for the Current Dail. No-one is suggesting creating templates for each Dail. The TDs are organised by party which is more crucial than constituency, although if it could have both it would be better. There is precedent, see Template:Current U.S. Senators (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) Snappy (talk) 10:58, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Reply. Interesting comparison, Snappy, and thanks for the link.
          First, the US senators are fewer in number: 100, rather than 166 TDs, so there are 40% fewer people to list. Secondly, the US's 2-party system means that the parties can be denoted by a single letter, and the list can be sorted on states, which in turn are denoted by a standardized 2-letter system instantly recognisable to Americans. That sort of structure would be much more useful for Irish TDs, who are overwhelmingly focused on their local constituencies rather than on national issues. However, I suspect that the reason it has not been used brings us back to where I came in: size. Adding a link to each of the 40 constituencies would make this TDs template even bulkier, both visually and in terms of download, which I suspect is why that more useful format has not been adopted. (Note that I say "useful" to reflect the actual priority given by TDs, which is to their constituencies, and by voters, who overwhelmingly use politicians for local rather than national issues. I can supply lots of refs if you dispute that). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:30, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep It's useful, well-organized, and the download size looks reasonable. If we're concerned about people with slow connections, remember that this actually saves them from having to view another page to see the list of current TD members. Reach Out to the Truth 17:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: It's useful and collapsed, there is no good reason to delete it.--[[User: Duffy2032|Duffy2032]] (talk) 04:15, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply. Rather than just saying WP:ITSUSEFUL, how about actually addressing the ways in which size considerations have forced the template to omit the info which might actually make it a worthwhile navigational tool? As it stands, it's just a bare list, and none of the keep contributors appear to be considering how such a list of 166 names might actually help readers. It doesn't even include first names, just initials. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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