Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2015 November 12

November 12

Template:ISO 3166 name DE-HB

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).

The result of the discussion was convert to Lua to avoid thousands of smaller templates, after which they can all be deleted. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 03:42, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Template:ISO 3166 name DE-HB (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This is a follow-up on Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2011 March 6#Template:ISO 3166 name DE-HB from 4 1/2 years ago.

I have only tagged this one template, as it would be a bit ridiculous to tag 12,000 templates in one go.

My reasoning from four years ago: "This is a combined deletion nomination for ca. 12,00010,000 templates, of which I have only tagged one. These templates are 5895 templates in Category:ISO 3166 code from name templates, 4060 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code templates, 245 in Category:ISO 3166 name from code country templates, and 1868 in Category:ISO 3166 code from name country templates. These were all created in May and June 2010, and none of them are used. I have asked about them at User talk:Rich Farmbrough#ISO 3166 templates, and he intends to use them in infoboxes. However, no actual examples of where they may be used have been given, and it is hard to see what purpose this many templates can have. For maintainability and user-friendliness, a template like Template:CountryAbbr, which is used to add country or region codes to the coordinates, is much more useful and maintainable. E.g. on an article like Weser, the cooridnates at the top right contain the region DE-HB. This is done automatically, based on the fields in the infobox. The same code could be generated through Template:ISO 3166 name DE-HB, but this would mean that instead of one smart template that tackles all these codes (or a small number of such templates, if it would get too complex for one), we have an individual template for each and every code. For automatisation and maintenance, this is worse. Having one template per country, with the regions parametrised, could be a reasonable solution. I fail to see though how these 12,000 templates will reduce any workload or make life any easier. "

The only change is that we are now four years further on, and as far as I could see, these are still not used (the only experimental use they had was in Template:Infobox bathhouse, which has since been redirected). Keeping 12,000 unused templates around for five years seems like overkill. Fram (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Keep The Template:CountryAbbr could be rewritten far more efficiently using this scheme. The limitations on template code mentioned in the previous TfD have been removed, so the case for keeping them is now stronger than before. If I get time I'll look at knocking up a sandbox version in the next day or two.

One again I suggest that deletion boards are not the place for starting discussions amongst established editors, but rather a cordial approach on a talk page.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC).

• {{ISO 3166 name}} has 12,000 transclusions, so the nomination rationale appears to be flawed. {{ISO 3166 code}} is indeed unused, presumably because {{CountryAbbr}} is favoured. Alakzi (talk) 15:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that. It seems as if some of the code ones are used as well, I apparently checked a number of unused ones and thought my original statement of 4 years ago was still valid, but by now the country ones are used. I'll strike the country ones above, and keep this nomination only for the sub-country templates in Category:ISO 3166 code from name templates and Category:ISO 3166 name from code templates (still some 10,000 templates). Fram (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
    • If these are to be kept, I feel that they should be Luafied (and I've - in fact - listed them as candidates for conversion to Lua here). A page for each code and name is an unmanageable arrangement and a relic of the past. Potentially, a list of names and codes could also be compiled from Wikidata (properties 297 to 300); it might even be possible to retrieve these at runtime with Module:Wikidata, though I'm not sure. Alakzi (talk) 01:56, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
• Luafy the whole system (and preferably merge with CountryAbbr) per Alakzi. I haven't tested, but with two sets of data pages (code→name and name→code), Lua would probably be about as fast as transcluding a separate template for each, and much quicker than a huge #switch. I even think a slower yet still quick module using a single set would be possible, avoiding the need to make changes twice and ensure consistency. SiBr₄ (talk) 23:02, 20 November 2015 (UTC)
• Convert to Lua; keep as is until that is done, or if conversion to Lua is deemed impossible or doesn't work. Having thousands of templates like this is a very "old-hat" way of doing things that can be difficult to maintain. At the very least, they should have been arranged in subpages... — This, that and the other (talk) 03:55, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

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).

Template:Geological history

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).

The result of the discussion was keep. This is now a content discussion which can be carried out at the talk page. (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 03:38, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Template:Geological history (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Per Reasons for deletion #2: the navbox is redundant to better-designed navboxes. It includes geological divisions throughout the history of Earth down to a fine scale, and there is little reason to expect that users will want to navigate between most of them. For example: If someone is looking at Zanclean (5.3 - 3.6 Mya), will they suddenly have the urge to go to Rhyacian (2300 - 2050 Mya)? Or even Danian (61.6-66.0 Mya)? Zanclean already has two much more sensible navboxes: {{Neogene graphical timeline}} and {{Neogene Footer}} (it probably doesn't need both). Going up the scale, Neogene has the same two navboxes and also shares {{Phanerozoic eon}} with Cenozoic. Cenozoic also has {{Cenozoic graphical timeline}}; in principle, this could also be shared with Neogene. And Phanerozoic has {{Eons graphical timeline}}. I don't think there is any article where this template would be useful - not even the main article, Geologic time scale, where there already are tables of time divisions. RockMagnetist(talk) 07:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

• Keep this navbox, for non-geologist wikipedia users (& editors) that either do not know the geochronological sequence of periods and the eras they belong under, or have difficulty re-remembering them accurately over time. I disagree with you RockMagnetist, regarding "little reason to expect that users will want to navigate between most of them," in the regard that link navigation usage is not the only criteria, another important value is the visual "mapping" always findable in one place. It is especially helpful as the sole navbox template/place to also simply see all the Precambrian and Phanerozoic Eon's epochs and ages together, and their relationships. The 10 Precambrian Eons, 19 Paleozoic Eras, and 7 Cenozoic Eras (usually not using "Early-Middle-Late" of the Mesozoic eopchs); and the ~48 periods/ages are especially benefited by the clarity of this particular template. Graphically, it is much easier to read and simpler to comprehend than the vertically formatted info boxes (excellent in other ways), and so is not a duplicate. Both formats have value.

Navigating without this template placed at (only) the Era level articles, Era parent categories, and topic by Era subcategories is an unnecessary reductionism. For any article/cat/subcat under the Eras level, I do understand that only navbox templates by specific era or period are appropriate, as a recent discussion decided/bot cleanup fixed.

I Strongly Oppose deletion of this navbox template. Please have mercy on those of us laypeople that are interested in geochronology, curious to learn, &/or wanting to edit to the most specific geochron−subcategory, but do not have the expertise or capacity to maintain its complex flow chart accurately in our brains. Thank you — Look2See1 t a l k → 22:03, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

@Look2See1: I appreciate your desire to see it all laid out, but Geologic time scale is more useful for that purpose. It's more informative and you can search it, something you can't do in {{Geological history}} unless you first click on all the [Show] links. Contrary to your statement above, link navigation is the only purpose of a navbox. It shouldn't be relied on as a source of information because it isn't even displayed on the Mobile Web site for Wikipedia (see WP:NAVBOX). And having a few hundred unnecessary links on each chronology page is overlinking. RockMagnetist(talk) 22:31, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

@RockMagnetist: Thank you for explaining some considerations. Contrary to your statement above, link navigation is not the only purpose of the {{Geological history}} template for some wikipedia users. It's purpose is also a much clearer graphic reference tool than the Geologic time scale article's vertical table. Most importantly, it is visible as a whole timeline, without needing to continually scroll up & down to see only truncated sections, which the article's tall vertical table/graphic requires and which precludes seeing the big picture sequencing and interrelationships. Since the template is not displayed on the Mobile Web site, its not fitting on a small smart phone screen is mute.

The article's vertical table is comprehensively exquisite, which however also makes it much less "whole picture" clear due to the essential "Major events" information it appropriately includes. Therefore, this template is extremely useful and valuable on this main Geologic time scale article, let alone others, for its "whole picture" graphic clarity and "no−scrolling" qualities. The incomplete, barely readable to unreadable (tiny/micro font sizes) sample horizontal timelines in the article have no replacement value for the template. The circular geochronology graphic is visually beautiful, but its text is unreadable without leaving the article, rendering it an indirect tool.

Also importantly, the Geologic time scale article would need to be placed under 100s of --See also-- sections of geochronology articles to offer the same comprehensive "map" — and still worse, be a terribly indirect tool as it is not simultaneously visible on an article's page for referencing as the template is. Linking Geologic time scale on category pages instead of the template is obviously inappropriate, so without its being kept there would be no inter−Era linkage or comprehension support on any Era level articles, Era parent categories, and topic by Era subcategories. Please Keep this navbox. — Look2See1 t a l k → 00:00, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Delete. The guidelines at WP:NAVBOX are pretty clear:

Navigation templates are a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles within English Wikipedia.

and

Navigation templates are particularly useful for a small, well-defined group of articles; templates with a large numbers of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use.

and

Navboxes are not displayed on the Mobile Web site for Wikipedia, which accounts for approximately 30% of readers.

This template is far too large to be useful in navigation. Per RockMagnetist's argument, having a navbox is a separate issue from trying to make geological time comprehensible to laymen.

If editors think that Geological time scale is too hard to read as an information source, how about adding collapsiblity to the big table, somehow? I think that would really help our readers. —hike395 (talk) 12:56, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Trim down --- I just thought of a compromise. The main problem with this template is its size. It's gigantic, because it includes links down to the ages. How about if we just keep periods and epochs? This would help laymen navigate (because I really doubt that laymen would ever need to navigate from an age in one epoch to an age in another). —hike395 (talk) 13:26, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hike395: Down to periods might be appropriate, but including epochs would mean the table goes four levels deep. That seems a bit much. RockMagnetist(talk) 18:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

• Trim or delete The articles that this template was spammed onto already have numerous links to related articles for a curious reader to follow. Only one person seems to think that everyone will want to jump from Avitomyrmex to Mississippian. The template should not be placed just to facilitate something that is already better dealt with in existing footers and in the infoboxes at the start of articles.--Kevmin § 17:53, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

RockMagnetist, Look2See1, Kevmin:  Question: I went through and dramatically simplified this navbox: a draft is at User:Hike395/sandbox. It now fits on one screen. How do other editors feel about replacing the current navbox with this proposed one, and Keeping it? —hike395 (talk) 13:34, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

It is definitely much cleaner looking then the current version. I still think it should only be used sparingly in categories at the most though.--Kevmin § 13:51, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kevmin: Agree I think this navbox should only be used on articles, not categories. —hike395 (talk) 05:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hike395: Thanks for doing this. It's much better, although on reflection just two levels would be more in keeping with the guidelines. Also, it should be changed to a uniform color. Those colors make it difficult to read some of the links and are "arbitrarily decorative" (see Style, color and formatting).

@RockMagnetist:  Done I agree that the colors made it hard to read -- removed. Three levels:  Not done, because then we would have to leave out Pleistocene, Mississippian, and Neoproterozoic which I think are important. —hike395 (talk) 05:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough. Looks a lot better! RockMagnetist(talk) 06:10, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@Kevmin: At present, the navbox links articles. Are you saying it should be moved to categories? RockMagnetist(talk) 16:16, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Oops, I mistook the usage when i glanced at the what links here page, you are correct.--Kevmin § 16:05, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hike395: Well done. I like the detail as you did it; the colors need to be calmed down, though. One thing I keep wondering: why is the chronology upside down? Most tables of geological time show the oldest at the bottom, not the top (e.g., here or here). — Gorthian (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

@Gorthian:  Done I like the stratigraphic order, better. I don't know why the original did it the other way. —hike395 (talk) 05:47, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

@Hike395: The structure is much improved. The colors are now very tame and...well, blah. Are those the default navbox colors? I was thinking that a little color, like to distinguish the eras all the way across, would be useful. I fiddled with it for a while, but obviously I don't know enough about editing navboxes. :-P

One other clarifying element: is there some way of indicating column heads, so we know what's an age and what's an epoch? — Gorthian (talk) 06:04, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

@Gorthian: Yes, those are the default navbox colors. RockMagnetist linked to the guideline, above, which says that navboxes should not be "arbitrarily decorative" in its color. I could try to use the eon/supereon color systematically for the first two columns, but I think that it violates the accessibility guidelines.

Regarding age/epoch. Do our readers really need to know supereon/eon/epoch/period for all of the links? I was trying to keep things compact and unconfusing. There isn't a constant header for each column: the resolution of the third column changes with depth (i.e., it's period for the Phanerozoic, and then switches to "epoch".

 Question: In the Phanerozoic, the periods are now listed from latest to earliest, left-to-right. Is this confusing to the readers? Won't they expect time to flow forward left-to-right? Not sure what to do: please advise. —hike395 (talk) 09:22, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

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).