Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Userboxes/Archive 1

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Userboxes and categories

There has been some discussion about how userboxes ought to sort people into categories at Template talk:User religion. That template was originally designed to place people into categories along the lines of User religion/whatever, but since those were nonexistent duplicates of the already-established subcategories of Category:Wikipedians by religion, they were all recently switched over from this format. I noticed when checking out the other templates listed on this page that some of them have the same problem - for example, {{User wikipedia}} places users who choose the Esperanza case in the nonexistent category Category:User Wikipedia/Esperanza. Also, this case of the template is duplicated by template {{User ESP-member}}, which is the one listed on Esperanza's own page. Should we go through and change all of these? Finally, not all of the cases of, say, the User wikipedia template are displayed on Wikipedia:Userboxes and there are probably some other loose userboxes floating around as well. Should we make an effort to collect these? - AdelaMae ^{(talk - contribs)} 17:20, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I'm not sure about some of the details of what you've said, but in terms of categorising, all the userboxes i've created automatically sort users into a suitable category. For example, if you use {{User NRI}}, you are automatically put into Category:NRI or PIO Wikipedians (this being a subcategory of Category:Indian Wikipedians. I personally think that where possible, userboxes should add users to categories, not to subpages of Wikipedia. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 17:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, well I would say that, yes, they should be changed to fall into their subjects catagory wherever possible, however I am not sure if this would be wise for catagorising purposes, unfortunatly, catagories are probably one of my weakest points. I do however support collecting up all the loose templates and fining a place for them in the Wikipedia:Userboxes system, and will add that to the projects bit of this page. Thanks Ian¹³_ID:540053 17:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Stray userboxes

Some userboxes, such as {{user bad EU}}, are politically incorrect. I made that one myself but I didn't think it was appropriate to go on WP:UBX. But neither should it be deleted. The same goes for {{User-AmE-0}}... and I'm sure there are many others out there... File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 17:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a subpage Non-PC userboxes could be created... although this is probably a bad idea as it'd be v.hard to police... File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 17:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I have to presume the bad EU template would go into Wikipedia:Userboxes/Politics, sicne its refered to as for political parties and belief, and I would say it is a belief about a political party. User-AmE-0 is a harder one, maybe Politics subpage could be renamed to Beliefs, then it could house them as well? Ian¹³_ID:540053 19:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Userboxes/Non-ISO_Languages seems to be the place for rather odd languages. Ian¹³_ID:540053 19:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Aye, Ian's got it. Non-ISO languages (though improperly named, as Klingon is apparantly an ISO language with its own code and everything), is the place to store things like American English, Lazy English, British English, Irish English, New Zealand English...good lord, we may need an English Language Variants page...bullshit, dumbass, gibberish/simmish, Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang, Blazon (which isn't exactly weird but it is obscure), Quenya, etc. etc. etc. etc... Cernen 12:35, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Operating system user boxes

By convention Template: userbox os should be renamed Template: user os, but this is already taken by Template:user os, a babel box for the Ossetic language. What should I do?

Lee S. Svoboda 23:03, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, me and User:FireFox were thinking the same thing. I think we decided on Template:User opsys probably being the best alternative. Fell free to add the what links here page of the old one to thecurrent talks on the project page if you choose to move it for us. :) Bed now... Ian¹³_ID:540053 23:09, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

What's wrong with Template:User operating system? --Jamdav86 09:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorted, its at Template:User OS (Jamdav86: nothing really, we just want to keep it as simple for people as possible). Ian¹³_ID:540053 14:37, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Suggestions

My two cents is that we begin by trying to order and subcategorize the userboxes page as per the original comment on Wikipedia talk:Userboxes. I don't have time right now, but perhaps over the weekend unless someone beats me to it, I would be willing to complete the following tasks:

1. Start a request page for people who want to ask for the creation of specific userboxes and place a notice at the top of the aforementioned talk page notifying people of said request page.
2. Create a talk page specifically for the purpose of coming to consensus over a standardized template style for userboxes.
3. Personal vendetta, find the guy who vandalized my vegan userbox creation and wikikill the bastard. Oh yeah, and change my own creations to match what I feel the standard for userboxes should be. We have to practice what we preach, right?

With much wikilove, signing off for now. Daykart 02:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Also, similar boxes should have similar backrounds, e.g. all boxes that relate to a form of atheism have a grey backround. --Jamdav86 09:52, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

• The request page sounds like a great idea, I may possibly beat you to it on that, I now have a lot on my hands :P
• I'm not sure what you are fully implying over the standard userbox. I presumed it was as most look, with a 1px border, and with an image sized so it doesn't distort this shape, however, this may be a good idea in practive.
• And to go after boxes against us I believe is an ongoing task, as well as attempting to migrate the prefixes that is.
• The background point I am unsure about, indeed there are a huge variety of background colours in userboxes and babel userboxes as well, a page on that for ideas may be a good plan.

Ian¹³_ID:540053 10:56, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Woah, woah, woah! I'm not happy about this "standardisation"-fest. The only thing that should be standardised is the size of the standard box, because they all have to fit into wikitables on user pages. Other than that they should be free the be whatever colour/border/picture they want - otherwise what's the point? I was very disappointed to see {{User gb}}, which was a bit different, dumbed down to {{User United Kingdom}} and the "standard" location format. Why have a standard? It is boring and no one would want to put it on their page. Why should countries have to have dull boxes?

Furthermore, while "United Kingdom" should be the principle template, it should not be the only template. If some users (such as myself) prefer to say they are from "Great Britain", then they should be able to do so. Standardisation sucks. [MY two cents.] File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 10:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Noted the change from {{User gb}}, but the principle remains. So I've moved it to {{User Great Britain}}. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 11:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure. GB was meant to be for gibberish, like the rest of the series. And being a UK flag it, I thought, should be called UK. I mearly say this because I doubt the people in Northern Ireland will like you using the UK flag (which includes Northern Ireland) and calling it great Britain (which doesn't). It mearly seems discriminatary. I also say not have an image bigger than the size of the box as, besides being inconsistant, it happens to disaggree with certain browsers, and means it doesn't fit in well in babel boxes. If you don't mind I would like to make the GB use a great brtian embalem. Ian¹³_ID:540053 12:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It would help if I couldfind a symbol for GB though. Ian¹³_ID:540053 12:20, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

There is no official symbol for GB (to my knowledge). There are flags for the whole UK and its constituent (ex-)countries. --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 23:51, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

The Union flag does not include any part of the Flag of Northern Ireland. It is made up of the Cross of St. George (England), the Saltire of St. Andrew (Scotland), and the Saltire of St. Patrick (Ireland). Northern Ireland in its present form is unrepresented in the flag, just as Wales is unrepresented. Furthermore, the Union Jack is the flag of Great Britain - in the Olympic Games there is no "United Kingdom", but "Great Britain". Northern Irish athletes can compete either for Eire or Team GB. But, obviously, Team GB compete under the Union flag, as it is the national flag. If NI joined Eire, it would still remain the Great British national flag. Therefore, there is no reason to remove it! It is politically correct, and there is no legitimate "anti-PC" argument against it! File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 21:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Alright, I'll clarify the terms:

• Great Britain — England, Scotland, Wales
• United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales, Northen Ireland
• British Isles — England, Scotland, Wales, Northen Ireland, Republic of Ireland, all other minor islands e.g. Isle of Man

That help? --Jamdav86 10:17, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I just say to use the UK flag (union jack) and only have a great Britain template, is wrong. Ian¹³_ID:540053 20:11, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Categories standarisation

I would like to see this projec focuses standarisation of user categories related to userboxes. Actually, they differ from "X Wikipedians" (eg: Male Wikipedian), "Wikipedia X" (eg:Wikipedian programmers), "User X" (eg: User ada) and subcategories (eg:User OS/Microsoft Windows). Anyway, great move in creating this project. CG 14:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I've added it as a goal, however catagories are not one of my stronger points, so when that is the focus, I will probably need some more detail to get it going... Ian¹³_ID:540053 15:44, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Babel boxes

Right. I'm not sure if this is possible, but I will still apeal to all users to try and find out.

If you add {{Babel|en|wikipedia}} we get:

Wikipedia:Babel

enThis user is a native speaker of the English language.

This user is a Wikipedian.

Search user languages

However if we want to use a babel box, and we want {{user en}} and {{user wikipedia|administrator}}, then we cant seemingly use a babel box, since the code would be {{Babel|en|wikipedia|administrator}} and the administrator part would be interpreted as a third argument. Any ideas on how the current babel system and arguments to userboxes can be incorporated? Ian¹³_ID:540053 15:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I suggest splitting up all the multi-box templates. Maybe use subpages instead, so {{user wikipedia|administrator}} would become {{user wikipedia/administrator}}. —Andux 16:24, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

That would be a solution, I feel - however may be a better seperator, since so many other templates make use of that as the boundry. Disolving is probably however the best option, since people unable to make use of boxes due to this appear to have created copies of the origional, just bloating the wikispace. I'll note as a current task for the future :D Ian¹³_ID:540053 17:37, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Don't know if this goes here, but I tried adding this group "userbox" inside a table, and it failed when I tried to enter data into the second cell. --^BuGs^ 09:24, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

I think I know how! However, it could possibly be time-intensive, so I thought I'd bring it to the project to be added to the task list. If you go to Template:Babel, you see a long list of templates. Within this large set of templates, there are individual templates. Click on one. You see how a Babelbox works: a large wikitable. What I propose is a three-part task:

1. Change all existing userboxes with prefix "{{user", or "{{userbox", or no prefix at all, to "{{User".
2. Once step one is complete, create an extensive network of templates similar to the babelboxes, just renaming "Wikipedia:Babel" to "Wikipedia:Userboxes". I feel that 25 isn't high enough to go for in Userboxes, simply because there are hundreds of said userboxes. Anyone know of the most some people have with regards to userboxes? Once said limit is found, make templates up to this number.
3. Once above project is complete, make multicolumn templates similar to the Babel templates (see Template:Babel-3-4 for an example.

Any questions, feel free to ask. Ian Manka ^{Questions? Talk to me!} 08:15, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• Fixed links. This was real late at night. Sorry for any confusion. Ian Manka ^{Questions? Talk to me!} 01:05, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

New userboxes

Hi. I just joined the project yesterday. Here are two userboxes I created. They're a work in progress, but I just wanted to see how people felt about them and if they could be changed before they're added to the directory. Template:User non-pc and Template:User polcorrect. --D-Day 16:06, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you are helping to expand, and you may have had a hard job joining before yesterday, since this project was not then in existance :) I would say they are good, however, I feel the text should be shorter if possible, to keep the box as average size as possible for peoples userpages, I also say that in Template:User polcorrect, it may be considered hard to read the text on such a dark background. Hope that in some slight way helps you. Ian¹³_ID:540053 17:35, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I shortened the text up some, don't know if it's enough but it's getting there. Thanks for your helpful suggestions. --D-Day 18:31, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Help

for some reason, there is a } after my last userbox on my talk page

can someone help me fix this?

user rather than userbox?

I thought the concensus a while ago was to change all the non-real language userboxes to userbox instead of cluttering up user. And now they're being changed back? ...why exactly? -- jeffthejiff (talk) 19:55, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I see someone has moved {{Userbox-2}} to {{User 2}}. I really don't think this was a good idea - firstly because 99% of userbox templates are now going through redirects. Secondly, this template was not a userbox, it was the template to create a userbox. Therefore it does not come under the remit of changing all user boxes...etc..

I seriously think this move should be reconsidered, along with the moving of the other templates for creation. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 21:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

I believe User:Ian13 changed to User rather than Userbox due to the greater number of already existing User prefixes the discussion can be found over here: Wikipedia talk:Userboxes#This pages future. Secondly in the light of this confusion, could we do something about centralising these types of discussions? --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 21:51, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I presume they all go here, unless anyone has some good ideas for some sub-pages to discuss things. The thing is, as I understood, although it was considered that userbox would be good, user was the prefix where most userboxes were situated. Regarding the redirects, we are working on transfering them all over to the new template so that the redirect can be removed. I also understand it was considered (somewhere) that it could be good to have all userboxes under the same prefix so that users could inter-organise userboxes as they so wish, and this will seriously help in organising userboxes and helping users display boxes nicely on their user pages, and moving all the babel languages would be hugely impractical. In theory, those templates are not to create userboxes for other templtes, but to create uerboxes for peoples pages, and having the same (user) prefix will mean organisation templates can be used with them as well. Ian¹³_ID:540053 22:02, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Revert User to Userbox for userbox creating templates

It seems that userbox creation templates are considered that they should remain at userbox prefixes. Teplates like User Wikipedia however will continue to be ported since they will soon be splint into seperate templates for users to use in babel boxes and the like. Ian¹³_ID:540053 22:08, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

This action will take course until such a time that an outcome of action can be decided. Ian¹³_ID:540053 22:10, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree - the {{userbox}}, {{userbox-2}} etc. templates should maintain the prefix "userbox", to illustrate that there are a template for creation, and not themselves a userbox. The "User_blah" format should be reserved for actual userboxes which people can put on their user-pages. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano 22:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

The above conversation is now discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Userboxes/Creation templates

Wikipedia:Sports Fans

this entire section should be moved and its contents brought into line... does everyone agree it should be at Wikipedia:Userboxes/US Sports? File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 13:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Agree --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 13:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay I've moved the page, but its entire contents need to be editted in order to standardise the page's style and avoid repetition. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 16:16, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't be moved--at least, not to something called "US Sports". It's not JUST for US sports--it may be that all the boxes created to date are for US teams in US leagues, but that's not the same thing. Kurt Weber 16:23, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

It may not have been created just for US sports, but given that its entire contents are US sports, and sub-pages have already been created for other sports, it seems more than sensible that the page is moved to US Sports, and comes within the Wikipedia:Userboxes/Sports sub-section. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 16:46, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Those sub-pages were created approximately a month after Sports Fans was. Why make people go through all that hierarchy when it can just as easily be put on one page? Kurt Weber 16:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Because people would not find it otherwise. The only way someone would have found the page beforehand would be if they had been linked there, and that is still perfectly possible. It makes no sense to have some sports (i.e. American sports) in a completely separate location to the rest of the world's sports... and doing so gives the US an even greater isolationist image which should be avoided. File:Anglo-indian.jpg Deano (Talk) 17:07, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Logos

Draft logo by GE

I have made a logo, it is a little rubbishy and I will try to improve it. Could I have suggestions for improvement. Other possible logos that have been specially created for this should probably be uploaded to this location and use the revision history to choose the best? --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 13:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, I think old images are lost when new ones are uploaded.... It looks okay, but, I'm not sure, I just haven't quite taken to it :/ Ian¹³_ID:540053 15:03, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I dont think so, the revision history for the last image did take me back several versions. --Grand Edgemaster _Talk 17:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)