So—been meaning to bring this up for awhile. {{FamilyTree}}; how'd we get it? I checked around, apparently just made by an admin with the reasoning that they'd found it on Wikipedia and were tired of the way we used to do them (plain dashes wrapped in code tags, which I agree, is ugly). That said, usage of template isn't codified in any policy.
There's two issues I'd wanted to bring up:
- I do think we should swap to using
Template:Tree chart on Wikipedia; we can still have it named as Template:FamilyTree, but if you look at the code of our template, it's extremely messy and unoptimized by modern standards. Any page with a tree has high load times. I do know other wikis who've made the swap, because Wikipedia deprecated their Familytree template and now use this tree chart one instead; so makes sense that if we took this code from there, it will eventually deprecate itself on Fandom as well. They do visually look and work the exact same though, for the record, it's just more of a coding overhaul. - I do, personally, think FamilyTree templates—so long as they are named FamilyTree—should only be used on family pages (or clans, dynastic lines, other terms of familial units, you get the point). We have very handy Interactive Maps that can be used to display dynamic charts on pages in a much more easy to create way (these are also fullscreen-expandable and mobile compatible). Plus, the amount of template nesting for larger organizational charts (as this requires nesting per line) can often put them past the non-avoidable Fandom-wide template exclude limit, which has happened recently. Anyway; while I personally oppose using these templates outside of family-type groups, it should definitely be sub-voted. If it were used on non-family, then the template probably ought to be renamed too. Technically even its usage on family articles just isn't mentioned in policy, but I do hope its usage would be an easy pass.
At the moment, the cleanest way to get this into policy would be to add it to the organization box on the IU LG and specifying that this section can be included for the usage of this template, either for only family-type groups or all organizations. It's worth noting as well that, at the moment, many status articles section this even when under 165 too, which I also agree with as it looks cleaner (we'd do the same for Interactive Maps).—spookywillowwtalk 05:38, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
Discussion
- I'm not even going to pretend to understand what's going on with the code of the current template, but the Module managing this on Wikipedia seems much more cleaner, and yeah, the restriction proposed seems reasonable to me. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 06:11, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
- Full support per Nano. Bonzane10
07:51, 12 November 2024 (UTC) - I've no objections to changing the under-the-hood implementation and also to restricting the usage to family-type groups as opposed to any groups, but is there a reason why we're not using the same family trees on the corresponding individuals' pages? Seems to me like it could be useful to the reader. In that case though, it'd prolly be best to have all of those family trees be individual templates transcluded on the pages so that they're uniform
and because even looking at the user side of the FamilyTree template code gives me headachesImperators II(Talk) 13:21, 12 November 2024 (UTC)- Do you mean individual as in a la these?—spookywillowwtalk 17:04, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. So something like {{SkywalkerFamilyTree}} on the Skywalker family article and then on Shmi's, Anakin's, Luke's and so on. Imperators II(Talk) 20:31, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
- Do you mean individual as in a la these?—spookywillowwtalk 17:04, 12 November 2024 (UTC)