Noting that this topic has also been discussed in this CT thread which, however had very little responses and lacked any results.
It has been discussed for a while on Discord that the Expand template is problematic and can frequently cause confusion among writers in the way it is commonly used right now, which sees an editor adding it to a page without specifying which parts of the article need to be expanded in either the talk page or the article listing. Occasionally, the template might even be wrongly used in the place of the more specific "Update" template, which also has an embedded requirement for the editor submitting it to add the sources they'd like to see the page updated with.
One idea which has been suggested was to add an obligatory field to the Expand template, effective immediately but only to articles not already tagged with the template, or to make this particular field optional and place a tracker to the pages not using it instead so that a moderator team can decide if it is needed on a case by case basis. Another idea was to remove the template from the listings altogether and replace it with another, more specific one.
I wanted to take that chance, since the discussion is still pretty recent, and address the issue so that we can hopefully fix it this time. AxMech (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Discussion
- To add a little extra input: from the talk in the discord server it seems like there is a bit of an issue where a hammer is being used when a screw driver will do. The Expand template's purpose needs more definition to avoid overuse. Adding an extra parameter in will also give users more guidance. There was also some discussion of throwing an error message out if the scope of expansion wasn't given, which can be done simply with a single {{#if:}} function; the only snag would be any existing uses of the template would throw the error automatically. The solution might be to slowly depreciate the existing expand template and replace with the newer one. I'll try and find some of the larger pages with the template to give some context. Sakaratte - Talk to the catmin 00:08, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- There are more possibilities, as well. Firstly, we could just grandfather in the existing instances of the template via a bot run adding a pre-defined value to the said parameter. And secondly, we could set up a tracking category for pages that do not have the parameter passed into them with a value other than the aforementioned pre-defined value - that way we can subsequently work on clearing out that category while simultaneously precluding any new non-specific instances of the template from being added. Imperators II(Talk) 01:55, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- By Imp. And this time, let's not have this idea fall into limbo. From now on, AxMech, this is your hill to defend :D . Good luck! ^^ NanoLuukeCloning Facility 07:10, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
- Additional point to consider: does this change also need implemented into {{Multiple issues}} as well? Sakaratte - Talk to the catmin 04:02, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
- If a Multiple Issues template also happens to contain an Expand template then yes, it would need to be implemented as well. For MI templates without an Expand I don't think it's necessary since they already have an option for the user to elaborate on what the issues are, and most are pretty straightforward (eg:{{Image}}) AxMech (talk) 08:41, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
- I think this is an excellent idea! I've so often been lost as to what those templates are referring to. I have no useful input, though, I'm afraid. Imp's ideas seem good to me! Dropbearemma
(she/her) 12:18, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
