Forum:SH:Multiple issues maintenance template

Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Multiple issues maintenance template
This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Tommy-Macaroni 18:24, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, since Wookieepedia is not complete,[source?] we have an enormous amount of articles that require maintenance. Everyone is familiar with our colorful, Star Wars–themed maintenance templates and I'm sure no one wants to get rid of those. However, many of our articles (Luke Skywalker, for example) have multiple issues and therefore multiple maintenance templates. This results in the article content being pushed down, in many cases requiring scrolling to see any of it. Even on my 4K screen, the article content itself does not appear until around two-thirds way down.

The solution to this is to have a single template that replaces the various maintenance templates. {{Stardust}} already uses this revolutionary technology. I have created a prototype template that resembles the current {{Doom}} maintenance template. I envision that this new template would replace either {{Doom}} or {{Overhaul}} (or both?) as well as replacing maintenance templates on articles where more than x templates are used. The questions that need to be solved before amending the Layout Guide are these:

  • What's the limit for "multiple issues"? Personally, I think articles with three or more maintenance templates should use this new multiple issues template. The more content visibility the better, but on the other hand hiding issues is not optimal either.
  • Should the count include Header templates as well? I.e. should two maintenance templates and one header template be counted as three and therefore have the two maintenance templates converted into using the new multiple issues template? Personally, I see pros and cons with both options.
  • "Which "maintenance templates" should not be included in the new multiple issues template? You'll notice that my prototype does not support every template currently in the template category. Verification templates are excluded for obvious reasons, and so are {{Copyvio}}, {{Delete}}, {{Holdon}}, {{Protect}}, as well as {{Expandsect}} and {{Incomplete list}}. {{Inuse}} and {{Wip}} should (ideally) be only be used for short periods so those aren't supported either. Templates that recommend merging and relocating information (to the SW Merchandise wiki, for example) don't seem appropriate either.

I look forward to hearing your opinions on this. 1358 (Talk) 20:44, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Edit: here's what the Luke Skywalker article looks like in the proposal:

Discussion

  • I believe Header templates should not be included in this combined maintenance tag template. Maintenance tags are primarily aimed at editors while header templates are aimed at anyone, including (and perhaps even mostly at) readers. FWIW the Layout Guide also clearly delineates portions of the article reserved for both maintenance and header templates. Imperators II(Talk) 20:54, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I agree with Imp on that point. I'd go so far as to say I'd be in support of using this combined template for any article that has multiple (two or more) maintenance tags. Two alone is enough to take up a ton of space. If we're using it essentially to replace {{Doom}}, that template is historically used to preface other, more specific maintenance templates anyway.IFYLOFD (Talk) 22:11, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Agreed with regard to the two-or-more maintenance template limit. I understand the reasoning behind not wanting to hide the issues, but the combined template will still indicate that issues are present, and the list is not hard to access. Personally, I'd rather prioritize visibility of content over visibility of issues, as the content is what a majority of readers will be there for. The base of editors who the maintenance templates are for the most part aimed at can easily unhide the list to see the issues. Zed42 (talk) 22:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
      • That's great you're moving forward with that idea, ecks. As my fellow editors, I would prefer we use this as soon as two maintenance template are needed. I've come across a lot of SWTOR pages that required two maintenance template (most often, Citation and Expand), and sometimes they occupy half the space on the pages. --NanoLuukeCloning facility 23:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I also agree with Imperators that header templates should stay separate, as those are for the readers. I also think we should use the combined maintenance tag any time more than one issue needs to be addressed. MasterFredCommerce Guild(talk) 00:59, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I, too, think general headers and article maintenance should be separate, and that combining multiple maintenance templates would be awesome. Basically, everything you've pointed out makes sense, Ecks. Aside from taking up space, seeing a series of maintenance templates gives the impression that the article is complete poodoo rather than "needs work/needs a lot of work." Also a fan of using "We're doomed!" for this. Immi Thrax RainbowRebellion2 (talk) 11:13, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree that Header templates should be excluded from the count. I was initially thinking that three or more would be a good rule, but two maintenance templates (+ one or more Header templates) is still pretty unwieldy. I've added some more screenshots above to visualize this proposal. 1358 (Talk) 08:17, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • That looks much better. I also think that the new template should be used any time there's more than one maintenance template. Why have two templates when you can just have one doing the job? OOM 224 ༼༽talk༼༽ 08:23, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • I really like how the template is looking. I was also thinking what OOM mentioned that this should be implemented the moment two templates are going to be used.--DarthRuiz30 (talk) 08:55, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • If this was on Discord, I'd be dropping in the ol' Krennic #1 "Oh, it's beautiful" gif. I really like how it's looking, too. Definitely convinces me that it'd be good to use as soon as there are two maintenance templates. Immi Thrax RainbowRebellion2 (talk) 12:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • What is the purpose of the static '[Hide]' text beside the '[Show]/[Hide]' toggle controls in the prototype template? Cumulonimbus Cloud (Talk) 15:51, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
    • It's a bug. Header templates are usually hideable and have the hide button on the bottom right corner, but the code used to make the buttons can't handle two different hide buttons within same element properly. 01miki10 Open comlink 16:02, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
      • Are current plans to leave the bug in as is or will a fix be implemented once its in use on ordinary articles? It looks like a quick fix if the prototype just doesn't use the Iumb template which comes bundled with the extra hide button. Cumulonimbus Cloud (Talk) 16:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I occurred to me that we maybe could use this opportunity to bring back an old idea of mine. I few month ago, I crafted a maintenance template to warn for the need of {{TORcite}}. It could still be found in my workbench history. While SWTOR articles (and related) are plagued with missing or vague citation, the idea ended being rejected, as there was enough maintenance templates as it is. However, the multi-issues template could features a parameter (or a subparameter to citation) that would just add a line for added precision on the citation issue at hand. The problem being that it could, in theory, only be used for pages that have multiple issues. But I wonder if it's possible to add a parameter to the regular {{Citation}} template too, something like {{citation|TORcite}}, and then use a parser function like:
| message = {{#if: {{{TORcite}}}| TORcite message | Normal message}}
I haven't tested this, but theoretically, the whole display could be changed based on the use of a parameter. -- NanoLuukeCloning facility 09:26, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Hello again, Ecks the new bureaucrat (1/2)! It's been a couple of weeks since the last discussion on this, so I wanted to wake it up and see where things are at. I've had a few articles in the past day or so where I cringed at adding multiple headers, knowing how ugly they'd make things, and it made me wonder about the status on this idea. :) Immi Thrax RainbowRebellion2 (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Things are currently on hold since I have been extremely busy the past two weeks but I'm hoping to word and propose an LG amendment this weekend. 1358 (Talk) 21:01, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
      • If for some reason Threepio's classic "We're Doomed!" isn't used, might I suggest this expression as another option ;) Or is the thinking that this will be the new "We're Doomed!"? Immi Thrax RainbowRebellion2 (talk) 08:54, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
  • By the way, I also notice we could use a similar template for header templates. Some pages (probably way less than for maintenance templates) also are plagued with a similar problems. See The Commander (Alliance) for example. -- NanoLuukeCloning facility 21:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
    • If you're talking about collapsing several header (non-maintenance) tags into one, see the arguments against this in this very section. Imperators II(Talk) 21:29, 4 May 2021 (UTC)