Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Too Many Page-Top Templates...
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. —MJ— Training Room 02:22, January 5, 2013 (UTC)
...seems like a real turn-off to casual visitors if you ask me. For example, someone visits the article for Anakin Skywalker and the first thing they see is something telling them "We're doomed!," followed by some Wookiee growling, followed by an apology for some mess, followed by a notice that there's content approaching, followed by the info that the article has stuff from Star Wars: The Clone Wars that conflicts with existing canon. Even if you choose to hide them, there's no mass hide option, and no hiding the fact that even on my 1600 x 900 monitor, four of them have to be hidden before you can even see any of the article and the picture of Anakin. Is there no other way? ProfessorTofty (talk) 02:00, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- I agree that on many pages, there are a lot of templates. At the moment, however, I don't think we have a mass-hide option, nor do I know how to make one. But, I do like the idea and find it to be beneficial. Trak Nar Ramble on 03:55, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- I've actually been thinking that it's time to get rid of the TCW template. The information inside is really what a BTS section is for, and LFL and Chee continuously releasing a comprehensive timeline through sourcebooks and blogs. It seems like a redundancy to me at this point. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 04:01, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Well, they still have yet to come up with a way to resolve the television series with the main timeline from Star Wars: Republic, which probably isn't going to happen until after the series ends. That's a major discrepancy that's going to be hanging around for a while, so until then we should still have a tag like {{TCWRetcon}} mentioning the as-yet unresolved inconsistency. CC7567 (talk) 04:04, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- The Reader's Companion seemed to indicate that most of that occurred within the first month. For anything that hasn't been difinitively placed there, why is TCWRetcon any better than the good ol' {{Twoconflicting}}? Anything else that's already been definitively settled in TCW's favor should probably just get a BTS section, like any other article that's been retconned. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 04:09, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Well, they still have yet to come up with a way to resolve the television series with the main timeline from Star Wars: Republic, which probably isn't going to happen until after the series ends. That's a major discrepancy that's going to be hanging around for a while, so until then we should still have a tag like {{TCWRetcon}} mentioning the as-yet unresolved inconsistency. CC7567 (talk) 04:04, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- What we should do is create something like wikipedia:Template:Multiple issues. Also, the design of the templates might be worth reconsidering, as they were not designed for the new Wikia skin, particularly its narrow width and tall line spacing. As much as we hate that skin, we have to remember that the unregistered users are forced to use it, and we cannot and should not force people to create an account and log in on every visit just to make the site usable. —MJ— Training Room Friday, October 19, 2012, 04:10 UTC
- I agree with the original post and I love the idea of a multiple issues template. Would anybody be able to cook up a beta version? Menkooroo (talk) 04:17, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Turns out the multiple issues idea was discussed at the July 2009 Mofference (item 11). Pranay Sobusk cooked up a beta at User:Pranay Sobusk/Template:Article issues (and its subtemplate), but it was never implemented and Pranay has since quit the site. We could still use it, though. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers Friday, October 19, 2012, 04:25 UTC
- I think it should explicitly list what the multiple issues are, as Wikipedia's does. Menkooroo (talk) 04:33, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- If you look at the template code, you'll see that it does when parameters are passed to it. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers Friday, October 19, 2012, 04:34 UTC
- Purrrrrfect. So should we implement it, since we have a three-year old community consensus to do so? Although we should hammer out a list of which templates should be excused from it. Things like {{Conjecture}} and {{TCWRetcon}} aren't really "issues." Menkooroo (talk) 04:38, October 19, 2012 (UTC) Edit: I might be wrong, but aren't templates with images in them generally the "issues" ones? Isn't that why {{Conjecture}} doesn't have the "Master who?" Jango picture anymore? Menkooroo (talk) 04:39, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Primarily, but it's not a rule as far as I know. We have {{LivingPerson}}, off the top of my head. It doesn't get used much, generally only for problem cases, so it's debatable. NaruHina Talk
04:44, October 19, 2012 (UTC) Edit: Actually, I see it is categorized under Maintenance. Nevermind. ^^' NaruHina Talk 04:47, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Yes yes, do eeet, with only the issue templates. (: – Tm_T@Wookieepedia:~$ 06:47, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Primarily, but it's not a rule as far as I know. We have {{LivingPerson}}, off the top of my head. It doesn't get used much, generally only for problem cases, so it's debatable. NaruHina Talk
- Purrrrrfect. So should we implement it, since we have a three-year old community consensus to do so? Although we should hammer out a list of which templates should be excused from it. Things like {{Conjecture}} and {{TCWRetcon}} aren't really "issues." Menkooroo (talk) 04:38, October 19, 2012 (UTC) Edit: I might be wrong, but aren't templates with images in them generally the "issues" ones? Isn't that why {{Conjecture}} doesn't have the "Master who?" Jango picture anymore? Menkooroo (talk) 04:39, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- If you look at the template code, you'll see that it does when parameters are passed to it. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers Friday, October 19, 2012, 04:34 UTC
- I think it should explicitly list what the multiple issues are, as Wikipedia's does. Menkooroo (talk) 04:33, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Turns out the multiple issues idea was discussed at the July 2009 Mofference (item 11). Pranay Sobusk cooked up a beta at User:Pranay Sobusk/Template:Article issues (and its subtemplate), but it was never implemented and Pranay has since quit the site. We could still use it, though. —MJ— Jedi Council Chambers Friday, October 19, 2012, 04:25 UTC
- I agree with the original post and I love the idea of a multiple issues template. Would anybody be able to cook up a beta version? Menkooroo (talk) 04:17, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- I've actually been thinking that it's time to get rid of the TCW template. The information inside is really what a BTS section is for, and LFL and Chee continuously releasing a comprehensive timeline through sourcebooks and blogs. It seems like a redundancy to me at this point. Darth Trayus(Trayus Academy) 04:01, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- Yes! I've wanted this to happen for a while. :) Cheers, grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 06:53, October 19, 2012 (UTC)
- I think this is very exciting! So this was discussed before - was a prototype template ever created, or do we need to make one from scratch? ProfessorTofty (talk) 01:20, October 20, 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, the same comment that says it was discussed before also gives a link to the prototype. —MJ— Comlink Saturday, October 20, 2012, 01:24 UTC
- Looks good to me. Do we want to try to work in a way that it actually says what the "multiple issues" are, or would that be for talk page discussion? Oh, wait, never mind, it already has that functionality? So... what do we need then? A formal vote to start using it? ProfessorTofty (talk) 19:33, October 20, 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, the same comment that says it was discussed before also gives a link to the prototype. —MJ— Comlink Saturday, October 20, 2012, 01:24 UTC
- I think this is very exciting! So this was discussed before - was a prototype template ever created, or do we need to make one from scratch? ProfessorTofty (talk) 01:20, October 20, 2012 (UTC)
- Meh. The whole point for these templates is that people see them. An article is less likely to be corrected after a template is placed if no one knows it needs correcting. -- Riffsyphon1024 02:25, October 24, 2012 (UTC)
- But isn't there a point where they just become so much noise? ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:12, November 14, 2012 (UTC)
- Some might complain that our articles are too large and wouldn't want to bother with reading through the entire thing. I believe the templates at the top are a minor factor, especially on large articles. Now perhaps if the templates take up more room than the article is long, that may be a concern, however I can't think of an article where that is the case. -- Riffsyphon1024 09:39, November 16, 2012 (UTC)
- The bigger problem is how far people have to scroll to get to article content. Luke Skywalker for readers in any normal size screen won't see article content without scrolling first. When users don't have a HD resolution on their computers it'd be even worse, and with many smaller devices such as tablets in use, it is an issue we should address. And ultimately, it's just messy to have more than one warning template at the top. Regardless, as was pointed out above, implementing a multi-issue template has already been approved at a Mofference so now it's just a case of finalising it at last. :) Cheers, grunny@wookieepedia:~$ 10:12, November 16, 2012 (UTC)
- Some might complain that our articles are too large and wouldn't want to bother with reading through the entire thing. I believe the templates at the top are a minor factor, especially on large articles. Now perhaps if the templates take up more room than the article is long, that may be a concern, however I can't think of an article where that is the case. -- Riffsyphon1024 09:39, November 16, 2012 (UTC)
- But isn't there a point where they just become so much noise? ProfessorTofty (talk) 21:12, November 14, 2012 (UTC)
- If the idea of a "multiple issues" template has already been approved, perhaps someone should make a list of templates it could replace -- or maybe it'd be easier to go through Category:Maintenance templates and list the ones which shouldn't be included. I'd also suggest that Template:Doom, which is somewhat vague and out-of-date, be repurposed as a "this article has multiple issues" template. (I don't think Wookieepedia still has any really vital articles which are still stubs or straight Wikipedia copies, and most of the "doomed" articles have one or more specific issues.) —Silly Dan (talk) 17:03, November 25, 2012 (UTC)
