This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Does this policy say anything about shortcuts differing only by case that redirect to different pages?
For example:
I understand that separate articles can capitalize the same name differently. But for shortcuts, particularly those that cannot be meaningfully distinguished by case only, this practice seems to create unnecessary confusion. — Cheng ✍ 04:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I propose that the prefix "WX:" be used in shortcuts to any article/talk/category/portal/subpage/userpage/project pertaining to weather. such as: WX:TC (Tropical Cyclone), WX:TCPORTAL (Tropical Cyclone Portal), WX:DCATE (DCATE list in my user subpage), WX:TCPROJECT (WikiProject Tropical cyclones), WX:TS (Thunderstorm), WX:TOR (tornado), WX:WS (Winter Storm), etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bowser423 ( talk • contribs) 22:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Today, I fixed some vandalism on the shortcut WP:UPIMAGE. It has been in a vandalised state since May 27, a full two months of undiscovered vandalism on a shortcut. I'm sure for very popular shortcuts, that would be noticed and fixed. I've suggested at RfPP that WP:UPIMAGE be given indefinite semi-protection even though WP:SC shortcuts aren't really covered specially by protection policy.
It seems like shortcuts should probably be semi-protected for a handful of reasons:
This seems utterly uncontroversial to me: a tiny downside with a huge benefit. Anyone got any reasons why we shouldn't start semi-protecting shortcuts to protect against potentially hard-to-detect vandalism? — Tom Morris ( talk) 08:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't talk enough about "WP" in place of "Wikipedia". Ian Streeter ( talk) 14:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Why did you put 50 Shortcuts in each help page !? It's so horrible. -- Nouill ( talk) 11:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Category:Shortcuts that are English words is linked from the readability section on this page to give examples of shortcuts that are easy to recognize. However this category was recently nominated for deletion. I thought the people here might want to offer an opinion on whether this category is useful and should be kept or not. Dragons flight ( talk) 21:45, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I have listed 13 of the T: template redirects at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 November 18#T:WPTECH for deletion. Currently T: has many strange entries, defying an attempt to provide guidance on when T: is acceptable. If the majory of those 13 are deleted, the remaining T: shortcuts should be indicative of permitted uses, and this guideline could be updated to state that T: shortcuts are permissible for template pages that have a lot of traffic. John Vandenberg ( chat) 16:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The H: prefix is currently listed as 'less commonly used'. There are quite a few pages under special:prefixindex/H: given the number of pages in the special:prefixindex/Help: namespace. As far as I could so, there is only one H: redirect to mainspace, being H:CEA to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.
I think H: should be moved up to the 'Commonly used' table. John Vandenberg ( chat) 15:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
In section "List of Prefixes", I edited
this. Paine Ellswoth reverted
[1], admitting "good faith". PE however did not source the "dispute", did not point to any discussion mentioned, and did not open the talk that they state is needed.
Since PE did not back-up any claim, I conclude that the reversal is unfounded. -
DePiep (
talk)
13:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
C:, MP:, INTRO:
are to become pseudo-namespaces? Then, why should we leave that incorrect startement in this page? -
DePiep (
talk)
12:01, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please remove "C:" and "INTRO:" from the pseudo namespace section as they no longer exist. 31.100.23.203 ( talk) 11:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
A close was requested at WP:ANRFC. As noted by editors here, this was a normal talk page discussion, not an RfC. The discussion about how to handle template shortcuts was unstructured in that editors discussed different questions throughout the discussion. The lack of structure makes participation by uninvolved editors less likely and assessing consensus difficult.
I recommend creating an RfC titled something like "RfC: Template shortcuts", with subsections for discussing each question or topic. Perhaps list the RfC at Template:Centralized discussion to encourage participation from the wider community, as was done with Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 112#RFC: On the controversy of the pseudo-namespace shortcuts. This will result in a clearer consensus for each of the questions discussed here.
Here are the main questions I've found from the discussion (feel free to use these questions as a rough draft for the RfC):
- Should template redirects for project banners and their equivalent project shortcuts always/usually be harmonized?
- Should a very short template redirect for a WikiProject template always/usually have "WP" as a prefix?
- Should all variations of case for WikiProject template shortcuts point to the same target?
- Should T:XYZ and Template:XYZ always/usually point to the same place?
- Should the 500 WikiProject template redirects at User:Scott/Notes/WikiProject template redirects that have no transclusions and do not begin with "WikiProject" or "WP" be deleted?
- Likewise, should the WikiProject template redirects that have no transclusions and do begin with "WikiProject" or "WP" be deleted?
I recommend spending several days to a week deciding on the wording of the RfC's questions before formally listing it as an RfC and at Template:Centralized discussion.
I am closing this discussion as editors are recommended to create an RfC with subsections for each of the questions or topics. Cunard ( talk) 05:17, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Replying to this post by user:Mendaliv , redirects have been so poorly maintained that a policy discussion would be useless on its own. Having these thoughtful discussions about individual cases helps to find what parts of a new policy might have consensus. WP:SHORTCUT was rewritten recently *after* the weirdest cases of (mainspace) WP:PNR were deleted at RfD. (Before the weirdest cases were removed, the discussions were dominated by people seeking to protect their baby, or resisting any and all change) This policy needs more heavy revision to improve guidance regarding other aspects of shortcuts, and it seems template shortcuts are the topic of the 'month', with user:Jax 0677 creating so many, so we should at least start with the basics.
This guideline already deals with case (lower vs upper) and prefixes of 'shortcuts to subpages'.
This guideline doesnt cover relationships between shortcuts of WikiProjects and their templates. IMO, we should move towards consistency between project shortcuts and template shortcuts and category shortcuts, where possible. I dont think it needs to be a hard rule, but guidance should be given so that shortcut creators know they should take that into consideration when choosing a name, as RfD will consider it.
The other recurring naming issue is when should wikiproject templates use a WP prefix. There is a lot of variance in existing practises here, but I see some consistency in 'WP prefix is needed if the postfix could reasonably refer to a real topic'. John Vandenberg ( chat) 05:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
WPCM}}
,
WP:CM and
WP:WPCM, which all point to different targets.{{
-}}
which are probably not covered just by the "casing" rules since they have no letters in them. I am not saying there is a problem there, only that the wording of the guideline better be careful so as not accidentally to ban these kind of well-established templates.
Si Trew (
talk)
09:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
I've been expecting this discussion to commence so have been spending a while in the background doing analysis to provide a bit of quantitative basis. Please see User:Scott/Notes/WikiProject template redirects (big page, will take a moment to load). The high-level summary of my findings is:
In other words, 85% of WikiProject template redirects that are actually being used in the wild are named beginning with "WikiProject" or "WP". If we raise the threshold for how we define actually being used - 10 or fewer is a very low bar - it's probably more like 90%, which is entirely in line with the belief that various RfD participants have expressed recently that there is a standard of naming for shortcuts. However, there are some very well-established exceptions; there are over 80 shortcuts not beginning with "WikiProject" or "WP" that have transclusion counts in the thousands. Obviously there's no possibility of changing those - and really no argument for it either.
I would suggest that the first thing we do is delete those 500 unused redirects en masse. Zero transclusions means they're not even documented; they have no realistic prospect of useful function and only serve to clutter the namespace and confuse the issue. Next, those 200 redirects with very low use almost certainly represent redirects that were either created as an alternative, or left over after a project template redirect was moved. They should all be replaced with their projects' standard template shortcut, and then deleted. Once this spring clean, if you will - it is in fact spring in this part of the world as I type - has been completed, we'll be able to obtain a much more accurate numeric picture of what people are actually doing with project template redirects. — Scott • talk 13:26, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
transclusion do not count in page view statisticsPage view statistics aren't being discussed here. — Scott • talk 00:35, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Comment - I will agree with the proposal given, that most of the time, with some exceptions, that redirects to WikiProject Templates that have less than four letters should be prefixed with "WP" or "wp". Per WP:CHEAP, I do not see any harm whatsoever with lower case variants such as {{ wpcw}} being accepted, unless a better use for them is found. With that being said, if a better use for the lower case variant is found, we should probably consider retargeting the upper case variant to the same location. -- Jax 0677 ( talk) 04:52, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
WPZH}}
be acceptable? Anyway, as to the capitalization issue, I think that if you have WPCW and wpcw, and they both point to the same thing, it's not something we should care about. I don't see a mental load issue, and by reserving the case variant, you foreclose the chance of having another unnoticed collision like was formerly present with {{
COP}}
and {{
cop}}
. Anyway, I think my point is this method of framing the discussion—cheapness versus expense—isn't particularly helpful. —/
Mendaliv/
2¢/
Δ's/
14:16, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Template:Wpxyz
. Your examples (WPCW WPCN WPCT
) are a different subthread in this. I stated that bad abbreviations are not helpful. -
DePiep (
talk)
07:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
Physics}}
. Most of the stuff beginning with "WP" is less valuable, and if WP were not also the abbreviation for Wikipedia, would be of negligible value.This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
90.148.75.121 ( talk) 23:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
There's a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:DEFINING about whether that redirect should be changed. Input from other editors would be welcome. DexDor ( talk) 20:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd like to propose some copy edits to the Readbility section. Currently it reads as follows:
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, without any piped links, decreasing readability for the general reader. For example, some editors are familiar with the bulk of the Wikipedia namespace shortcuts, even recognizing what they stand for on sight; however, others are faced with pages full of incomprehensible jargon, the meanings of which are not immediately decipherable, if the reader happens to be offline.
While shortcuts can help with linking, it is best, when referring to a project page, to be mindful of the general reader and not use the shortcuts as a title, without piping their links. For example, the piped link: [[WP:SHC|shortcuts]], gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while just using the abbreviation WP:SHC is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term. For this reason, many shortcuts are also created as common English words that are easily identifiable and memorable.
Shortcuts are sometimes (ab)used to make a WP:POINT and best described by WP:WOTTA.
I'd like to change it to read as follows:
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, decreasing readability for the general reader. For example, some editors are familiar with the bulk of the Wikipedia namespace shortcuts, recognizing what they stand for on sight. Others, however, are faced with pages full of incomprehensible jargon, the meaning of which is not immediately clear.
Shortcuts may also be (ab)used to make a WP:POINT, best described by WP:WOTTA.
To avoid these problems, a good practice when creating shortcuts is to choose common English words that are easily identifiable and memorable. Another good practice is to to be mindful of the general reader and use piped links when citing an obscure shortcut. For example, the piped link [[WP:SHC|shortcuts]] gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while the bare abbreviation WP:SHC is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term.
I think most of this should be uncontroversial, but would appreciate any comments. – Margin1522 ( talk) 20:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd also like to suggest one addition to the Readbility section. This is prompted by a discussion, started by me, at WT:Hatnote. The problem is a proliferation of shortcut hatnotes at the top of Wikipedia Help pages and guidelines.
For example, Help:Footnotes ( WP:FN) currently has a hatnote directing readers to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup ( WP:TC) has a hatnote directing readers to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones and Wikipedia:Triple Crown. None of these other pages have anything to do with the hatnoted pages, other than obscure shortcuts that could conceivably point to them.
So I would like to suggest adding the following two sentences to the end of the Readbility section.
It should also be remembered that shortcuts are a convenience, not a substitute for article titles. Shortcuts should be avoided in article text and should not appear in hatnotes or any other place where an article title is expected.
The effect of this would be to justify zapping these shortcut hatnotes on sight. In my opinion, they add clutter to the top of frequently viewed Help pages, and nobody would be seriously inconvenienced if they were eliminated. – Margin1522 ( talk) 20:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Boy, I can sure attest to this, Margin1522, and declare that I was both irritated and confused when I landed on this page while searching desperately for information on how to cite the same source multiple times while specifying different pages for each reference but w/o having to post redundant data - and immediately saw a distracting link for "Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard" at the top of the page!
I was like, "WTF?" and almost abandoned the page because fringe theories have nothing to do with the information I thought I was going to find here. I just like to read and edit articles, and yet I'm amazed by how difficult some ostensibly more experienced Wikipedia users seem to want to make the process of finding useful information on how best to actually add and edit encyclopaedic content. To the user who claimed so surely otherwise (not you, Margin), I can assure you that "a hatnote which says "For the fringe theories noticeboard, see Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard" is absolutely [not] better than nothing", and it defies credulity that they think that the work of the editor is facilitated by adding distracting links to unrelated material at the top of how-to guides that are already hard enough to find. Az x2 03:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
70.185.246.89 ( talk) 23:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
I've just removed all of the extant transclusions of {{ shortcut}} in main space, all but one of which were errors in trying to tag articles with a cleanup notice. The one which was not came up in an instance where an editor tried to create a mainspace shortcut for themselves to get to an article, which is probably fine in and of itself (although it's at RfD and I've tagged it for speedy WP:R3) but even in that instance I can't think of any case where it would be proper to have a shortcut box in an article. In the interest of that, I've made a small change to the guideline suggesting that they not be used in articles (the guidance was a bit weak before). Please take a look and feel free to comment. Ivanvector 🍁 ( talk) 18:08, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I am a little confused. Very often, I find that shortcuts to a specific section don't work, they don't take me to the section, just to the top of the page. Apparently, this may be browser-specific behavior.
I have just been trying to sort out WP:NOPAGE. I may have succeeded, but can someone check?
It seems to me that Wikipedia:Notability#NOPAGE will take your browser to Wikipedia:Notability and then do a page search for the text "NOPAGE". I am guessing that some browsers are finding that text in the linkbox, and others don't.
I understood (from where I can't remember) that to make shortcuts robust, they must match the anchor template parameter. Exactly how this works I don't know. The anchor template produces no visible features on the page. I found that to make the shortcuts work, I needed to change the #field in the redirect.
This guideline says:
I don't understand. "anchors" are added automatically? Is this a reference to the anchor template? The NOPAGE shortcut used the shortcut template, and yet it was not working for me. I am using Windows 7 with a year or so old chrome. I don't think that people should be required to be more up to date than that for Wikipedia to work properly.
Any advice or thoughts? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:49, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I've noticed that WP:ASPERSIONS, while clicking on the link, redirects to the section below the intended target while cutting off the correct section at the top of the screen (and makes for an awkward redirect subject to boot). Everything seems to check out at the actual redirect page though. Any ideas on what's causing this? I haven't been able to pick out what's going on after checking it out for awhile, so I figured it would be worthwhile mentioning here. I've noticed this both on Chrome and Firefox. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 22:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
Does this policy say anything about shortcuts differing only by case that redirect to different pages?
For example:
I understand that separate articles can capitalize the same name differently. But for shortcuts, particularly those that cannot be meaningfully distinguished by case only, this practice seems to create unnecessary confusion. — Cheng ✍ 04:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
I propose that the prefix "WX:" be used in shortcuts to any article/talk/category/portal/subpage/userpage/project pertaining to weather. such as: WX:TC (Tropical Cyclone), WX:TCPORTAL (Tropical Cyclone Portal), WX:DCATE (DCATE list in my user subpage), WX:TCPROJECT (WikiProject Tropical cyclones), WX:TS (Thunderstorm), WX:TOR (tornado), WX:WS (Winter Storm), etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bowser423 ( talk • contribs) 22:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Today, I fixed some vandalism on the shortcut WP:UPIMAGE. It has been in a vandalised state since May 27, a full two months of undiscovered vandalism on a shortcut. I'm sure for very popular shortcuts, that would be noticed and fixed. I've suggested at RfPP that WP:UPIMAGE be given indefinite semi-protection even though WP:SC shortcuts aren't really covered specially by protection policy.
It seems like shortcuts should probably be semi-protected for a handful of reasons:
This seems utterly uncontroversial to me: a tiny downside with a huge benefit. Anyone got any reasons why we shouldn't start semi-protecting shortcuts to protect against potentially hard-to-detect vandalism? — Tom Morris ( talk) 08:16, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't talk enough about "WP" in place of "Wikipedia". Ian Streeter ( talk) 14:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)
Why did you put 50 Shortcuts in each help page !? It's so horrible. -- Nouill ( talk) 11:22, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Category:Shortcuts that are English words is linked from the readability section on this page to give examples of shortcuts that are easy to recognize. However this category was recently nominated for deletion. I thought the people here might want to offer an opinion on whether this category is useful and should be kept or not. Dragons flight ( talk) 21:45, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I have listed 13 of the T: template redirects at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2013 November 18#T:WPTECH for deletion. Currently T: has many strange entries, defying an attempt to provide guidance on when T: is acceptable. If the majory of those 13 are deleted, the remaining T: shortcuts should be indicative of permitted uses, and this guideline could be updated to state that T: shortcuts are permissible for template pages that have a lot of traffic. John Vandenberg ( chat) 16:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
The H: prefix is currently listed as 'less commonly used'. There are quite a few pages under special:prefixindex/H: given the number of pages in the special:prefixindex/Help: namespace. As far as I could so, there is only one H: redirect to mainspace, being H:CEA to Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.
I think H: should be moved up to the 'Commonly used' table. John Vandenberg ( chat) 15:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
In section "List of Prefixes", I edited
this. Paine Ellswoth reverted
[1], admitting "good faith". PE however did not source the "dispute", did not point to any discussion mentioned, and did not open the talk that they state is needed.
Since PE did not back-up any claim, I conclude that the reversal is unfounded. -
DePiep (
talk)
13:57, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
C:, MP:, INTRO:
are to become pseudo-namespaces? Then, why should we leave that incorrect startement in this page? -
DePiep (
talk)
12:01, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please remove "C:" and "INTRO:" from the pseudo namespace section as they no longer exist. 31.100.23.203 ( talk) 11:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
A close was requested at WP:ANRFC. As noted by editors here, this was a normal talk page discussion, not an RfC. The discussion about how to handle template shortcuts was unstructured in that editors discussed different questions throughout the discussion. The lack of structure makes participation by uninvolved editors less likely and assessing consensus difficult.
I recommend creating an RfC titled something like "RfC: Template shortcuts", with subsections for discussing each question or topic. Perhaps list the RfC at Template:Centralized discussion to encourage participation from the wider community, as was done with Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 112#RFC: On the controversy of the pseudo-namespace shortcuts. This will result in a clearer consensus for each of the questions discussed here.
Here are the main questions I've found from the discussion (feel free to use these questions as a rough draft for the RfC):
- Should template redirects for project banners and their equivalent project shortcuts always/usually be harmonized?
- Should a very short template redirect for a WikiProject template always/usually have "WP" as a prefix?
- Should all variations of case for WikiProject template shortcuts point to the same target?
- Should T:XYZ and Template:XYZ always/usually point to the same place?
- Should the 500 WikiProject template redirects at User:Scott/Notes/WikiProject template redirects that have no transclusions and do not begin with "WikiProject" or "WP" be deleted?
- Likewise, should the WikiProject template redirects that have no transclusions and do begin with "WikiProject" or "WP" be deleted?
I recommend spending several days to a week deciding on the wording of the RfC's questions before formally listing it as an RfC and at Template:Centralized discussion.
I am closing this discussion as editors are recommended to create an RfC with subsections for each of the questions or topics. Cunard ( talk) 05:17, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Replying to this post by user:Mendaliv , redirects have been so poorly maintained that a policy discussion would be useless on its own. Having these thoughtful discussions about individual cases helps to find what parts of a new policy might have consensus. WP:SHORTCUT was rewritten recently *after* the weirdest cases of (mainspace) WP:PNR were deleted at RfD. (Before the weirdest cases were removed, the discussions were dominated by people seeking to protect their baby, or resisting any and all change) This policy needs more heavy revision to improve guidance regarding other aspects of shortcuts, and it seems template shortcuts are the topic of the 'month', with user:Jax 0677 creating so many, so we should at least start with the basics.
This guideline already deals with case (lower vs upper) and prefixes of 'shortcuts to subpages'.
This guideline doesnt cover relationships between shortcuts of WikiProjects and their templates. IMO, we should move towards consistency between project shortcuts and template shortcuts and category shortcuts, where possible. I dont think it needs to be a hard rule, but guidance should be given so that shortcut creators know they should take that into consideration when choosing a name, as RfD will consider it.
The other recurring naming issue is when should wikiproject templates use a WP prefix. There is a lot of variance in existing practises here, but I see some consistency in 'WP prefix is needed if the postfix could reasonably refer to a real topic'. John Vandenberg ( chat) 05:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
WPCM}}
,
WP:CM and
WP:WPCM, which all point to different targets.{{
-}}
which are probably not covered just by the "casing" rules since they have no letters in them. I am not saying there is a problem there, only that the wording of the guideline better be careful so as not accidentally to ban these kind of well-established templates.
Si Trew (
talk)
09:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
I've been expecting this discussion to commence so have been spending a while in the background doing analysis to provide a bit of quantitative basis. Please see User:Scott/Notes/WikiProject template redirects (big page, will take a moment to load). The high-level summary of my findings is:
In other words, 85% of WikiProject template redirects that are actually being used in the wild are named beginning with "WikiProject" or "WP". If we raise the threshold for how we define actually being used - 10 or fewer is a very low bar - it's probably more like 90%, which is entirely in line with the belief that various RfD participants have expressed recently that there is a standard of naming for shortcuts. However, there are some very well-established exceptions; there are over 80 shortcuts not beginning with "WikiProject" or "WP" that have transclusion counts in the thousands. Obviously there's no possibility of changing those - and really no argument for it either.
I would suggest that the first thing we do is delete those 500 unused redirects en masse. Zero transclusions means they're not even documented; they have no realistic prospect of useful function and only serve to clutter the namespace and confuse the issue. Next, those 200 redirects with very low use almost certainly represent redirects that were either created as an alternative, or left over after a project template redirect was moved. They should all be replaced with their projects' standard template shortcut, and then deleted. Once this spring clean, if you will - it is in fact spring in this part of the world as I type - has been completed, we'll be able to obtain a much more accurate numeric picture of what people are actually doing with project template redirects. — Scott • talk 13:26, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
transclusion do not count in page view statisticsPage view statistics aren't being discussed here. — Scott • talk 00:35, 3 May 2014 (UTC)
Comment - I will agree with the proposal given, that most of the time, with some exceptions, that redirects to WikiProject Templates that have less than four letters should be prefixed with "WP" or "wp". Per WP:CHEAP, I do not see any harm whatsoever with lower case variants such as {{ wpcw}} being accepted, unless a better use for them is found. With that being said, if a better use for the lower case variant is found, we should probably consider retargeting the upper case variant to the same location. -- Jax 0677 ( talk) 04:52, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
WPZH}}
be acceptable? Anyway, as to the capitalization issue, I think that if you have WPCW and wpcw, and they both point to the same thing, it's not something we should care about. I don't see a mental load issue, and by reserving the case variant, you foreclose the chance of having another unnoticed collision like was formerly present with {{
COP}}
and {{
cop}}
. Anyway, I think my point is this method of framing the discussion—cheapness versus expense—isn't particularly helpful. —/
Mendaliv/
2¢/
Δ's/
14:16, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
Template:Wpxyz
. Your examples (WPCW WPCN WPCT
) are a different subthread in this. I stated that bad abbreviations are not helpful. -
DePiep (
talk)
07:44, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
{{
Physics}}
. Most of the stuff beginning with "WP" is less valuable, and if WP were not also the abbreviation for Wikipedia, would be of negligible value.This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
90.148.75.121 ( talk) 23:10, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
There's a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:DEFINING about whether that redirect should be changed. Input from other editors would be welcome. DexDor ( talk) 20:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
I'd like to propose some copy edits to the Readbility section. Currently it reads as follows:
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, without any piped links, decreasing readability for the general reader. For example, some editors are familiar with the bulk of the Wikipedia namespace shortcuts, even recognizing what they stand for on sight; however, others are faced with pages full of incomprehensible jargon, the meanings of which are not immediately decipherable, if the reader happens to be offline.
While shortcuts can help with linking, it is best, when referring to a project page, to be mindful of the general reader and not use the shortcuts as a title, without piping their links. For example, the piped link: [[WP:SHC|shortcuts]], gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while just using the abbreviation WP:SHC is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term. For this reason, many shortcuts are also created as common English words that are easily identifiable and memorable.
Shortcuts are sometimes (ab)used to make a WP:POINT and best described by WP:WOTTA.
I'd like to change it to read as follows:
Shortcuts are often used on talk pages in their abbreviated form, decreasing readability for the general reader. For example, some editors are familiar with the bulk of the Wikipedia namespace shortcuts, recognizing what they stand for on sight. Others, however, are faced with pages full of incomprehensible jargon, the meaning of which is not immediately clear.
Shortcuts may also be (ab)used to make a WP:POINT, best described by WP:WOTTA.
To avoid these problems, a good practice when creating shortcuts is to choose common English words that are easily identifiable and memorable. Another good practice is to to be mindful of the general reader and use piped links when citing an obscure shortcut. For example, the piped link [[WP:SHC|shortcuts]] gives readers an idea of the subject of the target page, while the bare abbreviation WP:SHC is unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the term.
I think most of this should be uncontroversial, but would appreciate any comments. – Margin1522 ( talk) 20:14, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
I'd also like to suggest one addition to the Readbility section. This is prompted by a discussion, started by me, at WT:Hatnote. The problem is a proliferation of shortcut hatnotes at the top of Wikipedia Help pages and guidelines.
For example, Help:Footnotes ( WP:FN) currently has a hatnote directing readers to Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup ( WP:TC) has a hatnote directing readers to Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones and Wikipedia:Triple Crown. None of these other pages have anything to do with the hatnoted pages, other than obscure shortcuts that could conceivably point to them.
So I would like to suggest adding the following two sentences to the end of the Readbility section.
It should also be remembered that shortcuts are a convenience, not a substitute for article titles. Shortcuts should be avoided in article text and should not appear in hatnotes or any other place where an article title is expected.
The effect of this would be to justify zapping these shortcut hatnotes on sight. In my opinion, they add clutter to the top of frequently viewed Help pages, and nobody would be seriously inconvenienced if they were eliminated. – Margin1522 ( talk) 20:18, 15 October 2014 (UTC)
Boy, I can sure attest to this, Margin1522, and declare that I was both irritated and confused when I landed on this page while searching desperately for information on how to cite the same source multiple times while specifying different pages for each reference but w/o having to post redundant data - and immediately saw a distracting link for "Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard" at the top of the page!
I was like, "WTF?" and almost abandoned the page because fringe theories have nothing to do with the information I thought I was going to find here. I just like to read and edit articles, and yet I'm amazed by how difficult some ostensibly more experienced Wikipedia users seem to want to make the process of finding useful information on how best to actually add and edit encyclopaedic content. To the user who claimed so surely otherwise (not you, Margin), I can assure you that "a hatnote which says "For the fringe theories noticeboard, see Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard" is absolutely [not] better than nothing", and it defies credulity that they think that the work of the editor is facilitated by adding distracting links to unrelated material at the top of how-to guides that are already hard enough to find. Az x2 03:05, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Shortcut has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
70.185.246.89 ( talk) 23:33, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
I've just removed all of the extant transclusions of {{ shortcut}} in main space, all but one of which were errors in trying to tag articles with a cleanup notice. The one which was not came up in an instance where an editor tried to create a mainspace shortcut for themselves to get to an article, which is probably fine in and of itself (although it's at RfD and I've tagged it for speedy WP:R3) but even in that instance I can't think of any case where it would be proper to have a shortcut box in an article. In the interest of that, I've made a small change to the guideline suggesting that they not be used in articles (the guidance was a bit weak before). Please take a look and feel free to comment. Ivanvector 🍁 ( talk) 18:08, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi. I am a little confused. Very often, I find that shortcuts to a specific section don't work, they don't take me to the section, just to the top of the page. Apparently, this may be browser-specific behavior.
I have just been trying to sort out WP:NOPAGE. I may have succeeded, but can someone check?
It seems to me that Wikipedia:Notability#NOPAGE will take your browser to Wikipedia:Notability and then do a page search for the text "NOPAGE". I am guessing that some browsers are finding that text in the linkbox, and others don't.
I understood (from where I can't remember) that to make shortcuts robust, they must match the anchor template parameter. Exactly how this works I don't know. The anchor template produces no visible features on the page. I found that to make the shortcuts work, I needed to change the #field in the redirect.
This guideline says:
I don't understand. "anchors" are added automatically? Is this a reference to the anchor template? The NOPAGE shortcut used the shortcut template, and yet it was not working for me. I am using Windows 7 with a year or so old chrome. I don't think that people should be required to be more up to date than that for Wikipedia to work properly.
Any advice or thoughts? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 04:49, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I've noticed that WP:ASPERSIONS, while clicking on the link, redirects to the section below the intended target while cutting off the correct section at the top of the screen (and makes for an awkward redirect subject to boot). Everything seems to check out at the actual redirect page though. Any ideas on what's causing this? I haven't been able to pick out what's going on after checking it out for awhile, so I figured it would be worthwhile mentioning here. I've noticed this both on Chrome and Firefox. Kingofaces43 ( talk) 22:58, 13 September 2015 (UTC)