![]() | 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 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Both templates need {{ Commonstmp}} added inside a nesting noinclude block. Thanks. // Fra nkB 08:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Should it be subst:ed, or not? –
Gurch 20:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC) Never mind, this seems to have been discussed already (though people don't seem to be sticking to the decision) –
Gurch
20:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Subst? - CrazyRussian talk/ email 15:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that often templates are subst'ed that really should not be (mainly maintainance ones like stubs and cleanup tags), I therefore think it would be nice if it was possible to put a keyword (e.g. _NOSUBST_) on a template that would mean that it could not be subst'ed, and if someone did try to subst it nothing would happen.
The reverse of this is the (more annoying) situation where some templates should - apparently - always be subst'd (e.g. all the user test templates), so I suggest there should be another keyword (e.g. _FORCESUBST_) that could be put on a template that would mean that the template is always subst'd (when used in certain namespaces, e.g. {{test}} in the user talk namespace). The positive effect of this would be no need for any more bots to go around wasting lots of bandwidth and inflating the database and giving users false new messages (and of course whatever the other benefits are of substing templates).
This would of course need changes to the software, but I don't see it being anything more than fairly trivial. What do you think? Martin 15:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Since we're talking about software upgrades anyway, what if, instead of substituting the entire content of a template into the article, you could just specify the version of that template to substitute? So if you typed {{subst:Unsigned|
it would result in
But if you typed {{20050714|unsigned}}
or something like that, it would substitute the version of the template from that date:
You could also type some shortcut like {{now|unsigned}}
, and it would convert to the current date and time on save. This would be helpful in the situations where you want the output to reflect the state of the template when it was inserted, but avoids cluttering up the articles with complex code, increasing the size of articles, not being able to find instances of the template, etc. Just an idea. —
Omegatron
13:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Does any one know why subst command doesn't work with monobook.js? Some people who have developed tools to be used inside monobook.js say you should subst their tool's js page for once. When I do, it remains as {{subst..... and doesn't change to the code. Is it I'm doind something wrong? huji— TALK 08:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
It automatically turns my {{User:Death_motor/signature}} into {{SUBST:Death_motor/signature}}. This is very annoying when the source for your signature is quite long, like mine, and instead of showing {{User:Death_motor/signature}} in the source, it now shows the whole source. I think that this should be changed, so you have the option of substing your signature or not.--❊ ↔ 20:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Templates already have the ability to display very angry messages when you forget to use Subst inside their template (Hence the red text after a new AFD that you made or PROD that you left behind).
So, there are, obviously, some templates that should not be subst'ed. Is it possible to code those templates to leave behind angry text when they are subst'ed? I'm not sure what bit of Wiki goes to doing that, but it might be something someone could look at/ Inform me on? Logical2u 19:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
{{#ifeq: <includeonly>{{subst:empty template}</includeonly>} | {{empty template}} | This is substed! | This is not substed!}}
. Actually, that's a better way to do it than it's currently done for templates that should always be substed, if I do say so myself . . . —
Simetrical (
talk •
contribs)
22:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)I suggest that move templates, like {{ move}}, not be substituted. There are not that many articles on requested moves at one time, so there is little benefit, and it is easier for the admin to remove afterwards if the template has not been substituted, especially when there is other stuff near the template, especially other substituted templates. -- Kjkolb 03:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
{{moved}}
templates, with a d, don't even seem to be used. —
Centrx→
talk •
20:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The page says that {{ lifetime}} should be subst:, but also that templates with parser functions should not be subst:. Here is the code for the lifetime template (notice the ifndef). I propose that it be removed from the list of "shoulds" (and a review of the others on that list is probably in order). Neier 04:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
{{{1{{{1|}}}|[[Category:{{{1}}} births|{{{3}}}]]}}} {{Ifndef|{{{1}}}|[[Category:Year of birth unknown|{{{3}}}]]}} {{{2{{{2|}}}|[[Category:{{{2}}} deaths|{{{3}}}]]}}} {{Ifndef|{{{2}}}|[[Category:Living people|{{{3}}}]]}}
{{{11736|[[Category:1736 births|Watt, James]]}}} {{Ifndef|1736|[[Category:Year of birth unknown|Watt, James]]}} {{{21819|[[Category:1819 deaths|Watt, James]]}}} {{Ifndef|1819|[[Category:Living people|Watt, James]]}>
I'm all for replacing overused templates, but, the page should be left readable. Neier 13:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if this is a "must" or "should" case, but according to Wikipedia_talk:Redirect, redirects may now contain multiple lines (by design) and categories, but an unforseen side-effect is that the developers did not know redirects contained templates such as {{ R from misspelling}} and the other contents of Category:Redirect templates (and they may break this functionality in the future). This entire class of templates should be substituted in the future (I have just submitted a bot request to deal with the ~15,000 current instances). -- nae' blis 19:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
It's really annoying to look at page histories (such as [1]) and see the templates demanding substitution and blanking everything in the rest of the article. Is there anything that can be done about that? Nardman1 16:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
In what is now section 4.1 (Templates that should NOT be substituted; List), "various citation/reference templates" and "various infoboxes" are listed on the grounds that they "contain very complex conditional code" and "should look consistent on various pages". These are indeed good arguments for avoiding template substitution, but there is one more reason: Even if these templates didn't encapsulate complex code and even if they didn't need to preserve appearance, the template calls provide a semantic markup that adds structure to the included information. The wiki source text {{cite book|title=George Orwell|author=Gordon Bowker}} says which name is the title and which is the author of a book. If the text was substituted as Gordon Bowker, ''George Orwell'' this would not be half as obvious. This distinction is not available to those who only read the rendered web page, but Wikipedia also has an audience in those who parse the downloadable dumps. For the task of locating book references to see which are missing information about publisher, publishing year, ISBN, etc., this is nearly impossible if the text is substituted, because this structure is lost in substitution. -- LA2 12:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Please provide a summary of your extremely long comment if you want anything to be done about it. — Centrx→ talk • 21:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
There's bot running around converting this nice simple syntax to some clunky html-ish syntax. If the native syntax was simple I'd say translate it but its not. The reason wiki has been successful is the simpler than html syntax. I sure i am going to get a response saying "ohhh its so much faster inlining the template" but I thought I was protest it anyway. -- MarsRover 03:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Per here, I'd appreciate any information/consensus over whether using unsubst:ed templates such as {{ ·}} within (navigation) templates poses any technical worries. Thanks! David Kernow (talk) 22:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Looked around, maybe this is answered somewhere. If I subst a template like {{subst:test|Example}} what I get in the text (in the edit window after submitting the edit) is:
Thank you for experimenting with {{#if:Example|the page [[:Example]] on}} Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been [[Help:Reverting|reverted]] or removed. Please use [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|the sandbox]] for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Introduction|welcome page]] to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
is there a way to get it to evaluate the conditional statement and instead put this in the page?:
Thank you for experimenting with the page [[Example]] on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been [[Help:Reverting|reverted]] or removed. Please use [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|the sandbox]] for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Introduction|welcome page]] to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
I'm not interested in the test template particularly, it's just an easy example. Thanks. *Spark* 03:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
These are all "supposed" to be substed. But if we believe there's a playoff between server load and dartabase size, these are god candidates not to subst. They are generally only seen a few dozen times at most, so server load is ephemeral, database space is permenant. Rich Farmbrough, 21:43 1 December 2006 (GMT).
I've just removed
This is something that should not be substed without the user's permission, especially by a bot. People tend to take exception to editing of their signatures, and without the user's cooperation, substing the signatures is futile: they'll just keep adding them. Instead, these users should be contacted on their talk page and encouraged to list their individual signature templates here themselves (as well as adding the subst to their signature in preferences, or just putting the code there). — Cryptic (talk) 03:26, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
AzaToth added {{update}} on top [3]. I assume AzaToth refers to the list of templates, right? If that's the problem, we might just remove the lists of templates and keep the general parts. Templates that should be substed should mention that in the description of the template anyway. I agree that maintaining a list of templates here is a bit optimistic. Who is looking here if a specific template should be substed or not? -- Ligulem 18:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
As for the general "historic" or old-ness of the page, I think AzaToth is referring to the fact that there is little change to this talk page or the guideline itself, and it doesn't get edited often. However, I do not agree with the marking of this guideline as historical since it is still in effect (at least to my knowledge). It would need to fall out of use, not just experience few edits to be tagged as {{ historical}}, since that tag ought to be a replacement to the {{ guideline}} tag. BigNate37 (T) 19:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
The article lists under ==Templates that should be substituted==, ===Article namespace===, several templates named {{prettytable}} and similar. I clicked to see what they were, and found that some of them are deprecated. Should they therefore be removed from this article? (I'm not confident enough that I understand this yet to do it myself.) Fayenatic london 20:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
While looking through Category:Wikipedia utility templates, I was thinking that the Category:Wikipedia templates to substitute automatically might be useful (e.g. for bots to scan), then remembered the lists here. Does anybody else think they might be more useful as categories...? Thanks for any input, David Kernow (talk) 11:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
What on Earth does the following piece of textual chop suey mean?
This page lists templates that should always be substituted except in the Wikipedia namespace. Automated tools (bots) which do such replacements will never be used on the original template pages.
If you are going to use a bot to substitute templates, please read through the talk page first, as many are under dispute or change status over time, and substitution is permanent.
For one thing, does anybody in this vast organization know the difference between "substitute" and "replace with"? I'm surprised that most of the really bad writing, and techno-geekery is found, not in the ordinary articles, but right here on the internal pages. I really can't make head or tail of any of this. If I could, I'd fix it up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Myles325a ( talk • contribs) 01:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC).
Ok, I'll sign it, and add a few notes. Do you rem that "Who" song that begins "I'm a SUBSTITUTE for anther guy, I look pretty tall but my heels are high..."? Well, that guy may not have been all that well educated, but he did know the right way of using substitute.
IF one's budget does not allow it, then one may REPLACE T=bone steak with mince. The other way of saying this is that one SUBSTITUTES mince for T=bone. In other words, in the case of the word SUBSTITUTE, it is the subject not the object of the operation. Now is that a little cleaer? Myles325a 09:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that every template which should be substituted should have the following line in the wikicode:
This way, any page which has a substituted template with that, the {{ Empty template}} will prevent the category from showing up; but if it's transcluded, then the category will show up - so such pages will be in Category:Pages which transclude templates which should be substituted. Od Mishehu 07:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Convenience templates for external links make sense, especially for those sites where we have vast quantities of links (e.g. IMDB), but I propose that convenience templates for internal links (examples: {{ wc}}, {{ fc}}, {{ stnlnk}}) are, as a general class, added to the "should-be-subst'd" list, especially where the extra typing is not a great impact compared to what it is including. I suggest this not only for being " templates masquerading as article content" but also for being generally unfriendly. Templates which have some important additional functions, such as the elements, are not included in this description, as are those used outside the article space (e.g. {{ tl}}, which is also useful for other reasons). 81.104.175.145 11:57, 29 June 2007 (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 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 |
Both templates need {{ Commonstmp}} added inside a nesting noinclude block. Thanks. // Fra nkB 08:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
Should it be subst:ed, or not? –
Gurch 20:06, 12 July 2006 (UTC) Never mind, this seems to have been discussed already (though people don't seem to be sticking to the decision) –
Gurch
20:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
Subst? - CrazyRussian talk/ email 15:06, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I have noticed that often templates are subst'ed that really should not be (mainly maintainance ones like stubs and cleanup tags), I therefore think it would be nice if it was possible to put a keyword (e.g. _NOSUBST_) on a template that would mean that it could not be subst'ed, and if someone did try to subst it nothing would happen.
The reverse of this is the (more annoying) situation where some templates should - apparently - always be subst'd (e.g. all the user test templates), so I suggest there should be another keyword (e.g. _FORCESUBST_) that could be put on a template that would mean that the template is always subst'd (when used in certain namespaces, e.g. {{test}} in the user talk namespace). The positive effect of this would be no need for any more bots to go around wasting lots of bandwidth and inflating the database and giving users false new messages (and of course whatever the other benefits are of substing templates).
This would of course need changes to the software, but I don't see it being anything more than fairly trivial. What do you think? Martin 15:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Since we're talking about software upgrades anyway, what if, instead of substituting the entire content of a template into the article, you could just specify the version of that template to substitute? So if you typed {{subst:Unsigned|
it would result in
But if you typed {{20050714|unsigned}}
or something like that, it would substitute the version of the template from that date:
You could also type some shortcut like {{now|unsigned}}
, and it would convert to the current date and time on save. This would be helpful in the situations where you want the output to reflect the state of the template when it was inserted, but avoids cluttering up the articles with complex code, increasing the size of articles, not being able to find instances of the template, etc. Just an idea. —
Omegatron
13:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
Does any one know why subst command doesn't work with monobook.js? Some people who have developed tools to be used inside monobook.js say you should subst their tool's js page for once. When I do, it remains as {{subst..... and doesn't change to the code. Is it I'm doind something wrong? huji— TALK 08:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
It automatically turns my {{User:Death_motor/signature}} into {{SUBST:Death_motor/signature}}. This is very annoying when the source for your signature is quite long, like mine, and instead of showing {{User:Death_motor/signature}} in the source, it now shows the whole source. I think that this should be changed, so you have the option of substing your signature or not.--❊ ↔ 20:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
Templates already have the ability to display very angry messages when you forget to use Subst inside their template (Hence the red text after a new AFD that you made or PROD that you left behind).
So, there are, obviously, some templates that should not be subst'ed. Is it possible to code those templates to leave behind angry text when they are subst'ed? I'm not sure what bit of Wiki goes to doing that, but it might be something someone could look at/ Inform me on? Logical2u 19:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
{{#ifeq: <includeonly>{{subst:empty template}</includeonly>} | {{empty template}} | This is substed! | This is not substed!}}
. Actually, that's a better way to do it than it's currently done for templates that should always be substed, if I do say so myself . . . —
Simetrical (
talk •
contribs)
22:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)I suggest that move templates, like {{ move}}, not be substituted. There are not that many articles on requested moves at one time, so there is little benefit, and it is easier for the admin to remove afterwards if the template has not been substituted, especially when there is other stuff near the template, especially other substituted templates. -- Kjkolb 03:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
{{moved}}
templates, with a d, don't even seem to be used. —
Centrx→
talk •
20:26, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
The page says that {{ lifetime}} should be subst:, but also that templates with parser functions should not be subst:. Here is the code for the lifetime template (notice the ifndef). I propose that it be removed from the list of "shoulds" (and a review of the others on that list is probably in order). Neier 04:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
{{{1{{{1|}}}|[[Category:{{{1}}} births|{{{3}}}]]}}} {{Ifndef|{{{1}}}|[[Category:Year of birth unknown|{{{3}}}]]}} {{{2{{{2|}}}|[[Category:{{{2}}} deaths|{{{3}}}]]}}} {{Ifndef|{{{2}}}|[[Category:Living people|{{{3}}}]]}}
{{{11736|[[Category:1736 births|Watt, James]]}}} {{Ifndef|1736|[[Category:Year of birth unknown|Watt, James]]}} {{{21819|[[Category:1819 deaths|Watt, James]]}}} {{Ifndef|1819|[[Category:Living people|Watt, James]]}>
I'm all for replacing overused templates, but, the page should be left readable. Neier 13:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Not sure if this is a "must" or "should" case, but according to Wikipedia_talk:Redirect, redirects may now contain multiple lines (by design) and categories, but an unforseen side-effect is that the developers did not know redirects contained templates such as {{ R from misspelling}} and the other contents of Category:Redirect templates (and they may break this functionality in the future). This entire class of templates should be substituted in the future (I have just submitted a bot request to deal with the ~15,000 current instances). -- nae' blis 19:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
It's really annoying to look at page histories (such as [1]) and see the templates demanding substitution and blanking everything in the rest of the article. Is there anything that can be done about that? Nardman1 16:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
In what is now section 4.1 (Templates that should NOT be substituted; List), "various citation/reference templates" and "various infoboxes" are listed on the grounds that they "contain very complex conditional code" and "should look consistent on various pages". These are indeed good arguments for avoiding template substitution, but there is one more reason: Even if these templates didn't encapsulate complex code and even if they didn't need to preserve appearance, the template calls provide a semantic markup that adds structure to the included information. The wiki source text {{cite book|title=George Orwell|author=Gordon Bowker}} says which name is the title and which is the author of a book. If the text was substituted as Gordon Bowker, ''George Orwell'' this would not be half as obvious. This distinction is not available to those who only read the rendered web page, but Wikipedia also has an audience in those who parse the downloadable dumps. For the task of locating book references to see which are missing information about publisher, publishing year, ISBN, etc., this is nearly impossible if the text is substituted, because this structure is lost in substitution. -- LA2 12:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Please provide a summary of your extremely long comment if you want anything to be done about it. — Centrx→ talk • 21:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
There's bot running around converting this nice simple syntax to some clunky html-ish syntax. If the native syntax was simple I'd say translate it but its not. The reason wiki has been successful is the simpler than html syntax. I sure i am going to get a response saying "ohhh its so much faster inlining the template" but I thought I was protest it anyway. -- MarsRover 03:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Per here, I'd appreciate any information/consensus over whether using unsubst:ed templates such as {{ ·}} within (navigation) templates poses any technical worries. Thanks! David Kernow (talk) 22:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
Looked around, maybe this is answered somewhere. If I subst a template like {{subst:test|Example}} what I get in the text (in the edit window after submitting the edit) is:
Thank you for experimenting with {{#if:Example|the page [[:Example]] on}} Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been [[Help:Reverting|reverted]] or removed. Please use [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|the sandbox]] for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Introduction|welcome page]] to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
is there a way to get it to evaluate the conditional statement and instead put this in the page?:
Thank you for experimenting with the page [[Example]] on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been [[Help:Reverting|reverted]] or removed. Please use [[Wikipedia:Sandbox|the sandbox]] for any other tests you may want to do. Take a look at the [[Wikipedia:Introduction|welcome page]] to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia.
I'm not interested in the test template particularly, it's just an easy example. Thanks. *Spark* 03:35, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
These are all "supposed" to be substed. But if we believe there's a playoff between server load and dartabase size, these are god candidates not to subst. They are generally only seen a few dozen times at most, so server load is ephemeral, database space is permenant. Rich Farmbrough, 21:43 1 December 2006 (GMT).
I've just removed
This is something that should not be substed without the user's permission, especially by a bot. People tend to take exception to editing of their signatures, and without the user's cooperation, substing the signatures is futile: they'll just keep adding them. Instead, these users should be contacted on their talk page and encouraged to list their individual signature templates here themselves (as well as adding the subst to their signature in preferences, or just putting the code there). — Cryptic (talk) 03:26, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
AzaToth added {{update}} on top [3]. I assume AzaToth refers to the list of templates, right? If that's the problem, we might just remove the lists of templates and keep the general parts. Templates that should be substed should mention that in the description of the template anyway. I agree that maintaining a list of templates here is a bit optimistic. Who is looking here if a specific template should be substed or not? -- Ligulem 18:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
As for the general "historic" or old-ness of the page, I think AzaToth is referring to the fact that there is little change to this talk page or the guideline itself, and it doesn't get edited often. However, I do not agree with the marking of this guideline as historical since it is still in effect (at least to my knowledge). It would need to fall out of use, not just experience few edits to be tagged as {{ historical}}, since that tag ought to be a replacement to the {{ guideline}} tag. BigNate37 (T) 19:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
The article lists under ==Templates that should be substituted==, ===Article namespace===, several templates named {{prettytable}} and similar. I clicked to see what they were, and found that some of them are deprecated. Should they therefore be removed from this article? (I'm not confident enough that I understand this yet to do it myself.) Fayenatic london 20:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
While looking through Category:Wikipedia utility templates, I was thinking that the Category:Wikipedia templates to substitute automatically might be useful (e.g. for bots to scan), then remembered the lists here. Does anybody else think they might be more useful as categories...? Thanks for any input, David Kernow (talk) 11:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
What on Earth does the following piece of textual chop suey mean?
This page lists templates that should always be substituted except in the Wikipedia namespace. Automated tools (bots) which do such replacements will never be used on the original template pages.
If you are going to use a bot to substitute templates, please read through the talk page first, as many are under dispute or change status over time, and substitution is permanent.
For one thing, does anybody in this vast organization know the difference between "substitute" and "replace with"? I'm surprised that most of the really bad writing, and techno-geekery is found, not in the ordinary articles, but right here on the internal pages. I really can't make head or tail of any of this. If I could, I'd fix it up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Myles325a ( talk • contribs) 01:34, 16 April 2007 (UTC).
Ok, I'll sign it, and add a few notes. Do you rem that "Who" song that begins "I'm a SUBSTITUTE for anther guy, I look pretty tall but my heels are high..."? Well, that guy may not have been all that well educated, but he did know the right way of using substitute.
IF one's budget does not allow it, then one may REPLACE T=bone steak with mince. The other way of saying this is that one SUBSTITUTES mince for T=bone. In other words, in the case of the word SUBSTITUTE, it is the subject not the object of the operation. Now is that a little cleaer? Myles325a 09:30, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that every template which should be substituted should have the following line in the wikicode:
This way, any page which has a substituted template with that, the {{ Empty template}} will prevent the category from showing up; but if it's transcluded, then the category will show up - so such pages will be in Category:Pages which transclude templates which should be substituted. Od Mishehu 07:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
Convenience templates for external links make sense, especially for those sites where we have vast quantities of links (e.g. IMDB), but I propose that convenience templates for internal links (examples: {{ wc}}, {{ fc}}, {{ stnlnk}}) are, as a general class, added to the "should-be-subst'd" list, especially where the extra typing is not a great impact compared to what it is including. I suggest this not only for being " templates masquerading as article content" but also for being generally unfriendly. Templates which have some important additional functions, such as the elements, are not included in this description, as are those used outside the article space (e.g. {{ tl}}, which is also useful for other reasons). 81.104.175.145 11:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)