Template talk:Genealogics pedigree

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Often, in articles, a certain number of generations are needed for to illustrate a point. The editor who has made the link, knows presumably that matter best. But existence of these formulaic template things has led some -possibly unthinking- persons even summarily, or blindly, or by robot, replace considered links with these. Losing some needed or useful information.

I thus deplore that some have started formulaicly to use these things to replace genuine and considered links to Genealogics in individual articles.

Perhaps the template is not such a bad thing, but its existence leads some to replace careful links created by others with this formulaic formula, losing occasionally some information needed in the article itself.

In my opinion, blind replacements should be banned. Marrtel (talk) 11:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

As I mentioned in my reply to you on my own discussion page - I hadn't realised that you were setting up a discussion in two places - there are excellent reasons why the Genealogics template was created and its usage promulgated. Wikipedia has much time and effort invested in many hundred of links to the Genealogics reference website, and for good reasons - it is an excellent reference website. However, if the Genealogics website should ever change URL or change parameters, then all those reference links that use the template can be corrected / updated in one quick short edit - those direct links that do not use the template may / will need to be individually edited. If the URL changed more than once, then the non-template maintenance workload might well have become prohibitive. Thus the existence of the template and its usage are for the greater benefit of Wikipedia as a whole (de-risking Wikipedia's exposure against changes in an external website) and not for the narrow benefit of any one article in particular. The same logic applies to the existence and usage of the IMDB, Findagrave and many other templates - "possibly unthinking" indeed! If it is just one or a few article's template links that offend you, then be WP:BOLD and change it back. I won't correct you, nor will I maintain that article against external website changes - should they ever occur - I'll leave that to you or any another editor who introduces these risks after they have been corrected once. The Genealogics website is very flexible, and the pedigree display is but a single click away from the individual display, if the link's context refers to an individual. If you are missing facilities in the Genealogics template, then be WP:BOLD and maintain / introduce the required facilities. Ian Cairns (talk) 18:35, 6 January 2008 (UTC)