Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 July 25

< July 24	July 26 >

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. IronGargoyle 03:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Lunar crater data image (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

The functionality of this template has been merged into {{Lunar crater data}}. All instances on the lunar crater article pages (under List of craters on the Moon) have been migrated. Requesting a deletion. — RJH (talk) 23:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• We have templates for lunar craters? (Just fooling around.) Anyway, delete per nom. Shalom ^Hello 06:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
• Next time you can just redirect it. –Pomte 01:42, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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The result of the debate was delete. — Malcolm (talk) 02:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Law and Order Episodes (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Individual series fork of {{Infobox Television episode}}, unused, time to delete. Jay32183 22:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per nom; unused, unneeded. Shalom ^Hello 03:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. nothing links there, not used. --Parzival418 _Hello 03:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, unused. T Rex | talk 20:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

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The result of the debate was delete. Perhaps the nominator thought that it had to be in template form, otherwise it would go to RfD? Either way, it's orphaned. IronGargoyle 03:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:The O.C. episode (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Individual series fork of {{Infobox Television episode}}, unused, time to delete. Jay32183 22:36, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. nothing links there, not used. --Parzival418 _Hello 03:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: It was a redirect for almost a year until restored by the nominator one minute prior to nominating it for deletion [1]. The unnecessary redirect can of course be deleted as such, but it is not an "Individual series fork". —AldeBaer 07:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I restored the redirect version the template page had been in since 12 August, 2006. It's unnecessary and somewhat weird to restore an old revision only to use it as an argument for deletion. —AldeBaer 08:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

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The result of the debate was ... well, shit. There's no consensus. IronGargoyle 03:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:SevenDirtyWords (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

A navbar copying the list given in the article Seven dirty words. Unnecessary. . 52 Pickup 12:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep It's easy to find the navbar; it's more difficult to find the list mentioned by the nominator, which appears in only the main article and not the derivatives. (Have I been corrupted by WP:NOT#CENSOR? I wish I could delete it for other reasons, but them's the rules...) Shalom ^Hello 02:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. For one thing, it's not being used other than on some of the articles about those same seven words. It's not censorship to ask someone to click on the main article to see the rest of the words. Templates like this do have a use - to simplify navigation in complicated hierarchies of related subjects. But this is just silly - no offense intended to whoever wrote the template - it's not a complicated hierarchy that needs navigation, it's just a list of words easily found in the article on that topic, regarding the FCC's regulation of the airwaves. Censorship would be to go into that article and replace each of the words with a redaction symbol, like the way they beep stuff in audio. Removing the template is not censorship. --Parzival418 _Hello 03:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Thanks - you've posted my reasoning in a better way than I could say it. - 52 Pickup 08:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep or Replace with {{otherarticles}}, which will link to Seven Dirty Words. Some people like navbox navigation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep ...and while your at it, correct the title , it should be "The seven dirty words you cannot say on radio or television  !! '
  • Comment - these days, some of these words ARE said on radio and television - so the list is outdated. So, delete. - 52 Pickup 13:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep—if the template were original research, it should certainly be deleted. But this list of words is used by a group of industries that heavily influence and are heavily influenced by the concept of a "dirty word". The template is short and sweet (okay, maybe not sweet), and I recall using it for navigation once. Gracenotes^T § 21:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It would also be fine if a link to the main article were in the See Also section of each article, instead of keeping the template. Either works. Gracenotes^T § 00:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Agree - that would also make sense, better than having this template. - 52 Pickup 13:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I made it and feel it should be kept for it helps in navigating between the pages. Behun 22:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - If you want to navigate between these pages, go to Category:Profanity, where there are even more words to choose from. Besides, one of these words (Cocksucker) links to an entry of a different name (Oral sex) and another (Tits) links to a disambiguation. So this template lists 7 words, 2 of which do not even have entries of their own. Again, this template is redundant, so delete. - 52 Pickup 13:40, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. It's reasonable for someone reading about one of these words to want to read about the others, but only 4 of them lead to articles with the relevant etymology. The category Profanity is more useful in this case. –Pomte 01:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

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The result of the debate was delete. IronGargoyle 03:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:TemplateGeauga County (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Little used template, simply the name "Geauga County" (an Ohio county) placed on talk pages as if it were a wikiproject banner, but there is no WikiProject Geauga County. Its presence does not help the encyclopedia. — Nyttend 12:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - not helpful and not needed. - 52 Pickup 12:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Unschool 22:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

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The result of the debate was keep. — Malcolm (talk) 02:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Electronic music-footer (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This template is effectively redundant to all the other electronic music footer templates ({{house music-footer}}, {{drum and bass-footer}} et cetera), as these contain the content of {{electronic music-footer}} below their lists of subgenres, and the top level articles (house music, drum and bass etc. which I assume this is supposed to be on), all use their respective templates. This doesn't seem necessary. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 05:35, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Each of the individual footer templates listed above use {{Electronic music infobox}}. That template then uses {{electronic music-footer-list}} to include all the other genre data. {{Electronic music-footer}} uses this same data but allows this to be placed on non-genere specific pages. The templates as a whole should probably be cleaned up and consolidated, but I wouldn't single this one out for a delete on its own. Nicko (Talk•Contribs) 06:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Why would this need to be used on any page other than genre pages though? I had a look at the transclusions and it was placed on a few random biographies, a venue article and a magazine article, a few genre articles, which aren't necessary as they're covered by the other footers, and list of electronic music genres, which lists them all anyway. Was this really created with the purpose of placing it on every electronic music biographical (or similar) article? It looks like a navbox between genres to me. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 06:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

---

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 04:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Electronic music is a "high-level" music genre, in that it is not a subgenre of anything else, and it has many subgenres and derivative genres. Wikipedia:WikiProject Music genres, Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronic music and related Wikiprojects are starting to become more active and working towards co-ordinating the use of genre info-boxes and footers. After a while, it may be useful to reduce the number of templates, but for now it seems like removing a template that is used by a high-level genre classification would be premature. There are a variety of electronic music subgenres that could use this template but would not be able to use the electronic dance music-related templates, for example Electronic art music, Electroacoustic music, Ambient music, and others. In a few months, if the expected activity does not appear and the template is not in more common usage, we could re-evaluate this. --Parzival418 _Hello 06:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

  Well electronic art music has {{electronic art music-footer}} and ambient has {{ambient music-footer}}, both of which include all the content in {{electronic music-footer}}. Electroacoustic doesn't appear to have any such template, so perhaps if {{electronic music-footer}} might be expanded to include more than it currently does (this included) I might be for keeping it. For now it still seems redundant though, all the links on the template (not just the dance music ones) have their own footers. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 14:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that {{electronic music-footer}} can be expanded and improved. But needing improvement is not a good reason for "delete". The other footers you mentioned are all genres that are related to electronic music, but the hierarchical relationship is not clearly defined at this time. That's something currently being worked on by Wikipedia:WikiProject Music genres and Wikipedia:WikiProject Electronic music and is a long complicated process. One thing that makes it complicated is that lots of people have ideas about how the genres fit together, but when you look for references it's not so easy to find them because the music industry and press often do not concur with each other. For one example, the Electronic dance music and Electronic music articles state that current popular Dance music is a sub-genre of Electronic music. But Billboard magazine does it the other way around and considers Electronic music to be a subgenre of Dance music. That's why I say this is a complicated area and needs lots of work. If we use this TfD process to remove a nav box while the Wikiproject and various article editors are still hashing all this out, it will just confuse things and later someone will make the nav box again anyway.

Your concern about the overlapping of the various music nav boxes is valid, but deleting the template at this time would be counter-productive. All of the genre-related nav boxes and templates need to be co-ordinated, updated, clarified, and supported by references in the genre articles. That work is ongoing, so let's let the editors working on the Music genres project do their work and make this TfD a keep. Later, if editors don't like the way it turns out, this nav box can easily be re-nominated for TfD. --Parzival418 _Hello 19:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Wiki includes some music subgenres I've looked askance at, but eliminating "electronic music"?! That doesn't make much sense to me. It is indeed a higher level music genre, and includes so many subgenres like house music, techno, and ambient music. Strangepalefighter 09:35, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

  You don't appear to understand me. We have templates for each genre (or sub-genre, whatever way you want to look at it) of electronic music which already include this template. Therefore this template is redundant, as for the top level genres such as house, techno and ambient, {{house music-footer}}, {{techno music-footer}} and {{ambient music-footer}} etc. can be used. - Zeibura ^(Talk) 14:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and Expand. As a total ignoramus in this field, it looks very useful to me, yet I can't help believe that it is both a bit subjective and a bit incomplete. Unschool 22:23, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. The WP:OR concerns raised in the discussion seem very strong. Many of the keep votes also say something along the line of: "keep until we can come up with something better". This doesn't seem to be a very strong argument for keeping. IronGargoyle 21:29, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:Generations (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

This template violates WP:OR. It is the product of the generational theories of Strauss and Howe (which are not at all widely accepted) and apparently the musings/opinions of a few editors. A source, or combination of sources, cannot be cited which argues that this is a meaningful periodization for American history (which is how this template is being used, given that it has been placed on several history articles), because this periodization has been invented here at Wikipedia. For example, the Jazz Age is included for no particular reason, whereas the Progressive Era is not--this is completely arbitrary and not based upon any source. The template has been placed upon important history articles such as First Great Awakening, which is not a "generation" recognized by anyone as far as I am aware. It's perfectly legitimate to have a navigation template for the various Strauss and Howe-related generation articles, but this template goes well beyond that. This one should be deleted, and a Strauss and Howe nav template should be created (there's already a good model for what that would look like here)— Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 21:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Until a Strauss and Howe template is created this one should be kept. If a S&H nav temp is created let me know and I'll vote delete on this one. -- 71.191.43.139 01:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I take that as a tacit admission that this is a bad template, which to me means it should be deleted or radically altered. If the existing one was simply transformed (and probably renamed) into an S&H nav temp that would be fine with me (I don't know anything about editing templates myself). It just seems easier to delete this and create a new one. I don't think having a template to navigate Strauss and Howe articles is so critical that we cannot do without one for a little while (it could probably be created in a couple of hours), particularly if the other option is to keep this thing which is pure OR (i.e. against policy) and obviously not strictly related to S&H.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Until a formative list of human life's known past & indeed questionable present Generations can be determined based on definitive historical evidence. As far as either incorporating the widely-known the Strauss & Howe generation titles or making a separate template for S&H: I couldn't care less either way. Though I suggest that if two templates are deemed necessary they should always be side-by-side on Generation related pages. I agree that the current template is rough, but i see no real reason to rid of it until something better comes along because it takes alot longer to improve on a blank slate that a rough one. -- NathanHess 23:00, July 12 2007 (GMT).

I'm afraid I simply do not understand the first sentence here, what are you saying? I don't see a rationale for keeping.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:51, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I think Nathan is saying that this is better than nothing. Nyttend 12:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I generally agree with the two people above me. Someone needs to create a better generational template first before this one can get deleted. Haynsoul 12:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. This template should be kept because, as stated in comments above, it would save time if we start with what we have instead of starting from scratch. However, this template is in desperate need of clean up before it can be useful as a Strauss & Howe navigational aid. And it would be nice if the final template include more consensus dates for generational boundaries.--Janus657 19:55, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There are no consensus dates for generational boundaries, or even consensus about generational boundaries as a meaningful means to think about history, which is how this is (in part) being used. That is the problem. If this template is simply stripped down to the point where it is only about Strauss and Howe (in which case we would simply use their periodization), fine, but right now it is something completely different.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

After playing around with the template for a little while (with little successs), I agree that striping the table down to a Strauss & Howe's time line is probably the best course of action. In its current state, the template is unacceptable.--Janus657 20:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

While i understand a Strauss & Howe table would be nice and neat, they dont cover all the (contientious) generations we do. ANd besides they keep changing their boundaries too. THis IS a messy area of human thought. Even though the current template is labled "usa generations" it is more world wide representative than a strict Strauss & Howe one. Cilstr 02:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding the main point Cilstr (both here and in your comment below). It is precisely because this template extends beyond the S & H generational table (covering "contentious" generations as you admit), while doing so in a completely arbitrary fashion--i.e. based upon no sources, but only on what editors apparently felt like adding--that this template is completely unacceptable. It is a violation of one of Wikipedia's core, non-negotiable policies, WP:OR, which is the reason it must be deleted or (at the very least) slimmed down to a S & H nav template. Literally none of the "keep" votes have addressed the issue of OR, which is the basis for this TfD.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:06, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete I think it is hopeless to improve it. I cannot see how to improve it sufficiently to be clear that it refers only to their theory without being obtrusive, or even why preference should be given by WP to their theory. It should furthermore be totally unnecessary--either the conventional period is completely self-evident, or the placement is controversial. DGG (talk) 23:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
• Comment For what it's worth, i think the intention of the template was to help users look at a certain date and see what generation is sometimes used to describe people from that time period. I don't think the template purports to present some unified theory of generations. The only thing I interpret this template saying is "These are notable classifications of generations, organized chronologically." I'm not bothered by that, but I also wouldn't object to making this template something that's Strauss and Howe specific, and leaving it off the other articles entirely. --JayHenry 19:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - Just because we do not have something better does not change the fact that it is still WP:OR. --Kralizec! (talk) 19:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Some information is better than none. --Jo9100 16:58, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

In this case, it certainly is not for reasons described above, particularly our policy regarding original research. And anyway that simply is not a valid argument (see discussion at WP:LOSE, for example).--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 20:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• Keep ! ITs a really invaluable link between all the generations, its a great over view- AND it clearly shows that there is (much ) dissagreement on timing (end/begining) of many generation. There is MUCh talk on many talk pages how this date is wrong, or 'that date does not fit me' etc etc. The table shows there is more than one theory- which is also why a Strauss and Howe table would be worse trouble. WE could ( i could) easily find sources for all the disputed dates- but that would really make the table look messy, and they are mentioned in respective generation pages anyway. And here here to top half of JayHenrys comment. Object to a strauss and Howe table though. I also note the table is often fixed/made better Cilstr 19:01, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Quantizing an continuous population stream into "generations" has always been a dubious undertaking at best. We certainly don't need our own bloated, redundant stab at it, whether it's supported by an arbitrarily chosen source or not. —ptk✰fgs 05:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

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Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Woohookitty^Woohoo! 04:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC) --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 04:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete - or consider nav box per User:Therefore's thread below. It's an interesting template, but it gives a false impression that the list is accepted as fact per WP:RS which is not the case since it's compiled by the two authors mentioned plus others not named, and the template is without references. The article Strauss and Howe has (as of today) zero references other than their own writings, so even their contributions to the template at this time are not sourced. Alternately, a new template could be created as "Strauss and Howe Generations", but even for that, third party WP:V references would be needed to be added to their article. --Parzival418 _Hello 06:26, 25 July 2007 (UTC) [note: re-edited my comment, based on the new information from this thread and additional threads below. --Parzival418 _Hello 19:23, 28 July 2007 (UTC)]

follow-up comment. In reviewing the article as a result of this discussion, I found that the article has many in-line external links (not footnotes), and that all of them go to websites related to the authors the article is about. They seem to be notable, but the article really needs third-party references to support their notability, and the in-line external links should be made into proper citations. Also, it appears they are living persons, so WP:BLP should be considered in editing the article. I'll add this note to the talk page there too. --Parzival418 _Hello 06:46, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify Parzival, the list is not compiled by Strauss and Howe, it was compiled here at Wikipedia. Many of the "generations" listed come from Strauss and Howe's work, but a number of others do not as I stated in my original deletion comment. Were this simply a template for S/H's work I would not put it up for TfD, but it is much more than that, which is where the OR problem comes in.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 17:51, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops - I missed that in the initial note. I'll re-edit my comment above to be more specific. Thanks. --Parzival418 _Hello 21:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. It is rather contrived and appears largely to be original research. Doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. Yaf 01:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep if reformatted This template needs to be reformatted. As a table, it has several problems:

- Its style uses "float". Quoting from Help:Table

Do not, under any circumstances, use "float" to position a table. It will break page rendering at large font sizes.

- Having it at the beginning of each page is, frankly, obnoxious and crowds out the lede and much of the text.

- Having it as a table makes it appear "authoritative".

I am recommending it be reformatted as a standard navigation box that appears at the bottom of the page, just like all other nav boxes. Here is what it would look like: Generations formatted as a nav box. This solves all three disadvantages. A nav box is less "authoritative" -- more a guide to generations which is a valuable tool and, therefore, I would vote for retention. I would even edit each page that links to this template and push it to the bottom where it belongs.  ∴ Therefore  talk   05:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

That looks a lot better format wise, but it does not address the problem raised in this TfD, i.e. that the template is OR. I agree that the template is extremely invasive and distracting as it is so putting it at the bottom of the page in your format would be an improvement, but even with that the template would still be an arbitrary assemblage of generations and eras. I would support your change if everything except generations mentioned specifically by Strauss and Howe were removed and the template was renamed to reflect the fact that it is a S & H nav template. As I said above the full list of Strauss and Howe generations can be found here--we should weed this down to the generations listed there, though I really think it would be easier to delete this and create a whole new template. What you have at your sandbox would be a good model for that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:44, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Then are you arguing for the deletion of all pages that are not mentioned by Strauss and Howe? A table gives the reader permission to infer that this is an authoritative list – a serious defect. A nav box, on the other hand, is telling the reader: this is the set of Wikipedia pages that address U.S. generations. Two completely different connotations. Will you be putting up the (say) "Generation X" or "Echo Boom Generation" pages for afd? If not, then excluding them from the nav box does a disservice to the reader. I've changed my nav box title to: "List of Wikipedia Articles Concerning U.S. Generations" which is a both accurate and non-authoritative.  ∴ Therefore  talk   12:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've reviewed the new design and it certainly is an improvement. As a nav box, it does not imply as much factual status as it does when it's a table, plus it's not as prominent. Rather than looking like part of an article, it looks like a navigation aid which I think has less chance of being interpreted as WP:OR.

However, the OR is still a problem, because clicking on many of the articles, I see that they mostly use only Strauss and Howe as a reference, or some have no references at all. A few articles do list some books, but there are no footnotes or page citations I could find in a quick sweep. And the Strauss and Howe article itself has no references other than to their own book, so while they may be WP:V, that is not made clear by the article about them, which does not show any third-party references at this time.

So, as a table template, I stick with my "delete" comment. As a nav box, I would change to a Keep, if {{unreferenced}} or something similar is added to each of the linked articles with the idea that the articles should be improved so the nav box is not leading people to articles that have no verifiable information or references. Those articles should be improved with sources anyway, if that is possible. If there are no references that can be found and it turns out they are "fringe theories" per User:DGG below, maybe the articles should be deleted. I'll modify my comment above to refer to this thread. --Parzival418 _Hello 19:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Delete This template refers to a fringe theory, and should not be modified, but rather discarded. The individual periods that do have standard names--Generation X, Generation Y, Great Awakening, are valid titles and articles, but they are not continuous, and so a nav box is not appropriate. There should be no template for this theory at all. I am not sure that even the individual articles on the generations are sustainable. DGG (talk) 19:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Delete. I don't know if this actually constitutes OR or not, but its mere inclusion strikes me as violating POV, as it legitimizes a social construct for which there is clearly no consensus. It might be passable with a different label that made totally clear that it is reflective of one school of thought only. Unschool 22:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if discrete, contiguous periods are a necessity for a nav box. If individual pages are not sustainable, then either keep them out of the nav box or afd them or both. The nav box is only a road map to existing pages that share a common theme not a emblem of FA-rated articles nor a grand design. ∴ Therefore | talk 19:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Whether various individual pages are sustainable or not (as DGG brings up and Therefore comments on as well) is really beside the point, though I agree with DGG that a lot of the pages are bad (I'm not planning on putting any up for AfD though, my interest is solely in getting rid of this thing). If they are sustainable it does not make this template any better, and if they are not it is still a bad template. The statement by Therefore that "the nav box is only a road map to existing pages that share a common theme" gets us back to the heart of the problem. This statement is quite wrong in my view because in fact these pages do not share a common theme except in the eyes of the folks who created it, and they were very much mistaken in that regard. The First Great Awakening was not a "generation," the Jazz Age was not a "generation," the Culture Wars (they're still going on, and arguably have been since the 1960s) were not a "generation," and, for the love of God, the Renaissance was not a "generation" (it also did not even occur in the United States, but given the unbelievable sloppiness of this "US Generations" template it's hardly surprising that the first link is to a three centuries long movement that took place in Europe--while were at it let's add the "Roman Republic Generation," eh?). As a test, and you could do this for a lot of these articles, I invite anyone to write an e-mail to any historian who has ever written on the Great Awakening and ask if they think that it constitutes a "generation" and/or if it was roughly contiguous with the "Liberty Generation" (which is apparently what we think, according to this template). I can assure you they would find that idea ridiculous, and thus this template makes our article on the various Great Awakenings look ridiculous (though it's been removed from a couple of them).

The Jazz Age and the Culture Wars and the various Awakenings and the Renaissance have no meaningful relationship to "US generations" (a dubious idea to begin with--but I'm leaving that to the side) nor any meaningful relationship with one another. So why are these articles on these eras in the "US Generations" template? And why don't we have the Industrial Revolution or the Antebellum Era here if we have the Jazz Age and the Culture Wars? No one has explained how this came to be, but the answer is obviously that some topics are in this template because someone felt like putting them there, without basing it upon any source, while others were left out because no one felt like putting them there. If I created a template called "Friendly animals" and included dogs and cats but left out dolphins and horses I'm sure people would rightfully find that to be completely unacceptable and bizarre, and I think something fairly similar is going on here even if it does not seem that way at first glance. I've typed this 12 times already but I'll do it again--including these topics/eras on a "generations" template violates WP:OR. I'm still waiting for someone, anyone, to answer the basic point that this is OR. If no one does, then this thing needs to get deleted. We can use Therefore's much more aesthetically pleasing nav template solely for the various Strauss and Howe related articles. If people think that this template is so incredibly important that doing serious violence to history (i.e. suggesting that various "eras" are somehow tied to extremely arbitrary generational cycles, which is what we are doing even if we turn this into a nav template but keep the content the same) and violating our policies on original research is unimportant then by all means we should support this thing. Obviously I disagree.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, I had no opinion on the content of the template. I happened to come across a page and wondered if something could be done to tame this ugly beast. But, since I'm here, I agree with much of what Bigtimepeace said. But I think we need to separate the advantages of a nav box template and the content of same. Clearly it is US-centric to have a "Generations" template. That template should be deprecated for another "U.S. Generations". And most of Bigtimepeace's suggestions should be implemented -- many of the "generations" should be deleted. But I don't think the result should only be Strauss and Howe. For one, as Bittimepeace has pointed out previously, they are not widely accepted. But I think their "ages" should be included. Plus I would include other common non-S&H "generations" such as, for one example, "Generation X". The result would be S&H plus a smattering of other generally-accepted (i.e., by Wikipedia consensus processes) ages. The issue of deprecating the table is, imo, a given. The issue of creating a nav box is the only thing to be discussed here. Content, then, should be discussed on the nav box's talk page. For those of us (now me too) who care about the quality of the content, we can facilitate consensus and monitor the template. ∴ Therefore | talk 01:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I could imagine being okay with a template with the S & H stuff plus a couple of other things like Gen X, but personally I still think it would be better to just keep this Strauss and Howe related (calling it "Articles Related to Strauss and Howe's Anglo-American Generational History," or something less unwieldy, which would clearly make the point that it's just about their theories and not about "US generations" per say). The title change Therefore has at his sandbox would have to be implemented ("List of Wikipedia Articles Concerning U.S. Generations") if we were going to make it about a few other things beyond Strauss and Howe. I would still be concerned about which additional articles we would include and which ones we would not, and what criteria we would use for inclusion beyond simply trying to come to consensus. For example I think it would be ridiculous to include the Beat Generation (who were really only a few dozen people at most) but someone else might well disagree and I don't see how such a debate would be worth our time given that this is a very trivial template. If we just kept it Strauss and Howe, it would be rather uncontroversial and similar to hundreds of other templates on a specific topic (like Template:Madonna, which lists Madonna-related articles). It would also cover most of the articles. If this is a broader "Articles Concerning U.S. Generations" template I think we would see some of the same problems cropping up, and I just don't see that we would gain much from tacking on a couple of "generations" not mentioned by Strauss and Howe but apparently by some other people. If there's a consensus to do that though (with the caveat that some of this stuff simply has to go) I could live with it.

I really just think it's more simple to delete it and start from scratch, working from Therefore's proposed template at his sandbox. If he wants to try slimming that down for starters that would be great. I would suggest that the following obviously need to be deleted so maybe Therefore can do that on his sandbox if he agrees: Renaissance, Puritan Awakening, First, Second, and Third Great Awakenings, Jazz Age, Beat Generation, Consciousness Revolution, and Culture Wars (the last two are Strauss and Howe related, but they are eras, not generations, and the latter article is of course not solely about Strauss and Howe). There are probably others that should be removed as well--whether or not this becomes solely a Strauss and Howe template--but these are the most egregious.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 02:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I have a very similar idea, to meet the real needs of linking together these specialized articles--which do need a navigation mechanism between them--and still no imply that this is the generally accepted theory for standard historical periods. Use the revised template as it is, but use it only on the indicated pages with are the ones specific to the theory. Then anyone reading the general article, or reading the specific articles for the theory's postulated generations will see the whole array, but those coming to the Jazz Age article, for example, will not see the template at all. There will still be links visible in the what links here box, and that is perfectly acceptable. Anything reasonably associated can have such a link. What I want to avoid is that someone will go to the Jazz Age article and think that the standard way of looking at it is the S&H generations before and after. But alternatively, just keep the ones for S&H only and use it for S&H only--that isnt as good, but it may be less difficult to implement.

As for which generations, I think its generally recognized that they did not invent or even popularize generation X--the article on generation X is quite clear on that one. I think that is also true for Y. Generation z now redirects to the New silent Generation, which is wrong -- the generation z term is much more used that the admittedly tentative New Silent Generation name. DGG (talk) 04:20, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment -- new idea I am optimistic about consensus, one of the core elements of Wikipedia. What we are doing here is getting closer to agreement. I personally doubt that this tfd will succeed but the table has got to be deprecated.

I have come up with another solution that either will make everyone happy or everyone upset. Either way, that possibly may indicate a good compromise. I have made a new nav box titled List of Wikipedia Articles Concerning U.S. Periods. Take a look at it.

I ended up being more inclusive than originally planned. I deleted several items: Renaissance, for obvious reasons; the S&H Cavalier Generation because it lacks a page and, hence, has no business in a nav box; Beat Generation because it is a description of an artistic movement and not a period, per se; Culture Wars because that is a description of a sociological/political phenomenon. I believe, going by the article, that the popular "Jazz Age" describes a period and not just an musical innovation. Exclude Interbellum for several reasons: The page is an unsourced stub. Searching the net I found lots of references to it -- 99% pointing to Wikipedia and copies thereof. This is an obvious true-blue OR.

Even though these pages are not exactly A or even B grade articles I doubt any of them will be deleted. And some have references of varying strengths. Others I did some cursory net searches and do find many RS references to, say, Generation Jones and Boomerang Generation. Who knew? However, segregating out the "popular" designations makes it clear that this is a loose set of periods. The format is meant to give that sense also: The S&H section is formatted in columns to make the continuity clearer but the other two are formatted loosely to reflect the imprecision of the categories. I did leave out the footnote re: disputed dates. That is information best left for the article itself and means nothing in a nav box.

I don't see the advantage of creating three separate templates, one for each group. I believe those who read an S&H page would find it handy to see both the religious and popular designations also. I believe this new nav template provides the reader with an interesting navigational tool -- which is all that it is designed to do. ∴ Therefore | talk 06:16, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support - re this new U.S. Periods nav footer. This solves the WP:OR problem because it's just a set of links to related articles, sort of like the music genre nav footers, but it's not claiming to be an information element in the articles like the Generations template does. Each article has to stand on its own or be AfD'd. Many of those articles need work, but as long as the articles exist, I see no problem with having a convenient way to access them.

This would not be able to be done with a subst and redirect though, because it goes in a different place on the pages; I think it would have to be done manually. Therefore, I maintain my "Delete" comment re the "Generations" template, and support adding this new one as a separate template. There are not so many articles involved that the manual change would be a problem. --Parzival418 _Hello 06:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

To Therefore, I really appreciate the work you are putting into this and the effort to find consensus, but I'm afraid I just can't get down with your new proposal for multiple reasons. Even if you only intend it to be a navigational tool, it can be interpreted as much more than that, and again, as before, what is included and what is left out is arbitrary. Here are the main problems as I see it:

1) It gives far, far too much priority to Strauss and Howe, who to my mind are not experts on what makes a "period" of US history.

2) The idea that there are "periods" of American history is not necessarily one that we should give credence to with a template like this--it will be too easy for non-expert readers to view these periods as having real meaning, when that is very debatable (historians like to problematize periods, not take them for granted).

3) Aside from the problem in point number one, I see no reason to include "religious periods" and "popular designations" (the latter is particularly problematic--is the Progressive Era (not included here) a popular designation or an academic one? I honestly could not tell you, but probably it's both). What about economic periods, diplomatic periods, political periods, cultural periods, gender periods, etc. as identified by historians? Should we create a section called "Gender periods" and list out Cult of Domesticity, First-wave feminism, History of women's suffrage in the United States, Second-wave feminism, Gay Liberation, and Third-wave feminism? Do you see what I'm getting at here? This could get extremely, extremely messy, and the only reason you have set this up this way you did is because you were pulling stuff from the generations template. There's no reason to discuss religious periods (and do so, again, in a very arbitrary manner) and not various other periods as well, but then we would be periodizing all of US history in a completely haphazard manner, and violating WP:OR yet again.

4) "Generations" and "periods" (both dubious as historical categories) are simply not the same thing, even if we choose to take them seriously. One "generation" might straddle two historical "periods," so it makes no sense to place (two guys' version of) "generations" under a template about "periods."

So I just don't think this is at all a basis upon which to proceed--I think it's just as problematic as what we have now. I really would like to decide whether we are deleting this template or not before we get too caught up in the details of what we do next, because deleting does not mean we cannot recreate something different. I don't think this new proposal will cut it at all, but as I said before I do think what you have at your other sandbox is a good starting point, either for a S & H-only nav template or for S & H plus a few other widely discussed generations. I think it is imperative that any template we make be about a limited number of "generations" and not about historical periods.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:45, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Without belaboring the point, taking one example, First-wave feminism is a sociological category (hence the side nav box for feminism) and not a period -- similar to, say, Culture Wars.

At this point, I will simply look for consensus among all editors. I don't think that I'm going to convince of you any alternative except complete deletion. There exists a set of pages that are S&H on Wikipedia. There exists another set on Wikipedia involving religious periods. There exists another set that are common, popular designation of generations. And this box is your guide. There is no more going on. Nothing "grand" is implied and I think you are inferring too much from a basic navigational box. I stand by the current, grouped version. ∴ Therefore | talk 08:03, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but let me point out that, with respect to the example you chose, the first sentence of the article here says "First-wave feminism refers to a period of feminist activity during the nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the United Kingdom and the United States"--i.e. it does (or can) refer to a historical time frame (the same is true of all of the other "gender" eras I suggested). "Culture wars" can also be a sociological category (e.g. the Scopes trial could be viewed as a battle in the "culture wars"). Why you have grouped S & H's theories, a few religious periods, and a few "popular" eras and generations together eludes me, and you have not explained it (again--you are just taking these from the original template, which we have already agreed was very flawed). I could point out that Wikipedia has articles on Cuban dictators, Guatemalan dictators, and Nicaraguan dictators and then create a template called "List of Wikipedia articles about Latin American dictators" that named a few Cuban, Guatemalan, and Nicaraguan strongman while excluding others and not mentioning dictators from any other countries. But this would obviously be an odd, arbitrary template and I think the analogy to your new version is very apt. I don't think it is very useful as a nav box, and I think readers might infer something much more from it than they ought (a non-Wiki expert might well look at this as a meaningful list of "US periods" since they probably do not know what a nav box is).

As I said already I do appreciate your efforts, and I have expressed willingness multiple times to create a Strauss & Howe or Strauss & Howe + other stuff template, so obviously it's not true that I cannot be convinced of anything other than deletion. I just think your most recent attempt was a step backward, and I think I provided some good reasons for that which you did not really address. But perhaps we can save this discussion for later as Pzarzival suggested below.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we separate the discussions. Since the new nav box is not the same template and does not organize the information in the same way, it seems to me we can let this TfD proceed to deletion, if that's the consensus. Then after it's deleted, User:Therefore can implement his nav box, with a new template name and a new template talk page where we can discuss the content of the navbox. At that point, if Bigtimepeace or others do not consense with the new nav box, they can either make changes, or list that new nav box for TfD and a new, separate debate.

I don't mean this as any kind of end-run around the deletion process. I make this suggestion because I see these two methods as two separate things. The current {{Generations}} template has problems with WP:OR and lack of WP:V, so it should be deleted. After that, the nav box will be a new separate item and can be addressed separately. --Parzival418 _Hello 08:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm fine with proceeding in this fashion.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

First, I apologize for being impatient. Although I would quibble with Bigtime's characterization of a step backwards (how about, overly ambitious?), there are obvious difficulties with attempting to generalize to "periods". I agree we should re-focus on generations -- defined more precisely as generational cohorts of which S&H is only one take (Schuman and Scott and US Census Bureau, two others). Hence, the "Jazz Age", more properly an era, shouldn't be included. Nor should the religious periods be included (there already is a template for these: {{Great awakenings}}. Plus there is a {{American political eras}}. I'm going to do further research and attempt to come up with a more coherent survey that will not only impact the pages this table addresses but the more general (and, unfortunately US-centric and totally unsourced) List of generations. ∴ Therefore | talk 19:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. — Malcolm (talk) 01:52, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Template:AIV not RFI (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:RFI dispute (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Artifacts of shut-down system, WP:RFI; no longer needed. Gracenotes^T § 03:47, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete per Gracenote's reasoning. This template was meant to be used for a Wikipedia page that is now inactive. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:34, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete per the above. Also, please note the template links to this page, a historical page: Wikipedia:Requests for investigation (no problem), but that the related help page still seems to be active - does not have the "historical box": Wikipedia:Requests for investigation/Help --Parzival418 _Hello 06:57, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Wow, is this archaic or what?... Shalom ^Hello 02:59, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
• Delete I just couldn't let the opportunity pass of being part of wikipedia history :P--Cerejota 00:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.