Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 27

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 deletion of all. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 03:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Welsh Cities‎ (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:English Cities‎‎ (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:Scottish Cities‎‎ (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:Northern Ireland cities‎‎ (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

These four templates were all used internally with Template:UK cities as a "template group" (see this edit, for example), with somewhat hideous results, mostly because the collapsed navbox still displayed as five lines. Also, the Northern Ireland template was constantly subject to edit warring because of the flag usage in the four template headers. A couple of weeks ago I rewrote {{UK cities}} to be a single collapsible navbox, using map icons instead of flag icons. There seems to be consensus for this version, as no subsequent edits have taken place. Therefore, these four templates are no longer in use and ought to be deleted to avoid any future usage. — Andrwsc (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete- agree with this, no need for subnational templates when a good UK wide one is in place. City status is granted at a UK wide level anyway by Her Majesty. Astrotrain (talk) 22:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete the proposed replacement is a big improvement on these individual templates.--Padraig (talk) 23:35, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Great job. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. —MJCdetroit (talk) 14:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom - replace w/ new version. SkierRMH (talk) 22:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom - and well done. bd2412 T 01:14, 5 December 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 deletion, merge, clean up per nom. RyanGerbil10(Говорить!) 03:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC) merge (no actual merge editing required):

Template:CompactTOC2 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:CompactTOC3 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (just a redirect)

Template:CompactTOC4 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:CompactTOC5 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Template:CompactTOC6 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (just a redirect)

Template:CompactTOC7 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

into:

Template:CompactTOC8 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

then rename that to:

Template:CompactTOC2 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

and finish with some cleanup.

All nominated templates have been superseded by, and all features combined into, the merge target. They should all temporarily redirect to merge target (where they do not already); then merge target should be renamed to fill the "slot" left by {{CompactTOC2}}; the {{CompactTOC7}}, etc., redirs updated; post-merge/rename cleanup performed; then those redirects deleted, leaving nothing but {{CompactTOC}} and {{CompactTOC2}} in this class of templates. Merge will require replacing extant instances of the nominated templates after the merge/rename, via bot or AWB script, in the following ways to duplicate the appearance/features of the replaced templates exactly as they were (with one policy-necessary exception as noted below). Note: Use of the merge-target template is actually quite simple for 99% of uses; the examples below are in a few cases complicated because they are trying to exactly duplicate the originals, out of respect for the editorial intent of those who deployed them in articles. Further note: In many cases editors of affected articles may eventually want to add additional presently-{{CompactTOC8}} features, such as sym=yes, z=Z, etc., that were simply not available to the original.

• {{CompactTOC2}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2|side=yes|top=yes|num=yes}}
• {{CompactTOC3}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2}}
• {{CompactTOC4}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2|num=yes}}
• {{CompactTOC5}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2|top=yes|seealso=yes|refs=yes|extlinks=yes}} in articles

Note: In this case, refs=yes has been added, because all WP articles must be sourced, so this section should be present and should be in the ToC since it otherwise lists the page-end sections; CompactTOC5 was simply faulty in this regard.

• {{CompactTOC5}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2|top=yes|seealso=yes|extlinks=yes}} in non-articles
• {{CompactTOC6}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2}}
• {{CompactTOC7}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2|side=yes|seealso=yes|refs=yes|extlinks=yes}}
• {{CompactTOC8}} deployments become {{CompactTOC2}} and no changes to their specified parameters

This is phase 2 of a 3-part process of absorbing all of these templates into a unified single CompactTOC template. Phase one was the absorption of CompactTOC3 and CompactTOC6. The final phase will be adding the option to remove the box around the entire thing, per {{CompactTOC}}. Not sure when I'll get around to that; will be a separate TfD. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Update: Strong precdent eliminated 17 of 18 redundant templates of this sort. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:08, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• OPPOSE -- If they aren't broke, don't fix them. Seems to me someoone is confusing activity with progress. If someone wants to Fuck with your memory and change syntax and a simple to apply syntax, are YOU going to be happy with it? Would you be if it cost you time and effort, perhaps when you were already overlate elsewhere???
  
  Moreover, you lose historical contexts with such changes. The few K-bytes a template takes in the database can save loads of people time--which is the underlying reason they exist at all. Your proposal defeats that, as the complex replacement pipetrick heavy step by step process proves. Having said THAT, any you can rewrite to call CompactTOC8 as a subtemplate by automatically passing or defining the correct parameters would be fine, and not need the sanction of this venue. BUT! That way also be Dragons... what if your consolidation pushes a page over the template pre-expansion limit? Now you're wasting others time, who may not recognize the problem for what it is, which will waste others time... and on and on.
  
  In short, staying with the status quo ante and changing nothing about a long established tool in widespread use is almost always the best course. The deletionists around here create more problems than they solve while breaking their arms patting their own backs. Piffle! Fools and worse, for they confuse activity with progress. // FrankB 14:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Civil reply: Foul language is uncalled for (as is the hyperbole, and I'm even a fan of rather emotive writing). The templates to be replaced have no syntax at all, so I don't see what you mean by "change syntax". There is nothing un-simple about the merged template, unless you want to do something very, very particular, in which case it is possible for you to do so, which was not the case with the other templates. Simply adding {{CompactTOC8}} (or {{CompactTOC2}} after the rename) to the page at the desired location is perfectly adequate for most uses, and right up at the top of the documentation is a copy-pastable basic version that also has numbers as well as letters. In the vast majority of cases either that 1-parameter version or no parameters at all are all that is needed. In the nomination, I have provided some fairly complicated replacement code to swap out for already-deployed instances of the old templates. This is simply so that these extant usages of the template are not altered in any way (i.e. it is mostly a courtesy on my part). It does not imply that such contortions are required any time anyone wants to use this template. I hope this helps resolve the issues you are having with this TfD. Server load is not an issue; the developers have said this very clearly more than once (in fact I'm very surprised that this isn't covered at WP:AADD). If you are under the impression that because the template code is longer this means your browser will have to download a bunch of template code and parse it, you are mistaken - templates are server-side parsed, and the servers are so fast that there is no perceptable time difference at all between loading this template and any of its predecessors. This has nothing to do with deletionism; it is a mergist TfD (by definition centrist between inclusionism and deletionism). Contrary to what you say about the status quo, it is perfectly normal and routine to merge redundant templates in Wikipedia.
  
  It is unnecessary to leave a 3x longer version of your arguments on the talk pages of XfD nominators with whom you disagree. Just state your objections at the XfD. PS: If you are overlate for something, how do you have time to write multiple long rants heated arguments like this?
  
  If you are a huge fan of the exact formatting of, say, {{CompactTOC7}} it will be a trivial matter after the merge (at which point there will only be {{CompactTOC}} and {{CompactTOC2}}) to create new templates that simply call the new CompactTOC2 with the favored parameters. The point of this merge is not to force everyone to manually use template parameters, but rather to merge all of the redundant code into a single codebase for generating such tables of contents. Nothing more, nothing less. Clearer, I hope?
  
  PS: "Template expansion limits?" Please. There are templates at least an order of magnitude more complex than this. {{WPBiography}}, one of the heaviest-used templates on the whole system, makes this template look like a child wrote it. I think you grossly underestimate the capability of the WikiMedia Foundation's servers.— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:38, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. Er, template space is not paper. These templates have simpler syntax than TOC8, and so "upgrading" would be adding features at the expense of ease of use <insert Microsoft reference here>. Also, there is no reason to redirect these templates to an instance of TOC8. Because: why? Why opt for more code rather than less? It don't make no sense. --Eliyak T·C 17:47, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, TOC8's implementation of TOC7, which I fully admit to having created, is not the same, and lacks some stylistic elements. --Eliyak T·C 17:53, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

• Reply: Intentional. Various of the CompactTOCs have minor differences with regard to things like bullets and other such twiddles; a clean layout was used, since it isn't feasible to account for the tiny, content/functionality-unrelated differences between all of them. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. Agree with above remarks. No appreciable benefit to justify the work of doing it or the risk of inadvertantly breaking something that already works well. IF SMcCandlish wants to write a new template offline that is the equivalent of the merger of the existing templates, test it thorouthly offline, then demonstrate that it works and does not break anything, I would reconsider. But I doubt that is worth SMcCandlish's time for reasons stated above. Finell (Talk) 18:29, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Reply How can there be "no appreciable benefit" from eliminating a pile of wildly inconsistent code? Every single one of these templates can be replaced with a copy-paste of the code examples given above. The reason I didn't do that to begin with is because we do not need a slew of CompactTOC2- through CompactTOC7-named templates, all of them created willy-nilly to achieve a very slightly different effect. And just from an organizational perspective it would not make much sense to have a buch of templates 2-7 calling the code of template 8 in the series. We only need one template of this sort, and maybe, conceivably, some additional ones that call that code with particular parameters, the way that now most of the inline templates like {{Fact}} and {{Clarifyme}} all call on the same metatemplate code. To the extent that any of the current deployment actually need to be formatted exactly as they are, the bot/AWB replacement code I've proved takes care of them handily. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

• Strong support logical followup to my previous cleanup of this overload of template variations. Circeus 19:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support —Ruud 02:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support If the man is willing to do it - and well, I am confident - let him do it. Conciseness and unified formatting between pages are nice, and are really the point of using a template in the first place. Λυδαcιτγ 04:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support provides the features needed in a simple package. Rich Farmbrough, 10:09 3 December 2007 (GMT).
• Support, and support standardizing in general; it makes the project more professional and encyclopedic. If an editor (or editors) is willing to do the work to fix/change something, let them do it. We don't need slightly different versions of an article (or template) and we don't need people having their own individual designs. And from what I've seen, User:SMcCandlish deserves some credit for the wiki work he does. Jason McHuff 13:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support and good luck :) There are so many links in this templates... I hope nothing goes wrong. -- Magioladitis 17:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: I added the yellow highlighting to Magioladitis's entry above. This is support? Finell (Talk) 03:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment Well... it is. I think this is something has HAS to be done. On the other hand, I understand your fears and I have some as well but the method used to be done seems convincing. -- Magioladitis (talk) 01:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
• Support per User:Rich Farmbrough -- Benjy Mouse 21:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support. Avoids functional redundancy. bd2412 T 01:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
• Strong support(!) - and thanks for taking this on. Let me know when replacement needs to happen & I'll see about running AWB. – Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 00:25, 6 December 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 per consensus and author. --Maxim_(talk) 00:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC) Template superceeded by, and combined into Template:OHA-C, rendering this template redundant. — Flibirigit (talk) 07:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• Speedy Delete as per nom. DMighton (talk) 01:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Speedy delete under what speedy deletion criterion? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: as I am the creator of the template and the creator of the template that made this one redundant... no need to drag this out. DMighton 00:45, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: if you want actual criteria... housecleaning. DMighton 00:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

• Delete as redundant. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as redundant and since creator also agrees with deletion. --Pparazorback 17:38, 2 December 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. Andrwsc (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Southcentral Alaska CVBS and COCS (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Orphan template created in 2004, containing a sea of redlinks for articles that would be unlikely to meet requirements for inclusion if they were ever made. — bd2412 T 03:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Unlikely to be useful, and abandoned. Maralia (talk) 22:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as usless. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as unused & un-useful. SkierRMH (talk) 22:34, 1 December 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. Andrwsc (talk) 01:25, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Template:Sri Lankan first-class cricket clubs in 2005-06 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Orphan template containing nothing but redlinks since 2005 (it was reported at Wikipedia:Templates with red links/2005-09-09.11-20, which was generated in September 2005). — bd2412 T 03:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• Delete Abandoned, and the only article it links to hasn't been written (it's a redirect). Maralia (talk) 22:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as useless. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:41, 29 November 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.