Wikipedia:WikiProject Inline Templates

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Welcome to WikiProject Inline Templates. Some Wikipedians have formed this collaboration resource and group dedicated to improving Wikipedia's inline neutrality- & attribution-cleanup, dispute, and footnote templates. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions and various resources; it is hoped that this project will help to focus the efforts of other Wikipedians interested in the topic. If you would like to help, please join the project, inquire on the talk page and see the to-do list below.

Contents

[edit] Purpose

[edit] Description

A project to centralize the creation and management of inline superscript templates such as {{Fact}}.

[edit] Goals

  • Protect templates from well-meaning reformatting attempts that are known to cause problems in various browsers
  • Develop a "meta-template" from which all of these templates are derived, so that layout problems with them can be fixed in one place
  • Ensure consistency between all of these templates, as to their formatting, naming, content and mouseover (tooltip) messages
  • Provide a talk forum for discussion of problems with the templates, or other needs with regard to them
  • Provide a proposals area for the organized creation of new templates of this sort instead of today's random creation of often redundant inline templates
  • Possibly provide a ITfD mechanism, the way WikiProject Stub sorting has provided the SfD mechanism
  • Actually identify and categorize all of the templates of this sort
  • Ensure that the Template messages documentation is updated with regard to these templates
  • Write a guide to their usage (possibly stand-alone, or possibly as part of the MoS
  • Improve each template's documentation

[edit] Scope

  • Inline superscripted cleanup and dispute templates such as {{Fact}} and {{Clarifyme}}
  • Reference citation inline templates such as the {{Ref}} and {{Note}} family of templates
  • Recommendations on improvements to Cite.php-style reference citation mechanism (<ref ...>...</ref>, <ref ... />, and <references />)
  • Possible scope expansion into other inline templates such as the {{tl}} family of templates

See Template talk:Fact for some reasons why this project is needed.

[edit] Guidelines

  • Discuss ideas for new inline templates here before creating them, to avoid template overlap and Templates for deletion debates later.
  • Discuss changes to inline templates here before making them, to prevent inconsistency, browser incompatibility, and usability/accessibility problems.
  • Inline templates, where possible, should be built on the {{fix}} metatemplate, not coded from scratch, for maintainability.

[edit] Open tasks

To-do list for Wikipedia:WikiProject Inline Templates: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Resolve the issues flagged with problematic templates
  • Identify all relevant inline templates (mostly done)
  • Tag all relevant templates' talk pages with the project banner (mostly done)
  • Arrive at consensus on minimum and maximum length of reader-visible inline template messages (excess verbiage can go in popup tooltips)
  • Determine which templates are redundant, and merge them
  • Determine which policy/guideline areas do not have one or more useful inline templates and create them
  • Finish converting existing templates to stock inline template code (see {{fix}})
  • Keep Wikipedia:Template messages updated with changes to inline templates (including listing new one, handling renames & merges, etc.)

[edit] Inline templates

If you discover a "new" inline template, no matter how old it is, please add it to the "New inline templates" section below, so that it can be processed (checked for proper categorization, etc.)

‡ = Only part of it is superscripted.
‡‡ = Has a non-superscripted mode as well.
‡‡‡ = Only part of it is inline.
Superscripted

Meta-templates:

  • {{fix}}‡ — used to create other such templates, consistently
  • {{inline warning}} — used manually to provide a custom cleanup note

Deprecated:

Noteworthy for features:

  • {{vague}} — has feature where optional parameter becomes the mouseover/tooltip message

Needed:

  • {{daymonth}} (for missing day, e.g. November 2006 when not appropriate), to go along with {{fulldate}} and {{year}} ({{date}} and {{day}} already used for something else)
  • {{seasonneeded}} to go along with {{episode}} ({{season}} already used for something else)
  • {{volumeneeded}} to go along with {{issue}} ({{volume}} already used for something else)
Related software functions that aren't templates
  • <ref ...>...</ref>
  • <ref ... />
  • <references />
Non-superscripted
Similar but out-of-scope (for now?)

A number of templates are, technically, used inline, but for purposes very different from those that concern this project (at present).

  • {{tl}}, {{tlx}}, {{cl}}, {{ul}}, etc.
  • {{sort}}, {{sortkey}}, {{nts}}, {{TBA}}, etc.
  • {{day}}, {{cuegloss}}, DAB and other hatnote templates, seealso/further/main/catmore/etc., and others that are technically "inline" but don't have anything to do with maintenance or sources, and are not superscripted.
  • {{inote}}
  • {{sectstub}}‡ (recently converted to inline style, but not actually used inline)
  • {{Hcard-bday}}, {{Hcard-geo}}, {{Hcard-geo-title}}‡‡‡ (a.k.a. {{Coord named}}) - are technically inline or part-inline, but do not serve a functions similar to the templates this project is concerned about.
  • {{Cite}} family of ref. citation formatting templates

[edit] Problematic ones

  • {{old fact}} redundant with {{update after}}; Merge discussion opened
  • {{cref}}, {{hcref}}, {{cnote}}‡ — ugly/weird format looks like nothing else on WP; mouseover function of {{hcref}} appears to be broken, at least in Safari
  • {{request quote}} — unbelievably longwinded (the "don't linebreak these templates" maxim falls apart here); the bulk of it needs to go into a tooltip)
  • {{cleanup-link}} — unbelievably longwinded; the bulk of it needs to go into a tooltip)
  • {{rf}}, {{ent}}‡ — do not match the formatting of other footnotes (no brackets); both totally undocumented
  • {{issue}} — scope too narrow; should apply to any periodical
  • {{comic book reference}} — may have a stray period-space in it near end (flagged with HTML comment; needs testing)
  • {{who}}, {{who?}}, {{WW}}, {{weasel-inline}}, {{weasel-name}}, {{views needing attribution}}, and userspaced variant {{User:Xiaphias/who}} may need to be merged; discussion here
  • <references /> — indents for no reason, and worse yet indents to a depth that does not align with :* indentation for {{note label}} references. There are a pair of templates, {{refbegin}} and {{refend}}, related to {{reflist}}, which solve this misalignment problem, to an extent (see "Option 3..." at Template:Refbegin documentation for usage), to an extent, in that they match the <references /> indentation. They are untested with {{note label}}, but work fine with "* Reference details here"-style manually-added general sources in the References section. Recommendation: Have developers modify <references /> to not indent, or at worst to match ":"-level indentation, and modify {{refbegin}} and {{refend}} to conform.
  • {{rs}} needs to be merged with {{verify credibility}}; both merge-tagged, and discussion here.
  • The confusingly named {{disputable}} needs to merge into {{dubious}}; both are merge tagged, with discussion here.

[edit] New inline templates

Please feel free to list new inline templates here (newest at the top, please). It is advisable to propose new inline templates at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates before creating them, so as to ensure that there is consensus that they are needed and will not unneccessarily overlap in function with others.

Created
Discovered
Note: Some of these likely should be deleted

[edit] Internal templates for this WikiProject

[edit] Talk page banner

  • {{WPILT banner}} - "This template is within the scope of WikiProject Inline Templates …"

[edit] Userbox

[edit] Categories

Internal

[edit] Participants

Please feel free to add yourself here, and to indicate any areas of particular interest.

  1. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:05, 14 April 2007 (UTC) (Consistency, browser compatibility, correct WP categorization, proper documentation)
  2. -- snowolfD4( talk / @ ) 07:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC) (making sure they're aesthetically pleasing, clearly identify their purpose)
  3. -- Pomte (talk · contribs) 05:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC) (discussion, documentation)
  4. -- Random832 02:33, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  5. -- Xiaphias 05:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC) (same as Snowolf; distracting or overly-vague tags aren't helpful)
  6. -- danielfolsom 18:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC) (Consistency, clean up)

[edit] Resources

[edit] Related projects