Template talk:Disambiguation/Archive 2

Adding Category:Disambiguation to Template:disambig

Would adding [[Category:Disambiguation]] (or perhaps [[Category:Disambiguation pages]]) to Template:disambig be a good idea? I know that disambiguation articles would not instantly show up in Category:Disambiguation, but as they are edited, they would be slowly added to it, and this would be better than adding them all by hand even more slowly (and unreliably)... It would also eventually replace the need to maintain Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages which currently takes forever and a day to even load. (Hint: if you are an admin and agree, edit the protected page for me, thanks.) --ssd 05:10, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what non-maintenance practical reason this would have? Not against the idea, though, just curious. Dysprosia 09:33, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It just seems to me like a great way to get all the disambiguation pages in one place and eliminate a maintaince headache. Not everything listed on the disambiguation page is still a disambiguation, and I'm sure there are some not listed there. The only problem I see with it is that it'll give a fairly hard test of the category system when the number of articles starts going up. It'll probably be one of the first pages to need splitting. --ssd 06:25, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Are there any cases of a page that should be linked on Wikipedia:Links to disambiguating pages, but should not have a Template:disambig notice? I dont think there would be. If not, then it seems like a great idea. Just one less page that people need to take care of manually, and more time for people to update and create actual content! Chuq 10:14, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

They could be placed into the category manually (i.,e., have the category put on the page directly, and leave off the template) if that's really a problem. If they shouldn't be in the category either, they could just be linked from the category description article. A better question would be if there are pages that should have the notice but not be in the category. --ssd 12:29, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sounds good. -- User:Docu

I think it would be a good idea. although I wonder if Category:Disambiguation should have subcategories for each letter as eventually the main category could have thousands of entries. RedWolf 18:38, Jun 20, 2004 (UTC)

I also wonder similarly. Would a change in implementaiton of the category display to break it into multiple pages be better? --ssd 04:14, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Div tag

Is there a particular use in having the Div tag? In the Cologne Blue tag the footer is now glued to the last line (e.g. on ASA).

A way to correct this is to add extra space at the beginning. This does appear in other skins, but doesn't matter that much there. I'd rather remove the div tag though. -- User:Docu

The div is there to hold the id, which allows a user style for the message, including not displaying it because there is already the category indication. Compare Template_talk:Stub#Adding_a_div_to_allow_user_css_to_override_stub_display

The effect of div seems a pecularity (or bug?) of the Cologne Blue skin. May be that can be corrected with css?--Patrick 10:38, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I found another way to fix it: I changed div to font. People have to adjust there css if they were referring to div#disambig (not if they refer to just #disambig). --Patrick 10:52, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Looks much better now. Thank you for fixing it. -- User:Docu

You're welcome. By the way, I found yet another way: one newline after the div tag. That does not seem to give extra space in other skins. I am not sure what is better, font or div.--Patrick 12:11, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Div is certainly the "right" tag to use, but it's much of a muchness, unless the Wikipedia is going in for AAA WAI compliance. — OwenBlacker 02:03, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

Unprotect

Please unprotect this template, or I'll be forced to use a new template to disambiguate. Templated should not be protected. Good changes to Template:Protected have been possible because that template is not protected. --Cantus 02:41, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks! --Cantus 00:18, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

As it's an often used template, it may not be suitable to be updated once per hour. -- User:Docu

Why did you protect this again? Unprotect please, or I'll create a new disambig template. --Cantus 23:01, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

See Template_talk:Stub#Unprotect Sep 30, 2004. -- User:Docu

As this is being changed over and over on the same day, I re-protected the template. -- User:Docu

Template-in-a-box

Personally I like the trend towards using boxes around templates. Its cleaner than just italic text, and the reader will see that its not part of the article, and also be more likely to read the template. It also gives a clean, professional feel to Wikipedia in general. Thus I support user:Cantus' edits to change this template to this version, or something similar. I also don't see a need for argument each time this happens, and hope that people can start accepting that design has a place in Wikipedia. —siro χ o 05:20, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

I second the motion. I was pleased to see the box appear this afternoon, and disappointed to see it disappear again. It visually sets the disambiguation notice off from the disambiguating text a bit, making the page a little easier to understand. Kevyn 07:17, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On the principle of boxes, I'm somewhat ambivalent — I quite like the boxes-with-pictures scattered across the French wikipedia (List of templates, Stub, Spoilers, NPOV dispute, Copyvio etc), but I also quite like that not all of our templates are quite so in-yer-face. Imho, some templates definitely need to be more noticeable (eg Template:Spoiler), but I'm not convinced that the disambig one does, unless we're gonna move to making all templates be boxed (which is surely a policy discussion that should be held elsewhere).

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that design has a place in the Wikipedia, unless a full policy discussion is held (and one to which all Wikipedians can easily contribute), I vote to leave this template unboxed. — OwenBlacker 09:10, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think there is a need for a box at all, but there certainly is not need for the spotted border on it. It looks unprofessional, and the tiny italic writing on a gray background is very unreadable. Angela . 17:17, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

No need for a box, agreed. But I think that it gives a certain separation from the text that mere italics does not. It really shows that we 'care' about our articles, and thus we box out text that is not actually part of them! I gives a professionally-designed uniformity to Wikipedia as well. Regarding the current box, I agree it needs work (God i can just see the arguments starting!) I don't see need for smaller text, and the border should be solid. Luckily i'll be gone for a few days and will be able to let you all fight this out (: —siro χ o 17:45, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

Revertion madness & Silly protection

I don't know what User:Blankfaze thinks he is doing, but his argument that because this message is usually placed at the bottom of pages it should not be inside a box, is all but ridiculous. Actually, this message should be placed at the top of the page, the same way other messages are placed at the top of the page. Also, some admin, please kindly unprotect this page. --Cantus 23:13, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

The page is protected because it is undergoing an unprofessional edit war. Whoever protected it was right in doing so. Please cease your edits until you have polled the community and recieved a consensus to implement this change. blankfaze | (беседа!) 23:17, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

"Be bold" is a wikipedia policy. No need to poll the community on every single change. That's not the way Wikipedia works. Would you mind explaining to me what a "professional edit war" would be? --Cantus 23:21, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)

This is different. A change on this page affects hundreds if not thousands of pages. Getting at least some form of rough consensus or even a bit of discussion is a good idea before embarking on a change with such ramifications. Johnleemk | Talk 11:13, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Proposal

A proposal to unify message boxes. See Template_talk:Protected for the proposal. --Cantus 02:42, Aug 18, 2004 (UTC)

invalid html

in HTML (and XHTML) a tag can only have one class= in it. MediaWiki removes all but the last one. They're supposed to be combined, class="boilerplate metadata". (I'd do it myself but it's protected) Goplat 21:02, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A couple things

I actually came here to ask the second question, but after reviewing the discussion and the edit history of the template, I have to wonder--have people been making edits to a protected page and if so, is that appropriate? The real question I have concerns how this template displays--right now the text is jammed up immediately under the last line of an article's text. I find this extremely annoying and unprofessional looking. I'd like a line of space at the top of the template. It seems that sometimes it does display this way -- and looking at the edit history, it seems some people may have been experimenting. As it is, I now manually add onto pages with the template, but that strikes me as a rather ineffective approach. Is there a reason why some additional space couldn't be added to the template? [[User:Bkonrad|User:Bkonrad/sig2]] 20:07, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree about the extra space. I fixed this, by adding at the top. Unfortunately, User:Sarge Baldy reverted by change, commenting "rv , italics separates it well enough and the extra space really bugs me" I think it looks much better with the extra space, myself. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 20:53, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, please add the extra space back in (see my comment above Template_talk:Disambig#Div_tag as well). -- User:Docu

Please don't change this page without discussing

This template is used on hundreds, maybe thousands, of Wikipedia pages. Changes you make affect all these pages, so changes should be careful and based on consensus. Please only make changes to this page after discussing here. Thanks, – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 02:17, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

That comment seems very un-wiki. While this text is used on many pages (about 10,000 if you look at the category), improvements can and should be made by anyone that's willing to contribute. What people should not do is revert reasonable edits such that another "war" goes on. That being said, I am going to remove the manual line break since the paragraph tag already includes a margin. I am going to increase the verticle spacing there to 1em, which should be sufficient. -- Netoholic @ 03:22, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

Revert wars are bound to occur when users don't bother to test the waters before making changes that impact the whole of Wikipedia. Use some common sense. Similar problems happened with changes in the spoiler template. Aris Katsaris 21:17, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The trouble is, Bkonrad could reasonably say he was boldly making an "improvement" when he took out the border. (You would, presumably, say he was "reverting a reasonable edit".) In the same way, someone could say you "reverted a reasonable edit" by taking out the . It's all subjective.

The look of this box is obviously a contentious issue. That's why I think it's important to get some consensus here as to what the template should look like. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 11:35, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

I like how the new template says it's a navigational element, that's a good idea. The margin stuff? Well, that might be a bit too much, but let's try it for a while... The previous comment may be un-whatever, but it's nevertheless common sense, messing with a template like this one requires some responsibility and it's quite necessary to remind people of that. --Joy [shallot] 11:32, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wait, what? You yourself made a change to the template without any discussion, adding a blank line at the top that personally annoys me. Personally I like the idea of a simple divider between the end of the article and the disambig message, as it's enough to separate the two things without being too much to annoy people. A spaced line between creates a block of white space I personally find really distasteful. Sarge Baldy 14:03, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I did discuss it, at Template_talk:Disambig#A_couple_things. Three of us agreed that the whitespace is a good idea. No one disagreed. I see now that you do disagree. Ok. I don't know what you mean by "a simple divider" -- do you mean a <hr>? – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 14:19, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Where did you discuss it? That seems to be dated September 29th... I reverted the space on the 23rd and modified it into a divider earlier (on the 20th) and the idea wasn't presented in the talk page in either case. And yes, a simple <hr> remains my personal preference. Sarge Baldy 14:30, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

If you were referred here by a link in an article

If you were referred here by a link in an article, you might want to go back and fix the link to point directly to the intended page.

Can we get rid of the over-pretentious language? From passive voice to needless explanation "a link in an article" -- as opposed to a link in a what?, this particular change has acadamese preference for style over substance and length over brevity written all over it.

I suggest this: If a link referred you here, you might want to go back and fix it to point directly to the intended page.

Aris Katsaris 21:17, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think I used "in an article" there, as opposed to just "link" because some visitors may be directed to that disambig page from an external link, or search engine. -- Netoholic @ 21:50, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)

Top & bottom borders

No frame, with borders, like this version

No frame, with extra space, like this version

No frame, without extra space, like this version

A line instead, (without extra space above) like this version

I made an edit which added top and bottom double-line borders to the message box, as seen in this edit. I think they look very tasteful, but Bkonrad keeps removing them. I really think some defined separation is needed, since the text does tend to run into the rest of the page. Remembering that any user can modify their own style sheets to display this message however they want, do other people think that this is a nice thing to have as a default? -- Netoholic @ 14:14, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

I personally like the double-line top-and-bottom-only border. It's tasteful. The 1em verticle space is nice too. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 14:28, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
This one has my support as well. Sarge Baldy 14:32, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
I think a top border would be good enough. The template is used at the bottom of the pages, anyway. Lupo 15:11, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Could you take a shot of the message with a single <hr> line for comparison as well? Sarge Baldy 15:33, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
- Ok. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 16:52, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
Nice screenshots. Three points -
1. Disambigs are frequently used at the top and bottom of pages, so separators on both seems preferable. The "redundant" one tends to disappear from perception.
2. I like the double line mostly because single lines (HRs) are already used as section separators. This message is a notation, not a section in and of itself.
3. I dislike that the fact that User:Docu keeps protecting this template.

-- Netoholic @ 21:32, 2004 Sep 30 (UTC)

I much dislike the border, to me it seems like no more than extra clutter. - SimonP 22:09, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
- Your opinion is noted, but please do not edit protected pages. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 22:19, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 - Why not? Many others have edited it. - SimonP 22:24, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 - <sarcasm>Why not vandalize the Feminism page by writing "Femanism suxx!!!" on the top? Other people are doing it.</sarcasm> Others edited this page while it wasn't protected. To edit a semi-protected page, like this one, you should first discuss it on talk and make sure there's a consensus to make the change. (See our policy on the matter.) It looks like, as of now, the bulk of commenters want to keep the bars. – Quadell ^{(talk) (help)}[[]] 01:35, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
I dislike the bars--I think it looks amateurish; however, it is an improvement over having no space and no bars. I prefer space with no bars, but at this point, so long as it doesn't go back to no space, I'm OK with it. [[User:Bkonrad|User:Bkonrad/sig2]] 01:47, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

i.e./that is/&mdash:

I think we need to reach a concensus on what to use in the template between "This is a disambiguation page" and "a navigational aid which...". The template is rather constantly shifting between "i.e.", "that is", and "—"; one should be probably be settled on. For what it's worth, I prefer the look of the dash - its cleanest (see the pictures above for two and the current template for the third). Whosyourjudas (talk) 04:29, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I prefer spaced ndash – because it separates the words. Don't like mdash—because proper use means the words have no spacing and run together. In either case "; that is," should go away. -- Netoholic @ 00:18, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

add links

I'd like to add a [[Special:Allpages/{{PAGENAME}}]] link to the template. This will offer assistance finding additional related pages. Here is a mockup:

This is a disambiguation page – a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title (find more). If an article link referred you here, you might want to go back and fix it to point directly to the intended page.

The results are a little different (and only slightly less useful) if the page is a Page Title (disambiguation), but I think its still beneficial. Here is one example of how it would work if someone visited Aberdeen (disambiguation) and used the link - Special:Allpages/Aberdeen (disambiguation). Fortunately, the disambig page is near the top of the alphabetical listings.

Since the template is still protected, and admin will have to add it, if people like it. Feel free to suggest alternate wording too, this is more about the added functionality. -- Netoholic @ 21:37, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)