Wikipedia:Templates for discussion

Sometimes, we want to delete things in the Template namespace. This is particularly used for article series boxes that are either not noteworthy, are redundant with categories, or which have simply been orphaned. For guidelines on what constitutes an acceptable article series box, see Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes. If you vote to keep a series box, be prepared to explain how it fulfills the criteria set up at this page,

Templates listed on this page do not need to be orphans prior to listing, and in fact should not be removed from pages prior to listing. However, templates should be removed from all pages prior to deletion. Currently, this can only be done manually.

Note that, in addition to voting "Keep" or "Delete," a valid vote on this page is "Convert to category." In this case, all pages with the template should be added to an appropriately named category, and the template should be deleted.

To list a template on this page, add it to the list below under the appropriate date. Link to it as [[Template:Insert template here]] instead of as {{Insert template here}}. When listing a template on this page, add {{tfd}} to the top of the template itself. This will add the following text to the template:

When adding this message to templates that are in the form of series boxes, the message should be placed inside the box, to make it clear what is being proposed for deletion. When being added to templates which have already been blanked, and are just sitting around as blanks, the message should be added to the template talk page. Again, do not blank templates to list them here - this is just if the template is already blank when you are listing it.

Articles that have been listed for more than one week are eligible for deletion if either a consensus to do so has been reached or no objects to its deletion have been raised. Such templates should be dealt with as soon as possible. Archived discussions are located at /Log.

Votes for deletion (VfD) subpages: copyright problems -- images -- speedy deletions -- redirects -- categories -- templates

Deletion guidelines for administrators -- deletion log

Listings

Please put new listings at the bottom of the page.

October 26

• Template:MontyPython (and redir MediaWiki:MontyPython - prime use for See also section and categories. -- Netoholic @ 20:05, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
  • Keep Template:MontyPython, its a useful navbox, there is no reason to delete navboxes. —siroχo 08:55, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete - this is nothing but a vanity box. Snowspinner 23:52, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • convert to footer. --Jiang 05:57, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC);
  • Keep useful navbox. However, delete MediaWiki:MintyPython. —AlanBarrett 06:43, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Template:Recipe moving (and redir MediaWiki:Recipe moving - obscure, unused, and redundant with Template:Move to Wikibooks. -- Netoholic @ 20:05, 2004 Oct 26 (UTC)
  • Keep. Snowspinner 23:52, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
    • That's odd, thought this one was a no-brainer. Any reason? -- Netoholic @ 05:19, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
      • Mostly because my sense is that we move a lot of recipes and it's probably useful to indicate where in Wikibooks the thing should go, as Wikibooks is rather large. Snowspinner 06:45, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
  • if it's not used then delete--Jiang 06:02, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

October 28

• Template:film-stub → Template:mov-stub → Template:movie-stub - redundant, now unused (in the process of orphaning Template:mov-stub also). --Phil | Talk 14:35, Oct 28, 2004 (UTC)

November 1

• Template:WWIIEquipStub - unused stub template. --[[User:AllyUnion|AllyUnion (talk)]] 05:45, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

November 4

• Template:Inclusion - proposed use for this template was rejected, now obsolete and unused. --Michael Snow 17:33, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

November 5

• Template:OoP mess - Completely inappropriate for an encyclopedia. This serves only to incite problems related to the Israeli POV edit war. -- Netoholic @ 15:35, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
  • This was not my intention, but Neoholic is not the first to think so, so I guess I could use some help in formulation. My intention was to solve the following problem: so many moves and literal copies have been made, it became difficult to track the authorship of text bordering on GFDL violation. Netoholic, would you suggest an alternative formulation? Feel free to edit both the template and the text in my subpage. Gady 15:56, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • I reformulated the template to be less contentious. Netoholic, is that OK? Gady 16:22, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I think its just not useful. The message only appears on a few pages and is too limited to be used outside of this particular issue. This isn't what templates are for. -- Netoholic @ 17:16, 2004 Nov 5 (UTC)
  • Would you prefer if the text were replicated between these (now 9) pages? Gady 17:35, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • delete. inappropriate to draw personal attn --Jiang 05:52, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Replicate the text instead. —AlanBarrett 06:46, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I don't understand the logic here. Why replicate the text? This very discussion shows that this would do nothing except incur extra work. Somebody thought the formulation was contentious — I changed it. In one place. Claiming that templates should only be used when there are (say) at least 50 uses is the computer programming equivalent of saying "do not write a routine unless it's used in at least 50 places". Gady 20:06, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Keep. Useful information used in many articles. Jayjg 23:04, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• Template:Nintendochar - A huge box for the bottom of Nintendo character articles like Zelda. Unwieldy and unnecessary with Category:Nintendo characters and its subcats. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 23:00, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • This box is a crime. Delete it with haste. Snowspinner 23:54, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Perhaps if we shrink the font down another few percent... No, just delete it. -- Netoholic @ 00:22, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
  • delete, too huge --Jiang 05:52, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Template:Religion - orphaned, POV, and useless --Jiang 06:12, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • D I don't think its POV, but certainly a better case for categories. Delete redir at MediaWiki:Religion too. -- Netoholic @ 06:16, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
• Template:Violence - misuse of templates; articles related as such should be categorized --Jiang 06:12, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • D Not a "misuse" just an early template created before categories. Delete redir at MediaWiki:Violence too. -- Netoholic @ 06:16, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
• Template:PremierCollegesofIndia - what is "premier" is POV and poorly defined and we dont need a box for poorly related institutions. --Jiang 06:19, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • D replaceable w/ categories. Was previously up for deletion (see Talk also). If deleted now, take care of Talk page and redirects at MediaWiki:PremierCollegesofIndia and MediaWiki talk:PremierCollegesofIndia. -- Netoholic @ 06:29, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)
• Template:FiveStarUniversitiesofIndia much like above. Delete redirects at MediaWiki:FiveStarCollegesofIndia and MediaWiki:FiveStarUniversitiesofIndia. -- Netoholic @ 06:30, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

November 6

• Template:Battles is no longer used; it was agreed in discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Battles to use the category system instead. (There's a redirect at MediaWiki:Battles to be deleted too.) Gdr 19:13, 2004 Nov 6 (UTC)

November 10

• Template:NSRC - unworthy box better replaced by Category:Nanoscale Science Research Centers. --Whosyourjudas (talk) 00:48, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

November 11

• Template:Controversial3 - essentially yet another version of Template:TotallyDisputed -- Netoholic @ 18:17, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)
• Template:Controversial2 - unused and duplicated by using other disputed tags -- Netoholic @ 18:20, 2004 Nov 11 (UTC)

• • I disagree strongly. The difference between "This article is totally disputed" and "parts of this article are disputed, while others have reached concensus" is not trivial. I can't help but think that this is an attempt to avoid discussing your attempts to remove the Controversial3 tag from the 2004_U.S._Election_controversies_and_irregularities page. --Spud603 19:25, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Disagree with deletion (reasons below), and note that Netaholic seems to have something against Templates, judging by the number he's voting to delete above. FT2 20:07, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Comment on {{Controversial2}} and {{Controversial3}} templates:

As a serious wiki-ist involved as best I'm able (when I have the time) in

• Mediation (Cultural and historical background of Jesus),
• Analysis of articles needing rewriting (Paraphilia),
• Writing of substantial articles (Transactional analysis)
• Updating key pages for clarity to contributors (WP:RFC, [[WP:RfM))
• NPOV contribution and rewrites to articles which are either heavily controversial (Pursuit of Nazi collaborators, Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) or where the subject matter is such as to disgust many people preventing quality collaboration (Zoophilia).

I have been struck by the number of good articles which become gridlocked under LOCK or NPOV tags. Thats not the wiki way. I concluded that a big part of the problem is that most people see an article and tend to use only a few (fairly strong) templates, when in fact neutrally it may not be a good description. I wrote my conclusions on Village Pump (Policy) here on Nov 9, which summarises the problem, cross references it, gives examples and shows how more appropriate templates can be used to help resolve the issue. I wrote a comment on Nov 10 at the end of Template_talk:Controversial (please also read) noting there were different ways an article could be controversial, so 2 or 3 templates to fairly refect each were needed. This is important, because to wrongly tag an article is in its own way, more misleading than to wrongly write it - at one stroke it adds an entire POV which if not accurate is a problem. It also polarises debate.

Example of this approach at work: Pursuit of Nazi collaborators was suffering an edit/revert war, principally over whether the subject matter was POV and what should be covered by the article. Facts within the article were not disputed. The edits moved between "NPOV" and "nothing". I re-tagged the article to a tag, {{TitleNPOV}}, that explicitly said there was a dispute over neutrality of the title - and since then the effect has been that productive debate has resumed, with both sides feeling this is a more accurate description and hence respectful of their views, in effect by tagging it correctly as "this title or scope is in dispute but the contents are not", a consensus was created which previous templates had failed to do.

It is my experience that a correct tag permits compromise and co-operation and hence I created these two tags to allow articles subject to dispute to be marked as "partly disputed", so that future wiki-ists can actually build articles and not get caught up so often in edit wars over disputes which so often end up in one side tagging everything as disputed, the other side tagging nothing. The truth's normally in between, and Wikipedia will gain from having a few templates that allow contributors to say this. FT2 19:47, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

Holding Cell

These templates need to be deleted, but may still be in use on some pages. Somebody (Admin or otherwise) should remove them from pages so that they can be deleted. If you've cleared a page, note it here.

Remove Entirely

• Template:Colors
  • Cleared, except for user and talk pages. Note that MediaWiki:Colors (a redirect) and Template_talk:Colors should also be deleted. [[User:JoshG|Josh | Talk]] 04:11, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)
• Template:Crime
  • Cleared, but some talk/user pages still directly link to template. And MediaWiki:Crime (a redirect) exists, but is cleared.