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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Rotten Tomatoes prose template. |
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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should this prose template, along with the similar ((Metacritic film prose)) and ((Metacritic album prose)), be made substonly templates? - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Past discussions regarding this include this TfD WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2022 March 31#Review aggregator prose templates, and the discussion above #This needs to be listed as a substonly template. The talk pages of ((Metacritic film prose)) and ((Metacritic album prose)), along with WikiProjects/relevant MOSs WP:FILM, MOS:FILM, WP:WPMUSIC, MOS:MUSIC, and WP:ALBUM, and WP:ROTTEN have all been notified of this RfC. The following editors who commented above are being pinged to this RfC: @Koavf, SMcCandlish, GoneIn60, Michael Bednarek, Sdkb, Erik, and Indagate: - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Templates should not normally be used to store article text, as this makes it more difficult to edit the content. They should also not be used to "collapse" or "hide" content from the reader.These templates are doing just that, storing article text, and I don't see any reasonable reason for these templates to be an exception to this guideline. Additionally, for the two film prose templates, there is currently no consensus within WP:FILM, at MOS:FILM, or on WP:ROTTEN for a standardized wording for this information. I know that was the goal some editors had with this, as not subst-ing the templates allowed for a uniform approach and ease of making mass alterations to this wording if needed, but as just stated, there is no consensus for a uniform approach, so the prose and reference formatting should not be locked behind a template. While in most cases this wording probably will be fine for an article, an editor should still have the option to easily adjust the wording and citation in article, without it then affecting the other transclusions of this template as is currently happening. Creating a boilerplate text for these aggregators for editors to subst into an article can be a useful tool to get started with this information, but that's all it should be: a tool that anyone afterwords can adjust and alter if needed. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 19:54, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
make it more difficult to edit the contentwhen it needs to be customized or otherwise adapted to fit the specific circumstances of an article.
Substing a template like this is an irreversible decision that would hamper future improvements to how we present this information on a mass scale. I therefore strongly oppose. ((u|Sdkb)) talk 20:15, 1 December 2023 (UTC)First, the existence of this template does not force any particular wording, as its use is optional, so editors are free to ignore it. Second, standardization is often good. Readers become accustomed to certain aspects of Wikipedia style over time, and when articles are similar, it makes it easier to navigate unfamiliar pages because they know what to look for. Third, templating allows for optimization. When a format is applied over hundreds of pages, it becomes worthwhile to refine small details like whether to use % or "percent" that probably would never have been considered at the level of an individual page. It's particularly advantageous for sensitive areas like critical reception, as it helps us remain neutral—when this template is at an article, it's unlikely to be changed to
Film did extremely well at Rotten Tomatoes, where critics gave it a very positive 68% fresh rating.Fourth, removing the template would hamper future improvement efforts. To see what I mean here, look at the example of census data at WikiProject Cities: a long time ago, a bunch of census info was added to city pages, but because it was done via copy-and-paste, rather than templates, updating and improving it turned from a relatively straightforward task into an arduous saga. The same sort of thing could happen here. For instance, it's perfectly plausible that at some point Wikidata will be able to mass-import RT scores on a regular basis. If this template exists [non-substed], plugging those in to the transclusions will be easy. If not, it'll be basically impossible.
((EB1911))
. If there is some overriding need in a particular instance to change the wording, the template can be substituted and the text it emits can then be edited in that particular case. That is something that should be done after a consensus discussion establishing the need. The idea that random drive-by editors needs the ability to change this carefully constructed boilerplate on a whim is simply false. Also agree with the majority of Sdkb's rationale above. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:08, 2 December 2023 (UTC)This wording presumes specialist knowledge of how review aggregators work and obscures the simplistic workings of Rotten Tomatoes. So, as you were advised above, start a thread proposing it be changed to different wording you think is better. Making this subst-only won't fix your concern. Instead, substing out the current transclusions would in a sense freeze the current wording in place in the 1000+ transclusions of this template, preventing them from benefiting from future improvements to it unless someone goes around changing thousands of pages in bulk. ((u|Sdkb)) talk 19:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
the spirit of Wikipedia, to me the spirit of Wikipedia is editing collaboratively to achieve consensus. Having this template allows for such centralized discussion, permitting a level of attention and refinement that a single sentence in an article would never normally receive outside of FAC. Blowing up that central forum, since someone as an individual might want to do something different on an individual article (not because there's anything specific to that article that warrants customization, but rather just because of one's personal preference), while simultaneously ignoring the opportunity to have a broader impact by collaborating on the text of the template — that is what seems anti-wiki to me. ((u|Sdkb)) talk 19:59, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
((u|Sdkb)) talk 23:28, 4 December 2023 (UTC)[Several editors] in the keep-but-make-subst-only camp have asked what benefit there could be to keeping transclusions of this, so allow me to present a plausible example. Currently, the Rotten Tomatoes template includes the average critics rating out of 10, a meaningful but distinct number from the Tomatometer score (which is the percentage of reviews which are positive). However, Rotten Tomatoes itself hides the average critic rating, requiring an extra click to get to it. Let's say that they decide in the future to stop reporting it entirely. And let's say that the community decides that given this, we don't want to include it in articles. What happens then? If there's no template, it becomes an arduous slog through every film article on Wikipedia to remove the information. But if some articles have it in template form, it's as easy as making a single edit to the template to stop displaying it. If you dislike that example, you can consider any other possible future change, but the overall principle is the same: having a template allows for refinement and optimization. And it's better to have that in a centralized forum, where it can be given more scrutiny through the wisdom of the crowd, than to have it dispersed over hundreds of individual pages.
Templates...that contain text which is not likely to ever be changed should be invoked with substitution." A very small chance that the wording needs to change years or decades from now is no reason to avoid subst-only. Also leaving future updates in the hands of a centralized forum, a handful of editors, isn't always the right prescription to produce the best results. Creative solutions can also come from relative newcomers who are not set in our ways; a process that can become stymied when we force them to jump through hoops (i.e. the template namespace and Wikidata) or seek consensus for every new idea at a centralized discussion. --GoneIn60 (talk) 12:23, 5 December 2023
Please notify participants from the 2021 TFD to avoid the appearance of canvassing. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:29, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
Since the last commenter was 14 days prior and I do not see any meaningful additions to the RfC in the next 10-15 days happening, I have submitted a closure request to have someone close the RfC. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 00:03, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
@Indagate and MikeAllen: It's now your responsibility to fix all ~100 articles with script errors. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:18, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
I suggest to allow an optional '%' character in the Tomatometer rating by using ((Trim %)) on the parameter. It's a percentage and users may expect that 75% is allowed when that's what Rotten Tomatoes says and they want the article to say. Some articles call ((Rotten Tomatoes prose)) with ((RT data|score))
which includes '%' when Wikidata includes it (as it should). Some Wikipedia editors have incorrectly removed '%' from Wikidata [1][2] to make ((Rotten Tomatoes prose|((RT data|score))|...))
work. The suggestion would make it work without breaking the Wikidata format for the field. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:20, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
There's currently a problem with accessing the average rating for television shows. I've brought this up at MOS:TV. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 23:35, 2 April 2024 (UTC)