Languages Template‑class

This template is within the scope of WikiProject Languages, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of languages on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LanguagesWikipedia:WikiProject LanguagesTemplate:WikiProject Languageslanguage articles Template This template does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.

To editor Uanfala: your edit summary... "as explained to you several times already, this is *not* helpful here". Your explanation has not been helpful, because a template like this one with many entries where this template is and can be transcluded needs a separate documentation page. That is the long-term consensus, and for you to deny this navbar a /documentation page goes against that consensus. Why do you continue to pay no attention to what the community wants? An admin reversed this /doc page's deletion so it could be used as a /doc page, not so that it can be redirected to the template.

I've tried to work with you on this, for example here and here; however, for more intricate templates like this one, a separate /doc page is a necessity, so please reverse your edit and adhere to the wishes of our community. P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 20:08, 25 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Having a separate documentation subpage is helpful either when the template is very widely used and its documentation page gets edited frequently, or when the template is protected (or likely to be protected). Neither is the case here, so the disadvantages become relevant: there's a greater maintenance burden as the subpage will have fewer watchers (so bad edits are more likely to remain unnoticed), the subpage may get left behind in a move, and editors might not easily notice how to edit the documentation page.
I'm not sure what's the relevance of the templates you've linked to (did you mean to link to something else?). What we have in the project pages at WP:TDOC says that subpages can be created, not that they should be created. The question was previously discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Template_documentation#When_should_the_documentation_be_in_a_separate_subpage?. For the vast majority of navboxes, separate subpages are not helpful. Thank you. – Uanfala (talk) 20:31, 25 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

That opinion is not shared by the community. You have not been able to get much if any support for that position. This template is one of those that is fairly widely used and so needs a separate /doc page. Why would an admin undelete this /doc if it were not to be used as it should be? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 22:36, 25 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

PS. Those two links are recent examples where I did what you did here, make the doc a part of the template. Those are examples of templates that don't need separate doc pages. PS added by P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 22:39, 25 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The template has 166 transclusions, so I wouldn't call it widely used, but extent of use is not by itself relevant. More widely used templates are typically protected and so should have separate doc subpages, but this one isn't likely to get protected. Apart from that, separate pages might be necessary when the documentation itself gets edited often (so that people don't accidentally break the template while editing the documentation, that's especially relevant if the template happens to be intricate, but intricacy is not the determining factor; and besides, this navbox isn't intricate anyway: it might be long (ish), but its simple and straightforward as far as templates go). As for the two links, I see now – your edits were definitely improvements there.
But why do you believe my opinion is not shared by the community? I've previously made a proposal for more explicit guidelines (Wikipedia_talk:Template_documentation#When_should_the_documentation_be_in_a_separate_subpage?), but that fell through because of lack of participation, not because of opposition. As far as I remember, you're the only person who's ventured an opinion on the matter. As far as I can see, the community has been silent here. – Uanfala (talk) 11:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And when one fully understands consensus as it is viewed on Wikipedia, one realizes that silence of the community over many years implies consent/consensus. Add to that the fact that the community has sanctioned, either implicitly or explicitly, the usage of separate /doc pages as seen by the creation of a special preloaded page when one creates the /doc page. In my case, I place the ((Documentation)) template on a template page, click on Show preview, and over to the right is a "create" link. Opening that in a new tab or window brings up the preloaded page...

((Documentation subpage))
<!-- Add categories where indicated at the bottom of this page and interwikis at Wikidata (see [[Wikipedia:Wikidata]]) -->
== Usage ==


<includeonly>((sandbox other||
<!-- Categories below this line; interwikis at Wikidata -->

))</includeonly>

...and we just fill in the blanks. I've used that preloaded page for many years, so I am pretty certain that the creation of separate /doc pages is sanctioned by the community, although I do see your point for some templates. This particular template in my humble opinion cries out for a separate /doc page. Perhaps we should go back to our previous discussion at Wikipedia talk:Template documentation#When should the documentation be in a separate subpage? and open an RfC? P.I. Ellsworth  ed. ^put'r there 02:39, 27 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

My two cents: I consider separate documentation necessary and extremely helpful for templates which create a uniform display of variable content, such as infoboxes. In such cases, the user (typically editors not much involved in "technical" template editing → dummies like me) needs a full overview of the function and features of every parameter.

This template, however, serves to uniformly reproduce non-variable content for navigation purposes. The only parameter of interest for a user is "state", with pretty trivial settings which are fully explained by the template (!) "Collapsible option".

As for the necessity for a separate subpage, I don't feel strongly about it in either direction. (I am emotionally more affected (as a page watcher) by witnessing that other editors do (viz. feel strongly about it).) –Austronesier (talk) 08:50, 27 May 2020 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Not having seen this discussion, I modified this template to use its existing /doc subpage, which was showing up as unused on Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/1. Using separate /doc pages is standard practice for templates for many good reasons. My edit was reverted with a link to this talk page, where there are no valid arguments against using a separate subpage. I have reverted that edit so that this template conforms with standard practice. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

There's some explanation at Wikipedia talk:Template documentation/Archive 2#When should the documentation be in a separate subpage?. Both methods for the positioning of template documentation pages are allowed by WP:DOC (though to be fair, that page does a poor job of explaining all the relevant considerations). For navboxes like this one, having a separate doc subpage comes with none of the benefits of this approach and all of the costs. The fact that some editors have grown used to doing something a certain way is not by itself an argument for continuing to do that in the face of reasoned opposition. – Uanfala (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(edit conflict) And I've been reverted again. I have better things to do than try to persuade one editor to use the standard template documentation system, but here's the discussion for the next person to read. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2022 (UTC)Reply[reply]

This template is titled in the wikitext "Modern Indo-Aryan Languages" despite including Old and Middle Indo-Aryan. As the template itself is not named like this and in practice it is being used for Indo-Aryan Languages in general, I am going to change the title of the box to reflect that. عُثمان (talk) 22:23, 5 June 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]