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January 28

Templates on List of adjectival forms of place names

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 07:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

and redirect, Template:Australian state adjectivals and demonyms

and redirects, Template:Canadian provincial adjectivals and demonyms and Template:Adjectivals and demonyms for Canadian provinces

and redirect Template:US state adjectivals and demonyms

and redirect Template:Astronomical adjectivals and demonyms

and redirect Template:City adjectivals and demonyms

and redirect Template:Continental adjectivals and demonyms

and redirects Template:Former regional adjectivals and demonyms and Template:Adjectives and demonyms for former regions

and redirect Template:National adjectivals and demonyms

and redirect Template:Adjectivals and demonyms for miscellaneous regions

All are single-use templates, included only on List of adjectival forms of place names. The reason given on the talk page for this setup is "to prevent the article becoming oversized"; if this is the case, then the page should be split up into multiple pages rather than using templates. I would like to see these templates subst'd, then deleted. Mike Peel 23:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If there's a consensus to delete, okay; but the only reason I can think of that might carry some weight is the need to edit a template rather than the page. Perhaps folk might feel that's outweighed by the modularity (see below)... Best wishes, David Kernow (talk) 11:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC) (template creator), recast 16:18, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
PS I haven't checked, but the redirects could probably be deleted anyway.
Subst and delete. No single-use templates, please. —An gr 11:59, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even if those templates have only ever been used on that one page, it is conceivable that they still could be used on pages that no one has considered yet. Templates support consistency between different pages. Why not leave the options open? If the page is too long, it can be split into smaller pages, each having the introduction and each of the relevant ones having one of those templates. -- Wavelength 14:08, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Commentary

--You've got to be shitting me! This goes against all common sense!
-- Where in that piss poor list of deletion criteria does it say that a single use template (of complicated nature, I might add!) is a criteria for deletion? This is make work, is the nom mearly trying to waste others time?
-- Substing such as these into an article makes editing the article unweildy and prone to damage.
-- There is no computer technology benefits to drive such deletion, these are much like a sub-page if single use—in effect a sub-program. All pages affecting main space are cached aggressively. So the rendered table is like an image waiting to be displayed.
--They are not, however, suitable for use as sub-pages, and 'Random Article' could land someone in one, outside of having a context!
--Tables are complicated enough, that substing these means only a handfull of technically handy editors would feel comfortable about editing them—the converse is painfully obvious—modularizing such code has been looked upon by coders as a God-send since the bad-ole-daze of assembler sans higher level languages.
-- Aggragating that much code in a non-modular way is just asking for breakage, maintenance headaches and dysfunctional edits.
-- Nominations of this type are a disrespectful form of negative maintenance! Christ on a crutch--what useful purpose is served at all by such a nomination as this? A corrallary to AGF means also give others credit and respect for their editorial decisions, disrespecting those by aggregating these into one unmanagemable blob is very unwise.
-- Among other things, grouping such in an article is costly to other language wiki's adapting our articles and furiously translating such. Translating such a table would be best done in the managable pieces... just as modifying and maintaining ours might need be.
-- Why demand difficulty in editing of anyone contributing valuable discretionary time by anything which has a negative impact on the time of the many, or the potential of such!??
--When one sees a nomination like this, one has to wonder whether the editors here are just trying to rack up edits in Wikipedia talk space for RfA reasons. Strongly suggest the nom reboot the brain... this is may not be the silliest nomination I've seen here or other sisters, but it's a contender!
Just what does the nom think the purpose of templates are for? This is AFAIK, a perfect illustration of when to use one, not to delete one; when to break one into modules, when one should not. Oh, my aching head! I'm glad the nom wasn't ever writing real code in the real world on a real project with a team of people. I'm nearly speechless!

Speedy keep and spank the nom with (the spirit of) a WET NOODLE for fuzzy thinking! // FrankB 15:49, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First off: please calm down, and cease with the personal attacks.

I'm at a loss for words with how to respond to your comments. I'll state that I am not planning on running for adminship any time soon, if at all. Also, while I don't code for a living, it makes up a large portion of what I do.

We seem to have a disagreement about what templates are for. I have always viewed them as holding code that will be used in multiple places. Having a template that is used only in one place is nonsensical from this point of view; where is the benifit?.

In such a case as this, I hold that multiple articles would be a much better route to take - this could be thought of as modular programming. Each page would hold what is easily manageable.

My original aim in starting this TfD was to reduce some clutter I came across to something that the average editor could deal with. It's starting to seem like I am wasting my time here, though. Mike Peel 17:47, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I know we usually frown on single-use templates, but for long, complex pages, they do have their uses. I'm sure that some of the Wikipedia:Template messages subpages use a very similar system. Grutness...wha? 23:30, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Subst and delete, but split into several pages. There is absolutely no reason the Falkland Islands and Neptune need to be mentioned in the same article. An obvious starting point would be to move each of the nominated templates into its own article (e.g., Adjectivals and demonyms for U.S. states instead of ((Adjectivals and demonyms for US states))). The next step would be to merge some of those articles. But yeah, what Mike Peel said. This is currently a horrible misuse of the template namespace. --Quuxplusone 03:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
1. Sorry if you see sarcasm as a personal attack. I did give you credit for fuzzy thinking, not say you were stupid, but we all do stupid things... like sometimes I let loose with scornful words to make people think. So apologies if you took that personally, but it was a narrower view of things than I find tolerable. This is business, and fixing something that isn't broken isn't a good use of time. Worse, if this thing passes, you're spending someone else's time—the Admin who has to close this matter.
2. The Admins are all overworked, so do as I do and try hard to not make more for work for them—many of them are our best editors, we need them editing, not adminstering to unnecessary re-work of something that's doing the job intended for it to do.
3. There is a vast difference between activity and progress, between action and accomplishment. If you were paying the payroll of people making such bookkeeping progress, you'd damn well want it to stop too. So when placing a tag, try to think about how many tens of people will come by soon and have to figure out why you're asking for attention and them to take up the load. I'd never seen these before, and had to take time to look to see what was so putrid or costly about them that you would ask dozens of others for their time capital, at the expense of other matters on wikipedia. Catching the theme here? In the Wet noodle discussions? Courtesy for another includes thinking about how you're likely to affect their time.
4. As far as whether a template is used multiple times or once, that criteria is given far too much weight. If it's not being used is the key test. Piffle on counts when it's doing something complex like tables—I've also seen discussions where the decision to cut that stuff into a template was in high demand. Like all of one's life, their is tension between pieces... were the templates small, cutting them into the article could be a good idea, provided the topic matter used them in their own section or a couple in one. But those are editorial decisions the editors minding that page should be making, not someone stumbling across something percieved as a mess.
5. Careful Article edits on this poor excuse for an editing medium are difficult at best. Go take a look at how many times the people trying to push an article into and through FAC shuffle and reshuffle the order of presentation, how they quibble on the talks about where a sentence, phrase, or paragraph ought be arranged and presented. WP:FAC is a tought hurdle, save for cruft when the groupies take over the asylum. How would you like to be the poor sucker trying to move and rearrange two or three sections with some involved text and have to peek around and drag and drop past such a mess of tables in the middle of the page? It's a whole lot easier to keep track of where you are when you've got a one line template. What happens if you accidently slip off the mouse button and drop the whole section in the middle of two tables? Ok, I know how to Ctrl-Z... but you are the one trying to make more complex something which is already complex enough to deal with, and Ctrl-Z won't always put you back on the cut-block ... what happens when you hit one extra? Now you've got to redrag and loose what concentration you had and spend time recovering. A big wikitable just gets in the way. It's far easier to edit around and relocate at need. Since they're listed in a preview screen, you can always find the one you're needing with a copy and search back up.
6. AFAIK, there is not any limitation on one kind of space over another. Space is space on a computer system, whether the memory be volitile (RAM) or hard space. If both are in the same kind of storage medium, all you're doing is shuffling file folders... at the cost of making it more complex and more difficult to maintain. All I see is a 'status quo ante' undergoing a needless risk of being damaged, at a significant time cost to other down the road... or wre you planning on Wikimedia Foundation shutting down next week?
7. Are you quibbling about too many templates on a category page? Oh, my... that's their job to aggregate and associate things. Sorry, don't but tidying up some list at the cost to everyone hereinafter that has to edit such an article is not thinking of the time cost to others. Neither was making this particular nomination. Perhaps if you'd planned a split, combination, etc. instead of the machine gun approach—here guys, I don't like this arranged this way, you figure out how to better rearrange it in memory space, I'm going to go kick back with a beer. Oh yeah! When you've got it figured, don't worry about the man-power and effort, nor complexity— that admin over there will do it for us!"
8. I have no problem if some of these can be merged and refactored in some planned well thought out way. But that is what should be presented, and on the article talk first, as now it's dealing with content and not packaging, of content. Here, we're quibbling over whether this space or that space has a ration and space budget pretending that ot matters.
9. I've been talking by email on and off for a couple weeks about hauling out the deletion requirements and giving them a stringent overhaul. I even started a draft, but that damn time factor comes in again. You know what kind of unintended consequence is involved? One that asks everyone reading, writing, or considering this to spend their time. Does that, should that, rest easy on your mind? Is any non-trivial onesie really something any of us ought be considering here? Obviously, we are of two minds on that or I wouldn't have used that language above.
10. What we really have are two classes of things-- macros which are used over and over, and something complex (Tables are a real pain to some of us, I'll take Old pre macro assemblers most any day than dealing with getting a nice appearing table the way I would like. But you and I, Fred over there, and Irma down the street all see something a little different in any case... our browsers are set up different, our host (WinDoze or Mac or Linix or ...) each have their own fonts selected and customized. So good enough is what we get. But that makes neither Wikimarkup, HTML, nor XHMTL easy to deal with without a lot of practice.
11. And then there are the simple macros like ((Tl)) and ((W2)) which are extremely widespread... and some here pick on them for being simple! Appearing in hundreds of files on nine sister projects some say is trivial. SO I'm convinced— we need to take a hard look at nomination criteria. Things are just too whimsical, depend far too much who happens by one fine day, and who doesn't. That's time costly too. We have to work smarter--for some of us, this is free time-- that needs respected... starting with respecting the decisions of others involved up close and day to day with a page, by letting the status quo ante alone unless there is a strong reason to change. Change is not progress, more often than not, it's slipping down the mountain of tasks that must be done as it causes them to languish. If we want quality, we need stay focused on that sort of big picture thinking... not arbitrary counts of how much something is used. Focus on quality, in the appropriate place, and for article embedded templates of large size, that's not on a general forum. People here don't have to live with the decisions made--others do. Try thinking of them and their effort, and that when you nominate something, you are calling them stupid. Not too nice when seen that way. Best regards // FrankB 23:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per User:Fabartus. Now of course I don't have enough time to read the entire argument but the templates clearly do not break any of the 4 guidelines above, and they all serve the same practical purpose. I hesitate to argue for splitting that article, and this doesn't appear to be the place to do it anyway. Pomte 06:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Wikipedia:Template namespace. Single-use templates are out, as are templates "masquerading as article content". Keep argument tl;dr. The one thing I will say is that an individual TfD nomination is not the proper venue for it. Chris cheese whine 04:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Template:Astrobox begin

The result of the debate was deletion of all. RyanGerbil10(Упражнение В!) 05:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All of the above templates have been replaced by other templates, and are no longer in use. Mike Peel 22:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - All of these templates have been superceded by other templates for months. These old templates are no longer needed. Dr. Submillimeter 22:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, not needed. Jorcoga ^Hi!_{00:07, Monday, January 29 2007}
Delete per nom. // FrankB 15:53, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:FUR

The result of the debate was delete. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 06:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationales are supposed be tailored to each use of a fair-use image in each article where it appears. A boilerplate template is inappropriate for this. —An gr 11:41, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete definetly needs to go TheDJ (talk • contribs • WikiProject Television) 13:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I don't entirely believe boilerplate is inappropriate, but this isn't even a valid fair use rationale. Being low-resolution and causing no loss of revenue is not enough. -Amark moo! 16:35, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Every image needs individual fair-use rationales. -/- Warren 19:58, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete- not a valid fair use rationale, we shouldn't be having boilerplate templates for that either. Jorcoga ^Hi!_{20:15, Sunday, January 28 2007}
Delete-- Invalid fair use criteria no matter what else is said. Tailoring to each necessary. // FrankB 15:51, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is used for when those conditions are met, why type the same words? There is nothing magical in retyping them versus transcluding them so long as they are legally valid. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 06:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The rationale isn't valid anyway, so it doesn't matter here. -Amark moo! 21:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]