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March 30

Template:YouTube

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 section.

The result of the discussion was keep. JPG-GR (talk) 16:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:YouTube (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

YouTube, like most video sites are generally not linked to except in rare circumstances. Sites that allow free uploads of material from the public are always way more problematic than general, due to the extreme amounts of copyright violations there. The existence of a template to make such links easier is a clear violation of WP:EL standards. On those rare occasions where a YouTube link is appropriate it should not by via a template of this sort, it should have real description written on a case by case basis. DreamGuy (talk) 20:59, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – The template does not violate or encourage violation of copyright policy or the external links guideline, since there is no explicit prohibition on linking to valid content hosted on a website that also contains some copyright violations (if the website contains excessive copyright violations, however defined, then that's another issue...). Deleting the template will not prevent users from adding external links to copyright violations—and the added effort needed to create such a link is so minimal that it will not be an effective deterrent—but it will increase inconsistency in the appearance of links. (By the way, the template is still untagged.) –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 21:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Most editors adding Youtube links are inexperienced, and a template makes it seem that such links are generally welcome, rather than the true case of them being 99% of the time contibutory-copyright infringment. A template is not needed for the very few instances that youtube links are valid.Yob Mod 10:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Yobmod. (An administrator should add the tfd tag to the template since it is protected). GT5162 ^{(我的对话页)} 15:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC) Changed to Keep I have thought about this, and many inexperienced users will continue to add Youtube links without the template anyway so it would probably be better to keep it. GT5162 ^{(我的对话页)} 12:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Tagged. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. (See: Wikipedia:External links/YouTube.) What data shows the template encourages YouTube links more than bare external links would? Deleting the template would be collective punishment against people who use the template correctly (for example, I like the template for linking to user-generated videos of wind farms, since these are common on YouTube and illustrate wind turbines in a way that text and still photos do not). When we see copyvios, we remove them individually from Wikipedia. YouTube has a copyright policy, which they enforce when someone reports copyvios to them. A constructive compromise would be to edit the template to inform users about reporting copyright violations. Currently the displayed text links to our generic YouTube article; perhaps this could link instead to a project page that explains Wikipedia's policy for YouTube links, tells the user about removing links to copyvios from Wikipedia, and encourages them to report copyvios to YouTube, thereby helping to make YouTube a more useful resource for Wikipedia. --Teratornis (talk) 21:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - I have no vote whether the template should stay or not - but I think YT needs to fight back against (C) law FMAFan1990 (talk) 01:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment - Individual users cannot report copyvios to YouTube - Only the copyright holders themselves can complain about it. However people can contact the copyright holders themselves, and those holders can then contact YouTube. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:08, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - This FAQ page, for example, says: "Anytime YouTube becomes aware that a video or any part of a video on our site infringes the copyrights of a third party, we will take it down from the site as required by law." The entry goes on to tell copyright holders how to report copyvios, but does not say YouTube ignores reports from other parties. YouTube is required by law to remove copyright violations (just as Wikipedia is), so it wouldn't seem to matter who reports them. I'm not trying to be argumentative, I just want to make sure we document this correctly, so let me know if you've found a source that I missed. --Teratornis (talk) 18:35, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    - Well, if I, as a YouTube user, try to report a video for copyvios I get a notice saying "Thank you for sharing your concerns. We can only process copyright complaints submitted by authorized parties in accordance with processes defined in law. There may be significant legal penalties for false notices. Please refer to our Help Center for more information and the complete instructions." - I then get sent to this page: http://www.youtube.com/t/dmca_policy WhisperToMe (talk) 18:56, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      - Thanks for that. --Teratornis (talk) 19:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Template does not demonstrate how it can improve Wikipedia. This is one of those cases of having a template only for the sake of having a template. —Mythdon (talk) 00:55, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Firstly, I don't see how a template can increase copyright violations. Unexperienced users will keep adding these links whether this template stays or not. By the way, if anything this template is probably most used by experienced and knowlegdeable users who are aware of its existence and how to use it. Secondly, most of my work is in the music field and deleting this template would be a disaster. This template is present in thousands of song articles and it is very often used to post links to music videos uploaded by major record labels such as Universal Music Group (9405 videos), Sony Music (1784 videos plus all their national channel accounts) and all those hundreds of smaller labels or even artist themselves. If template was to be deleted, all of these links would suddenly from our pages for no real justified reason at all. Do U(knome)? ^yes..._{or no} 04:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It is absurd that a template could be construed as a promoter of copyright violation.Scientus (talk) 06:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep As discussed above, the copyright argument is a bum argument, and this template provides the same benefit of standardising an external link as the extensively ((imdb)) template does. Bigbluefish (talk) 09:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
keep As per Udonknome. A template cannot promote copyvios. Regards, FM [ talk to me | show contributions ] 10:48, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep --Mojska (m) 11:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. With this template, legitimate YouTube links benefit from consistent appearance, like ((imdb title)) or pretty much any other external link template. (And "real description written on a case by case basis" is precisely what title paremeter is for.) On the other hand, links that violate WP:EL should be removed anyway. I don't think that deletion of this template would help us one iota in either removing the existing violations, or keeping out the new ones. So, this is not even a slippery slope argument. GregorB (talk) 12:11, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above arguments. Removing this template seems like it wouldn't curb links in violation of copyright law and policy, but rather just leave us with the same number of links in widely disparate formats. Disallowing YouTube links in general is a matter that may or may not be open to discussion, but it should have no bearing on an otherwise useful and legitimate template. Agent Zero (talk) 18:02, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - It is fairly easy to distinguish legal from not legal videos. In this day and age many companies, people, and organizations use YouTube, so this is a legitimate template. WhisperToMe (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Youtube links (and other aspects of the Wikipedia:External links#Rich media section) are being argued about at these 2 threads Wikipedia talk:External links#YouTube, yet again and Wikipedia talk:External links#YouTube official channels. Please join the larger discussion there. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep WP:POINT—yet again. Tothwolf (talk) 02:23, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- How does can a deletion of this template disrupt Wikipedia to prove a point?. —Mythdon (talk) 06:15, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - See the Wikipedia talk:External links discussion links Quiddity provided above. This isn't the first time I've see this sort of thing from the editor who nominated this template for deletion. Tothwolf (talk) 06:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, POINTy nomination. Michael Bednarek (talk) 13:22, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Further comment: What is the nominator's desired outcome? Having a bot replace all instances of ((YouTube)) with ordinary external link syntax? Which would gain what? Or deleting all instances? Which no bot would ever be authorized to do. Ergo: WP:SNOW. Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:53, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - The nominator, DreamGuy won't be able to respond here right now. He is currently on a 1 week vacation. Tothwolf (talk) 05:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If links to Internet videos are going to improve the experience of Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, then it should stay.--[|!*//MarshalN20\\*!|] (talk) 17:31, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Useful tool, no adequate reason given for deletion.--EchetusXe (talk) 18:28, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, the "keep" arguments make more sense to me than the "delete" ones. We also have one for MySpace... will that be deleted too because inexperienced users might be tempted to add every single fan site of a notable musician? It has already survived attempts to delete it but, as the "keep" side of that states in one such attempt, this is not the place to decide whether such links are appropriate. This discussion is snowballing towards keep. --candle•wicke 20:13, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'd also like to point out that although Wikipedia can host some videos for use in articles (see WP:MH, WP:CMF#Video, and M:Video policy), there are size, length, and hosting limitations, as well as potential software limitations due to having to use freely available codecs. While I'm personally not a fan of flash-embedded content (including video), Youtube can help fill this need on the occasions where it is more accessible to readers. Tothwolf (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - WP:POINT nomination of this template. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 22:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Agree with the other keep rationales above. The this-encourages-copyvio argument is not a valid one. patsw (talk) 23:45, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - doesn't make things especially easier (extracting the ID, pasting it into the format, as opposed to typing [http://www.youtube.com/etcetera Descriptive caption]). ╟─Treasury Tag►contribs─╢ 07:30, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- ((imdb title)) also doesn't make things easier, so let's delete it too? GregorB (talk) 09:25, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Better yet, lets get rid of ((Dmoz)) since the "external links patrol" always point to that template whenever they remove links that clearly fall within WP:ELYES ;) --Tothwolf (talk) 12:07, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, except in rare cases, Youtube links are not appropriate. Having a template for youtube links makes it look like they are generally accepted. --Church of emacs (Talk) 10:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What about all those thousands of articles where it is appropriate? And for that matter, the "edit this page" tab makes it look too that someone can edit a page and write whatever nonsense he wants. People will continue to add YouTube links, with or without a template. Do U(knome)? ^yes..._{or no} 19:16, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy delete, per Church of emacs. --Complex (talk) 11:01, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete YouTube shold almost never be cited because the fact that YouTube is open prevents it from satisfying RS. For the few cases of YouTube linking, ((Cite video)) should suffice.--Ipatrol (talk) 15:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you understand the purpose of the template...It's not a citation template. Do U(knome)? ^yes..._{or no} 19:11, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Very useful. --bender235 (talk) 17:36, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep. Widely used, keeps links to a popular site in consistent format. The ideo that it encourages copyvio is the most absurd copyright paranoia I've seen on here (and we can have a lot of absurd copyright paranoia from time to time). Just because it might link to copyrighted works (which are not the only works on YouTube) does not mean that Wikipedia should delete it. This is blatantly not a "clear violation of WP:EL". — OwenBlacker (Talk) 21:23, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Useful template that doesn't promote illegal copy-vio as such. --Hapsala (talk) 09:59, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Providing something for valid use is not in anyway an encouragement of invalid use. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 12:56, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - WP:EL#YOUTUBE states, 'There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page'. Linking to YouTube is not, in itself, against the rules, and there are cases where a YouTube external link is useful and adds value to an article; this template exists for such cases. In the (probably more common) cases where a YouTube link is inappropriate, the solution is to remove it, not delete this template - it's easy to add a link without using the template anyway, so deleting it wouldn't solve the problem, and would just make things harder for the places where such links are used appropriately. Robofish (talk) 13:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above. I don't see how it's a blatant violation of WP:EL, as indeed there is no blanket ban on YouTube links. I can think of multiple cases where a YouTube link would be a worthwile external link; for instance, a music video from an artist or label's official YouTube channel, or in an article about a YouTube video that has become notable enough to warrant its own article (see Category:YouTube videos for several examples). Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Many otters • One hammer • HELP)} 19:35, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, YouTube links are often appropriate in articles, as mentioned above, and link templates of the kind are good for a standardized look (just like ((Official)), ((imdb title)), ((memoryalpha)), ...). Does not violate WP:EL. --Amalthea 23:24, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Useful template. No valid reason to delete. لenna vecia 04:59, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - No need for deletion. Inexperienced wikipedians will still link to YouTube Dt128 (talk) 13:06, 7 April 2009 (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 section.

Template:WCSchools

The result of the discussion was delete. JPG-GR (talk) 16:18, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:WCSchools (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This is a navigation template for "Secondary schools in the Western Cape". There are at least 350 such schools; currently there are 33 with articles linked in the template.

According to Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Navigation templates: "They are particularly useful for small and more or less complete sets; templates with a large numbers of links are not forbidden, but can appear overly busy and be hard to read and use." This template is for a set that is both large and incomplete.

This navigation template doesn't provide anything that Category:Schools in the Western Cape (and subcategories) don't. htonl (talk) 09:56, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as nominator. - htonl (talk) 10:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment: you can use the Western Cape Education Department Find-A-School website to see how large the set of potential articles is. (Select "Find Institution" and select "Secondary School" from "School Type"; then click "Submit". - htonl (talk) 10:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom. For a case like this one (a set consisting of 350 members, most of which do not yet have their own articles), a list and/or category is a better option than a navbox. An incomplete navbox is misleading as it suggests that there are only 30-something secondary schools in the Western Cape and a full navbox without hundreds of links would be too cluttered. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Subdivide this into more manageable templates based on geographic regions WhisperToMe (talk) 18:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - per nom and WhisperToMe. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 22:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bubble tea

The result of the discussion was userfied to User:Download/Bubble tea. JPG-GR (talk) 03:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bubble tea (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This template doesn't really serve any tangible purpose other than ~~spamming~~ cluttering up user-talk pages... I'm sure that if someone really wants it preserved, it can be userfied, but it's really abstruse and of little use otherwise. ╟─Treasury Tag►contribs─╢ 15:13, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Subst the single transclusion and userfy ~~delete~~ – While I can appreciate the value of WikiLove templates to slightly improve someone's day, I don't think there is any use from having variations for every possible cute, sweet, tasty, good thing. It just adds to clutter. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Optionally userfy if the creator really wants it. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 17:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - Changed from "subst and delete" to "subst and userfy" per creator's comment below. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 04:50, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy and delete. It isn't in wide use. Math Cool 10 ^{Sign here!} 02:03, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Xmas templates aren't in wide use either, but there are still 3 of them. Why should Bubble tea be deleted because it is not in wide use? GT5162 ^{(我的对话页)} 19:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep So what if it isn't in wide use? I do want to preserve it; what's the difference between userfying and leaving it as it is? There is no point, and these templates make users' days better. -down load | sign! 02:16, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no difference, then you wouldn't mind userfying it? It just clutters up a "public" namespace and isn't very useful. Should we have a template for every comfort food? ╟─Treasury Tag►contribs─╢ 07:12, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't do any harm being in a public namespace, so why not leave it there? In any case, it would be more convenient to type ((bubble tea)) rather than ((User:Someone/Bubble tea)). In addition, how does it "clutter up" the template namespace? This doesn't make a significant difference to the already numerous pages in the template namespace. -down load | sign! 22:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't see how this template clutters up user talk pages more than any other WikiLove template. It doesn't really do any harm to be in a public namespace anyway. GT5162 ^{(我的对话页)} 19:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy. If only a few people use it, it doesn't need to be in main space. I think most/all such "fun" talk templates should be in user space anyway.Yob Mod 09:24, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy - WikiLove templates are fine, but this one isn't in wide use. — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 19:29, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]