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April 2

Template:MD Athletic Conference

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 Delete Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:40, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:MD Athletic Conference (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Navbox for teams in the Metro Detroit Athletic Conference, which research shows to be a hoax: if the athletic conference doesn't exist, these real schools can't be members of it. Nyttend (talk) 22:01, 2 April 2011 (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:Infobox place Ireland

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 delete. JPG-GR (talk) 04:05, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox place Ireland (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)
that would indeed be a good idea I think. I hope Plastikspork will consider adding a Irish Grid Reference parameter to feature under coordinates.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Justification of ((Template:Infobox place Ireland))

The use of non-standard place templates is justified by the fact that while places around the world share some universal defining characteristics, most of them are defined in additional unique ways following local standards and practices. This is hardly controversial, so striving to impose a rigidly defined universal template can confine editors unnecessarily.

Ireland is not the only place using a national place template. The table below shows a few other examples, and the number of links to those templates:

Template Links to template
((Template:Infobox UK place)) 17,727
((Template:Infobox Australian place)) 7,819
((Template:Infobox place Ireland)) 1,702
((Template:Infobox Papua New Guinea place)) 70

That is over 27,000 Wikipedia articles from these selected examples which use non-standard Infobox place templates, and most of them are not Irish.


In ((Template:Infobox UK place)), some locally-unique parameters are:

  • constituency_westminster
  • constituency_westminster 1
  • constituency_westminster 2
  • constituency_westminster 3
  • london_distance_mi
  • london_distance_km
  • london_distance
  • london_direction
  • unitary_scotland
  • unitary_scotland1
  • lieutenancy_scotland
  • lieutenancy_scotland1
  • constituency_scottish_parliament
  • constituency_scottish_parliament1
  • constituency_scottish_parliament2
  • metropolitan_borough
  • metropolitan_borough1c
  • metropolitan_county
  • metropolitan_county1
  • shire_district
  • shire_district1
  • shire_county
  • shire_county1
  • unitary_england
  • unitary_england1
  • lieutenancy_england
  • lieutenancy_england1
  • london_borough

((Template:Infobox place Ireland)) presently contains the following locally-unique parameters:

  • gaeilge
  • irish
  • scots
  • irish grid
  • province
  • county
  • NI district
  • dailconstituency
  • UK constituency
  • EU constituency
  • county town
  • code
  • stdcode
  • posttown
  • postcode
  • IEpostcode

These parameters are not allowed for by the standard ((Template:Infobox place)).


Suggested additional parameters for ((Template:Infobox place Ireland))

In any conversation about reforming ((Template:Infobox place Ireland)), discussion could usefully examine which of the following missing locality-defining parameters might be added:

  • administrative county or city council
  • barony
  • city, urban district, town or village
  • constabulary district
  • sub-district
  • district electoral division
  • civil parish
  • local electoral area
  • nuts 3 region
  • polling district
  • parliamentary division
  • poor law union
  • townland or street

Some of these these parameters are taken from Irish census forms. While some may no longer be used, they existed historically, so are pertinent to Irish place articles. — O'Dea (talk) 09:57, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first disputable assertion is "striving to impose a rigidly defined universal template". The discussion has already demonstrated that infobox settlement is a flexibly defined universal template. As with all wiki-content, it may be improved, but with the resources of so many wikiprojects invested in it, it will always have an advantage over niche templates maintained by a very small number of editors.
The second point is that "Ireland is not the only place using a national place template." Indeed it isn't, but pointing out that OTHERSTUFFEXISTS simply isn't a serious argument on a wiki. The same goes for "over 27,000 Wikipedia articles ... which use non-standard Infobox place templates".
The assertion that Infobox settlement does not allow for parameters such as "province", etc. displays a misunderstanding of how flexible templates work. Infobox settlement uses a system of "key/value" pairs to allow the name of an otherwise hard-coded parameter to be used – for example, |subdivision_type6=[[Province]] |subdivision_name6=[[Munster]] would render the province of Munster.
Finally, I'd urge editors to consider the purpose of infoboxes: it is to present key facts for the article in a compact form. There seems to be an increasing tendency to try to write the entire article inside an infobox, and that defeats its primary goal. There may be dozens of archaic bits of information related to a place in Ireland, but it doesn't mean that every piece of trivia needs to be crammed into the infobox. At least leave a few things to write about in the text of the article. --RexxS (talk) 12:25, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, most of the components you claim "unique" to Ireland such as codes and native language and subdistricts can be currently catered for in infobox settlement. Your extreme length post here exaggerates the discrepancy which exists, the actual required parameters to update infobox settlement to cater for all possibilities is very low,not more than a couple and will be done very easily. Also you list all of these bloated apparent criteria, the VAST majority of the Irish infoboxes at present contain little more than population and Irish Grid Reference!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:44, 11 April 2011 (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:Cite google book

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 Delete Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:13, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Cite google book (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Wtmitchell (talk · contribs) attempted to delete this template using the WP:PROD process, per a discussion about deleting it at Wikipedia talk:Citation templates#Cite google book template. Because prod does not apply to templates, I am submitting it for discussion here instead. RL0919 (talk) 12:15, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

View at Google Books
This template is not yet supported by a bot, so will not be completed automatically. In the meantime you could use this tool to easily create the citation manually.ExpandTemplates
Without the bot this template is useless. -— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 18:51, 2 April 2011 (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:Ming Dynasty's Northern Expeditions

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 Delete Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 00:51, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Ming Dynasty's Northern Expeditions (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Not useful - redlinks. Unused. — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:04, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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Template:Non-free book scan

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 Delete, although well-intentioned, of very limited use and substantial risk for misuse. The limit number of cases which would be covered can be handled by other templates. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 19:17, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Non-free book scan (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

While I believe this was created in good faith, I'm very uncomfortable with this template, which seems to me both unnecessary and ripe for misuse. There are almost never going to be fair use allowances for scanning pages from books...unless you are critically discussing the actual presentation of the book. WP:NFC permits the use of book covers for identification in the context of critical commentary of that item (and we already have a template for that purpose), but there is no broad allowance for scans of book pages. In the sole instance where it is currently being used (File:Pasteur Model.jpg), it is not the book that is under critical discussion, but the object depicted in the book. I'm not sure it would clear WP:NFCR review but, if it did, there are other templates that can be used, including Template:Non-free fair use in, which would not create the misimpression that there is a general allowance to scan book pages on Wikipdia. Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:44, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • That's because there is no routine allowance for this. Screenshots from television programs are used to identify television programs. We permit book covers, as I noted above, to identify books, not scans from book pages. The creation of a template that gives the misimpression that book page scans are routinely permitted may lead to misuse, particularly in bypassing our limitations on brief excerpts from that primarily text medium. Other templates exist to permit scans of images from books. (For instance, if you need an iconic image, Template:Non-free historic image.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What this template might be used for is, as far as I know, not a valid argument in TfD discussions. Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Reasons_to_delete_a_template does not list the mere possibility of misuse as a valid reason for deletion. Please point me to a policy that forbids the use of templates that could be misused. Also I think the template does not "give the misimpression that book page scans are routinely permitted", as it clearly states that their use should be kept at a minimum. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:17, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given that there is no allowance in WP:NFC for their use at all, the "minimum" here should be well below the need for a specific template. But consensus will determine. As "Reasons to delete a template" notes: "Templates for which none of these apply may be deleted by consensus here." --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:23, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please point me to a policy which states that if something is not specifically allowed per Wikipedia policy, it is automatically disallowed. As far as I know, no such policy exists and your arguments are therefore unfounded. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 13:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll see if I can explain my concerns with this template to you better. WP:NFC is a policy and guideline describing the deliberately narrow situations under which non-free content can be used. As stated there, Wikipedia is conservative in this respect. Nevertheless, there are certain classes of non-free content which are by consensus generally acceptable. Templates exist related to the usage of these because they are generally acceptable. The template you have created, unlike the one on which you based it (Template:Non-free television screenshot) is not a generally acceptable use of non-free content. Specific images from within books may fall into one or another of the generally acceptable uses; those that do not should be addressed on a case-by-case basis. That's what Template:Non-free fair use in is for: non-free content that "does not fall into one of the blanket acceptable non-free content categories listed at Wikipedia:Non-free content#Images or Wikipedia:Non-free content#Audio clips". If you think there should be a blanket acceptance of scans from books, you should first achieve consensus for that at WT:NFC. A template implying that there is is misleading and prone to misuse, and it isn't necessary because we have the template for content that isn't. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:44, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are very limited but appropriate applications of this. Say there's a figure in a book that is under copyright and far exceeds the threshold of originality so that a free version can't be made, and artistic enough that even a derivative work would fail to meet the necessary quality of the original figure. Further say, the figure assuredly meets NFCC#8 in terms of applicability within the article. In such cases, the scan of that figure from the book would be an appropriate allowance to NFC, and this license template would seem to be a good way to describe it.
I do agree we have to be wary of this template seemingly allowing arbitrary book scans, which can be a problem. But as this is a license template and not so much the NFC policy itself, I'm not seeing having this template as a problems. Just because we don't call it out specific as an allowable or discouraged case, that should not affect the idea of the license file. And even if it is a form of media we strongly discourage over less obtrusive ones (such as ((Non-free video sample))), we still can have a license template specifically for such cases. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that would seem to be a case for Template:Non-free fair use in: non-free content that (as per its language) "does not fall into one of the blanket acceptable non-free content categories listed at Wikipedia:Non-free content#Images or Wikipedia:Non-free content#Audio clips". If the image wanted from a book does not meet one of the blanket templates in use, we do have that viable option. (There is at least some specific guidance for ((Non-free video sample))s at WP:NFC.) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:09, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We need to keep in mind that there is a different between "type of copyright license" and "allowable non-free uses"; they overlap but are not one-to-one. Having specific licenses help to create defacto categorization of non-free content such that all uses within a specific category can be periodically reviewed to make sure they are appropriate. Of course, we don't want this area to be overcategorized - forcing users to select from a 100-some different licenses would be completely impractical, so of course we don't need license templates for narrow uses. But I don't see this as being that narrow. --MASEM (t) 15:58, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I disagree. Again I think the template is not any less necessary or any more capable of misuse than Template:Non-free television screenshot. And please point me to a policy which states that a template is suitable for deletion if it is stastically used on very few articles. If the use in the specific articles is appropriate, I would say these few cases are acceptable. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 14:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The two are not analogous; Template:Non-free television screenshot specifically falls "into one of the blanket acceptable non-free content categories listed at Wikipedia:Non-free content#Images". Templates are suitable for deletion for any reason, of course, that the community agrees is a valid one. As I quoted above, "Templates for which none of these apply may be deleted by consensus here." (See Wikipedia:DP#Deletion discussion). In specifics, the template in question does not reflect consensus. It claims that "Per § 107 of US copyright law it is believed that the use of low-resolution images of book pages or parts thereof for identification and critical commentary on the book or its contents on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law." No consensus has been established that the use of book pages or parts thereof qualify as fair use "for identification" of the book; community consensus is that we may use book covers for that. Interior pages are not the same. While some few scans from books may be appropriate, there are other tags to address that, including the previously existing Template:Non-free fair use in, which acknowledges that the use is not "blanket acceptable". --Moonriddengirl (talk) 14:59, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Templates are suitable for deletion for any reason, of course, that the community agrees is a valid one."
However the only agreement applicable here would be the outcome of this discussion currently in progress. Thus it can only be deleted on the grounds of the outcome of this discussion. And this discussion has hardly reached a state that can be called consensus. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 15:28, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did not say or mean to imply that consensus is established here; these discussions remain open typically for seven days. I'm sorry if my text was misleading. The point of noting that was to epxlain that there is no policy needed that says that templates are suitable for deletion if statistically used for very articles; Wikipedia:Consensus is the policy that governs here. The template satisfies none of the criteria at WP:NFCI; we have a template specifically for images that do not as well as several others that will govern when images taken as scans from books actually do meet NFCI. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 15:39, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs: Consensus is not a majority vote
Per § 107 of U.S. Copyright law considering § 107 (1)-(4), if the use of scanned book pages or parts thereof
  • "is for nonprofit educational purposes"
  • "presents only a limited amount of the whole copyrighted work if not used extensively on Wikipedia"
  • "has no substantial negative effect on the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work"
and if no substantial amount of the copyrighted work is used on Wikipedia their use is allowed. And yes, people might abuse this template. However, nearly everything on Wikipedia could possibly be abused, so this is not an argument. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 04:26, 3 April 2011 (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.