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) 19:03, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:DC Comics' shared universe films (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

The fictional universe is still developing, and once it is officially titled with more films released, this template shall be revived. Moreover, no future DC comics film (except Dawn of Justice) has yet entered production. Kailash29792 (talk) 15:47, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment there are four articles DC Comics' shared universe films , Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Man of Steel (film) , Man of Steel (soundtrack) and the categories suffers from the same problems Category: DC Cinematic Universe films‎ , Category: DC shared film universe soundtracks‎ ; so the main category Category:DC shared film universe can only have 5 entries at this time (the four articles, and the template), and cannot support a category tree at this time -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 06:34, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:53, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - This template is loaded with links that don't really belong; all the "Adapted characters" and "locations" links in particular are really pushing the boundaries of relevance. That editors have felt compelled to pad out the template with links like these is another sign that the subject of DC Comics shared universe films can't support a useful navbox, at least not yet.--NukeofEarl (talk) 18:01, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per NukeofEarl. Once again, editors are trying to rush into creating similar articles/content as the Marvel Cinematic Universe has, which just does not exist yet for DC. - Favre1fan93 (talk) 20:34, 2 December 2014 (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.

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 relisted on 2014 December 7. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:41, 7 December 2014 (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.

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 after replacing with ((infobox food)). If someone wants to redirect it, go ahead. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Additional closing statement: The main argument for deleting (or redirecting) the template was the opinion that it is redundant to ((infobox food)), which was demonstrated with a sample edit. The argument against was based on the name with the opinion that "beef" is not a prepared food. However, this argument was countered by the fact that ((Infobox food)) is a redirect to ((Infobox food)). Hence, I found this argument against deletion to be weaker than the argument for deletion as no strong evidence was presented that beef is not considered food (or a prepared food). Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:35, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox beef (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox prepared food)), as shown in this edit - indeed, the latter template offers better data fields. Only 29 transclusions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:40, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. From the template names: beef is not prepared food. -DePiep (talk) 13:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless you take bites from a live cow, it's prepared. In any case, ((Infobox food)) is a redirect for ((Infobox prepared food)). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:15, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You're a smart reader — at times. Now read it as "beef is not the same as prepared food" (and don't forget to word 'prepared'). -DePiep (talk) 22:38, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: Beef. It's What's For Dinner. We have Beef cattle for the live ones. Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete because, though there is a debate about the classification of beef as, I assume, unprepared ingredient or prepared food, I don't think it really matters in terms of template usage —PC-XT+ 00:43, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The template name does matter. I don't see how an editor is helped having to add ((Infobox prepared food)) to a page about (raw or this unspecified) meat. -DePiep (talk)
    • As noted above; beef is prepared. As also noted above, ((Infobox food)) is a redirect for ((Infobox prepared food)); use that (or better, reverse their naming). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:19, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete and move 'template:infobox prepared food' to 'template:infobox food'. Frietjes (talk) 15:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

At least this starts making sense. But why not ((Infobox meat))? Oh forget. This is not a merge proposal at all. DePiep (talk) 19:13, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect: Here's my beef (yes, all of the beef related puns have now been addressed), yes, it's redundant based upon its context/usage. ViperSnake151  Talk  03:19, 1 December 2014 (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.

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 no consensus. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:36, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox California State Legislature (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox legislature)). Only 11 transclusions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:31, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, ((Infobox legislative session)). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Nothing redundant seen, apart from two words in the template title. No merge mapping provided. -DePiep (talk) 19:51, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Either that or let's make 50 separate infoboxes, one for every state, no matter how few articles are linked. This is "Balkanization" of infoboxes and creates confusion for people like myself who are not prone to drill down into unneeded levels of minutae for the "proper" infobox. Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see how the other 49 states matter. The burden of proof is for the deleter. That is: proof that the parameters, labels, and domain meaning (say, juridical meanings) are the same. For now, the juridical system in CA is not the same as the one the of the world. Confusion is not reduced when there is one template with one-parameter-set fits all template (I don't know, but does "judge" in US means the same as "judge" in UK, in Germany, in Spain?). I get the impression that you are wishing for another improvement, possibly easier finding of terms & specific words (parameters). -DePiep (talk) 22:24, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Juridical"" This infobox refers to a legislative body, not a court system. You clearly know squat about this issue. The issue is that if we have a template for the California legislature, there are 50 other state legislatures just in the USA, and it would be utterly ridiculous to have separate templates for each of them. I see no requirement to have the merge already finished before one even nominates. And, furthermore, ((Infobox legislature)) is already used - and properly - for other US State legislative bodies, note Arkansas General Assembly and others. There are over 1500 transclusions lf that infobox and it adequately covers everything from China to the UK as well as the USA. Your argument here is realy rather stunning in its ridiculousness. Montanabw^(talk) 20:26, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • "You clearly know squat about this issue". Never claimed. Nor does the nom. But at least I do not claim that the parameters in the topic at hand are the same. Now if the topic is "juridical", "judicial", "vulcans", or "horses": the burden is upon the proposer(s) to show equivalence between the two.
        Second, the proposal is not about creating 50 templates for 50 states at all. Again, why do you introduce that? Since you clearly don't know squat about logical dependency/independency nor about template design, I'll spell out your own issue for you: you are asking for a template like ((Infobox U.S. state legislature)), which could cover 50 states (I won't do the further research for you; this is OT anyway). -DePiep (talk) 10:07, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: Not seeing the redundancy. ((Infobox legislature)) deals with the legislative bodies themselves, while ((Infobox California State Legislature)) deals with individual sessions of the California State Legislature. Think of it as the difference between ((Infobox legislature)) and ((Infobox United States Congress)) (which this template is based off of). They have completely different functions and include completely different information. If people don't like a California-only template and want a more generic one, then create that template first. ((Infobox legislature)) does not work; it's missing a lot of useful fields such as terms of legislative leaders. There is no reason to shoehorn this template into a completely inadequate substitute. --Kurykh (talk) 22:57, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ((Infobox legislature)) seems perfectly adequate for the job; it is used, for example, on 59th Utah State Legislature. Alternatively, ((Infobox legislative session)) exists and is used on 57th Utah State Legislature. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Two points. First, your pointing to two templates being used for the same legislative body shows a complete lack of standardization and consensus between your proposed options. By contrast, for the US Congress and California State Legislature articles, they all use the same template respective to their series (see ((Infobox United States Congress))). Second, both ((Infobox legislature)) and ((Infobox legislative session)) are missing fields that this template and ((United States Congress)) have. For example, this template is able to cleanly show a succession of speakers during the 1995-96 speakership fight; the proposed substitutes create a huge mess. If standardization is what you want, then we should first choose one of those two templates and incorporate the missing fields before discussing this template's deletion. --Kurykh (talk) 05:05, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm glad that we seem to agree that lack of standardisation is a bad thing. Removing this redundant, overly-specific template in favour of one of the available and more generic, alternatives will reduce that problem. This discussion is about how to resolve the issue you describe; a completed solution is not a prerequisite for the discussion of how best to solve the issue. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • I'm not asking for a completed solution; I'm asking why modifying your alternative templates to incorporate the missing fields seems to be out of the question. If that's permitted, then merging the templates would be a solution worth considering. --Kurykh (talk) 02:15, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Rework into a more general Infobox US State Legislature or something to that effect —PC-XT+ 00:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • As noted above, ((Infobox legislative session)) already exists. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • As Kurykh noted above, that template is insufficient for all cases. I would support a merge, but this isn't a merge discussion. —PC-XT+ 09:09, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• keep, would probably support merging, but this isn't a merger discussion. Frietjes (talk) 18:04, 30 November 2014 (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.

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 no consensus. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:40, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox United States District Court case (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Infobox template with 120 transclusions, originally created as a fork of ((Infobox court case)), to which it is redundant, as demonstrated here. A previous discussion in April this year reached no consensus, but since then the two alternative templates have been merged at ((Infobox court case)). A redirect would allow the US-DC-specific name to be retained. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:28, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note that ((Infobox U.S. Courts of Appeals case)) is already a wrapper for ((Infobox court case)). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:26, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge Keep. by redirect into ((Infobox court case)). I have completed the parameter comparision that is here. All parameters from the TfD'ed template now present. My conclusion: A redirect would not malform or misrepresent any parameter (and the target template has a nicer layout using headers etc.). -DePiep (talk) 13:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Having read the Brianwc and Rrius contributions, I withdraw my !vote. Another case of this is not a merge proposal, so it can not be merged as there is opposition. Also, the proposal is immature, it does not specify how to handle the differences (leaving it to others, like me, to solve the issue -- incorrect as it now shows). Looks like a "no consensus" to me. -DePiep (talk) 10:59, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Allow me to assure you, DePiep, that your contribution is not required. Other, constructive, editors can resolve any remaining issues without "requiring" your input, following discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:10, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to ((Infobox court case)), per everyone above. Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge per everyone above —PC-XT+ 00:45, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose I created this template. I'd like to make sure that all the District court seals would still show up properly within the new template. That's essential. But the merge, even if it technically works, will make using the template much more difficult. There are 94 federal district courts, an equal number of federal district bankruptcy courts, and then several specialized federal trial courts. Basically, around 200 courts that should be served by this template. If you mix them all in with the generic template eventually you're going to get namespace conflicts (if not immediately). This template is for federal courts. But this urge to merge everything into a generic one is going to presumably include all the state courts too. That's the problem. Many states, such as Kansas, refer to their state courts as "District" courts too. So it's going to be very confusing to template users which string to use to refer to the Kansas federal district court versus one of Kansas' 31 state district courts. This is an instance where two templates for apparently similar purposes is actually extremely useful, not accidental, and merging makes things worse for users, not better. Brianwc (talk) 15:49, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I said in the nomination, "...a fork of ((Infobox court case)), to which it is redundant, as demonstrated here". Have you reviewed the linked page? It appears to address your former concerns, fully. Your latter points appear to be around hypothetical problems with no basis in fact. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose for now The infoboxes for US federal cases have parameters for the laws at issue and the holding. There has been no discussion of how to retain that, nor of the fact that changing this one without changing the other federal court case templates would make district case pages different from higher court case pages for no discernible reason. -Rrius (talk) 19:04, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • So discuss it; that's why this discussion was opened. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:11, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ummm, okay... I thought that served as an invitation for you, the one who is proposing to get rid of the template, to explain how you plan to do so without disturbing the information provided by those parameters or at least assuring that you will somehow manage it, or explain why you think it is unnecessary to save that information. It isn't really my responsibility to tell you how you are supposed to do it. I raised the question and said I oppose a change until the issues are discussed. I'm not sure what that snotty comment was supposed to illicit from me, so the best I can do is just point back to what I said and once again ask you to engage with the issues raised. -Rrius (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • As I said in the nomination, "...a fork of ((Infobox court case)), to which it is redundant, as demonstrated here". Having checked that page, you will have seen that the parameters to which you refer are already present in the more generic template, If you do not discuss your apparent concerns with them, how am I or anyone else supoesed to address them? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Brianwc and Rrius. Might change my mind if the nominator (or someone else) actually responds to their concerns with convincing solutions. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 17:45, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing substantial to address. As I said in the nomination, "...a fork of ((Infobox court case)), to which it is redundant, as demonstrated here". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:02, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:30, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• keep, would probably support merging, but this isn't a merger discussion. Frietjes (talk) 18:05, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • As DePiep notes above, "All parameters from the TfD'ed template now present. My conclusion: A redirect would not malform or misrepresent any parameter (and the target template has a nicer layout using headers etc.).". You will see that the nomination links to a testcases page which shows that the nominated template is redundant to the more generic one. What would you merge? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:55, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep — To support due process, I am striking my merge !vote, above. —PC-XT+ 07:07, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is "due process". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:55, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was talking about my !vote, in particular, not the nomination. I think the template should be turned into a wrapper, first. After that, I will probably support replacement, if there is no big advantage to the automatic image handling. —PC-XT+ 00:08, 7 December 2014 (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.

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. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:44, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox criminal organization (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox criminal organization)) ((Infobox organization)) (into which any unique and required parameters should be merged). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:14, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Pigsonthewing: The template can't be redundant to itself. Which other template is ((Infobox criminal organization)) redundant to? Jarble (talk) 03:01, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about that; fixed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:02, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep or speedy keep. Incomplete nomination. Nom does not provide parameter mapping or any base for equalness. Don't leave it to others to solve or prove. -DePiep (talk) 13:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is now becoming tiresome to have to point out the false premise in your objections; not least that there are no grounds for "speedy keep". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:01, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tiresome? You have not even started making a substantial response. Maybe it is your dismissive attitude that makes you tired. -DePiep (talk) 22:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Question: If this is for mafia organizations and drug syndicates, is there anything better than the law-abiding "infobox organization" it would be moved into? Hate to lump these sorts with legitimate companies and such. Is there an "infobox criminal" or anything? Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ((Infobox criminal)) was made a wrapper for ((Infobox person)) some time ago. There is nothing that says ((Infobox organization)) is only for law abiding or legitimate organisations. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:18, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, per DePiep—a solution in search of a problem. Joefromrandb (talk) 08:44, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "problem" is the extra maintenance workload caused by having redundant templates; and the extra cognitive load for editors who have to figure out which template to use, when. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:12, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Apropos to use the scare quotes, as there is indeed no real problem at all. Joefromrandb (talk) 10:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good point well made. No. Wait. I wasn't using scare quotes, I was, er, quoting you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits
• Weak keep: I think on this one, I don't buy the other reasons for keeping, but personally I'm not fond of the wrapper of "Criminal" either; "person" is a bit too general. I can see potential arguments for this template creating an edit war over whether a group IS "criminal," but I don't see that as an issue of concern to anyone else. Montanabw^(talk) 20:30, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Tentative merge — Templates shouldn't really be used to categorize things, though I do understand the concern. If the group is claimed to be an organization, whether or not it is legitimate, it can probably use the general template to display this claimed information. —PC-XT+ 00:56, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per DePiep. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 03:22, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, per DePiep - SantiLak (talk) 22:36, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The parameters in ((Infobox criminal organization)) with no equivalent in ((Infobox organization)) are:

• |named after=
• |founding_location=
• |years_active= (use |formation= & |extinction=)
• |ethnicity=
• |rivals=

None of these are unique to criminal organisations; all may apply to non-criminal organisations, and their totality does not justify a separate template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:45, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've added those which are struck through and here is a sample conversion; and another; and a third. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:32, 21 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. This is TfD. Here is where proposes a well-based merge (ins and outs in the nomination), and one awaits the discussion. What you just did is 1. start a discussion, 3. enforce your own opinion before closure. That belies your own nom statement of to be discussed. -DePiep (talk) 14:20, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And here we are, discussing. Do you have anything constructive to add? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:06, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've added those is not discussing. It is disrupting the discussion. I have reverted them (let me spell this out: one does not implement ones preferred outcome of a discussion beforehand. You are supposed to convince people here, not enforce. Since there are keep arguments here, you can not perform a "speedy merge"). -DePiep (talk) 11:07, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You appear, again, to be inventing "rules" on the fly. Your assertions have no substance. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:01, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• keep, and revert the undiscussed addition of parameters to ((infobox organization)). ethnicity and rivals, in particular, require discussion. Frietjes (talk) 16:13, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I was sympathetic to keeping this, but given the analysis I think a merge is appropriate. A |years active= parameter would be useful in the target, as many organisations (particularly corporations) continue to exist long after they cease trading. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:36, 22 November 2014 (UTC).
  
• Keep Bladesmulti (talk) 05:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:29, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, as this is not a merge proposal (to support due process I struck my prior !vote) —PC-XT+ 07:21, 1 December 2014 (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.

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 no consensus. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:26, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox U.S. legislation (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Template:Infobox legislation (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Propose merging Template:Infobox U.S. legislation with Template:Infobox legislation.
Redundancy. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:10, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose -- I don't see how a merger would provide any increase in benefit to the reader nor any increase in the value of the resulting work(s). The U.S. is not only unique enough in it's bicameral, co-equal, Federal legislative branch of government to warrant its own information "blocks" and approach by itself but the serialization, codification and citation of that body's statutory output is also convoluted enough (e.g. U.S. Code, Statutes at Large et. al) to merit it's own information scheme as well.

  The claim of "redundancy" might be appropriate at the technical, template level but is woefully lacking when understanding & working with the actual content at hand.-- George Orwell III (talk) 01:12, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose - George Orwell III hits the nails on the head. The U.S. legislative process is sufficiently unique to warrant a separate infobox. And to add another example to the list that George has, I'll add that the U.S. legislative process also distinctly involves executive vetoes and subsequent legislative overrides. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 02:38, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - agree that the US system is so distinct that it warrants a separate template. Also, if there is only one template, there may be a tendency for it to be US-centric, becoming difficult to use for non-US legal situations. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 09:16, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: The redundancy is indeed at the technical level; the issue is not the "uniqueness" or otherwise of the US system, but whether or not we need one or two templates to display the relevant information. The benefits of removing or redirecting (merging) redundant templates are widely understood; and include a reduction in the maintenance overhead, and lowering the cognitive load for editors. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: I think you're making too many unsupported assumptions/inferences. Template:Infobox U.S. Legislation is a one off call made directly to Template:Infobox, the mother/parent of all Infoboxes. How is that redundant? What is pointless is making it a redirect to another template that is also a one off call being made directly to the same base Infobox template -- in effect making it twice removed from the parent instead of just once directly. There is no redundancy issue here that cannot be overcome with simple adjustments in categorization if anything at all. And normally I'd agree to the premise of a possible reduction in maintenance overhead if at least the css and/or inline stylings matched up -- but they don't in this case. I would think that fork alone would increase the amount wrangling needed to maintain the distinct styling for both viens in a single template never mind the difference gap in actual utilization world-wide.

    "Merging" something like Template:Infobox UK Legislation might make far more sense to do; not only because the rendering of the two are nearly identical layout & style wise, but much of the parameters, labeling, content and their default values better align with other legislative bodies (ca, nz, au, etc.) more so than they ever would with the U.S's. I shouldn't have to be familiar with the intricacies of the majority of the world's legislative output just to be able to navigate a single one - a rather unique one at that (so much for "cognitive load"). The fact the UK one handles Wales, Scotland, Ireland and the like ultimately goes against the premise that consolidation automatically usurps "uniqueness" at the end of the day too... or somehow will increase value over the long haul as well.

    Sorry. I just don't think its worth doing. -- George Orwell III (talk) 11:48, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    • The redundancy is in having a specific, (in this case US) template to do a job that an existing, more generic template can do. I note that you advance no argument that the more generic template cannot do the job. There is absolutely no need to use different styles; indeed, unifying style is another argument in favour, and advantage, of merging. The UK template could be merged also, but that's a case of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Just because a so-called "more generic" template can be made to reproduce the current output with enough diffusion and some effort does not automatically make it worth doing. I made the case - and have a small consensus (so far) - that the "uniqueness" of the U.S. legislative system and their legislative output meets inherent notability to the point where leaving it to it's own 'puddle of water in the larger sea' makes far more sense than demoting it would - both at the future usability level and the current familiarity level - in this specific case. Making it all "look the same" doesn't help matters for those first landing here on legislative articles that happen to share or have similar titles/purposes either.

        In addition, I don't appreciate being 'bold texted' [well establish to be the equivalent of shouting someone down] by somebody who is suppose to be running a formal, constructive proposal. I really didn't expect the usual User talk page roustabout for simply voicing my opposition here. So without an apology first, I see no reason to comment any further either way. Good Luck. -- George Orwell III (talk) 12:38, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

        • "well established..."^{[citation needed]}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:09, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sure Andy, "a more generic template can do". Always. That one is called ((Infobox)). What is your point?

Now back to content. Can you be more specific about "The redundancy is indeed at the technical level"? What does that include, and what does it exclude? -DePiep (talk) 14:47, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please avoid using reductio ad absurdum/ straw men fallacies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:19, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simple for you: don't answer the absurdums and do answer the questions. BTW, I note that this is the second time in a row here that you ignore the question. -DePiep (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete/Merge: So long as all the parameters are kept. To have multiple templates makes things complicated (and are there separate infoboxes for UK leigslation, Spanish legislation, etc...?) . As someone who works on US Law-related articles on occasion, I would simply reach for Infobox legislation, provided it had all the parameters I needed. I hate having to dig through 120,000,000 templates to find the nitpicky one that has the three parameters that were omitted from a more general one. I used this one for my FA-class article Horse Protection Act of 1970, and remember having to ask the techies to help me fix all the complicated parameters. Anything to streamline and simplify templates for us non-tech sorts would be valuable. Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand this. As someone who "works on US Law-related articles", why would you not prefer to have a template named "Infobox U.S. legislation"? Saves you from trawling through 120,000,000 parameters. Does it help if you have to read documentation for |royal_assent=? And how does it help you if the parameter list does not mention SCOTUS? As for complicated parameters - isn't that to be solved within the template? (if it's complicated for US legislature, how would it be simpler for general legislature?). This last point is for template improvement, not for throwing all bads together in one template. -DePiep (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment. The only reason for deletion the no mentions is this word, "Redundancy", later specified to "The redundancy is indeed at the technical level" (10:06). But actually, there is little or no redundancy. Out of 13+38 labels (lefthand text) in US+generic template, only 7 are the same (same words); headers not counted. And in the 68+55 parameters, 2 (two) pairs exist. So 119 parameter names have no match. By these numbers only, one can say that there is no redundancy. On top of this, one can safely state that the legal terms in the US are not equal to those worldwide. That is about the exact names of items involved. Legal words for process, actors, statuses: all are specific to a juridical system (incidental overlaps do not deny this). So next to those numbers, there is no base that the legal domains (as in: knowledge, field of work) are the same. There is no redundancy.

With the TfD the burden of proof (proof that this is a sound improvement) is with the proposer. However, the proposer has given a one-word reason, and that one now has shown wrong. Clearly the nomination was without any check beforehand (no technical mapping, no considerations of the judicial terms present). This way the actual, constructive merge job is left for others to work out. To compare, a preparing discussion at a talkpage leaves much more time & space for the subtleties of a merge, especially since it invites domain knowledge (those who know about judicial terms).

Third point is that I find the attitude of the nom not constructive. When I asked for clarification of the 'technical redundant' remark made, no answer was given (22:13). By then, another serious contributor already had left this discussion for being shouted at in boldface (the non-engaging response was a snark, 17:09). As a result, the boldfacing was not reconsidered, and its content was not addressed by the editor. I ask the closing admin to clearly describe how & by what that subthread (say, those with the George Orwell III contributions) is used. And I myself still have no idea what the grand idea behind this merge proposal is, nor were my queries into this answered. -DePiep (talk) 00:13, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. As described in my comment above, there is no "Redundancy" (the whole reason for this merge). No idea or plan has been brought forward on how to actually merge by parameters, texts & judicial content. The discussion has not developed into a constructive path. -DePiep (talk) 00:20, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The redundancy of a country-specific template when a global template already exists is logically self-evident. The purpose of this discussion is to determine how to merge them; not TO present a fait acompli. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:30, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Discussion with you is useless before you correct your dismissive snarky answers you made earlier. -DePiep (talk) 13:45, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Considering the slew of editors who disagree with you, there is clearly nothing "self-evident" about your position. You'll need to do a much better job convincing people than ignoring questions, pointing out your logical superiority, and using boldface in lieu of making an argument. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 14:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • That a "slew" of, er, just four editors apparently don't understand template redundancy has little to do with logic. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:27, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • My apologies; I wrote that under the assumption that you actually wanted to convince other editors of the merits of your proposal and attempt to establish consensus that this template should be deleted. Since you apparently have already determined that consensus exists for your position—as evidenced by your bulletproof boldface text arguments and the whole 2 !votes for it—I clearly am wasting my time. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 14:36, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment in support of !delete vote: The way to handle a 120,000,000 parameter infobox is to have samples in the documentation that allow people like me to copy and paste the proper parameters. Seems to me the best of both worlds; no need for the tech problems caused by a zillion templates, but where multiple parameters WOULD cause confusion for people like me, create the proper subset as an example. Much easier for everyone, particularly where even the US Legislation infobox already has some confusing parameters that cause problems for us non-techies. Montanabw^(talk) 20:38, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That would be a complete set of U.S.-specific parameters for you to copy in a US article. Putting all those legal system specifics in one template would really make that 120,000,000 figure a reality. (I thought you were making a joke). I think you are asking for a cleanup of the US template (reduce complexity, improve documentation). -DePiep (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Or, by numbers: the two templates have 121 unique parameters (68+55 minus two double names) as I noted above. That's not a merge, that's stacking two infoboxes under one title. And all the complexities you met in the US version would be in the merged version. All of them, plus the other unneeded parameters you'll have to skip. -DePiep (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• • • You conveniently ignore synonyms, such as |effective date= / |date_effective=; |introducedby= / |introduced_by=, etc. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:51, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion with you is useless before you correct your dismissive snarky answers you made earlier. -DePiep (talk) 23:09, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge per Montanabw —PC-XT+ 05:51, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But how, PC-XT? This is going circular: this TfD has no proposal for the actual merge (say, by parameter mapping). A "merge" conclusion would be based on !voted opinions ("let's do it") only. Then after closure, the merge would be enforced because of that outcome, no matter what wrongs, problems & issues are introduced. Because the merging editor will always point to this closure. That is why I call this immature: there is no thorough proof of overlap, based on content analysis (domain knowledge). -DePiep (talk) 14:34, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It would not necessarily be enforced. If a problem is found that requires more discussion, the merge wouldn't happen without that discussion. It would be nice if all the technicalities could be worked out ahead of time, but there are many templates awaiting merge with no clear mappings. Merge later, as Int21h says below, would be ok with me, as well, as there is no deadline. —PC-XT+ 23:26, 22 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak oppose I disagree that the European-American federal statutory legislation scheme is somehow so different from other European schemes; there is the act of parliament at question (cited as session/chapter laws) and the acts it amends (the act creating the US Code, as amended, known as the US Code), as well as the procedural history and related legislation such as rules and regulations of the executive bodies. But... We simply don't know enough about non-English speaking countries' legal systems. I can't even decipher the Spanish, French and Italian court systems, much less observe how their statutory legislation schemes are implemented in practice. I've just started on European-American sub-national schemes (New York's overview is done although I haven't really started on ((New York legislation)) yet, only ~55 states and occupied territories to go, not counting the Philippines). Yes, there are caveats to many legislative bodies, such as the UK, who's statutory legislation must be approved by an old woman who lives in a castle (dragons, anyone?). There is also the question of delegated legislation (regulations). We just need to make an ontological study of legislation along with the relevant old ladies and dragons, and carefully merge them into a master template, but we just aren't there yet. So.. Merge later. Int21h (talk) 19:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:29, 29 November 2014 (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.

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 no consensus. During the course of the discussion it was re-written as a wrapper for ((Infobox officeholder)). There may be consensus for merging it with ((Infobox officeholder)), but that template was not tagged for merging. However, feel free to renominate for merging along with another template if you still want it merged. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 20:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox university chancellor (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox officeholder)) (into which any unique parameters should be merged). Could be made a wrapper. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Support deletion per Pigs. Tony (talk) 08:18, 16 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. First have the parameters in the target template. This TfD cannot decide on another template. Start here. -DePiep (talk) 13:40, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet again; false premise. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:59, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete or merge: See below for an idea. But officeholder is an easy merge, nice generic template, and otherwise we are going to have ones for University President, University Dean of Students, University Athletic Director, where will it end? I DO presume any deletion would incorporate needed parameters into the master template. Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• merge with template:infobox officeholder. I just rewrote it as a frontend and found two missing parameters which would need to be merged (or removed). Frietjes (talk) 21:02, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Andy does not like that. -DePiep (talk) 22:42, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Please do not attempt to speak for me; you are clearly exceptionally unqualified to do so. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Frietjes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge the two missing parameters into ((Infobox officeholder)), then replace and delete unless keeping as a front-end would be better for some reason —PC-XT+ 05:55, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge or wrap All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:32, 23 November 2014 (UTC).
  
• Delete. Redundant to ((Infobox officeholder)). Graham (talk) 21:38, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:26, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keepas wrapper, as above, I would support a merge, but it is better to use the proper procedure —PC-XT+ 07:38, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is the proper procedure. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:08, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I got this confused with another discussion. I edited my !vote rationale. —PC-XT+ 04:45, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been rendered moot, as the template is now a wrapper for the officeholder infobox (I didn't realise Frietjes' rewrite, mentioned above, was live and not in their userspace - thanks, for that, Frietjes). The two missing parameter, |salary=, which may not be used, and |institutions= are catered for by the |blank= parameters. If they're not needed, all we need to decide is whether to keep the wrapper, or have a bot Subst: it.

See:

• Category:TEMP Infobox university chancellor with salary parameter
• Category:TEMP Infobox university chancellor with workplaces parameter

for tracking, Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:35, 1 December 2014 (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.

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 no consensus. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 02:29, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox academic division (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox university)) (into which the one or two unique parameters should be merged; and to which ((Infobox university school)) already redirects). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:17, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. First have the parameters in the target template. Nom "redundant" claim is not correct (as they noted themselves). This TfD cannot decide on another template. Start here. -DePiep (talk) 13:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • And again, your presumptions as to what must happen before a TfD can be discussed are false, as is your attempt to put words in to my mouth. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:58, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Lean delete: But is there an "infobox college department" or other similar? Are we merging all these concepts? Montanabw^(talk) 20:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Montanabw: there is no "infobox college department", but - as noted - the equivalent ((Infobox university school)) already redirects to ((Infobox university)), which already serves for either a whole university, or a single department, through the use of its |parent= parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:26, 17 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, that works for me. Montanabw^(talk) 20:42, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge per nom, though this name may possibly be useful as a redirect —PC-XT+ 06:09, 19 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:24, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• keep, I would potentially support merging, but this isn't a merger discussion. Frietjes (talk) 18:12, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • You advance no argument as to why a separate template is needed for "academic divisions" than for "college departments" or "university schools". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:10, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • And rightly so. It is up to you, nominator, to argue for your proposal. You have brought not one useful point so far, but personal opinions. -DePiep (talk) 23:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • And neither do you. Meanwhile, some test conversions show only improvements. 1; 2 Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:01, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Renominate for merging, which was my intention with many of these merge !votes —PC-XT+ 08:10, 1 December 2014 (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.

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, now that changes were made to make this obsolete, and there appear to be no objections to the changes. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 17:48, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:?/meta/shortname (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

No meaningful content. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 1 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• redirect to Template:unknown/meta/shortname. Frietjes (talk) 15:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• What's this for? It seems this is an empty template that does absolutely nothing. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:31, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think the meta subpages are mostly used in political infoboxes. They hold information like wikidata, but allow it to be used in multiple pages. This one is probably meant to be used when the political affiliation is unknown, for some reason. —PC-XT+ 07:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not less confused. It's currently untranscluded, so redirecting seems odd to me. It has no content, so subst:'ing is a no-op, and it can't be used for that. Assuming this does have a use, where can I find out more about this 'class' of templates? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:46, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

perhaps Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Unknown/meta/shortname? Frietjes (talk) 17:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Redirect per Frietjes —PC-XT+ 07:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and revert this unconstructive edit, which is what made it empty and so do nothing; then partially revert this edit. The template is part of a group used in election boxes, having names like Template:party/meta/shortname (see Category:Political party shortname templates), e.g. Template:British Whig Party/meta/shortname. This particular one is occasionally used when the political party in an election has not yet been found out but is not truly unknown - perhaps reliable sources are lacking - and so a single question mark is used as a placeholder. The template was created soon after this edit - in ((Election box gain with party link)) the |loser= parameter is mandatory. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:43, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Perhaps if the template has been empty (and unused?) for five years, that's a sign that it's unnecessary? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:53, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    It has indeed been empty for (almost) five years; but it's likely that the edit which made it empty went completely unnoticed at the time, since the page has just two watchers. As for non-use, it's been unused for less than three days, and certainly wasn't unused at the time that this TFD was raised. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

    If it was used anywhere in the last (almost) six years, it didn't work. And apparently, nothing really went wrong. I might still not understand what the intention and effect of this template is, but if I understand it correctly, for the last six years everybody was perfectly happy with this template doing nothing at all. It stands to reason that they'll be equally happy with not having this template. It might even be better if it does something, but I can't tell for sure - why didn't anybody fix that earlier doesn't really have an answer on Wikipedia. Changes can go unnoticed for a long time, but if anyone was still actively using this template, surely, they'd have noticed it wasn't doing what they thought it was doing when they inserted it somewhere? And if it wasn't inserted anywhere in the past six years, it's fairly likely nobody will any time soon either, doesn't it? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 12:45, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • So ((Unknown/meta/shortname)) is for those confirmed to be unknown, and this one is for those not yet confirmed as anything? It seems to be something like the difference between null and undefined in some programming languages. Some people see the difference and the reasons behind it clearly, and others wonder why there is one. I can see the point that they are different, and the usage of this one is only temporary, and hard to track, so I'll change my !vote to revert those edits per Redrose64. —PC-XT+ 06:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I can't help but think that if this template was created in 2008, and changed to do nothing at all in January 2009, whether or not that was the right thing to do, and nobody noticed or cared for that entire time, this template isn't useful at all, and deletion is reasonable. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 09:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Here is an example:

The first row is, of course, the template under consideration. It was originally designed to say "Whig gain from ?" and edited to say "Whig gain from [[?|]]" (The editor may have thought [[?|]] would automagically turn into [[?|?]], but there was no real point to that, and it doesn't.) The second row has no template. (I assume this would be the replacement if this template is deleted, but if not, we can imagine the red link instead of the TfD notice in the first row.) The third row shows the use of ((Unknown/meta/shortname)), which is the closest template to this one. Though semantically inaccurate for this purpose, it gives an example of how these templates are supposed to look.

The top two now look similar, if the TfD notice is ignored, because they both generate broken code. This shows that deleting the template would be more or less the same as keeping it as is. I probably wouldn't notice the difference or care, because it is only a placeholder. I may think the code just needs to stay broken unless I take the time to investigate all of this. However, now that I have been shown that it doesn't have to be that way, I prefer the original. I wouldn't oppose a move to a name that tells the purpose of the template in English, like ((Placeholder/meta/shortname)). —PC-XT+ 04:25, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

While I attempt to understand this, I ask the closing admin to take my !vote above with a grain of salt - maybe I'm still missing something crucial. Meanwhile, is it correct to say that the intention of the Unknown and the ? is to link to Unknown and to ? respectively? How is that a good idea? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:22, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

These meta templates are very confusing. The templates only set the displayable text. The link is always to the article that shares the base name of the template, which is usually a political party article title. So, ((Unknown/meta/shortname)) will link to Unknown, regardless of the template content, and ((?/meta/shortname)) will always link to ?.

I suppose Unknown is ok as a general concept, but it isn't specific enough to explain why it is linked from a political infobox. ? is even less related. Linking to Placeholder name, rather than Question mark, may be less confusing, but still not ideal. (Placeholder is a DAB page that lists political placeholders as something totally different, so this name I mentioned in my last reply would be confusing.) If we made specific articles to hold the political usage, the templates should be renamed to match them, however, I'm not sure there are enough reliable sources about either unknown political parties or the lack of reliable sources in political articles, so this seems to be a bit of a paradox. Linking to other namespaces that describe the problem would be discouraged by policy. We are basically stuck with providing all details through the link text, and choosing a generic article title as the base name of the template.

There has been talk of simplifying this system. I would think one meta template that could call one of any number of formatting templates with the political data for that party as hardcoded parameters would be better than multiple meta templates that each hold one piece of data, but some may disagree with that. —PC-XT+ 04:18, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Its hard to understand how our readers might ever derive benfit from links to Unknown (a disambiguation page) or Question mark, from within election results tables. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:21, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me a problem is that these templates are currently needed to not break ((Election box gain with party link)). The solution to that is to fix that template so that loser isn't required, not to keep these. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:37, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think these hacks should be deleted until the election box templates (and any other templates that use these meta templates) properly handle these edge cases. Otherwise, it would definitely be better than linking to unrelated articles and DAB pages. I still think a redesign of them all would be better than just fixing this problem in all of them. —PC-XT+ 05:00, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If this argument were in heavy use, I could see the point (though I'm still not sure whether or not I'd agree with it), but to keep a currently unused template so that we can start to put links to ? in loser parameters doesn't seem right to me. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 11:17, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and fix the political box infrastructure so it doesn't require these. This whole "meta/shortname" business should have been done away with years ago; it's a poorly implemented idea and a maintenance nightmare. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:16, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete and delete Template:unknown/meta/shortname after adding an 'ifexist' check or 'switch' to ((Election box gain with party link)). Frietjes (talk) 15:54, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• To be clear, I do support deletion of this and the unknown one if the template is edited to not need them. —PC-XT+ 08:30, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • boldy fixed here. Frietjes (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Alright, can we speedy delete both, now? —PC-XT+ 00:31, 7 December 2014 (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.

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The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Silver line (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Used in only one article. Content is style="background: #e5e5e5". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:45, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and replace merge with other templates of this type, to a new merged template ((coloured background styling)) with a |colour=silver to activate this. "background" genericizes the name, as the content is usable for things other than lines. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • See nomination of Template:Bg-c, below. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:43, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• delete per nom. With care. Currently the only article using this is broken because of this nomination in ways I can't understand. Hence the care. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Subst and delete per Martijn Hoekstra's argument that style attributes should be written out, if possible —PC-XT+ 05:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:51, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Frietjes (talk) 20:50, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bronze line (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Used in only one article. Content is style="background: #eecc99". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and replace merge with other templates of this type, to a new merged template ((coloured background styling)) with a |colour=bronze to activate this. "background" genericizes the name, as the content is usable for things other than lines. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 07:51, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • See nomination of Template:Bg-c, below. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:43, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Subst and delete per Martijn Hoekstra's argument that style attributes should be written out, if possible —PC-XT+ 05:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:51, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Frietjes (talk) 20:51, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 22:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Gold line (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Used in only one article. Content is style="background: #fffcaf". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:30, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge and replace merge with other templates of this type, to a new merged template ((coloured background styling)) with a |colour=gold to activate this. "background" genericizes the name, as the content is usable for things other than lines. -- 67.70.35.44 (talk) 07:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • See nomination of Template:Bg-c, below. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:42, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Subst and delete per Martijn Hoekstra's argument that style attributes should be written out, if possible —PC-XT+ 05:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:50, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete Frietjes (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was Subst and delete. Jackmcbarn (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Bg-c (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Used in only six articles. Content is style="background-color: (({1))}". Subst: and delete. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:13, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• delete (after subst:'ing). It's rather clunky; because the style attribute is part of the template invocation, you can't have more than one such templates on an element; you can't have wikitext containing i.e. <div ((Bg-c|grey)) ((center))>. If we would extract the style attribute we would end up with wikitext looking something like <div style="((Gg-c|grey))"> I don't see that improves over <div style="background-color: grey">; it's marginally shorter at the cost of obfuscation and complexity - which is IMO too high a cost. Let's keep things simple. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Subst and delete per Martijn Hoekstra —PC-XT+ 05:14, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as a convenience for the creation of tables. — This, that and the other (talk) 09:17, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What about keeping as a subst-only template? —PC-XT+ 10:51, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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• delete Frietjes (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was merge with ((Infobox London station)) Magioladitis (talk) 22:54, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox closed London station (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to either ((Infobox UK disused station)) or ((Infobox London station)), into one or other of which the small number of differing parameters should be merged. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:11, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Not redundant. ((Infobox UK disused station)) lacks the London-specific features; and ((Infobox London station)) is for open stations. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:14, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hence "into one or other of which the small number of differing parameters should be merged". In particular, there is no reason why the latter needs to only be for open stations. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. This should be redundant to Infobox London Station, except I don't understand why there would be no matching (({start))} and (({end))} parameters already available. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:08, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• merge with ((Infobox London station)). Frietjes (talk) 15:55, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge so ((Infobox London station)) can handle open and closed stations —PC-XT+ 04:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was keep. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:46, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Paris Metro line (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Limited use (12 lines). Redundant to ((Infobox rail line)) (see Circle line (London Underground), for example). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:01, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• it's a frontend for template:Infobox rail line, so is the proposal to merge it, or will the trip time information be deleted? Frietjes (talk) 15:58, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• keep since this isn't a merger proposal. Frietjes (talk) 18:19, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 18:46, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep as not entirely redundant, and not a merge discussion —PC-XT+ 08:39, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Not a merge discussion" is not a reason to keep a template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:30, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • To restate my !vote, then, keep, recommending a relist as a merge discussion because there is not enough redundancy for me to say delete at this time —PC-XT+ 00:17, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, not a merge proposal. Plastikspork, why relist a botched TfD thread? -DePiep (talk) 10:05, 6 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Only one editor had commented, and its possible the nom intended deletion rather than merging —PC-XT+ 00:20, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was delete as redundant to ((Infobox station)) Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Taiwan station (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox station)). Could be made a wrapper of that, in the first instance. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:55, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: I originally created the template because the existing ((Infobox station)) was inadequate for displaying geography (Taiwan's district/province/municipality divisions), lines, station numbers, TRA codes, station ridership, rank, and transfer options. -Multivariable (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Multivariable: Inadequate how? Why could this not be addressed by modifications to the more generic template? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:42, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Taiwan's district/province/municipality division structure should not be in a station article. We only need a simple address and the all that stuff can be dealt with in those articles where it has relevance. Secondarywaltz (talk) 16:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Redundant - To replace this with the generic Infobox would mean adding a lot of parameters and functionality that are just not needed there. Like the GB and London stations, it is better to leave them alone. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:14, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Secondarywaltz: Such as? Would these not be useful elsewhere? Would making this template a module of the more generic one satisfy that need? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:01, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Pigsonthewing: Aha Andy! Do you mean something like ((Indian railway code)) for TRA info? That would work. I do think that the complex address info is overkill. Do we need one individual parameter for every Taiwan rail line? Just link them or insert the succession boxes into the Infobox. Many stations have simple enough data that they could almost be converted by changing some parameter names. I could analyze this line by line and see what is left, but that might take a few days. What parameters do you think could be used in a generic Infobox? Secondarywaltz (talk) 16:31, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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• Either delete as redundant or wrap to try to preserve parameters —PC-XT+ 00:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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The result of the discussion was keep. Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 21:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox London Tram (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Limited use (five tram lines); replace with ((Infobox rail line)). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - It all depends whether you want to use Template:Infobox tram line for the service or as you suggest, a rail line. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:20, 26 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • ((Infobox tram line)) redirects to ((Infobox bus line)), but that could be used if deemed more appropriate. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:59, 27 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - Seems to be doing no harm, why delete it? It's specific to that system. G-13114 (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "harm" is done by creating an additional and unnecessary maintenance overhead; and an additional cognitive burden for editors, who need to know about, and how to use, an extra template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:16, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Since there are only five tram lines in London that's unlikely to be a major problem, unless more are built, but again, hardly likely to be a big problem. G-13114 (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • The maintenance overload is the same, no matter how many times a template is - or is not - transcluded. That there are only five articles on which this template can be used is all the more reason to use something more generic, and equally suitable Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • What exactly is a "maintenance overload"? --Redrose64 (talk) 22:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Consider, for example, when we created |alt=, or the Image module in Lua, or added microformats. Each infobox had to updated (except those we haven't yet got around to...), separately. The more infoboxes, the more work there is to do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:43, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • It seems very small compared to the amount of time that is taken up in finding templates to take to TFD, debating them, and (if the TFD succeeds) making all the necessary changes to articles, the merged-to template, or both. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:08, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
              • It's open-ended, so effectively immeasurable. You can, of course, reduce the burden of the TfD process by not asking so many questions. ;-) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:15, 20 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• keep for now, however I could see rewriting it as a frontend for something then reconsidering. Frietjes (talk) 17:42, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

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• Keep in case someone wants to wrap it —PC-XT+ 08:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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