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Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2008 October 9

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October 9 edit

Template:Val edit

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 debate was keep. Wizardman 01:30, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Through its use of template delimitnum it formats long numbers in a novel, nonstandard way: groups of 3 digits separated by commas to the left of the decimal, but groups of 3 digits separated by thin spaces to the right of the decimal. This defies both WP:MOSNUM and international standards Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Gerry Ashton is being disruptive to make a point. Here on WT:MOSNUM, there is a debate about bringing the formatting of numbers on some of Wikipedia’s mathematics articles into conformance with the rest of Wikipedia’s articles on our technical and applied mathematics articles. The details of the dispute are arcane, but it essentially is debate over delmiting long numbers so they can be parsed easily, such as 2.718281828.

    You should know that the {{val}} template was extensively discussed long ago on MOSNUM (here on Archive 94) and was further discussed on WT:MOS (here on Archive 97). In both cases, there was a broad-based consensus that the envisioned template {{delimitnum}} was a good and it was well-received by the community. This all transpired in February of this year. The only thoroughly disaffected editor who opposed the template was Gerry (here on MOSNUM Archive 94). He hated the idea and tried to block it with the suggestion that a consensus should also have to be obtained on WT:MOS. Well, a while later—as I mentioned above—that is precisely what eventually happened; I later noticed an issue there about the formatting of scientific notation and told them of what had been discussed on WT:MOSNUM. We had a great discussion that resulted in a tweak to the proposed template. The clear consensus in both venues was that it was a good idea.

    Note: The {{delimitnum}} template never worked well for long strings and much greater favor was found with a {{val}} template created by SkyLined. The template can also be used to create values in what is known as “concise form” like h = 6.62606896(33)×10−34 J·s. This is the same, SI-compliant way the NIST shows the value (see example).

    The {val} template is used in a wide variety of Wikipedia’s articles and is used extensively on Kilogram, which just received GA status. The deletion of {val} and {delimitnum} would be terribly disruptive to a wide variety of articles on Wikipedia, at least one of which is a GA article. We need this tool.

    Now Gerry, who has long opposed these templates (he wrote “I oppose this proposal on the grounds that it is a bastard.” ) [1] knows full well that these templates were well-received in the community and that the templates—particularly {val}—are used extensively in Wikipedia’s articles. This is simply disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.

    I ask that this nomination be quickly cleared and that Gerry Ashton be sanctioned for this unabashed effort at being severely disruptive. He knew full well what he was doing here. Greg L (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at "What links here" for the Val template leads me to believe the vast majority of the use is through an Infobox; I believe it is Infobox settlement. I believe the sooner this tempate is done away with, the less damage will be done by the spread of a number format that is unique to the English Wikipedia, and defies all existing standard number formats. I was content to leave the matter alone in hopes that someone would find a solution to the problem of grouping numbers to the right of the decimal point in a way that would be acceptable to American readers, but no such solution has emerged. Since Greg L has chosen this time to propose wider use of the Val template, I believe this is the time to bring this issue to a wider audience and see if the wider audience agrees this template is a bad idea. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your opinion on this is clear and your statement above contains statements that are beyond fallacious. This is not how you try to get your way and is disruptive. The {{val}} template was extensively discussed long ago on MOSNUM (here on Archive 94) and was further discussed on WT:MOS (here on Archive 97) where everyone expressed great pleasure with the tool. There is clearly a general consensus on this and SkyLined put a lot of effort into the {{val}} template to make sure it was in conformance with that consensus decision. There is no debate; only an editor who disagreed with the consensus view, got angry this morning, and went out of his way to disrupt Wikipedia. Greg L (talk) 21:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I missed that it is currently listed in WP:MOSNUM, although the guideline also says "currently has known bugs". Interestingly, the template probably violates the guideline, which says
  • Commas are used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point; spaces or dots are not used in this role (2,900,000, not 2 900 000), except in technical tables or in quotations where the original does so (such as in scientific publications).
(Unless you interpret that to mean grouping with spaces is only discouraged to the left of the decimal, and it's ok to do it to the right of the decimal.) --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This isn’t the proper venue to re-open debate on this. Like Dweller once wrote: “What consenting mathematicians get up to behind closed doors is their business, but please don't do it in public.” These two templates ({{val}} and {{delimitnum}}) were thoroughly discussed, achieved broad consensus to be made, and directly resulted in a Bugzilla request of the developers to produce the special parsing functions to enable them. Further, there are articles that depend upon them, one of which is a GA article. Greg L (talk) 23:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the good article Greg L is referrring to is Kilogram. Please edit the source of that article (without saving any changes) and notice there are comments warning that the template does not work for certain numbers. If you believe editors can be trusted to carfully inspect every use of this template in their preview, even when this template is transcluded through a different template, that belief would weaken the case for deleting this template. If you suspect editors won't be that careful and will have undetected errors in their numbers, that would strengthen the case for deleting this template. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I know. I put those editors comments there myself. And, more importantly, MOSNUM already advises editors to be careful about this idiosyncrasy of {val} (here). Further, {val} has built-in error checking that catches much of this. And finally, once the developers finally respond to a six-month-old Bugzilla request to make the special character-counting parser functions, {val} will be revised to exploit those new functions and all articles that rely upon {val} won’t be affected in the least. And at that time, the adviso on MOSNUM cautioning editors on this point will be removed. Greg L (talk) 01:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Fix: I created this because it can help authors to create similar looking, style-guide complaint, complex values across pages. Any author should always check if what s/he created looks as intended, whether s/he is using a template or manually creating the value using HTML. The tempalte is just an easier way to do things and if the template fails reliably, the author will notice and can fall back on manually creating the value with HTML similar to what the template would output. If the existing issues are fixed, then I see no reason to go back to manually creating values, with the risk of people using different styles across pages.     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 11:01, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for now: It's problematic, especially because it introduces more markup in the text, but long numbers are practically unreadable without it. Ideally, this would be a feature of the software - Mediawiki should identify numbers and format them appropriately. (I suggest E notation in source for large and small numbers). Zocky | picture popups 11:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Why the hell would you want to delete this template? It's one of the most useful template out there, especially if Skylined gets around to fix the problems with the zeros. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 12:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh jezuz christ. It’s not complex. MOSNUM cautions editors that the template has bugs and it’s right there on the template’s page too. And once the developers get around to the Bugzilla request and produce the necessary character-counting parser functions, SkyLined will revise it and there will be no bugs. In the mean time, the template produces gorgeous SI-compliant output with only a modicum of care by editors and it’s currently being heavily used some articles—one of which is a GA article. That point alone should have ended it right there. This was purely and simply an effort by an angry malcontent to do an end-run around a six-month-old consensus decision that had been discussed at length. And beyond all that is the fact that there are a number of experienced editors here who want to keep it. End of story. Someone please hurry up delete this nomination so some nice articles aren’t cluttered up with little notices of nomination-for-deletion. And please do the same for {delimitnum}, below. Greg L (talk) 20:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I've read Template talk:Val#val template has a serious flaw, and if the template is returning incorrect values, then it's use needs to be halted until this is fixed. Promises to get it fixed are not good enough. It needs fixing before it is used in any other articles. In general, templates like this should be used with extreme care, because later changes risk changing thousands of articles from what the original author intended the article to appear as, and it is very difficult sometimes for the current editors of an article to work out where the change has originated from (especially if the changes are several layers of templates deep). I agree that having small notices appear on every use of this template is annoying, but that is one of the disadvantages of templates, and that is not a reason for closing a debate early. (Disclosure: I've also commented on this matter from another angle at WP:AN, see here) Carcharoth (talk) 00:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Yes. But it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that {val} has a bug. Why(?), you might ask? Because right smack in the middle of the instructions on the {{val}} page is a note advising editors to the exact nature of the bug, which only happens on especially big numbers anyway. If an editor is smart enough to type “Template:var” into Wikipedia’s search field, they’re smart enough to read the bug note; particularly when it’s the only text on the page in bold. And then there’s also the note right in WP:MOSNUM where a lot of editors might first learn of {val}, where it advises “Use with great consideration and always check that it will give the correct results before using it.” That’s good enough. The template works fine for its intended use. Go to here on Kilogram and look at its values in scientific notation; that’s what {val} is good for. If we deleted everything because it doesn’t work right when you push it too far, well… give me your address and I’ll come and delete Windows from your computer. Greg L (talk) 01:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • You did note that I haven't suggested deletion, right? All I'm asking for is that the use of the template be suspended until the bug is fixed. Just waiting forever-and-a-day for the bug to be fixed is not good enough. Unless someone can insert some logic into the template to detect the cases when errors occur, and warn editors that way. See here for an example of template logic used to warn people when they end up entering birth and death dates that output a negative age of death. Carcharoth (talk) 02:54, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • For example, the error messages at the bottom of Template:Val/test. If someone can guarantee that a large number of possible errors have been tested for and that conditionals for such errors have been marked to produce red warning signs in the template logic, then I'll withdraw my objections. Carcharoth (talk) 02:59, 11 October 2008 (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:Delimitnum edit

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 debate was keep. Wizardman 01:29, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

This template formats long numbers in a novel, nonstandard way: groups of 3 digits separated by commas to the left of the decimal, but groups of 3 digits separated by thin spaces to the right of the decimal. This defies both WP:MOSNUM and international standards Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • No. See response above regarding {val}. [User:Gerry_Ashton|Gerry Ashton]] is being disruptive to make a point. The deletion of {val} and {delimitnum} would be terribly disruptive to a wide variety of articles on Wikipedia, at least one of which is a GA article.

    I ask that this nomination be quickly cleared and that Gerry Ashton be sanctioned for this unabashed effort at being severely disruptive. He knew full well what he was doing here. Greg L (talk) 19:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep for all the reason mentioned above for {val}. Our Kilogram article uses both {val} and {delimitnum}. Greg L (talk) 02:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for all the reasons mentioned above.     — SkyLined {talkcontribs 11:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No vote: I created this template in an attempt to reduce the over-the-top syntax that was used in articles like Kilogram to a manageable level. As I say above, this should really be handled automatically in the software (only on final display, and only on article pages, of course). Zocky | picture popups 12:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, for above reasons. —Mizu onna sango15Hello! 20:55, 12 October 2008 (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:Blankingdebates edit

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 debate was delete. Wizardman 01:33, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Blankingdebates (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) and
Template:Hidden-blank-reason (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Unused templates created by now banned user. Unlikely to be used template. -- Suntag ☼ 15:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete the first one for sure its just a silly bit of nonsense that serves no possible encyclopedic purpose; the template space is not for WikiHumor. I would not have a problem with it as a usersubpage though. I don't get what the second one is supposed to do and I know of several templates like this are widely used, but it is not used at all so delete the second one as well. Icewedge (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2008 (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:English official language clickable map edit

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 debate was keep. Wizardman 01:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:English official language clickable map (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Agh, misclicked and lost the already typed up reason. Nutshell: usually for nav templates, but this is excessive, loads a large image in a number of articles unnecessarily, can't imagine any benefit this would have that Template:Anglophone states doesn't (I should mention that that template almost got deleted for a few flag images, and this gets away with a full-screen world map). I vote to delete. +Hexagon1 (t) 14:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

keep. I see no reason at all to delete this. Extremely useful template, and a lot of effort went into compiling it. The "large image" weighs all of 65k. That's "large" by 1995 standards perhaps, if even that. Whether or not it is useful to transclude the template is of course a matter to be decided for each article individually. Try to get consensus to remove it from each article that presently transcludes it, individually. Once it is orphaned, feel free to redirect it. Even if it remains transcluded from a single article (Anglosphere), there will be no reason to delete it. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding either on the purpose of TfD, or the nature of navigation template. The mere existence of a nav template constitutes no obligation to transclude it from each article it happens to link to.
it is also dubious whether this is a "navigation template". Note that I have created this in November 2007 by exporting portions from an article body, for the purpose of transcluding the same material into the body of two or more articles. If people have since made it collapsible, out of concern of saving "screen real estate", or just for the hell of it, that doesn't automatically change its nature to that of a "navigation template". --dab (𒁳) 15:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But its use on the various articles it links to, amongst the other navigation templates, does. I would have no problem with it if it got removed from the blue navbar thing and transcluded only in one (or a few) articles (in the article body, as you say it was intended). I am not dismissing your (good) work, I just found it a tad extreme for a navigation template. +Hexagon1 (t) 15:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There has been no demonstration that the template is unrequired. The preference or the appropriateness of the use of any transclusion of the template is with the respective articles, not the template. That there was a lot of effort to construct, isn't topical to the overarching principle. -- billinghurst (talk) 04:45, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep : template space is the place to store such code, even if it's used only on one page. Nice coding work, btw. --Qyd (talk) 21:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I find the template quite useful and just viewed it to see whether a similar template exists for e.g. "the Francosphere" or "Hispanosphere" (Iberosphere?), "Arabosphere," etc. Was quite surprised to see that it's being considered for deletetion, and I do not find the nom's case compelling. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 21:45, 15 October 2008 (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:Uw-username/doc edit

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 debate was delete. delldot ∇. 00:16, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Uw-username/doc (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Old documentation subpage unused since July 2008. Anomie⚔ 00:37, 9 October 2008 (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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