Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

dating tags with "(tagged since November 2013)" instead of "(November 2013)"

At the moment the tooltips used for inline tags that explains the problem purpose of the tag ends with a string that gives the month and year the tag was added like "(November 2013)". [Usually the actual dating is done by a bot soon after the editor adds the tag rather than the editor adding the date info themselves.] For new editors, there may be insufficient context to understand what the date in the tooltip means. I'm thinking that actually having it say "(tagged since November 2013)" may be worth the extra characters for that purpose. Also the word "since" is something of a small plea for help and may encourage new editors. Comments? Jason Quinn (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like a helpful clarification. Reify-tech (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi, User:Reify-tech. I started a conversation a couple days ago at the Village Pump about this hoping to gather more opinions. Nobody has responded so it doesn't seem like many people care. I'm inclined to go ahead with this. I think I will announce the intended change on the {{citation needed}} talk page and make the change in a day or two. If there's no backlash from the roolout, we can proceed with the rest. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:33, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• No Opposition, to Jason Quinn's proposed change. I think this is fine either way, and a slight code change would be un-noted by most editors. GenQuest ^{"Talk to Me"} 04:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support sounds good (and helpful) to me. –Quiddity (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
• Support"—the next extra clarification is worth the space. Imzadi 1979 → 01:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
• Actually, what's the purpose of the date? It certainly doesn't help the reader - having a two-month or 12month date doesn't tell anything about the tagged sentence. --NaBUru38 (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Good question. The date lets readers (and more importantly editors) know how long the statement has needed improvement. The longer a statement has been tagged, the more a statement should be considered difficult to source and this factors into one's estimate of the statement's reliability. (Of course, the article's traffic rate also influence's this so we are assuming at a given traffic level.) In that sense, the date is important to readers. To editors, it serves the same purpose but it can now help decide whether or not the statement has "had its chance" to be sourced. If the statement is contested, that can be important to decide whether to remove it or not. In practice, it also helps navigate the article history to find out when a section was edited. So, I would say that the date info is definitely useful and should not be removed. I've also noticed in my editing that an old date on occasion "nudges" me to get around to looking for a source; so, there's some psychological effect at work too. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:42, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

• Stongly support, but suggest one word addition, "since", as a shorter variant conveying all the same meaning. Support is based on the ability of non-Wikipedians to understand the tag. Any change is unnecessary for us, crucial for a first time visiting student. An alternative would be to provide an explanation on mouse-over, leaving the length of the tags unchanged. Note, date is crucial to determine boldness of editing. A section that has been unreferenced for years may best be redacted, for if not corrected and made verifiable in three, it may be never referenced as required. Three months since being tagged? Whole other conclusion. Cheers, look forward to this change. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 06:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Inline Templates at Wikimania 2014

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

This is particularly aimed at highlighting less discoverable but successful projects, e.g:

• Active Wikiprojects: Wikiproject Medicine, WikiProject Video Games, Wikiproject Film

• Tech projects/Tools, which may be looking for either users or developers.

• Less known major projects: Wikinews, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc.

• Wiki Loves Parliaments, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Loves ____

• Wikimedia thematic organisations, Wikiwomen’s Collaborative, The Signpost

The deadline for submissions is 1st July 2014

For more information or to sign up for one for your project, go to:

Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Not all tags in {{Inline tags}} listed

Not all tags in {{Inline tags}} are listed on the project page. Could someone active in the project add them? Thanx — Lentower (talk) 14:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

⇒[results]

At Wikipedia:WikiProject_Inline_Templates#List_of_inline_templates, I've added some: "⇒[results]" type notes to the superscripted entries with the "⇒" in Big text. The additions mentioned were produced in this edit.

Notes: Some of the entries didn't produce working results. Some of entries with more than one template produced different results and, in these cases, the lines were split with the second line being given a double indent with a double asterisk or similar. ** I didn't want to disturb sequence without consultation but it may be worth getting content back into alphabetical order. Gregkaye ✍♪ 16:22, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Placement of ref-related tags

I recently looked at Template:Verify credibility to see whether that tag should be placed within a reference (e.g. {{verify credibility}}</ref>) or outside of it (e.g. </ref>{{verify credibility}}). I found no answer to my question, but did find the same question asked at Template talk:Verify credibility#Inline after citation number or at end of note?, dated June 2009. I'm guessing that template talk page is not watched by many editors.

Let me ask you, then (assuming you are out there): Is there be some more-or-less standard guidance for where to put reference-related inline citations such as {{verify credibility}} or {{primary source-inline}}? Should there be? If not, could there be an effort to add placement advice in each template's documentation? Currently Template:Failed verification/doc has a section on "How to use" which includes "Placement". That seems like a very worthwhile bit of advice. Cnilep (talk) 04:16, 13 July 2014 (UTC)

I would propose that if, like {{verify credibility}}, they affect a WP:Verifiability analysis, that they be placed outside the <ref>...</ref>, and thus be visible in the article prose, because it's important for readers to be aware of problems that rise to core policy level. For others, like {{clarifyref2}} which is about citation formatting cleanup, as an example, no policy issue is raised, so it should go inside. For {{deadlink}}, I think it should also go inside. If the citation is complete, it means someone bothered to check, and it's likely that archive.org will have a backup copy we can use with |archiveurl= and |archivedate=, i.e. it's a citation cleanup matter. By contrast, if it's just a bare URL inside <ref>...</ref>, all bets are off, and it should be checked at archive.org immediately, and if it cannot be found, it should be removed and replaced with {{citation needed}} (outside the ref tags).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:53, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

1. Please see similar discussion at Template talk:Page needed#Where to place the template.
2. Regarding removing dead links, please see Wikipedia:Link rot#Keeping dead links. -- -- -- 03:02, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I wish that "dead links" were named something else. E.g. "link not reachable". The present name encourages deletion, which is rightly against the guidelines. — Lentower (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I second the opinion that most inline templates should be placed outside the ref tag so that it appears in the main article. Otherwise readers aren't alert to the deficiency of the reference or that it's possible they could improve it. I too have noticed that the documentation never seemed to state where to place these inline tags. Jason Quinn (talk) 13:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

This is not the Talk Page to develop a consensus on the issue of what to do for all tags. That issue is a very broad one, and needs input from the widest possible group of editors.

This issue should be decided on a tag by tag basis, with wide discussion canvassed for each tag on the Talk Pages of the {{Wikipedia_policies_and_guidelines}} the tag is meant to support, and other pages as appropriate. — Lentower (talk) 17:21, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a good place to develop consensus for what to do with the inline templates. What is not a good place is a template's talk page since that should be for discussion of the template itself. I would agree that it is a good idea to ask for more input and I would agree we should consider what tags may be exceptions (hence why I said "most" above). Jason Quinn (talk) 20:45, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with Lentower. I also think there is editorial judgement involved in where is the most appropriate place. For example "dead link" is really an editor to editor message (house keeping) -- that is different from some other messages that may be aimed at readers as a warning. For example "better source needed" could be placed either in or outside the inline citation it real depends on how much it is there as an editor to editor message (ie the editor putting in the template thinks that the information is probably verifiable in a reliable source, but thinks that the current source is not as reliable as it ought to be) and how much it is there because the editor wants to warn the reader inline that the content of the preceding sentence or sentences may be inaccurate because it is based on an unreliable source (for which the editor doubts can be found in a reliable source, but has posted the template as per advise in PROVIT as an "interim step") and so the reader should take that into consideration. So I think an hard and fast rule on placement which would result in bots and AWB users scuttling about implementing a hard and fast rule would be on balance damaging to the project. -- PBS (talk) 20:34, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
• I'm not very interested in "hard and fast rules" or automated enforcement (especially for rules that tags always be put in the article text). However, I think it would be beneficial to provide an optional suggestion for some individual templates, on the template documentation page, if there is a sensible default for those individual templates. I'm not interested in instruction creep, but I also don't want to have people re-invent the wheel every time they wonder what might be best. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:00, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Registration required

I posted this a few days ago on the "registration required" template, but have had no response, so I thought I'd try here. Would it be possible to add a "via" parameter to that template, comparable to the via parameter in the subscription template? We who have recently been given JSTOR accounts (see WP:JSTOR for more) would like to be able to indicate that articles can be accessed via that repository, and that it requires users to register before giving access. Currently, we're using the subscription template, but (since articles are available for free to those who register), it's not really the correct one to be using! Thanks, MeegsC (talk) 18:50, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

FYI: The Citation Style 1 templates now include both |subscription= and |via=. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:45, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. And many of us are using those fields. But some are also using the registration required template, and it would be good if that one had the same functionality. MeegsC (talk) 23:30, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I meant |registration=. Both are supported. --  Gadget850 ^talk 02:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Gadget: Yes, I understand that both are supported in the cite templates. But if you look at the WP:JSTOR page, they suggest two possible ways of indicating that a "subscription" is required: the cite templates, or the {{subscription required}} template. Following some recent discussion, it was decided that "registration" is a more appropriate indication than "subscription", given that no cost is involved. However, the registration template does not yield the same results, as you can't indicate where registration is necessary. Hence the request for the "via" parameter; surely, both systems should be capable of yielding the same results? If it's a difficult programming change I can suggest to the JSTOR project that they remove the "registration required" template from their suggestion use, and just go with the cite templates. The problem is, those that don't use cite templates (and they are apparently a significant number throughout the wikipedia now as there is no requirement that they do) have no good way to indicate registration is required. MeegsC (talk) 11:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Crystal ball

A template linking to WP:BALL for Debian would be appreciated. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 00:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean? You want to tag the Debian article because it contains unsourced predictions about the future? See {{crystal}}. You'll need to be specific about what info you think is problematic. Of course, you could just fix it instead. Ivanvector (talk) 00:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I mean this tag. I could add a reason parameter to {{speculation-inline}}, but I am afraid that uninvolved editors would be tempted to fix this prematurely (more information). 84.127.115.190 (talk) 19:02, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think making a new tag would help that. You could put a commented note in the wikicode beside the tag to advise editors not to add material from the unreliable source, perhaps? Ivanvector (talk) 20:47, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

The source is reliable. I conclude that using {{fix}} directly is the right choice regarding new editors. 84.127.115.190 (talk) 01:49, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Add category request for {{update inline}}

This week I created Category:Rail transport articles in need of updating and started populating it with articles within WP:WikiProject Trains scope that were marked with {{update}}, {{update inline}} and {{update after}}. While update after includes a parameter for an additional category (the fourth unnamed parameter), neither update nor update inline have such a parameter. Another editor suggested that we create a wrapper template that would call update and update inline as well as including the category. I don't see other projects creating wrapper templates like that, and I think the better solution would be to include an optional category= parameter that would work like the category parameter in update after. Looking at the code for update after, it should be a simple matter to add this parameter, but I haven't yet because the template is in wide use and this project is noted on the template's talk page as maintaining the template. Thanks! Slambo (Speak) 16:21, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

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Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Verify credibility move?

Resolved

 – Page was moved.

There is a discussion of interest to this Wikiproject over template {{Verify credibility}} called "move to 'Unreliable_source?'". Your thoughts are welcome. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Template:Third-party-inline listed at Requested moves

Resolved

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Template:Primary source-inline listed at Requested moves

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"according to whom"

Shouldn't the {{According to whom}} template say "according to who"? — Jeraphine Gryphon ^(talk) 16:55, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Um, no. The Oatmeal's "he=who, him=whom" mnemonic [1] is perhaps the easiest way to remember this rule. One would never write "according to he", only "according to him".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:47, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Template:Better source

I think this one is redundant and should probably be TfD'd. It's vague, its example of usage doen't make sense (shows citation to a tabloid, but then the |reason= text says its because it's a citation to a company website), and more specific templates already exist that seem to cover whatever people need to cover, e.g. sourcing cleanup tags like {{primary source inline}} and {{third-party inline}}, along with a host of outright dispute templates like {{dubious}}, {{unreliable source?}}, {{failed verification}}, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:54, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• Keep I think this template has its niche and is not redundant to any of those other templates. Debresser (talk) 18:02, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• Keep This template is useful. It's the citation level of {{Refimprove}} with the addition of why the source needs to be replaced, in a way the other templates do not. — Lentower (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• Keep as this template has its own niche. Debresser (talk) 16:30, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Lots of templates have their own niches, but get merged anyway. Just sayin'.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Followup

Given that people seem to want to keep it, does someone want to provide a sane example in its /doc of the best kind of use for it then, that is not better handled by some more specific template? I could provide some consistent example, but since I think the template is redundant, vague, and pointless, I'm probably the least appropriate person to provide a good example. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:42, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

The template is used when the reference is to a scientific article which should be changed to a reference to a review article. Christian75 (talk) 08:15, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Is that the only use for it? Regardless, that might make a good example.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:58, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

{{dubious}} on mobile

Here's what this template looks like:

The moon is made of cheese.

On mobile, the "discuss" link is hidden with a metadata class, so it looks more like this:

The moon is made of cheese.

What is the purpose of this? Hiding links to talk is actively hostile to editors who prefer to read on mobile. Hairy Dude (talk) 02:59, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Self-sourcing examples

The inline superscripted notation templates {{Better source example}}, {{bsex}}, and {{importance example}} are available, useful for noting that sources of examples should not fall under self-sourcing examples, and that the sources should discuss the significance of the example. BrightRoundCircle (talk) 01:13, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

Redefine "nonspecific"?

I've seen this tag used quite a bit, but never with the officially endorsed sense. Rather, the community seems to use it for citations that give an unreasonably broad page range, as in "I shouldn't have to look through 147 pages to verify this dubious statement." Conversely, the official meaning of the template seems to be redundant with "vague". Can we change the description of "nonspecific" to accord with actual usage? Eperoton (talk) 01:43, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Bugs with parsing quotes in reason in Template:Elucidate

See Template talk:Elucidate#Bugs with parsing quotes in reason. Discussion there. 80.221.159.67 (talk) 06:14, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be a taskforce of WikiProject Templates?

--Fixuture (talk) 19:56, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

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Template:Importance item ?

I'm not sure this is the proper place, but I would like to propose a {{importance-item}}, asking about the importance of an item in a list article, or a list within an article. It might differ from importance-inline in having a discuss parameter. It might also have a long version, taking as unnamed parameter the name of the questionable list item, and links to verify importance, perhaps a shortened version of the research links in  ??? . I don't want to do it myself, as I might make template syntax mistakes. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:52, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I am unconvinced this is a good idea. Do you find a need for that often? Seems to me like it would be rare enough that just initiating a talk page discussion would be the proper course of action. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:13, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

@Arthur Rubin: And we already have {{importance inline}} (for things which in any context, including a list, might not pass WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, i.e. which look to be unencyclopedic trivia or injection of non-notable businesses/products/people), and we have {{relevance inline}} (for things which in any context, including a list, may be off-topic). That would seem to cover both cases of list items that arguably shouldn't be present. If there was some clearly articulable need to generate list-specific wording, that could be done by just adding a new |list=y parameter to these templates, rather than spawning a redundant additional template.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:12, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Inline template for radiocarbon dates

New inline template:

I was bold and decided to create a template to identify radiocarbon dates that are ambiguous because they do not specify whether a calibration procedure has been applied. I am of the opinion that all radiocarbon dates on Wikipedia should be calibrated, since they correspond to the Gregorian calendar. Uncalibrated dates do not and are confusing to the layperson. Nicolas Perrault (talk) 22:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I was about to start a discussion about this here, since I've seen recent tag bombing with it. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to do the work and specify if it's calibrated or not when it's known? Also, since we summarize sources, shouldn't we simply select reliable sources that are likely to have made the distinction? Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 23:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Adding: Let's see an example that was tagged: "from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP." the tag implies that this is the result of C14 dating (when there are various dating methods). The reader must then verify if the source derives its date from radiometric, then if so, if it was calibrated, then if not, according to that template's documentation it becomes editor's responsibility to correct the date. I have the impression that it would be better to avoid using primary papers as well as original research and synthesis, then to simply reflect the dates given by review literature (and specify when the source does)... I don't necessary object to the template or to the non-inline/top version of it, but it seemed strange to suddenly see all dates of an article tagged. —PaleoNeonate – 00:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for your answer.

...I've seen recent tag bombing with it.
— User:PaleoNeonate 23:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

...it seemed strange to suddenly see all dates of an article tagged. 00:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree, 100%. I had inserted these tags, then realised it looked too sloppy and therefore created the top-of-article version. I should have gone back to the articles I dropped the inline version tags in and swap those tags for the top-of-article message. I'll try and do that soon (or feel free to do so).

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to do the work and specify if it's calibrated or not... 23:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

It's better to solve a problem than to declare that it exists, no question. But tagging is faster than solving the problem. Given the extremely large volume of ambiguous dates on Wikipedia, it does not appear practical for one or a few users to solve them all. But a single user can tag many of them, thereby allowing a large number of users to solve the large number of problems. Many tags exist for similar reasons (e.g., , ).

...shouldn't we simply select reliable sources that are likely to have made the distinction? 23:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Of course. But that's only part of the issue. The main issue, in my opinion, is resolving the inherent ambiguity in using "BP" (or BC/AD/BCE/CE) for dates younger than 50,000 years obtained by laboratory methods.

...the tag implies that this is the result of C14 dating (when there are various dating methods). 00:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Sure, good point. We could rename the tag from "is this date calibrated?" to "are these calendar years?". It would then be acceptable to write "22,000 to 17,000 cal BP" even if the dates were not obtained with radiocarbon (since "cal BP" means "calendar years BP", not "calibrated BP").

I have the impression that it would be better to avoid using primary papers and synthesis, then to simply reflect the dates given by review literature (and specify when the source does)... 00:18, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Does the review literature adhere to higher standards of clarity than primary research articles? I'm not sure. It would be a shame to avoid using primary papers as well as original research and syntheses altogether. This is especially the case for areas of research that have not recently been reviewed at length, such as Upper Palaeolithic North Africa (last reviewed in depth 44 years ago and not in English, Camps 1974).

At the heart of my template proposal is a more general proposal for Wikipedia: that all laboratory dates younger than 50,000 years be referred to as "cal BP", "cal years ago", or the like, every time they are used in the text. It is frustrating that most times one reads a date given as only "BP" or "years ago", one wonders what is meant.

Kindest regards, Nicolas Perrault (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nicolas Perrault III and PaleoNeonate: Without wading deep into this (and also cognizant that this is from over two years ago, and things may have changed in the interim), I just want to observe that there's not an OR/UNDUE problem of any kind in relying on primary sources, including research papers, for basic and uncontroversial facts such as what dating methods the authors say they used. It's a WP:ABOUTSELF matter (there is no more reliable source for what dating system was chosen by a research team, or what date X in their abstract really refers to, than the research team's own published material, especially after it's been peer reviewed). That said, I'm glad a banner version of this was made, so that an article with a systemic problem of ambiguous dates can be tagged once instead of peppered with inline "fixme" turds. :-) Inline templates are best used sparingly. It's one of the reasons I co-founded this occasional-maintenance project. PS: Sorry for the long absence; I've ended up taking several long wikibreaks, one about an entire year long, and I somehow accidentally un-watchlisted this page, too.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:21, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Category:Pages with misused citation needed templates has been nominated for rename

Category:Pages with misused citation needed templates has been nominated for rename. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:23, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-automation of tagging

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T209797

There is evidence[2] that constructive criticism such as inline-tagging correlates with editor retention (the new editors fix their own edits). Reverting, unsurprisingly, makes both vandals and potential new editors give up.

It's currently hard to tag using most semi-automated tools; reverting is much easier. There is substantial community support for better semi-automated inline-tagging tools. Hope this is of interest here! HLHJ (talk) 06:24, 28 September 2019 (UTC)

@HLHJ: Definitely, though there are few watchlisters here. This is a very occasional do-some-maint-work project for the most part. This is the kind of thing that (when there's more news about it) would be good to bring up at WP:VPTECH, and possibly also WT:CITE, WT:NOR, WT:NPOV, WT:V, WT:BLP, and other places with thick knots of people who deal with a lot of dispute/cleanup tagging. Plus retention-related pages.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:25, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I have brought it up on the Huggle (post) and Twinkle (post) talk pages (since this seemed the most likely set of people to find problems with the proposal), and the Wikiproject Editor Retention (post). No opposition (apart from one comment: "I do feel that this isn't needed, the current system in place works just fine"), and I wrote with some of the people commenting and know some of them came via those posts. So generally a positive response, in principle. I have never even used Twinkle or Huggle (it's just not the sort of work I do), so I'm probably not the best person to work on this task, though I think it's very important and would be well worth my time (I have spent some time trying to make more of the inline-tag-linked pages more helpful to newcomers). Enterprisey has plans, I know... I'll post updates here if I become aware of them, and thank you for the list of other places too; I would not have thought of all of them. HLHJ (talk) 04:05, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the update. I'm also not a regular user of Huggle or Twinkle myself, and was thinking more of the general matter: "There is evidence that constructive criticism such as inline-tagging correlates with editor retention (the new editors fix their own edits). Reverting, unsurprisingly, makes both vandals and potential new editors give up."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, working on this problem is absolutely my next priority. I think we need to promote less destructive options for patrollers, and Huggle and Twinkle are excellent places to start. I'll probably start by making a pre-RfC post on VPIL about a proposal to de-emphasize the "AGF rollback" (or "good-faith revert") option in favor of the addition of inline cleanup templates. Thanks for the link to the paper! It's really interesting. HLHJ, what do you think about drafting a proposal for this together? Enterprisey (talk!) 02:13, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Ah, OK, the evidence, not the suggested fix. I've written a great deal more about that at WP:Encourage the newcomers, though the bad-faith-editors sections are mostly not my work. Edits and crits welcome...

@Enterprisey:, I'd be glad to help. I think that additional semi-automated functionality will do more here than any policy emphasis could. VP Idea Lab sounds like a good forum for canvassing views on design. Shall we start a draft somewhere? Draft:Wikipedia:Semi-automated inline tagging tool? HLHJ (talk) 05:52, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

@Enterprisey:, I've added to the feature request linked from the box above, linking to the history of the idea and drafting some rough design goals. Crit very welcome. HLHJ (talk) 02:56, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

As a bit of an update, this is certainly still on my mind to some degree; I'm currently working on another RfC ("responder") and have lots of other stuff on my plate, but this would be nice to move forward eventually. Enterprisey (talk!) 06:40, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Template:fake fix

The documentation for {{fix}} contains a reference to {{fake fix}}, described as "used to create dummy versions of templates based on {{fix}} for use in documentation" - but {{fake fix}} actually just redirects to {{fix}}. Is {{fake fix}} dead, or redundant or what? Should that reference be removed from the documentation? Colonies Chris (talk) 09:40, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Fixed ;) CapnZapp (talk) 22:31, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

tag related to "not a good use of this source"

For instance, in the Gender Gap section of the QI article, it says:

Nevertheless, Toksvig has acknowledged Fry's delicate treatment towards his female panellists,[97] and she herself continues to encourage them to be smart and funny when they appear on the show. In 2018, Emma Cox of Radio Times highlighted a notable difference between QI and other "aggressively masculine" panel shows.[98]

I went to have a look at the 98 reference because I went "what notable difference?". But the 98 reference, [3] is a piece by Emma Cox, interviewing Sandi Toksvig.

The reference thus doesn't verify the claim Emma Cox of Radio Times highlighted a notable difference - its the primary source where Cox lets Toksvig comment on Cox asserting the show isn't "aggressively masculine".

It says:

“ Toksvig’s calming presence means not only is she adept at soothing the anxious Bake Off contestants, she also encourages her female panellists on QI to be smart and hilarious, a far cry from shows like Mock the Week, which are widely criticised for being aggressively masculine.

“I hope QI is a comfortable place for women,” Toksvig says. “There are panel shows that struggle to get women on, and that’s because the women feel marginalised and stupid and in the edit are often seen just laughing at the boys and not saying anything at all even though I know for a fact in the recording they were clever.

”

But what inline template do I use in this case to convey that while the source does kind of say what our article claims, it should not be used to verify a claim like the implied "there is a notable difference between QI and aggressively masculine panel shows".

CapnZapp (talk) 22:20, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I haven't actually followed the links to the article, but the situation you describe sounds like it calls for a {{failed verification}} inline template. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 04:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think reading the specifics really help in this case. What I'm fishing for is if there's an (inline) tag that conveys the message "this source isn't used correctly"...? (obviously expecting a |reason=). It's not that the source is inherently bad quality. And it's not as easy as "I looked through the source and couldn't find it verifying the claim you made" as "failed verification" would suggest. In this case you CAN interpret the source to verify the claim, but then you would not be fully understanding our policies. The source isn't an article verifying Cox highlighted this difference, and it isn't a source confirming the difference is notable. Instead it is an interview written by Cox, where she herself compares shows - with no evidence - and then simply edits in Toksvig's response. But Toksvig might not even have responded to that exact phrase! (Note how the "claim" isn't part of any transcript!) Besides, even if Toksvig's reply was directly to this claim, she might simply have decided to let it fly. Perhaps out of courtesy, perhaps she had other things on her mind. In short, as an endorsement, it's very weak indeed. In short, our text takes this "notable difference" for granted with zero evidence. So I'm like, what's the tag for "you're using the source wrong"? Again thanks CapnZapp (talk) 09:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

inline "Not covered by the body of article"

Is there a tag for "this fact in the lead section is then not discussed in the body of the article". Would be very useful and easy to understand. CapnZapp (talk) 22:13, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp:, by "tag" do you mean a template that generates a banner at the top of the article (or section) to which it applies, such as, say, {{expand lead}} (for a different problem), or perhaps an inline template like {{citation needed}} that generates a small, superscript notice embedded in the text? If you mean the latter, then you could use {{Not verified in body}}.

I believe there's a more central location in a guideline which has the text of the underlying policy or guideline you are talking about, but can't find it right now. The page Wikipedia:Writing better articles has section #"Lead follows body", which reprises some guideline in the context of an explanatory supplement explaining how to implement the guideline while writing the lead of an article. But it's not the guideline itself. Mathglot (talk) 04:27, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, I was asking about inline templates. CapnZapp (talk) 15:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

If your second comment is related to how some templates link to the relevant policy governing them, then WP:LEAD would be my suggestion in this case. CapnZapp (talk) 15:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Notification of a discussion about making the "Year needed" template more general-purpose

Hello,

I have started a discussion on the template Year needed. Please join the discussion if you can.

Thank you, DesertPipeline (talk) 06:45, 5 February 2021 (UTC)