The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete. JPG-GR (talk) 19:37, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox Malcolm in the Middle episode (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Redundant to ((Infobox television episode)) Plastikspork _―Œ^(talk) 19:13, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, and I'll note that it appears deprecated as well. --Izno (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2010 (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. Ruslik_Zero 19:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:H2G2 (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Text substitution used on only five articles; encourages overlinking. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete—subst first, of course. Underused. ╟─TreasuryTag►high seas─╢ 15:33, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - Two reasons have been suggested for deletion:
  1. That the template is used in only a handful of articles. So what? What matters is whether it performs a useful function for the articles in which it is used. Note that the "Reasons to delete a template" at the head of this page do not include being little used as a reason for deletion. (The head of the page also states that the list of reasons is not exhaustive.)
  2. That the template encourages overlinking. The template was not created for fun, but to address a specific problem that had developed. The pages it is used in reference the books, radio episodes, etc, over and over. Before the template was introduced, the references were inconsistent and, frankly, a bloody mess. Your choice, here, is between some overlinking or a bloody mess. Personally, I will choose some overlinking instead of a bloody mess every time. If the template is deleted then, as the articles are updated, the problem it solves will gradually return. (It would also be possible to reduce the linking as discussed on the template Talk page. However, this would require a large effort for, it looks to me, a modest gain.)

  The template performs a useful function by solving a problem with the articles in which it is used, be it at the cost of some overlinking. HairyWombat (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Well, firstly, it isn't being used for referencing: it's being used to provide inline wikilinks (which aren't the same thing), and as such it's little more than simple text substitution (which we generally do not use templates for). Secondly, the overlinking is egrecious: how many times are the novels each linked from in List of minor The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters? Ten, twenty? Indeed, it would appear that the root cause of the problem which led to creating a template to link to the primary sources is that the four list articles which make predominant use of them are still chock-full of in-universe trivia which can only be sourced back to the works it came from. I'd argue that if this template is being used as a crutch so as to provide some "referencing" for all of that then its deletion would perhaps spur on the finding of reliable secondary sources for what notable content exists in said articles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The template is being used to refer to the books, etc. No, this is not the same as "referencing" (a word I did not use). Your criticisms seem to be of the article, not the template. Yes, the deletion of the template would perhaps spur improvement of the article. Then again, it might not. I suspect not; such attempts at social engineering seldom work. Would it not be more honest to just state your criticisms on the Talk pages of the relevant articles? HairyWombat (talk) 15:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  There are only four articles which use this template to a great extent and I don't imagine that improving much in the future. As such, I can't really consider it likely that there will be that much of a change in how these articles are presented. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:54, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  I am not sure I understood your point, but if the articles do not change then does that not bring us back to choosing between overlinking or the bloody mess coming back? My opinion on this is already above. HairyWombat (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The articles are (IMO) already a "bloody mess" in that they consist largely of trivia which necessitates the use of a template to act as a pseudo-referencing system. Ideally, they'd be transwikied to wikia:hitchhikers and then either deleted or severely curtailed to only cover subjects with real-world impact, which would obviate the need for this template. But a good start would be to get rid of this now, because it would discourage the further use of overlinking in already heavily-overlinked articles. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  This is a criticism of the article, not the template. It is also a critcism with which I happen to disagree. The article attracts editors, so people are clearly interested in these topics, and that constitutes "real-world impact". For an encyclopedia to be useful, it is important that when people look up a topic that it be there; that there be an article which includes the topic they are looking up. Hence, the more topics, the more useful the encyclopedia. HairyWombat (talk) 13:40, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  That's plainly not true; pages which are wholly unsuitable for an encyclopedia will attract plenty of traffic so long as they contain interesting information (as here), but this is very different from establishing that anyone outside of the fandom has taken notice of Dr. Dan Streetmentioner or the like. As I said, transwiki is a viable option for these articles, as Wikia can dedicate itself fully to this kind of thing; as it stands, this material doesn't really belong here, and its presence means that inappropriate templates like this are created to paper over the problems rather than fixing them. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:29, 19 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • This discussion is just going around and around, and it is clear we are never going to agree. Let's try to move it to more practical matters, such as how to fix the problems. Your proposal is that template ((H2G2)) be deleted. If that is all that is done then every reference in the articles would be turned into the error text "Template:H2G2". Hopefully that is not all you are proposing. However, if you first substitute the template text before deleting, the articles will be unchanged and will still be overlinked. To reduce the amount of linking, you would subsequently have to edit the articles and manually remove some of the links. Rather than do that, I would suggest it would be less effort for you to modify the template to include a third "no link" parameter, as discussed on the template Talk page. This would greatly reduce the effort required from you to do the manual editing of the articles. (Making things easy is a stated purpose of the template.) HairyWombat (talk) 02:47, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes, obviously substitution will be required once the TfD ends. I'll make the necessary changes to the template later in the week, although rather than having a "nolink" it'd be better to have an attribute called "link" and to only turn it on selectively. I'm happy to do that work myself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:56, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  It is no longer clear to me what it is you are proposing. Are you now proposing to keep the template? If so, that is a major change to your proposal. If not, what is the point of adding to it a "|link=yes/no" option? (If you go down the path of keeping the template then I agree that "|link=no" would be much better than a third "no link" parameter.) HairyWombat (talk) 15:12, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  No, the template should be deleted. However, before it is, I'll modify it as follows: firstly, I'll set it to not link by default; secondly, I'll add an option to turn on linking; thirdly, I'll enable that on a selected number of current transclusions so as to link appropriately. At that point the whole lot can be substituted. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 07:51, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  ... All done. The code in the sandbox can now be made live: this will leave only one or two links to each primary source in each article, at which point the template can be substituted and then subsequently deleted. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:18, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  But there has now ceased to be any reason to substitute and delete the template. The problem of overlinking will be solved. If the template remains then the problem of references gradually becoming inconsistent will also not return. At this point, it is better to not delete the template; it no longer causes any problems and serves a useful function. HairyWombat (talk) 16:58, 21 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  The problem remains that this is basically trivial text substitution, and is going to be black magic for editors unfamiliar with the template. It also results in forced stilted prose as it's not necessarily true that every time one wants to mention the novel Life, the Universe and Everything one will want to say the whole phrase. By and large we get by without templates like this even on subjects which have far more than four articles devoted to them. As I say, the deeper problem here is that there are four list articles consisting almost entirely of material which can only be referenced to these primary sources, and in the long run fixing that problem directly will obviate the need for anyone to repeatedly link to the same bunch of fictional works. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:02, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Once again this is criticism of the articles, not the template. At the head of this page (here) it states,

  If a template is being misused, consider clarifying its documentation to indicate the correct use, or informing those that misuse it, rather than nominating it for deletion. Initiate a discussion on the template talk page if the correct use itself is under debate.

  That is the guideline which is applicable, here. The fact that the template does text substitution is irrelevant; what matters is whether it performs a useful function. Editors are not forced to use the template; if they do not want to use the whole phase the template produces then they are perfectly free to not use it. You wrote above, "As such, I can't really consider it likely that there will be that much of a change in how these articles are presented." suggesting that you don't believe the articles will be improved. Deleting the template certainly wont improve them and, until such time as the articles are improved, the template performs a useful function. (Not that I accept the articles need improving the the way that you suggest.) Your only criticism against the template, rather than the articles in which it is used, has been overlinking. The modifications you have carried out (currently waiting in the sandbox) fixes that. There is no longer any reason to delete the template. HairyWombat (talk) 16:43, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, no. The template doesn't "provide a useful function" in the long run: what it does is make article prose harder to edit for novice editors who aren't template-savvy, and it forces stilted prose in articles, and the reason for its existence is because we have four poor, in-universe-heavy articles which rely far too heavily on primary sources. We have a chance to fix that by deploying the sandbox code, substituting and deleting the template, and then working on reformatting or replacing the primary references currently deployed. When I said that "I can't really consider it likely that there will be that much of a change in how these articles are presented" I meant (and I'm sorry for not making it clear) that it's not likely that (so long as the articles get better rather than worse) that we're going to need to introduce further references to primary sources to those articles; therefore, this template should no longer be needed anyway. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:35, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  This is yet more criticism of the articles, not the template. I have already explained that the template does not force stilted prose because editors are not forced to use it. And I would hope that even novice editors can use the "Show preview" button. Finally you wrote, "... therefore, this template should no longer be needed anyway." The key word in your statement is "should". Changes to articles are carried out by consensus. You are making assumptions about what will happen in the future, and assuming that what you believe should happen will happen. What you want may or may not come to pass, and it is inappropriate to assume that it will. HairyWombat (talk) 18:27, 23 June 2010 (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. JPG-GR (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Title override (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This template blocks the normal title line, with custom content. Concerns have been ushered that such a thing is a usability problem and should not be encouraged with sitewide CSS. Not having sitewide CSS however makes the template skin dependent, which means that people that use other skins to view a person's userpage with this template on it have even more trouble. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:58, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Why do we still allow users to place silly hacks like this on their userspace? This isn't conducive to improving the encyclopedia and as pointed out in the nom is visibly broken in non-standard browsers/themes. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:01, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I noticed I made an error in MediaWiki:Vector.css when I re-added the sitesub to these vector pages. This was an oversight on my part. The fact that the problem existed however shows how fragile use of this template really is. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:09, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Agree with the nom; it's highly problematic with site skinning. --Izno (talk) 16:37, 16 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Although as I said in the linked discussion, there are other templates that also do the same thing. I always find this template to be problematic. It makes it confusing, at least at first, to know exactly what page you're on when on a page using this template. Certain page elements should be always consistent, to make for a better browsing experience. The title page is one of them. (The location of page buttons would be another.) Gary King (talk) 17:06, 16 June 2010 (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.