On 8/4/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Now that I've read the reasoning (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2006_July_...)...
Here's the deal. I created this ISBN template {{ISBN}} which does nothing very exciting. It simply substitutes the text "ISBN {{{1}}}". However, my reasoning for creating it seemed sound: to provide an abstraction layer so users don't have to learn the rather arbitrary syntax that Wikipedia uses to deal with ISBN codes. Instead, they can use the same syntax they use everywhere: {{template name|argument}}.
Is this a bad idea? Personally, I find the ISBN markup extremely arbitrary and maybe not that well thought out. We apparently only allow pure ISBN numbers, with no hyphens, spaces or slashes, although they are usually presented that way in other contexts. By wrappering this syntax in standard template syntax, we would clear the way for a future, more forgiving ISBN syntax to be implemented.
....
Steve
I'm not sure what you're complaining about here. I've never had any problems with ISBN syntax, and definitely no problems with spaces, slashes or hyphens; ex, [[Seeds in the Heart: Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century]]'s ISBN link works fine even with hyphens in it.
~maru