-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Erik Moeller wrote: I think that if TFD votes keep for too many templates, it won't make a difference if there's {{propsed template}}, since people will just vote keep there instead. In fact, it may have more people voting keep since it won't be visible to such a large group of people. Do you see my point? I'm not sure if I'm being clear or not...everyone who votes keep on TFD would've voted "use" on the discussion page anyways; everyone who votes "delete" on TFD would also vote "don't use" on the discussion page. Unless I'm missing something, I think that this would just make things more complex, and is unecessary considering the fact that we already have TFD. Very true, I've found myself doing it with one of my templates also. It's my baby, and I can't bear to see it go. Why not just nominate them for deletion if you feel they deserve to be gone? Surely there will be more "passionate fans" on the discussion page of that particular template than on TFD. Again, I feel that TFD would do better here. The lag is only 5 days...the only advantage I see of that system is that it gives editors a little less time to put it on pages, which means that it's easier to depopulate. However, I don't agree with the dogma that things should be "guilty until proven innocent"- so in this case, "detrimental until proven beneficial." There are a lot of templates on TFD that people really do think are good. If we "freeze" templates, that would mean that any template deletionist would get their way for five days (or whatever the lag time is), regardless of how beneficial it is seen to be. When there is obvious disapproval of a template, it: a) isn't added to pages in the first place, unless by the creator of said template b) is usually removed by people watching that article, like the "unresolved objections" banner on [[clitoris]] a while back. c) is sometimes depopulated early if it's obviously something that needs to go Just my 2 cents on the matter. - -- Blog: http://frazzydee.ca

Erik Moeller (erik_moeller(a)gmx.de) [050505 08:28]: OH YES PLEASE. - d.

On Thu, 5 May 2005, Erik Moeller wrote: [snip] One useful step would be to help educate our fellow Wikipedians about what Templates there are, which ones would work best -- & which ones should be deprecated. I mention this only because I've recently learned about {{Succession}}, which can be successfully applied to at least 98% of all imaginable cases -- succession patterns of Roman Emperors, Popes, Presidents, & Internet Kooks of the Month [*]. I've been using it quite happily in writing my contributions of Ethiopian Emperors. And I'm sure there are several other simple, flexible Templates that can be used to replace countless others. Once these simple & flexible ones are found & used to replace their competition, then we can start deleting these templates on the basis that they aren't used. [*] The only case I can think of where {{Succession}} wouldn't work is with Ancient Egyptian Pharaohs -- because not only would the office -- Pharaoh -- need to be included, but also the period of Egyptian history (e.g., Old Kingdom, Second Intermediate, etc.) & the Dynasty. However, I haven't been able to create a consensus about including the Dynasty in such a template, so perhaps even this exception could be subsumed into this template. Geoff

Erik Moeller wrote It's an argument. Another argument is that restricting the creation of templates is un-wiki as an approach. It says that excluding some bad ideas is more important than allowing the inclusion of some good ideas, that don't have general support in advance of being tried.. Again, goes against 'be bold'. In general it has served WP well to let things happen, take the consequences, set up procedures, such as template deletion; and not be too scared about things that are foolish for a while. For example: a low-use and not very useful template can be removed from enough pages by anyone who is annoyed enough. A popular but silly template presumably needs tweaking to preserve the reason for popularity. A wiki is in general a system of permissions rather than a system of restrictions. This is surely still a major asset to Wikipedia. New people constantly arrive, and I suppose find this aspect attractive. Charles

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Timwi wrote: [[Template:Proposed template]] doesn't go in the article namespace ;) - -- Alphax GnuPG key: 0xF874C613 - http://tinyurl.com/8mpg9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.' - C. S. Lewis