[WikiEN-l] Templates for the masses

[Nick]

Personally, I'd rather see no further time wasted on templates, and editors
time spent removing the need for these templates on as many different
articles as possible. It's endless discussions on colours, decisions on
changes and time editing these templates that could be much better spent
adding references, fixing POV issues, dredging Flickr for free images and
what not that has been wasted, in my opinion, on designing new templates.

There's also a defeatist attitude here. There's some sort of bizarre thought
that these templates are going to remain on articles for ever, maybe they
are, but that's not the attitude we need here. Get them off pages as quickly
as possible.

I seem to keep repeating myself over and over again, but instead of tagging
a dozen pages, why not fix half a dozen pages. I remind our newer users that
references can be really, really quickly created with
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/makeref.php and I heartily recommend this
for anybody who would like to help with referencing but can't. I blitzed
British Airways a couple of weeks ago and was able to remove all but one of
the citation needs tags with five or ten minutes, only one point took little
longer to reference. So, don't tag when you can reference, wikify or
dePOV-ify something yourself within the amount of time you have available.

</rant>

On 07/10/2007, Zoney <zoney.ie at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Does it not drive anyone else up the wall the incessant templates jammed
> onto the top of our articles? Sure some of the articles have issues that
> readers as well as editors should be aware of, but it's really ridiculous
> having these Vogonic bureaucratic Wiki-speak instructions/jargon stamped
> before the article text for all and sundry to enjoy. Half the time the
> templates aren't even warranted, or at the least the issue is not
> important
> enough to demand anything other than a note on the talk page. It's far too
> easy for people just to slap on templates onto articles in a sort of
> wiki-process-allowed defacement of content.
>
> I mean the trivia section warning for one thing. I consider myself firmly
> in
> the anti-trivia camp, and indeed I'd nearly support removing offending
> sections to talk pages as well when asking people to integrate the
> brainless
> factoids; but really, there's no need to give instructions on the
> situation
> to all our readers. It's just not that important! Templates in fact
> compound
> the problem by highlighting the trivia sections! It makes no sense!
>
> As regards the templates that are somewhat necessary (don't use our
> second-hand info about hurricanes in your area, etc) can a specific area
> separate from the article content be used for the message? Something like
> how the fundraising message is displayed?
>
> Zoney
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-- 
Nick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nick