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16 May 2024 |
Multi-listen item
The Melonbot conversion of {{multi-listen item}} to {{listen}} - basically, a left-aligned non-floating template into a right-aligned floating template in a box - has broken the formatting of hundreds of articles. Please have the bot go through and revert itself. If you geive me a list of all the places it can't undo, I'll help put the remainder straight. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 10:17, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- Hi, and thanks for bringing this to my attention. However, following discussion at Template talk:Listen and the comprehensive update of the
{{listen}}
template, the functionality of the{{multi-listen start}}
,{{multi-listen item}}
,{{multi-listen end}}
templates is deprecated in favour of{{listen}}
. Multi-listen uses a nasty hack to add the loudspeaker, which is now strongly discouraged, and has various other disadvantages compared to the new{{listen}}
template. - I was quite careful in constructing the regexes that were used in that conversion process, and did confirm every edit manually. Where the samples were left-aligned before, I attempted to ensure that they were left-aligned afterwards, eg. If I wasn't completely successful in ensuring that that was done, I apologise; if you show me some examples I can improve the regular expressions so that it doesn't happen in future.
- With regards the conversion from a non-floating to a floating box, I don't believe this is an issue when the samples were correctly positioned in the article in the first place. WP:SAMPLE is quite clear: "It's better to insert the samples next to paragraph mentioning them to justify their fair use, instead of grouping them in the end of the article"; audio samples are not supposed to form their own section; they should be used to supplement the text inline. I agree that the conversion eg here leaves the article somewhat confused, but that's because the "audio samples" section should not exist in the first place - the audio samples should be distributed through the text, as I did with Bassoon. Having audio samples in a non-floated arrangement is undesirable encouragement for this sort of use. In the few situations where it is acceptable, as in Antonio Vivaldi,
{{listen}}
can still be used. - I hope this clarifies the situation. Happy‑melon 10:47, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- Frankly, the appearance and use of multi-listen item is very different. Look at, say, WP:FS, which uses it extensively - if that was made into listen templates, the description text would be forceably wrapped to fit the box width, and everything would be put in ugly boxes. Also, even if left aligned, the listen template still *floats* left, meaning that things are placed to the right of it.
- Examples of where the format was broken:
- Sonata_in_E_major_for_flute_or_recorder_and_basso_continuo
- Sonata_in_C_major_for_flute_or_recorder_and_basso_continuo
- Jules Massenet (fixed, old version: [1])
- Cello Concerto No. 1 (Saint-Saëns)
- Piano_Concerto_No._2_(Chopin)
- Music of Hong Kong (Heading deleted)
- Piano Concerto No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)
- Redemption Song (This article almost certainly shouldnð't have this long list of fair-use samples, but...)
- Hungarian Dances (Brahms)
- Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn
- Kathleen Ferrier
- Carl Maria von Weber
- Irving Berlin
And on and on for dozens, if not hundreds more examples. The thing that was broken by this change was a standard format used in classical music articles and elsewhere VERY WIDELY. Not to mention half the time it says it's replacing multi-listen with listen it actually failed, and thankfully kept the multi-listen, just adding format= instead. Don't fix that, it's the only thing preventing the problem from having spread to hundreds more articles. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:29, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- While we're at it
{{PromotedFSC}}, {{UploadedFS}}, {{CreatedFS}}. Thank-you templates should not have a big white box ruining a standard format shared with the Featured picture templates.
- If Listen had been left with the same appearance as it had had a month ago, that would be one thing, but major formatting changes have happened to listen, not least changing it from left-aligned to right aligned.
- And I'm rather upset about all this. I have 50% of all featured sound credits. I am one of the major people working on sounds on Wikipedia, and probably have put more sounds into articles than anyone else. You've basically ruined the layout for about half the articles displaying my work, and, if I fix it, which will usually require multi-listen item, I risk having your bot changing it back.
- I don't want to be running around for the next month fixing accidental bot vandalism of almost all the articles I work on.
- That said, I do understand you're trying to help, but this doesn't seem to have been thought through very much. We now have two templates with vastly different appearances and default layouts being interchanged. (Who depreciated multi-listen item in the first place, anyway? Why couldn't they depreciate something sensible, like {{Audio}}?) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:41, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- Happy-melon did. I agree with this in principle, what with there being rather few omelette recipes which call for unbroken eggs. (though happy-melon: I'm curious as to why this is apparently skulduggery when others do it, and rather taken aback by the implied bad faith on my behalf there.) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:57, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
First of all, let me apologise if you feel that I'm somehow attacking your work here. That certainly wasn't my intention; I have huge appreciation for seeing media in articles, and an equal respect for the people who put them there. I first found myself in this corner of wikipedia when I was cutting and uploading sound samples for Wicked (musical) - the templates that were available were without exception awful for inline media, which is what is recommended by the manual of style and what I wanted to add to the article. One thing led to another and I eventually in desperation coded and implemented an improved version, which was generally popular. See Template talk:Listen for the discussion. So I'm certainly not out to get you or your work, I'm hugely grateful for what you do.
That said, the way audio files are used in many articles (not usually by you, but certainly by others) is simply wrong, according to the MOS. Media should not be put in their own section, or used to adorn the "references" or "external links" sections. They should be inlined through the text where they complement the article prose. As such, {{multi-listen item}}
is deprecated because it has no valid use: when it is used on its own in a "media" section it is used incorrectly, and when it is used with {{sound sample box}}
or a variant thereof, the functionality of {{listen}}
is far superior. So while I agree that the appearance of some articles after the conversion is not ideal and is perhaps in some ways inferior, I don't agree that reverting them would be anything other than a step backwards. Where the conversion has caused a visual problem, that is indicative of a deeper underlying problem that won't be addressed by simply reverting to an older template. Media samples need to be rearranged to be more closely integrated into the text; even when the text is very minimal it is possible to do this effectively, eg.
I'd like to work with you here, not against you. I agree that there are issues outstanding, but I think that we need to keep moving forward to best resolve them, not jump backwards when the first step uncovers deeper problems. I agree, for instance, that my initial conversion of the featured sound templates wasn't optimal; extra functionality has since been added to {{listen}}
which enables a much nicer display, as I've shown on {{uploadedFS}}
. Where listen should duplicate the appearance of multi-listen item, it can do so, but this is not in fact desirable in the majority of situations. Happy‑melon 12:12, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- I by no means thought you were attacking my work, I just wanted to point out the problems with the bot implementation, and explain why it's a problem.
- That said, there is functionality that multi-listen item has that listen does not. Listen wraps the sound file in a floating box, and that has consequences regarding how wide the description can be on the page, and how it interacts with other parts of the page layout. Also, listen can only go up to ten, some of the media sections have significantly more than that.
- While I have integrated sound files into the text before, e.g. Charles Gounod, Tosca, there is a limit to how many files can be presented that way. For the composer and performer articles, a gallery is often necessary, to give a broad sample of their work and career.
- There's another aspect. I do a lot of work with media files, and understand the templates, but for new users, multi-listen item is going to be much easier than trying to set up a media section with Listen and having to both figure out the pos=left, but also needing to end it with {{-}}, a not particularly well-known wiki function call.
- I honestly do think that too many articles have been damaged not to revert the bot; however, that doesn't mean that it couldn't run again once the bugs were worked out. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:46, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
I think we disagree fairly fundamentally on how media should be included in articles. I see very little difference between a list of media files and a gallery of images, they have essentially the same appearance and purpose. Galleries are explicitly discouraged by policy, with WP:SAMPLE saying that "It's better to insert the samples next to paragraph mentioning them...". Also, "[while] there's no limit of how many samples you could use in one article, but you have to put in mind that music samples serve as tools for a better understanding of the article, so insert only relevant samples". These policies to me indicate that there is rarely if ever a need to create lengthy lists of audio samples, and so there is no need for the 'unlimited length list' that is the one advantage of multi-listen item. While I have demonstrated on Antonio Vivaldi that such a gallery can be created using {{listen}}
, these policies indicate that these media should really be spun out into an article such as List of works by Antonio Vivaldi, as with other composition lists; the media files can then be distributed through the list as is being done (slowly but effectively) with eg List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.
As such, it should not ever be necessary for new users to use {{listen}}
in its 'list' mode; I agree it is somewhat esoteric, but since its use in that fashion is to be discouraged, that is not a bad thing. Equally it should rarely if ever be genuinely a Good Idea to use more than ten media files in one place in an article. Full adoption of this template is likely to encourage proper use of audio files in articles, as it becomes easier to add audio inline than to create a gallery, as is currently the case with images. So I don't think your concerns are valid, except in the context of perpetuating the underlying problem of using media files in contravention of policy. I know you're not yourself responsible for these widespread improper implementations, but a lot of people are, and we should be doing everything possible to encourage audio files to be used properly, to enhance and complement articles, not to dominate them. Happy‑melon 19:26, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but "I broke hundreds of pages, but it's alright because they deserved to be broken" doesn't really help matters much. The pages are still broken. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 01:20, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- Whether the result was to "break hundreds of pages" or to 'highlight a major style issue in hundreds of pages thereby encouraging it to be fixed', is entirely a matter of perspective. I don't think we're going to reach an agreement on this amongst ourselves, so outside commentary is probably desirable. Do you think we should continue this discussion here, or move to a more public forum (a template talk page, for instance - but which?)? Happy‑melon 14:46, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Normally I hate it when people butt in on a conversation on my talk page, but as you've asked for outside commentary here we go. I can see this issue from both sides, and as you're both trying to improve things and both are reasonable people I can't see why we shouldn't be able to sort this out easily :) Firstly I think we could make some headway if you could agree on any or all of the following statements.
- People were consulted widely enough about this change to the templates, at an appropriate venue and given enough time to respond.
- Image and sound galleries are generally undesirable.
- Some of the pages look a bit uglier after MelonBot visited them than before.
Secondly I would be interested in how SMH thinks the pages could be best fixed using the new template system. For example, did this fix the formatting in his/her opinion? Martin 18:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- Point 1: As far as I can tell, no discussion happened. There is no discussion on either template talk page. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- Point 2: Not necessarily. In composer and artist pages they've traditionally been accepted, and lists have the advantage of always being in the same place, whereas images can push sideboxes around unpredicably on widescreen monitors.
- Point 3: Well, yes. In many cases "completely broken" is a better description.
As for how to fix it: While something like your suggestion may be applicable in some cases, in most I'd say it should be reverted back to the multi-listen template until such time as revision is going to happen. Keeping pages broken is not a real option. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:32, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
- H-M, can you address this point? SMH, note that just because you were not aware of a discussion, doesn't mean that it didn't take place ;) A discussion can be widely advertised and still miss people who perhaps should have been involved. It can be mildly annoying to propose something, get little input, and then later get complaints from people who didn't take part in the discussion ...
- Well perhaps this needs to go be brought up at WP:IUP. If indeed they are deemed acceptable in certain cases, then the templates should allow for this.
- SMH I think perhaps you are exaggerating here uneccesarily. Can you give me an example of a page which you think was "completely broken"? It looks to me that most of these can be fixed quite easily. Martin 18:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
Thankyou for this contribution, Msgj. In light of Shoemaker's ANI thread, it seems sensible to move this discussion there. I have copied the thread above to that discussion, and will respond there. Happy‑melon 20:49, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
No content in Category:Video templates
Hello, this is a message from an automated bot. A tag has been placed on Category:Video templates, by another Wikipedia user, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The tag claims that it should be speedily deleted because Category:Video templates has been empty for at least four days, and its only content has been links to parent categories. (CSD C1).
To contest the tagging and request that administrators wait before possibly deleting Category:Video templates, please affix the template {{hangon}} to the page, and put a note on its talk page. If the article has already been deleted, see the advice and instructions at WP:WMD. Feel free to contact the bot operator if you have any questions about this or any problems with this bot, bearing in mind that this bot is only informing you of the nomination for speedy deletion; it does not perform any nominations or deletions itself. To see the user who deleted the page, click here CSDWarnBot (talk) 16:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
WPBS vs. WPB
To continue a discussion elsewhere of a week ago and because I am really curious, in what specific ways is WPBS "superior" to WPB?
I feel that WPBS is more difficult to apply and a half-way point to what WPB accomplishes.
Thank you for your time.
ANI thread
I don't want to get you in trouble, but nor do I want to have to sort out every one of the problems created by myself, so at least by going a bit more public we can get volunteers to sort things out.
I am frustrated, and think that's coming out, but I don't bear you ill-will. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Duplicate-defaultsort
Do you realize what a wonderful thing this is? When you created it eight weeks ago was it your intention to address the conflict that pupped up in the category it created? I hope not because I have been, although if you want to jump in and take care of the ones under "S" and "T" while I finish "L" and do "M" through "R" I will not complain.
When I stumbled across the category there were 2,777 pages in it. By the end of today there will be fewer than 1,000. My goal is to get all the non-trivial items resolved by the end of next week so I can start on the pages in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter, a project that should keep me out of trouble for the rest of my life.
Because I am resolving the conflicts in the first category I have learned more about how banners work than probably anyone else except the folks, like you, who know why the banners work as they do. I have also leaned what items can set the DEFAULTSORT. As an added bonus I have leaned a couple of keyboard shortcuts I did not know before and I have become almost addicted to Preview.
The absolutely best part about the Dup-DS is that the category it has created, that I will continue to monitor on a daily basis, is a safety net for me when I mess something up on a page in Category:Biography articles without listas parameter. The easiest error to make is for me to neglect to put a listas value in a template that uses it, wants it, and will throw a fit if it is not there.
Thank you!
I already put this on the MediaWiki talk:Duplicate-defaultsort page with an "editprotected" but it may be wise to put it here.
Would you put a colon between the two left-brackets and the word "Category" so that Category:Pages with DEFAULTSORT conflicts does not put the stage into the category.
Thank you.
{{Talkheader}} issue
Hi there, after your change to talkheader the banner is distorted in my browser on most pages. A discussion was started here awhile ago, but didn't end in a resolution. I've left details and a screenshot on the banner Talk: page. Thanks. §hep • Talk 00:21, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Thank you!
It appears you, Wtimrock and Northern Thunder fixed the templates on the filmograghy and TV info I added to Empress Gladys' page. If so, thank you. Comprendo —Preceding undated comment was added at 05:16, 16 January 2009 (UTC).
Flagged revs
Thought this might make you happy. §hep • Talk 23:57, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
WPBanner
I was thinking about using this on a different wiki I edit on - are your contributions multilicensed?--Tznkai (talk) 01:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
- At the moment, they're not, but I'm certainly happy to consider multi-licensing the WPBM ones. Which wiki are we talking about, and which license does it use? Note also, however, that while I probably have a good 98% of the edits to the WPBM core templates, there are a couple of other editors in there too which may be licensable; the /templatepage section in particular I had relatively little to do with. And of course it depends on a host of other templates and CSS styles that I had little or no involvement with, but you can probably work around those. Happy‑melon 13:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
Quick help on a template variable
Hello, I have a template that I use on WikiProject pages that links to the WikiMedia sites. I have an issue where sometimes the field I set to use for the project name does not provide a good search name, so I setup a variable that lets you define a separate name for the box and the project name is just used as a search term.
{{Food wikimedia}}
The problem is that I cannot get them to work right.
If the |name= is absent or undefined, I need the |project= field to be used as the search item. If the name field is defined, I need the heading box to display the term defined in the |name= field.
This is what I mean:
{{Food wikimedia |project = Beer |name = }}
gives you:
Find more about Beer on other Wikimedia Sites | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
{{Food wikimedia |project = Beer |name = Biere (French for beer) }}
gives you:
Find more about Biere on other Wikimedia Sites | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
It should be saying Find more about Biere on other Wikimedia Sites but retaining the links to beer.
Thanks for any help, --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 01:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- Done - you were missing a brace which screwed up your #if: clause. Happy‑melon 01:19, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, I needed another set of eyes that could see through all of those braces and pipes. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 01:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
TEMPLATENAME function
I see you've use the [bugzilla.wikimedia.org] a bit. Just wondering if you've ever seen any requests in there for {{TEMPLATENAME}} and {{FULLTEMPLATENAME}}. It would make using templates a little simpler if there wasn't any need to set BANNER_NAME if WPBannerMeta or name in Navbox. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
- This has been suggested in various places, but it's fundamentally incompatible with the MediaWiki parser engine. Essentially the way the parser works is to go through the wikitext looking for a template call. When it finds one, it replaces the entire template call with a placeholder, and takes it off to a workshop. Wikilinks and text in nowiki tags are also replaced by placeholders so they don't confuse the process (but wikitables aren't, which is why they screw up parserfunctions). The parser breaks the template up around raw pipe characters into the template name and parameter-value pairs (hence
{{!}}
works), and splits each pair up into the parameter name and parameter value (hence{{=}}
. On each fragment that's now present (template name, parameter-x-name, parameter-x-value, etc) the parser calls itself recursively to expand any other volatile code. Once it has completely static values for everything, it loads up the wikitext for the template that's being called and substitutes in the parameter values that have been defined. It replaces any undefined parameters with their defaults, if any, restores the placeholdered-out wikilinks etc, and then goes back to the article text and subs in the expanded content. It moves on to do the same for the entire page, then comes back to check that there are no newly-exposed volatile code segments to expand. Once it's happy that the entire page is static, it returns the content. - Within that process, it doesn't really make sense to consider a 'TEMPLATENAME' variable to have one constant value in the same way that PAGENAME does; the 'focus' of the parser moves around constantly as it expands various bits of the wikitext. Also, remember that such a variable is something that would have to be expanded by the parser, and exactly when that expansion occurs is heavily dependent on the architecture of the template (remembering of course that the explanation above is a gross simplification, there are innumerable optimisations that cause deviations from the simplistic method).
- It would be as soon as the text of the template page is read from the database, the occurences of TEMPLATEPAGE would be replaced with the name of the that page before the text is passed over to the parser. So for use in WPBannerMeta, would actually still need to pass through BANNER_NAME (contary to what I mentioned initally) but it would be set in the initial template, so for example in Template:WPCouncil, instead of |BANNER_NAME = Template:WPCouncil, would have |BANNER_NAME = {{TEMPLATEPAGE}}. I think the only real advantage would be for when the page was moved. The rest of the time, it wouldn't matter much as subst:PAGENAME does most of the work. -- WOSlinker (talk) 00:02, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, wise and ingenius Template wizard...
Why, oh Why? can't I get Template:WPTennis_Navbar to show properly on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tennis. I assume that it is supposed to float and NOT force the text down (on the left)?
I grovel in advance -- Mjquin_id (talk) 05:58, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
- Well, on my browser (FF3), it does float to the right. What browser are you using? Happy‑melon 08:43, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Ok, ok...so you BOTH "ROCK OUT LOUD"... My continued undying gratitude. -- Mjquin_id (talk) 23:46, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
WPBannerMeta/hooks/qualitycats
The {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/qualitycats}} hook doesn't seem to be processing the class value first before passing it over to the /qualityscale template. I've put an updated version of the code on Template talk:WPBannerMeta/hooks/qualitycats. I would have just put an {{editprotected}} request up but I thought it would be better if you could check that it looks ok first. Thanks. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Cryptic writing
At the end of one of my comments, I concluded by saying:
-
- I want to get a picture of what goes on. Michael Hardy (talk) 23:23, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
You responded:
-
- Actually, that's exactly what happens:
So it would appear that what you're saying is "exactly what happens" is that I'm getting a picture of what goes on. Then you when on:
-
- new page creation is logged in the recentchanges table,
So what's that got to do with it? Presumably I'll find out by continuing to read your words:
-
- which is systematically purged after 30 days. The ability to search for new articles is lost, you have to look through articles individually to see if they were created 31 days ago.
The relevance is still unclear. So we continue:
-
- Since there is no enduring log of new page creations at all, the deletion process is actually more transparent.
The only way to make sense of this seems to be that you're trying to remind me that there's a log of deleted pages. This raises a really obvious question: Did you read my comments that you were replying to at all? Or are you totally clueless on purpose? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:31, 20 January 2009 (UTC)
(Sorry, butting in, apologies if it's not welcome.) To Michael: although it is quite possible that Happy-melon was being incoherent at this time, please be aware that your tone of questioning is unlikely to get a helpful response. You would get more achieved if you were more civil around here. To Happy-melon, don't worry about Michael. He's always like this (or perhaps you know this already). Cheers, Martin 11:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
More template guru-ry required
Hello, I am working on yet another template for a category tree at {{Project categories}}. It seems not to be accepting the {{{project}}} variable in the <categorytree>{{{project}}}</categorytree>.
Is this because of the HTML tags? Or is it something else? Your input would be greatly appreciated.
--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 22:24, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
- Yes, it's because of the (pseudo) HTML tags. You need the well-known and widely-used parserfunction #tag: :D Happy‑melon 22:27, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
Wha? 8-/ Would you be referring to {{#categorytree}}? Thanks for doing that again, you are a big help to template neophytes such as my self. --Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 05:37, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
thanks
Hi HM, i noticed you've done a lot of work on organising the flagged revisions and answered a lot of people's questions, interesting quantitative analysis too. Tom B (talk) 00:03, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
A quick request
Hi, I wonder if you can help. Inside Category:Unassessed AFC articles is someone's monobook. It's annoying me because I can never clear this category completely! I've asked him/her about it on their talkpage but they don't seem to be active now. Is there any way you can fix this? Thanks, Martin 11:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)