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Can someone deprecate the "expand" parameter? The last time this was requested, it wasn't done because the {{expand}} template was still at DRV. DRV endorsed deletion, so now there's no reason to keep the "expand" parameter. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 06:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

"Expand" can be used when Multiple issues is in sections. I 'll do the modifications soon. I already had it in mind. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:47, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

|date= should only be used for |expert=

{{editprotected}} Please make this edit to remove the use of |date= from places it does not apply to. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 19:00, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I propose...

Template Error when using 'Crystal' parameter

I have just determined an error in Template:Multiple issues. When using the crystal or prediction parameter, the article shows up as needing copyediting, even though no copyedit parameter exists. Discovered when trying to remove the final article listed in [[Category:Wikipedia articles needing copy edit from May 2009]], which was War of Ezekiel 38–39 (check the page history for my testing). The article had no copyedit tag, but still showed in the category, and contained copyediting as a hidden category.

I fixed it by removing crystal from the multi-issue tag, and put it as the standalone {{crystal}} tag. However there's clearly an error in the template itself somewhere that needs to be fixed. --jjron (talk) 13:33, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect categorisation

{{editprotect}} The template incorrectly categories items containing the 'crystal' field. The code

Crystal -->{{Multiple issues/message | name = {{{crystal|}}} | message = *It may contain unsourced [[WP:CRYSTAL|prediction]]s, speculative material or accounts of events that might not occur. <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article or section] by removing speculative content.</small> | cat = All articles needing copy edit | cat-date = Wikipedia articles needing copy edit }}<!--

should be amended to:

Crystal -->{{Multiple issues/message | name = {{{crystal|}}} | message = *It may contain unsourced [[WP:CRYSTAL|prediction]]s, speculative material or accounts of events that might not occur. <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article or section] by removing speculative content.</small> | cat = Articles containing predictions or speculation | cat-date = Wikipedia articles containing predictions or speculation }}<!-- --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 14:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:43, 16 March 2011 (UTC)


Incorrect categorisation: Version 2

{{sudo}}

Please change this: 

 BLP IMDB-only refimprove

-->{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{BLP IMDB-only refimprove|}}}
| message    = *'''Its only attribution is to [[IMDB]]''', which may not be a reliable source for biographical information <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article] by introducing [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]</small>
| cat-date   = Articles sourced only by IMDB
}}<!--

 BLP IMDB refimprove

-->{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{BLP IMDB refimprove|}}}
| message    = *'''It has attribution to [[IMDB]]''', which may not be a reliable source for biographical information <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article] by introducing [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]</small>
| cat-date   = Articles sourced by IMDB
}}</div>
}}<!--{{Multiple issues}} end-->{{ns0|{{#if:{{{1|}}}{{{3O|}}}{{{advertising|}}}{{{article|}}}{{{att|}}}{{{biased|}}}{{{blpdispute|}}}{{{Date|}}}{{{expand|}}}{{{in-universe-cat|}}}{{{intro-rewrite|}}}{{{leadtoolong|}}}{{{leadtooshort|}}}{{{moreref|}}}{{{morerefs|}}}{{{morereferences|}}}{{{noreferences|}}}{{{OR|}}}{{{or|}}}{{{originalresearch|}}}{{{out of|}}}{{{proseline|}}}{{{Refimprove|}}}{{{ref-improve|}}}{{{recent|}}}{{{research|}}}{{{toolong|}}}{{{tooshort|}}}
|[[Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters]]}}
}}<noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
</noinclude>

To: 

 BLP IMDB-only refimprove

-->{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{BLP IMDB-only refimprove|}}}
| message    = *'''Its only attribution is to [[IMDB]]''', which may not be a reliable source for biographical information <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article] by introducing [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]</small>
| cat-date   = Articles sourced only by IMDb
}}<!--

 BLP IMDB refimprove

-->{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{BLP IMDB refimprove|}}}
| message    = *'''It has attribution to [[IMDB]]''', which may not be a reliable source for biographical information <small>Please help [{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=edit}} improve this article] by introducing [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]</small>
| cat-date   = Articles sourced by IMDb
}}</div>
}}<!--{{Multiple issues}} end-->{{ns0|{{#if:{{{1|}}}{{{3O|}}}{{{advertising|}}}{{{article|}}}{{{att|}}}{{{biased|}}}{{{blpdispute|}}}{{{Date|}}}{{{expand|}}}{{{in-universe-cat|}}}{{{intro-rewrite|}}}{{{leadtoolong|}}}{{{leadtooshort|}}}{{{moreref|}}}{{{morerefs|}}}{{{morereferences|}}}{{{noreferences|}}}{{{OR|}}}{{{or|}}}{{{originalresearch|}}}{{{out of|}}}{{{proseline|}}}{{{Refimprove|}}}{{{ref-improve|}}}{{{recent|}}}{{{research|}}}{{{toolong|}}}{{{tooshort|}}}
|[[Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters]]}}
}}<noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
</noinclude>

Per Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2011_April_11#Category:Articles_sourced_only_by_IMDB. Thanks. Avicennasis @ 03:28, 16 Nisan 5771 / 20 April 2011 (UTC)

You're request includes one fix of IMDB to IMDb; shouldn't the other two mentions be changed (the template BLP IMDB refimprove which is a redirect to BLP IMDb refimprove, and the link in the message text)?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
They could, but it doesn't matter - that's mainly cosmetic. The Template and article links have redirects which will still get the user to where they are going - the category, however, is no so easily handled. :) Avicennasis @ 04:08, 16 Nisan 5771 / 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Implemented including the other changes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:30, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Problems

How about changing the wording to "problems" rather than the euphamism "issues"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.202.239.136 (talk) 20:16, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

The following section in the template needs a change to one link:

{{Multiple issues/message | name = {{{wikify|}}} | message = * It may need to be '''[[:Category:Articles that need to be wikified|wikified]]''' to meet Wikipedia's [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style|quality standards]]. | cat = All articles that need to be wikified | cat-date = Articles that need to be wikified }}

Category:Articles that need to be wikified isn't particularly helpful for explaining what's needed, especially to new editors. Could I suggest changing this to either WP:Glossary#Wikify, or to WP:Tutorial/Wikipedia links? Thanks, Mr. Credible (talk) 07:52, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Can someone add the {{cleanup-link rot}} message to this template please? It's used frequently, especially on pages that have a lot of other issues. SnottyWong yak 16:43, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion to establish consensus

Two additional tags o include

Is it possible to add {{All plot}} and {{Over detailed}} to this tag? Thanks. Xeworlebi (talk) 12:45, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Edit request to fix problems

In the sandbox, there is a version that would correct a few things:

  1. Jargon is now a redirect to Technical.
  2. Cleanup-link rot didn't have a lc parameter, but the lc was used on the /doc pg.
  3. BLP IMDb refimprove used uc on the /doc pg, but the para. was in lc.
  4. Alphabetized deprecated paras.

And I have a few questions:

  1. Should jargon be added to the depr. paras. section, since it is now a redirect?
  2. Shouldn't expand be removed from the paras., but kept still in the depr. paras., since the template is now deprecated, in favor of using expand-section? Plus, the fact that expand-section won't work in this template, since it's a section template, and not a whole article template?

Thanks for your help, in advance. --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:44, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Done the changes. I'll have a check for the deprecated parameters in the weekend. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:59, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks much! --Funandtrvl (talk) 04:56, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 5 July 2011

One more fix: add BLP IMDb-only refimprove with lower case "IMDb" as alt. parameter to BLP IMDB-only refimprove. --Funandtrvl (talk) 05:15, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
See the sandbox for addition of lc parameter for IMDb, and removal of extra space. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:52, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
 Done Magioladitis (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 5 July 2011A

Well, I've cleaned up and fixed several more problems with this template, including missing categories, matching parameters and descriptions with their stand-alone templates, grammar fixes, punctuation, and so on. Please see: sandbox Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 22:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of adding so many parameter variations because this means we 'll have to update AWB after that too. I'll do only if you write a list here of the newly introduced parameter variations. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:08, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Do any changes you think they should be done and I 'll check again this talk page and the edit history in a few hours. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:35, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Is this what you'll need? These parameters match the actual stand-alone templates, along with what the template currently has as parameters:

{{{primary sources|}}} primarysources
{{{cleanup-laundry|}}} laundry, laundrylists
{{{over detailed|}}} fancruft
{{{cleanup-spam|}}} spam
{{{cleanup-reorganize|}}} restructure, reorganisation, organize
{{{POV-check|}}} pov-check
{{{criticism section|}}} criticisms
{{{very long|}}} long, verylong
{{{example farm|}}} examplefarm
{{{cleanup-rewrite|}}} rewrite
{{{cite check|}}} citecheck
{{{quote farm|}}} quotefarm
{{{news release|}}} newsrelease
{{{unreliable sources|}}} unreliable
current sandbox version: [1]

Thanks. I'll be offline for a few hours. I'll update later. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:48, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
Removed: moreref, morerefs, morereferences, expand, recent, from live parameter section, since they are listed in deprecated parameters section. See current sandbox version. --Funandtrvl (talk) 14:51, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
Updated but I am not sure what is the benefit of changing the comments to be the same with the main parameter. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:16, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 17 July 2011

When adding this template to an article I would like to be able to give a link to a section of the talk page where discussion of the issues alluded to has been started. I have constructed a draft version of the template which does this, and placed it in the sandbox. This version has an extra parameter, tpsection, which can be set to the title of the appropriate section on the talk page. When this is done, the box created by the template says that discussion can take place "in the appropriate section of the talk page", Instead of simply "on the talk page", and the bolded text, "appropriate section", is the label of a wikilink which points to the section of the talk page with the nominated title.

If the tpagesection parameter is not provided, or is empty, the template behaves in exactly the same way as the current version. I have illustrated the operation of this proposed version on the testcases page, and put the documentation on the doc subpage of the sandbox. For some reason the sandbox transcludes its documentation from the doc subpage of the template proper, rather than that of the sandbox itself. So you don't see the modified version of the documentation on the sandbox page—you have to go to its doc subpage to see it.
David Wilson (talk · cont) 08:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Editprotected 15 July 2011

Please add "linkrot" and/or "link rot" (I don't much care which) as a synonym for "cleanup-link rot". Thanks, — This, that, and the other (talk) 07:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Done, I think. Danger (talk) 19:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
There's one more thing that needs to be done to make it work, see: sandbox. Also, I think AWB and/or Twinkle needs to be updated also. I'm not sure where to notify them. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I'll update AWB as soon as we are done with these requests. Please don't keep adding every possible variant of parameter names. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
I would suggest that some more of the parameters that don't match the single issue templates be put into the deprecated list, so they can eventually be removed from this template. I'd be willing to work on that. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
Twinkle talkpage got a few days ago a message from me, but nobody responded until now. mabdul 22:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

If there is still a request here, please reactivate with clarification. But we seem to be done so deactivating. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I added some in AWB. Check rev 7786. I ll need instructions of what to add or to remove. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Next chance I get, I'll add the parameters that I think could be deprecated to the sandbox version for you. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

This is still broken: the synonym "linkrot" was added to a code comment, but not in the actual functioning code. — This, that, and the other (talk) 02:40, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Updated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Editprotected request 21 July 2011

Please change

| cat-date = Cleanup section

to

| cat-date = NPOV disputes

since the sorting of {{Criticism section}} has been changed. Only 1 instance. Debresser (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Since I'm at it

Please add the line

| cat = All NPOV disputes

in front of

| cat-date = NPOV disputes

analogously to {{POV}}. Only 1 instance. Debresser (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. Debresser (talk) 17:00, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 01 August 2011

In reference to Magioladitis' request of 15 July above to not add more variant parameter names, I have pared down six of the parameters that are no longer in use or are redirects to their standard, single issue templates. The parameters removed in the sandbox version are: BLPrefimprove, refimproveBLP, BLPunreferenced, BLPunref, unrefBLP, unreferencedBLP. Please update this template, thanks --Funandtrvl (talk) 01:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

 Done Edits transferred from sandbox. --RL0919 (talk) 04:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

No footnotes

Please add to {{No footnotes}}, if possible in that template. Pedroca cerebral (talk) 00:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

good idea, I just noticed that was missing too! --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Support - I see many articles that have {{Multiple issues}} also have {{no footnotes}}. GoingBatty (talk) 00:32, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I can add it to the sandbox version and rqst an edit protected edit. --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:40, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, there is a version in the sandbox that is ready to go. Added "no footnotes", made some corrections in the auto-categories, moved sources to top, and alphabetized the rest. --Funandtrvl (talk) 06:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
2nd updated version, see sandbox, corrections. Parameters: added "no footnotes"; removed "grammar", which is now a redirect to "copy edit". --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
3rd revision, removed excess bolding, see sandbox. --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Happy to add the no footnotes. That's quite a bit of change to the bolding on the template you've made there - are these changes supported by consensus as well? It may be simpler, in future, to start a separate thread about different issues. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:08, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I went back to the bolding style used before. You can see on the testcases page that there were only a few minor adjustments, and I matched the text in this template to the text of each individual template. Also, I moved the BLP sources and other "sources" ones up to the top, and then alphabetized the rest. --Funandtrvl (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
OK, I've gone back and edited it to match all the individual templates, see revision: in the sandbox. Thanks,--Funandtrvl (talk) 23:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:33, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Secondary does not mean independent

The "primary sources" parameter currently produces a message that says:

| message = * It relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications.

This message wrongly conflates "primary" sources with "sources affiliated with the subject". If the actual problem is overuse of primary sources, then the only the addition of secondary sources, not more primary sources that happen to be third-party or independent, will solve the problem. WP:Secondary does not mean independent.

The solution is simple. We just need to shorten the message to this:

| message = * It relies on references to primary sources, rather than on secondary and tertiary sources.

It might be valuable to create a separate parameter for articles that overuse sources affiliated to the subject, but it is a separate issue and so should be a separate parameter. (If you're having trouble figuring out what the difference between "secondary" and "independent" is, then you might also find it useful to read Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

 Not done Check {{Primary sources}}. Multiple issues only binds separate tags together. any changes must be done to original tag first. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:53, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Please add {{Cleanup red links}} if others agree. --Flyguy33 (talk) 05:59, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's worth. Very few translucions. Less than 100. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Remove "Citations Missing" parameter

{{edit protected}} As per the discussion at TfD here - this template is no longer in use. It should also be removed from this template... Nikthestoned 15:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Agree. I can work up something in the /sandbox. --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Since 'citations missing' has been deprecated, we need to remove it from this template, see: sandbox. --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:46, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Well, the only problem is that 'citations missing' has over 4000+ transclusions, and I don't use AWB, and I am not well versed in which bot would do the job. --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Why not get citations missing to trigger the refimprove message as well? (See sandbox.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:03, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

TN'ing the 'edit protected' - this is a matter for WP:TFD, or discussion here, or whatever; but it ain't "a complete and specific description of the request, so that an editor unfamiliar with the subject matter could complete the requested edit immediately.}}. If you reach agreement, please re-request. Thanks.  Chzz  ►  04:58, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

As it stands it looks like there are three different ways to approach handling the deprecated parameter 'citations missing' situation, (or any other deprecated parameter for this template for that matter.)
  1. Add the deprecated parameter to the parameter it has been redirected to, as an alternate. (This will clutter up this template and cause multiple additions of parameters, for example, cleanup-reorganize has 4 different choices) OR
  2. Have the deprecated parameter add its transcluded article into the maint. category, without adding it to the parameter/category it's been redirected to; then order a bot to change the parameter to the one currently in use (and not deprecated) OR
  3. Add the deprecated parameter both to this template under its redirect, and also place it into the maint. category for deprecated parameters, then order a bot to change the parameter to the one currently in use.
Since it has been mentioned before that this template has too many parameters already, (and that Twinkle, etc., has to be updated everytime something new is added), I'm wondering what would be the best way to handle this? Comments requested, please! --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:37, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Warning notice

Does anyone know how to add the code for a phrase notice warning: "This template includes one or more parameters that have been deprecated. Please replace those parameters.", when a deprecated parameter is used? Thanks,--Funandtrvl (talk) 16:19, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
I think it is easier replacing the wrong code by a bot or AWB. no need for checking if somebody is using a wrong code... mabdul 16:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Easy answer: request one at WP:BOTREQ ;) Since this is a really easy task (removing a parameter and maybe (?) adding a new template) this is rather quickly done. mabdul 18:15, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, there are several deprecated parameters in this template which cause the maintenance category to be populated, so we should request bot help with that. --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Add HTML IDs to the template

(See also Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_76#Add_HTML_IDs_to_article_maintenance_tags.)

It appears that application of {{multiple issues}} is primarily done through Twinkle. But it has been known for a long time that Twinkle cannot recognise existing {{multiple issues}} tags, instead adding extra ones to articles.

I am working on rectifying this issue, and at the same time allowing users to remove tags from articles by using Twinkle's tag module. But to make all this happen without unneeded server requests, there needs to be some kind of metadata present on the template for Twinkle to detect whether a multiple issues tag is present, and which issues are displayed.

My suggestion is to replace the "*" preceding each message in the /message invocations with a <li id="ambox-multiple_issues-unreferenced"> tag, where "unreferenced" is the main name of the issue. (A </li> closing tag at the end of each message is not required, as MediaWiki fills it in anyway, but might be preferred.)

Twinkle would need to maintain an internal list of synonyms. If an issue was added Twinkle would not need modification, but if synonyms were added or removed, Twinkle would need to be tweaked.

Also, the template ambox would need the parameter class = ambox-multiple_issues added to it.

What do people think? — This, that, and the other (talk) 06:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

To have the goal of making this template work better with Twinkle is fine with me. Would need someone to work up something in the /sandbox, of course. --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Done. Could the sandbox please be synched? (Note that I made some other minor (comment) changes to the template in my initial edit, and there are some edits from others that were made before mine. A diff-by-diff combining job might be in order here.) — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Since AWB adds this template too, will someone please make sure that any changes to benefit Twinkle don't break AWB? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 17:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Template syntax has not changed; if AWB does detection of HTML syntax then it might hiccup. I've never used AWB, and don't know how it works. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:49, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
If AWB only "adds" this template, as you mention, then there is no issue. — This, that, and the other (talk) 08:40, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd be happy to do this, but wouldn't it be better to put the li in Template:Multiple issues/message rather than the main template? Ucucha (talk) 11:38, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Ucucha. Add an id parameter to /message and let that do the work. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:10, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Even that wouldn't always be necessary; the id parameter can easily default to the |name= parameter of the subtemplate. Ucucha (talk) 12:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
I considered adding a new parameter to /message, but it seems to be easier to do it this way. Also, what else would we put the ID on other than the bulleted item (which is defined in the main template)? Still, I'm happy to have a play around with your suggested approach. — This, that, and the other (talk) 02:46, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Doesn't the name parameter typically contain a date? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:05, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Yes it does. So using that parameter wouldn't work. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added a new version to the sandbox. Note that /testcases looks broken, because the /message sub-template doesn't add a <li> like /message/sandbox does. I tested this with a working /message subpage, and it looked and functioned as intended. — This, that, and the other (talk) 00:03, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the edit protected request, as of now. There is a least one typo in the sandbox that I can see, and I will work on fixing that. When that is finished, I'll re-activate the edit rqst. --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request 5 October 2011

Okay, the version in the sandbox is ready to go, see: diff. The typos have been cleaned up, the id code discussed above has been added by this, that & the other, all parameters have been matched to their original template parameters, added 4 parameters to deprecated list, including citations missing. After this template is updated, we can request a bot to change the 4 deprecated parameters to the new parameter names, instead of adding more synonyms to the mix. Also, "more footnotes" was added, so that the 'quad core' of "refimprove", "unreferenced", "no footnotes" and "more footnotes" is complete in this template. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Please note that the subtemplate, Template:Multiple issues/message must be updated also, see: diff. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:22, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I've tweaked the two sandboxes for a slight efficiency improvement. Can you confirm if you are happy with this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:14, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
It looks good to go! --Funandtrvl (talk) 14:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
 deployed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:54, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, and it looks like we didn't crash the template, I hope! :-) (I'll update the /doc pg.) --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 44#Template:Multiple issues

I've requested Wikipedia:Bot requests/Archive 44#Template:Multiple issues that the deprecated parameters be updated to the new ones. The only problem is that the way this template is set up, none of the deprecated parameters are redirecting to their current names, so the articles are not displaying the messages at all. Thus, the articles are only getting placed into the maint. category. Maybe we should change this--to both place it into the maint. cat and display the correct message and place it into the current 'to do' categories? --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:15, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The way I understand it, that is by design: the deprecated parameters are languishing there, waiting until they are no longer used before they can make a graceful exit. Anyway, if a bot is going to fix deprecated parameters, why do they need to be made visible? — This, that, and the other (talk) 06:08, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure, are you refering to having a warning notice? --Funandtrvl (talk) 14:37, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
The trouble is this only makes sense if the corresponding redirects to the appropriate individual tags are actively deprecated too. Some folk seem to find this process offensive. Rich Farmbrough, 22:01, 6 October 2011 (UTC).
Yes, I see what you mean! Since this template was updated today, the maint. cat for this template is now full again with articles. Is requesting a bot to update the new parameters the best way to approach the workload? --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:23, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
There's a new AWB facility which will take care of these cases. It would be reasonable to add them to Helpful Pixie Bot's tasks too. Rich Farmbrough, 13:28, 7 October 2011 (UTC).
OK, I've applied for access to AWB, so that I can help clean up the maint. category. --Funandtrvl (talk) 17:47, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

Is there anyway someone can add a collapsible param. So if an article has this template it won't be a long list and it will be auto collapsed but if they want to see what it says they can uncollaspe it.--Clarkcj12 (talk) 18:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

As a general rule, if you find a page that lists more than about three or four, it's usually helpful to prune the list down to the most important issues. A lengthy laundry list of every possible fault doesn't encourage people to fix problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

linkrot

Can the message produced for the problem 'linkrot' be modified to provide a link to the reflinks tool the way template:linkrot does? RJFJR (talk) 17:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

'tis done. Rich Farmbrough, 19:52, 2 February 2012 (UTC).

Edit request on 14 February 2012: Please fix categorization of "notability" parameter

When using the {{notability}} template, it includes articles in the maintenance Category:All articles with topics of unclear notability. However, when using the {{Multiple issues|notability}}, it does not. Could you please update the Multiple issues template from: 

{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{notability|{{{notable|}}}}}}
| message    = The '''[[Wikipedia:Notability|notability]] of this {{#if:{{{section|}}}{{{article|}}}<!--
   then-->|{{#if:{{{article|}}}|article's subject|{{#if:{{{section|}}}|section's subject}}}}<!--
   else-->|article's subject}} is in question'''. If notability cannot be established, it may be {{#if:{{{section|}}}{{{article|}}}<!--
   then-->|{{#if:{{{article|}}}|[[Wikipedia:Guide to deletion|listed for deletion]]|{{#if:{{{section|}}}|removed}}}}<!--
   else-->|[[Wikipedia:Guide to deletion|listed for deletion]] or removed}}.
| cat-date   = Articles with topics of unclear notability
| id         = notability
}}

to 

{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{notability|{{{notable|}}}}}}
| message    = The '''[[Wikipedia:Notability|notability]] of this {{#if:{{{section|}}}{{{article|}}}<!--
   then-->|{{#if:{{{article|}}}|article's subject|{{#if:{{{section|}}}|section's subject}}}}<!--
   else-->|article's subject}} is in question'''. If notability cannot be established, it may be {{#if:{{{section|}}}{{{article|}}}<!--
   then-->|{{#if:{{{article|}}}|[[Wikipedia:Guide to deletion|listed for deletion]]|{{#if:{{{section|}}}|removed}}}}<!--
   else-->|[[Wikipedia:Guide to deletion|listed for deletion]] or removed}}.
| cat        = All articles with topics of unclear notability
| cat-date   = Articles with topics of unclear notability
| id         = notability
}}

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 11:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Done, took me a while to spot the difference - but then I realised that all you wanted was one line adding. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:56, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing - sorry I didn't highlight the one line change sufficiently. GoingBatty (talk) 01:03, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for this template

Recently several cleanup related templates have been submitted for deletion includnig Expand and currently {{Cleanup}}. It seems that most of the folks who want to delete cleanup mostly think the template is too vague and those who want to keep it believe it is needed, and I agree that something is needed, just not a vague template. Here is what I suggest.

This template allows a whole bunch of different cleanup type parameters to be input into one template and allows the verbiage to be substantially more descriptive than just "This article needs to be cleaned up". I suggest we rename this template to Cleanup, delete merge in the multiple templates currently allowed to be input into this one and use this template as the Article cleanup message template. All in one place. This will allow us to keep a "cleanup" template and allow us to have a modularized way of giving some descriptive guidance to those who might be making changes to the articles.

As an added bonus several bots and AWB already do stuff to the Multiple issues template. Those bots would need to be modified if we change the name and we would need to do some work to move the articles currently identified by each of the templates in multiple issues individually but I think this is a win, win. --Kumioko (talk) 20:24, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Support the proposed template modification. I always thought the cleanup template was far too general and nebulous. The modified version would provide a template that pinpoints the specific problem areas that need improvement, and eliminate the need (if I understand the proposal correctly) for multiple templates, which tend to give the page a cluttered appearance.--JayJasper (talk) 05:20, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
That's exactly the intent. --Kumioko (talk)
That is perhaps true but I think given the list of parameters available there are likely very few if any scenarios which aren't covered. Copyedit is a good general one that catches a lot of the Misc. scenarios. --Kumioko (talk) 12:09, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
I think on first impressions, there are problems with articles that {{cleanup}} conveys that other tags can't/don't. That's why I think its purpose should not be transferred to {{multiple issues}}.Curb Chain (talk) 14:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Thats fair, I admit that merging/renaming Multiple issues with Cleanup isn't a perfect solution but I think it would be an improvement over an ambiguous template and I believe it would reduce the driveby tagging that goes on. Please bare in mind that if we were to do this merge/rename we would need to change some things about this template in both code and documentation anyway so if we need to make some changes to capture a broader list of problems its something we can address. Can you think of any examples that aren't already covered by this template? --Kumioko (talk) 15:01, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
We had an example with Platform shoes of paragraphs being in the wrong order. Someone suggested {{Cleanup reorganize}} but that is a bit different, Cleanup serves three functions :- items with specific rare complaints (and the same coterie of editors attempting to delete "over broad" cleanup templates is also going for "over narrow" ones), items with a welter of problems, here perhaps, {{Copyedit}} might be used sometimes, and items which could be more accurately tagged by someone more familiar with the large number of cleanup tags. Really a process of reviewing the tagged articels would be more useful than the time spent debating the tag. Rich Farmbrough, 13:46, 13 February 2012 (UTC).
I mostly agree with your point and I would add that in my opinion there is almost no reason to add cleanup and a variety of other related tags to Stub articles. And there are plenty of stubs with these tags on them. I think that we could create a bot or something that could cleanup some of these cleanup tags (make them more specific, remove them from stubs, etc.) at the same time, some of these are also fixable by bot so there is that avenue too. It should be possible to make a bot that adds at least a minimal infobox to most biographies. IMO, we should remove unpopulted sections rather than use a tag saying its unpopulated, etc. I agree that niether removing the cleanup tag nor leaving it as it is are ideal. I just think that replacing cleanup with some funcionality like that which is available in multiple issues would be better than the staus quo. We can always set the default of the template to say the same thing as the Cleanup template already does if no other parameters are populated. --Kumioko (talk) 14:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I looked at putting reason codes where there was a talk page section with "clean up" in the title, but often they were old sections, or something saying "the cleanup is done". I am looking into using the edit summary to add reason codes, but this will definitely need to be a manual decision. Rich Farmbrough, 01:53, 21 February 2012 (UTC).

Parameter removal

{{NOT}} has been deleted, so can this template please be modified so that it no longer uses the NOT field? (Also, where can I find any transclusions using the NOT field, if any?) Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 04:28, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

checkY Done. Amalthea 09:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters now contains 377 articles with the |NOT= or |unencyclopedic= parameters. Should these parameters simply be removed, or should they be replaced with a different parameter? I'll be happy to do the work once consensus is reached here. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:31, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
As I understand it there is no direct replacement, it was deleted exactly because it didn't make clear what was wrong with an article. Probably needs to be decided on a case by case basis. Amalthea 19:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Textbook

Please could a parameter such as | textbook = be added to enable the consolidation of {{textbook}}? --Stfg (talk) 14:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Only 31 articles have {{textbook}}. What's the rule of thumb for how widespread a template has to be before it can be added to Multiple issues? GoingBatty (talk) 03:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for checking that out. If that's all it is, I certainly won't press hard for this. --Stfg (talk) 10:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I'll close the request for now. If you're still interested feel free to draft it up in the sandbox subpage. Tra (Talk) 16:40, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Looking through the archives, there hasn't really been a definitive number, but additions to this template have generally favored ones with hundreds, if not thousands, of substitutions. 31 seems a bit low in my opinion.. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 16:55, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
That's fine. Thanks for considering it. --Stfg (talk) 17:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request

Please remove the NOT template. The template was deleted at TFD. C3F2k (Questions, comments, complaints?) 18:09, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

The template was handled almost a week ago but I took it out of the documentation. Tra (Talk) 18:56, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Modify template to replace individual issue tags

I propose to make this template detect the amount of listed issues, and if only one issue is listed, render it in place of "This article has multiple issues." note. This would allow to phase out all the other tags and centralize all tag-related changes here. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:10, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Redundant items

Would it be possible to modify the template so that redundant items simply don't display? For example, if someone sets |tone= and |essay-like=, could we have only |essay-like= display? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

"expert" parameter

Both {{expert-subject}} and {{expert-subject-multiple}} are in the process of being deleted following this TFD. I imagine that means the "expert" parameter can disappear from this template as well, either now or in the near future. If so, the "date" field could go as well unless another parameter depends on it. 1ForTheMoney (talk) 16:57, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Not done for now: Come back once the existing uses are replaced with "attribution" parameters on the WikiProject banners, as specified in the TFD. Anomie⚔ 18:09, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
That's what I thought you'd say, although I feel that's replacing one issue with another. All right then. 1ForTheMoney (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
So did they get deleted??? Nageh (talk) 14:13, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
No, they didn't -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:17, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Exactly. Nageh (talk) 14:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC) Never mind the rant. Nageh (talk) 14:21, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

{{misleading}} and edit access

How come the important {{misleading}} parameter is missing in this template? And why are all templates only accessible to elitist administrators? Nageh (talk) 14:15, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I have taken the =disputed parameter. It's not exactly the same but what gives. Nageh (talk) 14:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
Not all templates are protected. For example, {{misleading}} is a template anyone can edit. GoingBatty (talk) 15:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Cleanup

A discussion has concluded with a decision to mandate the use of the "reason" parameter when {{Cleanup}} is used. Because this template can have the same effect with the use of its "cleanup" parameter, how will this template be affected by that decision, if at all? Please discuss this at the "Question about Multiple issues template" section of Template talk:Cleanup#Question about Multiple issues template. Nyttend (talk) 16:36, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Removing "cleanup" from this template?

{{cleanup}} is on the process of mandating the "reason" parameter. Therefore, must this template be no longer part of a multiple issue? Leaving "cleanup" as part of the multiple issues will have disadvantages if mandating the "reason" happens. --George Ho (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I didn't notice #Template:Cleanup. --George Ho (talk) 20:50, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Merged sections on same topic. — Martin (MSGJ · talk)

  • Update - "reason" parameter becomes mandatory. --George Ho (talk) 20:52, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
  • That seems the simplest solution. Multiple issues and cleanup are generally pretty closely related in any case. AIRcorn (talk) 08:58, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Yeah do that (make reason mandatory). No question really. It should be done in whichever way is decided at Template talk:Cleanup#Question about Multiple issues template, which seems to be heading towards a separate parameter for the cleanup issue. I'm removing the RFC tag here, but if anyone still feels it's necessary for some reason, feel free to replace it. Equazcion (talk) 09:42, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I guess a reason to the "cleanup" parameter could be provided by abusing the date value to say something like "Tagged since May 2012 for the following issues: ...". I don't know whether this could be implemented (I suppose so), but I hardly expect that people will use it that way. More importantly, there is a good chance that the reason will get lost within the list of other issues. So I agree that support for the parameter should be removed from the template. Nageh (talk) 11:10, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    Abusing the existing "cleanup" parameter in that way would prevent the template from properly adding pages to the dated subcategories of Category:Articles needing cleanup. Anomie⚔ 15:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    Could use the same kind of workaround as expert subject with a "date2" parameter or something. Reasons could get kinda long for this type of template, so you might hide it in a tooltip. — Bility (talk) 16:03, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
    You could, although if you were going to go that way "cleanup-date" would be a better choice. And at the same time you'd probably want to deprecate "date" in favor of "expert-date". Anomie⚔ 20:38, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

I have disabled the request until the time when someone can put the necessary code on the sandbox. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"{{BLP refimprove}}"

There are alternatives to "BLP sources": "BLP refimprove" and "BLPrefimprove". --George Ho (talk) 15:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

There are synonyms for most of the cleanup templates that {{multiple issues}} covers; in some cases there are ten or more, and this is one such case. I don't think it's necessary to have a parameter to represent each synonym. One for the true name of the template, and one for the unspaced form, should be sufficient; and these two exist already: |BLP sources= and |BLPsources=. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
However, I screwed up by typing BLPrefimprove rather than BLPsources. --George Ho (talk) 16:16, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
Disabled for now. There doesn't seem to be agreement for this change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:20, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 1 May 2012

Request 1

<!--

medref

-->{{Multiple issues/message
| name       = {{{medref|}}}
| message    = It needs more or better '''[[WP:MEDRS|medical references]]''' for verification. The [[WP:RSN|reliable sources noticeboard]] may be able to help.
| cat-date   = Articles needing additional medical references
| id         = medref
}}

Please add {{Medref}} to the template with the code above. — Bility (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

I might comment that this issue is quite a specific one (medicine articles only) and normally this template is restricted to common issues affecting all articles. But we can wait to see if there are any other comments. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I'd say drop the wikiproject aspect, partly because we shouldn't be advertising wikiprojects in article-namespace template messages (and we don't), but mainly because I have a strange feeling that doing so would result in severe wikiproject-related notice creep/over-customization if we get in the habit of adding WikiProject-related links. Furthermore, while Wikiprojects can provide help, they're still not the official go-to, centralized outlets for helping users with citing sources. Linking to WP:MEDRS (an actual guideline) and the actual reliable sources noticeboard should be fine, however. --slakr\ talk / 02:12, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
There are less than 100 transclusions of Template:Medref. For this reason I suspect that it is not worth adding to this template, which is reserved for the most uses maintenance issues. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Request 2 (non-essential)

Add {{{expert-subject|}}} to the big list at the bottom so articles using this parameter will end up in Category:Articles using Multiple issues with deprecated parameters. I've seen it once already just looking at around 15 articles, so there are probably more. — Bility (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

More cleanup templates to be updated

Following MSGJ's lead, I updated 100+ cleanup templates to use the |issue= and |fix= parameters. Could an admin please make the same changes to the following protected templates:

In addition, someone might want take a shot at updating {{sections}}. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I've done them all except {{cleanup}} which is an mbox, so we need to think about how to handle these properly (see above). (Now only 262 to go!) Thanks for doing this - I've been doing some but am still proposing new funtionality at Template talk:Ambox, and was planning to get everything settled there before pitching in. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:30, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks Martin! Sorry for including {{cleanup}} - I didn't mean to include mbox templates in this list. GoingBatty (talk) 14:36, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Fringe parameter

It might be nice to have a "fringe" parameter defined, corresponding to WP:FRINGE and {{fringe theories}}. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:49, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

You should now be able to use {{fringe theories}} within {{Article issues}} instead. Let us know how it looks! GoingBatty (talk) 04:01, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the original request - {{fringe theories}} presently has 11 transclusions in article space, and we don't normally put a new parameter into {{multiple issues}} for such a low level of usage - see #Edit request on 1 May 2012 above. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:56, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Note that {{Colloquial}} has 2 transculsions and {{Hoax}} has 2 transclusions, yet they are both supported parameters. However, I think the point is moot now. GoingBatty (talk) 23:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I have converted Russell Welch to use {{article issues}} now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:05, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Looks great, and there was no need to modify template code to make it work! GoingBatty (talk) 23:29, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Request to revise orphan text

I noticed that the text for |orphan= includes a link to Google, while {{orphan}} includes a link to Wikipedia's search engine. Could someone please change the |orphan= parameter from: 

Please help [[Help:Link|introduce links]] to this page from other [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_qdr=all&q=+site%3Awiki.riteme.site+%22{{PAGENAMEU}}%22 articles related to it].

to displaying the same text as in {{orphan}}: 

Please [[Help:Link|introduce links]] to this page from [http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&redirs=1&search={{PAGENAMEU}}&fulltext=Search&ns0=1&title=Special%3ASearch&advanced=1&fulltext={{PAGENAMEU}} related articles].

Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 21:54, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay done, but I think we will shortly be able to get {{multiple issues}} just to invoke the appropriate ambox which will neatly synchronise all the messages — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:13, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for making the change I requested, and keep up the good work with ambox! GoingBatty (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion

I would eventually like to see a version of this template that could make use of existing tags (and their shortcuts), and be applied using markup similar to this: 

{{Multiple issues|tags=

{{Notability|{{subst:DATE}}}}
{{Unreferenced|{{subst:DATE}}}}
{{Orphan|{{subst:DATE}}}}

}}

I believe a version as such would be so much easier to use and maintain, as both the tags and the wrapper could quickly and easily added or removed as needed... and without a need to remember other markup rules that apply strictly to the current version of this template. Could such a version ever be possible?  -- WikHead (talk) 18:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed and this is something I have long thought about as well. To do this we would need to allow the maintenance tags to output the raw text without the formatting, and this could probably be achived with a change to Template:Ambox. Another idea I had was a template, e.g. Template:Article issue, which could be called thus
{{Multiple issues|Notability|Unreferenced|Orphan|date={{subst:DATE}}}}
and which would have the usual format for 1 or 2 issues, but automatically change to this compressed format for 3 or more issues. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:33, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Auto-compress is an excellent idea, and so is your example described above (assuming it would support multiple date fields for issues that are added later).  -- WikHead (talk) 19:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
And I do also think this is a superb idea. extra999 (talk) 03:51, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Accepting that we need to support different dates for each issue, I suspect that the method you first suggested above would work the best. We could try to replicate the interplay between {{WPBS}} and {{WPBM}} (if you are familiar with those templates) as the latter auto-collapses when put inside the former. I will have a word with the programmer of that template and ask his advice. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:06, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Coming from an extensive background of markup prior to my wiki-experience, I've always had a very genuine interest in these templates but have never actually dove into the meat of them. I'm unfamiliar with the two templates you mention, but because this thread seems to have sparked some interest, I'm very eager to carefully observe how this idea might roll out. The learning experience could very well help push me in a future direction of template artistry. :)  -- WikHead (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Well if you want some background reading try this, but I'm not sure if that idea will work here or not ... We could start with a more manual method and if it works well, introduce the bells and whistles later. I think perhaps the first step woud be to introduce a new parameter, e.g. form to {{ambox}}. When defined |form=compact this template will give us the raw text of the message rather than the whole box. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)If you look at the top of an article talk page you'll probably see some WikiProject banners. Consider Talk:Acton Main Line railway station - there are two, and each shows a fair amount of detail. Now consider the talk page for the adjacent station Talk:London Paddington station - this has the same two WikiProject banners, but they have been made to collapse down to one line by wrapping them in {{WikiProjectBannerShell}} (aka {{WPBS}}). If you click the [show] link on the right-hand end of either one-line banner, it expands to the same size that you saw on Talk:Acton Main Line railway station. The WikiProject banners are built using {{WPBM}}, and there is something inside that which recognises the presence of {{WPBS}} and so adds the collapse/expand feature. It's less likely to be template artistry than use of CSS. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, the collapsing is done by JavaScript. But the visibility of the headers on the inner banners is controlled by CSS in MediaWiki:Common.css. The proposal here should be doable with only CSS: add a class to the containing element, and then have CSS that overrides the normal mbox styles when there is the parent element. Anomie⚔ 11:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
If you have time could you create a bare-bones working demonstration of this and we can probably tinker with it and develop the idea as needed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:06, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Add the CSS rules from User:Anomie/common.css to your common.css, and then see the sample in User:Anomie/Sandbox. Someone should pick a better class name than "collapse-submboxes-test" if this does go into production. Anomie⚔ 15:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, that is amazing. CSS is amazing. I wish I understood how you did that. What on earth does that line with R0lGODlhBQANAIAAAGOMnP do? The only problem I can see is that the text goes outside the right-hand side of the box on my browser. I can get a screenshot if you need. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:36, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
The line with R0lGODlhBQANAIAAAGOMnP puts the bluish square as the bullet for the list items, instead of the browser's default (probably black) square; "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhBQANAIAAAGOMnP///yH5BAEAAAEALAAAAAAFAA0AAAIJjI+pu+APo4SpADs=" is embedding the the graphic directly into the CSS rather than referencing an external file. See Data URI scheme for details on that. Anomie⚔ 20:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
As for the text going outside the box... Ugh. Which browser? Anomie⚔ 20:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Firefox. File:Ambox text going outside box.jpg — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Same here, Firefox 12, but the word breaking out is the "Ut" between "magna aliqua." and "enim ad minim veniam,". --Redrose64 (talk) 22:02, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I see, it just happened that my browser width and font and such was just right to not show the problem; enlarge the window a few pixels, and boom. I've changed the CSS, recopy and refresh and see how that does. Anomie⚔ 23:44, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Viewing this with Chrome, I'm seeing a column of malformed templates surrounded by an outer border. Not at all like the Firefox screencap above.  -- WikHead (talk) 01:20, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Did you copy the style rules from User:Anomie/common.css to your common.css? Anomie⚔ 03:22, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Oops, no I did not... sorry for having missed an instruction, but I'll look after that immediately.  -- WikHead (talk) 03:52, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Excellent! It now appears to work like a charm.  -- WikHead (talk) 03:58, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Browser testing

The plan, of course, is once we have sufficient browser testing and any other bugs are worked out, to see about adding the rules to MediaWiki:Common.css. To that end, what browsers have we tested it with so far? I've tried Firefox 10.0.4 (Linux), Chromium 18.0.1025.168 (Linux), Safari 5.1.4 (OS X), and IE8 (Windows-ish). Works fine on the first three; IE8 looks ok except it misses the bullets, because it refuses to acknowledge display: list-item on the table cell. Anomie⚔ 15:41, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I just viewed using IE6. Looks good, but no bullets.  -- WikHead (talk) 17:03, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Opera 11 is fine, IE9 also no bullets. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:01, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Anomie, any chance of a fix for Internet Explorer? I notice that {{multiple issues}} uses the default bullet and this seems to work. Is there a reason we can't do this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:03, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Not any easy one that I can think of. The bullet comes from the thing being styled as a list-item. In {{multiple issues}}, that's because it's an actual <li> inside an <ul>. But here we're trying to style a <table> or <tr> or <td> as a list-item, and for some stupid reason IE refuses to allow that; instead it insists that they must be styled as a table and a table-row and a table-cell. About the only workaround I can think of would be to wrap the text of all the issue templates in a span (or have the mbox templates do it for all boxes), so we could style the span as a list-item. Anomie⚔ 19:30, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
That sounds fine ... any downsides to it? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Convincing people to add this extra span to all mboxes to support our thing here. Anomie⚔ 01:02, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
From what you said I imagined we could just add a span to {{ambox}} which seems unproblematic, but perhaps there is more to it than that? Which templates would actually be affected? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:36, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
{{ambox/core}}, {{cmbox}}, {{imbox}}, {{ombox/core}}, and {{tmbox/core}} come to mind, if we want to be entirely comprehensive. Although just {{ambox/core}} probably would cover the majority if not all of the tags we actually care about here. Anomie⚔ 13:35, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Shall we just deal with ambox for now? This template is just for issues with articles, after all. Could you add the necessary code to Template:Ambox/core/sandbox so we can check if it works? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:52, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Done. You'll have to re-copy the styles from User:Anomie/common.css. It seems to work in Firefox, Chromium, and IE8 that I test with earlier. I also added a style to hide any text wrapped in a span with class "hide-in-submbox". Anomie⚔ 19:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, tested working on my selection of browsers, Opera 11, FF 12, IE9. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:14, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the appearance of User:Anomie/Sandbox in my five browsers under Win XP - four of them look about the same as each other: Chrome 19.0.1084.56 m, Firefox 12, Opera 11.64, Safari 5.1 - upper box five bullets, lower box one (against {{tone}}); whereas IE7 shows no bullets in either box. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:25, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
I was thinking about a possible issue that might cause the bullets not to show, and now we find that IE7 doesn't show the bullets. I've updated the CSS to work around that issue; please recopy from User:Anomie/common.css, refresh, and see if that fixes IE7. Anomie⚔ 16:41, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, IE7 now has bullets: but black, not blue, in the single box that now exists. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Tested with the most current CSS version, the bullets are also working in IE 6.0.2900.2180. This template also appears to function correctly in Opera 6.05 build 1140, Win32. The bullet style in Opera is a bit different but not at all a concern.  -- WikHead (talk) 19:22, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Comment from GoingBatty

From an editor's point of view, I think this is a great idea. If I understand correctly, this should make it easier to add/remove the template, and allow any maintenance template to be included. However, from a reader's point of view, I'm concerned that this proposal will take up much more space than the current template. Please remember that the current template documentation states "Using too many individual article message boxes can distract from the article and make it unpleasant to look at, as in this example. This template tags articles or sections for multiple maintenance issues and then displays the alerts in a single box, as an alternative to using several space-consuming boxes." Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe the overall goal here is to eventually achieve an identical or near identical output to that of the existing template. The sandboxing process has a way to go yet, but I think we are well on our way to achieving something that will prove to be quite user-friendly.  -- WikHead (talk) 19:21, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
GoingBatty: this idea may well take up more space in the wikicode, but as WikHead says the rendered result should be similar if not the same. Until this is deployed properly, you will need to edit your Common.css as described above in order to see the intended result. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:58, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Thank you both for the clarification. Sorry I misunderstood. GoingBatty (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Moving ahead

As this idea has attracted substantial support I suggest we move ahead with it. A couple of points occur to me.

  • Should we try to adapt the {{multiple issues}} template or should we create a new template? Because the syntax and instructions are going to be different, my thinking is that it would be perhaps less confusing to start with a different template. However "Multiple issues" is a good name ...
  • There are some ambox templates which produce a lot of text and this might not work so well with this compact form. Is there an easy way of suppressing certain parts of the text (perhaps with <span class="???">)

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:58, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Regarding the second bullet, wrapping the text-to-be-hidden in <span class="???"></span> (for some appropriate value of "???") would be the way to go. The needed CSS rule would be something along the lines of 
.collapse-submboxes-test .??? { display: none; }
It would be possible to also define text that is only shown within this wrapper, but at that point you're likely to wind up with nonsense for anyone in a text-only browser so it would be best to avoid that if possible. Anomie⚔ 20:28, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the first bullet, I agree with the idea of a new template name. Once the new template is in place, it will take a while (even for a bot) to convert all the current instances of teh template to the new format. It will take longer to educate the Wikipedia community and longer still for developers to update and deploy new versions of automated tools (e.g. AWB) that add/change/delete this template. GoingBatty (talk) 15:54, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm hoping, at least in the beginning, that both versions of the template could coexist without any large scale drives to convert what's already in use. Backlogging a template conversion would probably just defeat the idea of trying to keep things simple. I think the proposed version would probably catch on rather quickly with the non-automated community once they saw it in use... but do see a potential problem if bots and automated tools view the new version as something that needs fixing. This is a speed-bump we'll indeed need to iron out as things progress. I'd love to see the alternate version of this template called {{Multi-wrap}}, but know that {{Multiple issues 2}} is probably the safe-card.  -- WikHead (talk) 00:10, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Both functions could coexist in the one template, just have this one add in anything in |tags= after the existing junk. I have no opinion on whether that's desirable. Anomie⚔ 01:24, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, we could end up merging the two templates into one eventually, but for the moment it might be simpler to keep them separate. I've recoded {{Article issues}} for this purpose and got some examples up there now. In particular I've got some comparisons with the output from {{multiple issues}} on Template:Article issues/testcases which people might want to look at. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:59, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
That looks awesome! And my sandbox previews of various tag combinations all worked as expected. I guess my next question should be when can we start using it?  -- WikHead (talk) 17:05, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Could be quite soon, but we have some technical issues (see #Browser testing) and some other queries (e.g. see below) to sort out. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:27, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Comparison with current template

The new version uses the message displayed by the standalone template; this is usually longer than the corresponding message in {{multiple issues}}. For example, compare

The main difference is that the shortened version states the issue but does not provide the advice on how to fix the issue. Which do people prefer? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:25, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible for maintenance templates to each be outfitted with a short-text or alt-text version that would be read only by {{Article issues}}?  -- WikHead (talk) 23:34, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
It's possible, but it would make the experience even worse for non-CSS text browsers and such. If the messages can be done with only a "hide this text inside {{Article issues}}" markup, that would be a better solution. Anomie⚔ 02:50, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Two comments:
  • There is already a smalltext parameter in {{ambox}} which is used with the small form of ambox. (However according to Anomie it would not be a good solution to exploit it for this purpose and I understand it might cause problems for screenreaders, etc.)
  • What I am proposing on Template talk:Ambox (and which no one else is commenting on yet) is that we divide the text into two: the issue and the fix. This will give us greater control and we could choose to hide the fix when inside {{article issues}}.
— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

With the issue and fix method we can achieve: Please note, you will need to add the relevant code to your CSS file in order to see the following in their intended form. (See above.)

Rather than

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:48, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Good to go?

Are there any other comments about this or can we deploy?

Anomie: are you happy with the technical aspects of this? Do you foresee any problems with adding that stuff to common.css?

It would be nice if everyone could approve these changes so it doesn't look like it's just me :)

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:00, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

The class names need changing, "collapse-submboxes-test" isn't good. And, of course, the changes to {{ambox}} would need to be applied. And it should be noted that it will only work with ambox-based issue templates; ombox or other types of mbox won't be styled correctly, at least until the appropriate change is made to those templates too. Anomie⚔ 16:47, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Can you please choose some suitable names for the classes, because I don't really have any opinion on that. Yes, I will make the changes to ambox in due course. I don't envisage any need for this to work with ombox, because I have never seen multiple issues with categories/templates/etc. But we can always add these later if a need arises. Cheers — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:53, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
What about class=compact-ambox as it is not really collapsing in the way that word is usually used (with show/hide) and it is only ambox now? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:51, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Per your question above, I don't think this should be done on this page. How about Template:Article issues? (Which seems to be already in use for this?) - jc37 21:52, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, maybe we should move over there. It's just that the proposal started here and this is probably more-watched than that talk page. And in the end we may re-merge the two templates anyway, so I'm not sure ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:55, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
imho, discussion here is fine (nice to keep things unified) - just add a helpful pointer at that talk page : ) - jc37 21:58, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Did that a while back :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:03, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I just updated to the most current version of the extended CSS, and do indeed see results that I missed the last time I checked in. I'm very impressed with how this idea has rolled out so far, as well as all the hard work to get to this point! As for the comparison question above, I think my preferred version would be #1 (the shorter way), as it most resembles what we are already used to seeing with {{Multiple issues}}. With that said, I am indeed very eager to see this put into production ASAP. My biggest question however, is about browser testing. I believe I "could possibly" test this in IE6, Opera 6, and even Netscape Navigator 4 if need be... but would there be a point? How far back do we go with browser compatibility?  -- WikHead (talk) 22:23, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Hi Martin - Once I created my common.css file, the new Article issues template looks great! It appears that while any maintenance template could be used inside Article issues, each one should be edited to include a less verbose version. Looking forward to seeing this template when it's no longer necessary for users to have their own common.css. Great job, everyone! GoingBatty (talk) 22:37, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, after deployment we could use an army of helpers going through the ambox templates to update them accordingly. Will try to coordinate the effort later. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:38, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Where's the show/hide link? extra999 (talk) 05:16, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we ever discussed having a show/hide link? Or perhaps one of us understood ... In any case the current template does not have this option, and I suspect that other editors are likely to feel that hiding the issues altogether is too extreme (and brushing problems "under the carpet"). So I don't think this would get support. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:47, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Ot perhaps what you mean is they could be an option to expand the template to show the individual templates in their full-size version. This could be useful, but I am not sure if such a thing would be technically possible. (We would have to ask our tech guru Anomie about this.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:49, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Ya, this is what I meant. extra999 (talk) 10:02, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
It's possible with some Javascript in MediaWiki:Common.js, but in what way would this be useful for enough people to make it worthwhile? Anomie⚔ 11:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
For a reader, it is not useful because they want to read the article and are not too concerned with the maintenance tags. But for an editor who might be interested in fixing some of the problems, it could potentially be helpful for them to be able to display the full version instead of the shortened form. The idea might be worth exploring, but I don't think it is worth delaying the deployment of the rest of this project. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
As things stand, I think that it's fine to release {{article issues}}; but the template's doc page should have an explicit list of which templates may be wrapped, with a warning that if any other template is wrapped, it may not behave as expected.
The [show]/[hide] idea as described by MSGJ 09:49, 15 June 2012 is good, but we can leave that for later - let's not have it WP:BIKESHED the whole enhancement. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:32, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
All ambox template will work. It is only if the text inside is particularly verbose, that it might look too much. But I imagine that in a short period of time we will be able to customise all of them to optimise their display. Re, BIKESHED, agreed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:50, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
The problem as I see it is that the average Joe won't know an ambox template from anything else. So, they may see {{article issues}} being used to wrap {{one source}}{{orphan}}{{POV}} etc. and think "ah, when I see several banner templates together, I can wrap all of them in a {{article issues}}". --Redrose64 (talk) 23:24, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
We can't stop editors doing stupid things ;) I think it would be clear if we said this template was only for use on articles and not on talk pages or other kinds of pages. If trying to wrap other kinds of templates, it should be fairly obvious from the resulting mess that it doesn't work! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:36, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Sure, but even on article pages, the banner-like boxes at the top are not necessarily always built around {{ambox}}. {{Proposed deletion/dated}} isn't, for instance. Try sandboxing {{article issues|{{subst:proposed deletion|some reason or other}} {{notability|date=June 2012}} {{orphan|date=June 2012}} {{unreferenced|date=June 2012}}}} for example. It sort of works, and isn't a mess as such, but the stripe up the left is orange, not red, so the attention-grabber of the PROD is lost among the other stuff. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:00, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps we could get a bot to be on the lookout for instances of such.  -- WikHead (talk) 15:11, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
It makes the CSS more verbose, but it's possible to have it collapse only "style", "content", and "notice"-level amboxes. Recopy from User:Anomie/common.css and check User:Anomie/Sandbox. To avoid ridiculous numbers of selectors if support is wanted for other mbox types, I'm tempted to have ambox output a class "mbox-type-{{{type}}}" in addition to the existing "ambox-{{{type}}}". Anomie⚔ 02:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Using the current CSS (revision 498035834) and viewing with my default (Chrome 16.0.912.63 m) browser, I'm not sure I understand what's going on. User:Anomie/Sandbox looks very much like a "test", displaying four short, incomplete boxes within the template shell. Template:Article issues/testcases however looks clean, yet four of the tags display in their complete and usual bordered way, but with no coloured strip to the left. I hope this information proves helpful rather than a distraction.  -- WikHead (talk) 16:13, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The situation is as follows. Anomie's sandbox is currently being used to test a concept, which is that certain types of ambox will not compact when inside {{article issues}}. This is being explored as a new feature because we would not want deletion tags to be less visible. However I am personally not convinced it is worth complicating the issue to do this, as I am doubtful that editors will want to put them inside {{article issues}}. The situation on /testcases is different. There are some maintenance tags which are designed to be in several namespaces, e.g. {{cleanup}}. This will display differently when used on a template (because it uses {{ombox}} instead of {{ambox}}. So because that page is in the template namespace it is not working correctly. But when used on articles, it will always be {{ambox}} so they will compact as usual. Hope this makes some sense — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:33, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Understood perfectly Martin, and I tend to agree with you that the majority of our users are unlikely to place deletion templates within this wrap. Per my suggestion above, we could perhaps get bots to pull deletion templates out, if misplacement is detected along the way.  -- WikHead (talk) 16:49, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Besides deletion templates, what about ones to merge, split, or move? I don't think that those types should be in this wrapper either... - jc37 14:55, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I think there are certainly some types which should be not be wrapped (the protection templates come to mind) and we can probably narrow this down after deployment. A good guideline might be that any templates with blue, red, purple or grey bars (i.e. notice, deletion, move or protection types) should not be placed inside {{multiple issues}}. (Notices omitted because they are not issues with the article as such and so would not make sense to include in a template which calls them issues.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:19, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
So a bot (or maybe even a filter if that was appropriate) could see that colour and remove the template? Or will this just need to be a list of templates? - jc37 20:22, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Anomie, would you be willing to add the code to MediaWiki:Common.css? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:52, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

With that question asked, I might assume that we are indeed good to go once the styles have been added to MediaWiki:Common.css, and I'm extremely pleased with the way this has worked out. I would like to thank extra999, Redrose64, and GoingBatty for their testing and participation in this discussion, as well as Anomie and MSGJ for handling all the heavy leg-work to make this possible. You are all true examples of what helps keep this wiki-project moving forward. I guess the most logical thing for me to do at this point, is continue keeping an eye on this thread until the official word has been given to green-light the usage of {{Article issues}}. Excellent! :)  -- WikHead (talk) 04:33, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Looks like a few minor issues to work out yet. And I'm tempted to make the compatibility edits to all 5 mbox types instead of just ambox. Anomie⚔ 02:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Can I ask why? Because you see a use for this feature in other namespaces or just to keep the various boxes consistent? I don't really mind either way, but cannot envisage a use outside of article space, and we would have to change the wording "This article has multiple issues." as well as the name of template {{article issues}} in order for it to make sense. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:38, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Well, you mentioned above how Template:Article issues/testcases was screwing up because some of the templates were set up to use ombox (via {{mbox}}, I presume) in template space. Anomie⚔ 02:36, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Well that is easily solved by using demospace parameters which I have now done. Can we get this deployed now? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:40, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
ω Awaiting - with full support for deployment.  -- WikHead (talk) 10:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
ω Awaiting - Anomie, would you prefer if I did the honours? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:09, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Go ahead if you want. Are you planning to use the version that refuses to collapse "red"-level templates? Anomie⚔ 21:12, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure. I would lean towards adding the basic version for now and tweaking in the future if necessary. (There is already quite a bit of code to add, which may cause some consternation, and there is possibly a use in the future of compacting the deletion notices (e.g. Template:Db-multiple).) You didn't come with any ideas for the class name, so I will just make something up ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:47, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
But if there is a need for a "db-multiple", mightn't it be a good idea for it to not support things other than deletion templates? It could use the same CSS rules, just an additional selector with a different outer class name. Anomie⚔ 17:03, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
On one hand it would make sense to future-proof as far as possible, but on the other hand I wouldn't want to put stuff in which may never be used. What do you suggest? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
It's easy enough to add a .db-multiple .ambox-delete selector alongside the .article-issues .ambox-style and .article-issues .ambox-content selectors, should it become necessary. Anomie⚔ 10:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I've just fixed up a premature use in article space. Are we going to fix up the other current transclusions? Most are in user space and may be expecting the same behaviour as {{multiple issues}}. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:41, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

There aren't any other current transclusions in article space. I don't think it's necessary to update everyone's old user sandboxes. GoingBatty (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Implemented

I've implemented a barebones version of Anomie's code, which can be updated/adjusted as necessary. The first live version of the new code is visible at Ambiguity. It seems to be working well (with one minor error, see below) and can now be used. However to optimise the display and shorten the text, we will need to update the ambox templates. I will coordinate efforts and the more that can help the merrier. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Excellent! And I just used this for the first time at Rudy Simone. I'll assumed that the pros will still be hard at work tweaking and adjusting any minor details, and that further comments from me are unnecessary unless I happen to spot a major snag along the way. I will however continue to keep an eye on this thread for the next little while in case there are any sudden news flashes. Thanks again to all those who have been involved with {{Article issues}} ! Regards,  -- WikHead (talk) 05:06, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think that Ambiguity was the second live implementation, because my fixup edit noted at 17:41, 24 June 2012 above got reverted today - four hours earlier. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Haha, not sure what was going on there, but I think a lot of people will still assume that the old name for {{multiple issues}} will still work, and then be confused. We should probably think about merging these templates in the future (or deprecating multiple issues). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

In Template:Multiple issues/doc, {{article issues}} should probably be moved from #Old name to #See also.  -- WikHead (talk) 11:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

 Done, thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Minor error

The date is not displayed when a template using the small ambox is put inside {{article issues}}. This is because the date is not output by {{ambox}} in this case. I'm not sure of the best way to fix this yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:27, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

About the only thing you could do is have it output it wrapped in a span that is hidden in small templates and then unhidden inside {{article issues}}. The CSS rules might look something like this:
.mbox-small-left .mbox-hide-when-small {
    display: none;
}
.compact-ambox .mbox-small-left .mbox-hide-when-small {
    display: inline;
}
Anomie⚔ 20:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Hmm, a bit messy. Would be much easier if the small version output the date as well. Several people have suggested this in the past actually. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:27, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
If you want to change the behavior of small-format templates, that would work too. Anomie⚔ 13:23, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I added the date to the small version at ambox, but because the text is already small I didn't make it even smaller. But now we have different sized fonts depending on whether the small or large box is fed, e.g.
Hmmm — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:06, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
I've fixed this by making the date smaller on the small ambox as well. (So now it is double-small.) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:23, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Errors with section parameter

I expanded Template:Article issues/doc to include information about the section parameter. Looks like it still says "This article..." instead of "This section..." Also, some of the section maintenance templates have not been formatted to appear properly within {{Article issues}} (including displaying the date). GoingBatty (talk) 00:44, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

The template will only collapse {{ambox}} and some of those were using {{mbox}} which detects the namespace and uses {{ombox}} on template pages. So they should display perfectly on articles, but for template documentation you will need to use |demospace=main to make it think it is on an article. The date issue is described above. And, |section=yes will cause the wording to change to "section". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:25, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Articleissues

{{Articleissues}} still redirects to {{Multiple issues}}. Could an administrator please change {{Articleissues}} so it redirects to {{Article issues}} instead? I have updated WP:AWB/TR so that AWB does not change {{Article issues}} (with or without the space) to {{Multiple issues}}. I have also submitted an AWB feature request to have it merge multiple maintenance templates into {{Article issues}}. GoingBatty (talk) 23:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Redirecting articleissues to article issues would break the several hundred articles which are using it because they are using the syntax for multiple issues. The other two points seem good ideas though. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:09, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Very good point! Should we have a process where we change the articles using {{articleissues}} to use {{Multiple issues}} instead, and then change {{articleissues}} so it redirects to {{Article issues}}? If so, what timeline and communication methods should be used? GoingBatty (talk) 16:50, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
You could do, but I suspect that a better long-term aim would be to merge these two templates so that both will work with each other's syntax. Then we won't need to do any mass-renaming. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:13, 29 June 2012 (UTC)
PS {{issues}} now redirects to {{article issues}} — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:12, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
I've updated WP:AWB/TR so that AWB does not change {{Issues}} to {{Multiple issues}}. GoingBatty (talk) 16:50, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

AWB problem

The current version of the AWB general fixer wants to trash the {{Article issues}} template at the top of Russell Welch. I have logged a bug report, but there will be problems with a large-scale rollout of the new template if AWB isn't fixed first. (But well done everybody here, this is an excellent idea in the long run) -- John of Reading (talk) 06:53, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting that — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:13, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
AWB seems to have been amended; I guess people are using a cached copy of the translation table. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:34, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
No, there's more to it than that. The name "Article issues" is hard-coded into AWB (WikiRegexes.cs) and triggers some special logic (MultipleIssues, Parsers.cs). -- John of Reading (talk) 10:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Mbox

Should the changes to {{Ambox}} to allow |issue= and |fix= also be made to {{Mbox}}, so templates such as {{Cleanup}} will appear properly in {{Article issues}}? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this for a while because mbox is used on quite a few of these templates. The options as I see them:
  1. Update all the other message box templates ({{ombox}}, {{imbox}}, {{tmbox}}, {{cmbox}}) with the new functionality that has recently been added to {{ambox}}. I do not favour this approach, because of the duplication of code and difficulty of maintaining separate copies.
  2. Look into the feasibility of merging ambox/ombox/imbox/tmbox/cmbox into one, so that namespace detection is always used. (I haven't studied this much, but the code doesn't seem to differ much between them all - it is only the styles and default images that change.)
  3. Keep article message templates separate from other namespace templates. (I recently split Template:Incomplete project page from Template:Incomplete for this reason.) This is easy to do, but undoubtedly makes them harder to use because there are more template names to remember.
  4. Put two different versions of the code for article and other namespaces on the template. (I did this recently on Template:Update). I do not like this approach because it makes the code much more complex, but it could be a useful stopgap measure.
  5. Pass all new ambox parameters through mbox and continue using mbox - the problem with this method is that the other templates do not recognise the new parameters, and once text has been replaced with issue and fix, no text will be output by the other templates at all. So we would need some more adjustments made by mbox, so this is not as easy/clean as it might appear.
Hope I've made this comprehensible. Any ideas most welcome. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
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