Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 February 9

< February 8	February 10 >

February 9

Template:OKGovgallery

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not used. It's an image gallery, contain unfree images (violating WP:FUC#9). --Abu badali ^(talk) 19:11, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should be substituted into the page which contains it (Governor of Oklahoma) and it could then be deleted without any trouble. 68.39.174.238 22:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per the two comments above, subst: and delete. Chris cheese whine 23:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have substituted it into the articel which used it. 68.39.174.238 14:55, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, should be moved to a article of some sort. - Patricknoddy (talk · contribs) 9:54am, February 11, 2007

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Template:2CC

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete but redirect these templates to Template:Disambig. This seems to be the best solution here, and while it may not please everyone, I hope that most people will understand the reasoning here. We cannot please everyone. Further discussions can be initiated in a week or two, but in the meantime, let's relax a notch or two and see what happens. —P ilotguy go around 00:54, 2 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

and redirects to them:

See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)#Let's clarify with the various CC templates once and for all ---- RoySmith (talk) 18:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: Being bold and combining the 2CC, 3CC, 4CC, 5CC noms together. If you want to keep one but not the others for some reason, feel free to say so, but likely most people will be voting package keeps/deletes anyway, so no need to repeat the same comments 4 times as has happened so far. Also, see related discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 9#Character Combination lists SnowFire 19:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Delete per discussion linked. Some maintanance should be completed before the deletion is executed to ensure categories and {{disambig}} are inserted instead (otherwise ~10,000 pages will have no disambig template) - grubber 18:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

delete serves no useful purpose.Abtract 19:20, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. It's been discussed at length, and many of the compelling reasons are at the above link. They serve to add more confusion to disambiguation pages than help, and are often used on pages that are not solely lists of CCs. Prior to deletion, however, as Grubber mentioned, there will need to be replacement of the tags with {{disambig}}, and possible replacement of the category contained in the templates. -- Natalya 19:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, but wait first. As mentioned in the other thread, the categories Category:Lists of two-character combinations, Category:Lists of three-character combinations, etc. may soon also be up for discussion, and I wish that the fate of these had been decided first before this nomination. If the category is kept, then bot work can be saved by substituting this template upon deletion rather than simply deleting it, then forcing the cats to be re-added later by hand. (If the categories are not kept, then go ahead and delete, but we don't know that yet.) SnowFire 19:54, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, now that it seems very likely the categories will be nuked, go ahead and delete. Well, by delete, I do mean "bot substitue in {{disambig}} and then redirect." These templates do have a long history, and users unfamiliar with the change shouldn't have their attempted template go dead. SnowFire 01:04, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Per SnowFire, deleting these templates should be dependent on deleting the corresponding categories (or at least redefining the purpose of those categories). older ≠ wiser 20:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~Throw a bot at the categories to replace with {{disambig}}, then delete all. Noclip 22:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)~~[reply]
- Redirect all to {{disambig}} and begin bot conversion. When that's done wait a month and delete. Noclip 18:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Once the conversion is done, what is gained by waiting a month? -- RoySmith (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So that editors who don't know the template is deprecated don't wonder what the heck happened when adding XCC to the bottom of a new disambig page they spun off. If it's redirected, it'll appear to work, and can just be replaced by the bot later. I'd support this, though I'd wait longer than a month before deleting the redirect; there's no harm to keeping it around. (or perhaps even never delete it, just to keep the history.) SnowFire 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, this is a good idea. Alex43223^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 05:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete regardless of the outcome of Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 9#Character Combination lists. Substitute with or without depending on that result. -- KelleyCook 22:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per KelleyCook—Ketil Trout 23:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wait. Do not delete until they are fully replaced (perhaps by bot substing or AWB), and then burn. I must confess that I like them a lot, but I don't see that they serve any particular purpose. There is no reason to have a category (and related template) for TLAs, and the like, other than... mm... maintenance? Which Wikipedia:TLAs from AAA to DZZ and similar pages handle. Finally, I'm against subject-specific disambig pages because what would happen when one page has multiple disambiguation subjects? Not good, in my opinion. Given a 5-second gap between bot edits (on an off-peak day), and these templates appearing on 10054 pages, a bot could do it in a bit more than half a day... about 14 hours. We're not in a rush, though. So reach consensus, and if it's delete, replace them in a calm and systematic manner. Gracenotes ^T § 01:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No opinion - If a concensus is to delete, please indicate whether you would like {{disambig}} or susbt for the bot op. In addition, if no bot op is available, User:STBot is allowed to do CFD/TFD work and mass substs, so let me know on my talk. ST47Talk 02:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all of them (after a bot has replaced them with {{disambig}}, of course). Using the same disambig template seems like the cleanest and easiest maintainable thing to do. Shanes 03:42, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Responding to a few comments above, I don't think these templates should be subst'd under any circumstances. If these are to be deleted (and that is just fine with me), they should be replaced with {{disambig}}. older ≠ wiser 15:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  I'm.... not entirely sure what you mean. We replace the templates' source code with the text
```
{{disambig}}
```
  And a bot would change, for the two character combinations, all instances of {{2CC}} to {{subst:2CC}}... and when the page is saved, the only difference is that {{2CC}} is replaced with {{disambig}}. Do you have a problem with that, or am I misunderstanding you? :( Gracenotes ^T § 17:37, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  If that's what you mean by subst, that's fine. That is not what typically happens when you subst a template. I missed the part where you replace the content of the template before doing the subst. older ≠ wiser 18:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Redirect the lot to Template:Disambig --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 16:21, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: true, redirecting the templates to {{disambig}} will provide the same things on the outside of the page, but the CC templates will still be on the page source, which might cause some confusion. To me, it makes sense to replace all the CC tags with the disambig tag (a bit of bot work, but done in one fell swoop), and then delete the CC templates. -- Natalya 17:28, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Replace with {{disambig}}. Anonimu 18:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, great, I spend ages making sure all the nCCs are tagged as such, and two weeks later you vote to delete them all! Ah, what the hell, go ahead – Qxz 19:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- That shows style ... thanks Qxz ... :) Abtract 22:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, or should we go through the trouble of converting all these to the universal disambig tag? BuickCenturyDriver 09:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Template:Disambig. - Patricknoddy (talk · contribs) 9:50am, February 11, 2007

Arbitrary section break

Comment AFAIK transcluded redirects to other templates don't work. Noclip 17:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sure they do. For example, check out {{dab}} and {{disambiguation}}. older ≠ wiser 18:33, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep All: The "Delete"/"Replace with {{disambig}}" voters may have overlooked something. The _CC templates do not only "disambig" these __-character combinations; they also add the [[Category:Lists of __-character combinations]] tag to the list, so it shows up among other CCs of the same length. This is a valuable function not provided by {{disambig}}. Unless you're prepared to throw away those categories, don't delete these templates. Having to type in the separate disambig and category tags for every such new list, a considerable extra workload, increases the chance of typo or omission. {{_CC}} reduces that chance and that workload. Why make things harder?

As to simply dropping the categories themselves... there's a project to replace the various "Lists of Wikipedians who _____" with categories, precisely because the lists tend to fall out of date, while the categories are to some extent self-updating. The same reasoning should apply here. Yet this proposal seems to involve deleting the categories in favor of the lists, adding still more future workload. Why? -- Ben 21:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you had read the comments none of us overlooked the fact that these add the poster child for category cruft. See Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2007 February 9#Character Combination lists -- KelleyCook 22:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistency is indeed bad. Let's be consistent. Let's nuke the templates, nuke the catagories, and nuke the lists. The whole concept of organizing things by how many letters are in them just doesn't make sense. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:43, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Inconsistency is indeed bad." Ralph Waldo Emerson argued otherwise: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." There's a reason for Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. More specifically, the use of terms like "TLA" (three-letter acronyms) shows that people do tend to group acronyms by length. The categories exist for that reason. (I note in passing that in my textbooks Chinese ideographs are "alphabetized" by the number of strokes they use, which may hint at a widespread human tendency to sort by "length".) -- Ben 01:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Emerson's quote of course only applies if the consistency if foolish, not simply if the consistency exists. æ ² ✆ 2007‑02‑12t16:13z

But that quote argues against the sweeping generalization that "Inconsistency is indeed bad." Sometimes it is, and sometimes it ain't. Matters differ, and the differences matter. Hence WP:IAR. -- Ben 16:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If by "list" you mean Wikipedia:TLAs from AAA to DZZ, then I would say keep those. They are useful for, at a quick glance, discerning which pages for TLAs exist, and which don't. Doing the same for four letter acronyms is ridiculous, in my opinion (too many). But another day, another MFD. Gracenotes ^T § 00:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's quantify to show just how ridiculous. The length of such a list goes up exponentially, with the value of n (the length of the acronym) being the exponent. All possible two-letter combinations: 26^2 = 676. All possible three-letter combinations: 26^3 = 17,576. All possible four-letter combinations: 26^4 = 456,976. By the time you reach n=5, your list is 11,881,376 entries long, most of which are redlinked, an incredible waste of space that readers would have to plow through. (Now try the letter/number combinations, 36^n.) But will these show pages like ABO (disambiguation)? The program-generated lists don't seem to allow for the "(disambiguation)". The category tags do. -- Ben 01:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did the numerical calculations. I dislike categories in this instance, however, because they cannot include pages that don't exist. The list ensures a way to keep of track of which TLAs might be latently needed and which are fulfilled. It auto-updates, although this is no different than a category. As for specific page titles, redirects should do the trick, just for an inventory. It is unlikely that, if "XXX (disambiguation)" exists, "XXX" doesn't. Gracenotes ^T § 02:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guessed that you had done the numerical calculations, and did not intend to suggest otherwise. Actually sharing the results with the rest of the group showed how ridiculous a list of all possible four-letter combinations would be, a bit more emphatically than just "too many".

"It is unlikely that, if "XXX (disambiguation)" exists, "XXX" doesn't." The naming guidelines say "prefer spelled-out phrases to acronyms", so most acronym-disambig pages won't be pointing to acronym-named articles, but to full-name articles that define their usage of the acronym -- which may or may not represent any article's name. Where an acronym-named page does exist, most likely either it's a redirect to one of the articles or it's the acronym-disambig page itself -- often with the added word "(disambiguation)" excluding it from the program-generated list. Look at ABO (disambiguation): none of the acronym links are to an article titled simply "ABO". The closest would be ABO blood group system. The shortcut ABO does exist, but as a redirect to that single article rather than the disambiguation page. The program-generated list's reliability depends on the consistent use of acronyms (without the added word "disambiguation") as page names -- and this expectation runs contrary to the naming guideline. -- Ben 06:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

← You're right, there could be inconsistency. Check out User:Gracenotes/Sandbox (current revision 107654749) for a possible solution to this problem, assuming that your preferences cause "red links" to be red. In less than 10 minutes had I typed up a program using Java, and I could output an entire list of TLAs in less than 1 minutes. I know that the page is not pretty, but for maintenence, it's better than a category, which only lists pages that exist.
You may also wish to note that there is a shocking dearth of disambiguation pages for three letter acronyms that have the " (disambiguation)" suffix. As for combinations (possible involving numbers), I dislike those, since they often of a fundamentally different characters (pun intended) -- not acronyms in the typical sense of the word. Gracenotes ^T § 21:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete due to the added value the categories add: none. Josh Parris 23:50, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One of the common non-Wiki types of FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) files on the Web and Usenet is the "Jargon" file, of which acronyms form a sizable part. People want to know what comments like "HTH" and "TINC" mean. These sets of 3CC, 4CC, etc., are a Wiki way to answer such questions. You and I and others here may not need such explanations; but new Wikipedians and Net-users arrive every day, and at some point will have questions like "This guy referred to "NIT"; is he referring to lice, calling me a nit-picker, or something else?" Soon after that comes "Cool; so what other acronyms are used?" These categories help answer that question. -- Ben 01:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I think wiktionary is the proper place to decipher acronyms. Only those meanings that deserve an article should be in wikipedia. - grubber 16:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Replace and Delete, they serve no real purpose. Maybe some day we'll do the same with the stub categorization, too. bogdan 23:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me? "no real purpose? Not everyone uses every feature of Wikipedia. If you use a feature, while I and some others do not, should I feel justified in calling for its deletion because it serves "no real purpose" -- "real" being defined as what matters to me? Or would you be justified in saying to me: "If you don't want to use it, then don't. But please let those of us who do want to use it, have it available." ? -- Ben 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep until we concoct some other means of reducing the population of Category:Disambiguation which has been rendered completely useless by its bulk. —freak(talk) 02:26, Feb. 12, 2007 (UTC)
Why is it useless because of bulk? It was never intended to used for casual browsing. It serves the purpose for which it was intended, maintenance, quite well. older ≠ wiser 02:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. For article organization, it would make perfect sense, but not for maintenance. / Peter ^Isotalo 10:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per the KISS principle (oh the irony). +mwtoews 11:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You consider it shorter-and-simpler to make editors type a longer-and-more-complex tag string every time? By that principle, should we eliminate all other shortcuts, like WP:TFD, WP:CFD, WP:AFD, WP:RFC, and WP:ANI? -- Ben 12:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - I work mostly in de.WP (which is roughly 1/3 in size of en.WP) and it's absolutely no problem there with only one selfexplaining disambiguation template and one corresponding category. I really don't get it, why some things here are so much more complex than there. --32X 22:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Pseudo-random section break

Delete all, after replacing with {{disambig}}. A disambiguation page should (to my mind at least, haven't looked at the official definition) be no more than a stepping-stone to a desired article, and not an article in itself. So subcategorising dab pages as 2CC etc. serves no purpose.--A bit iffy 11:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except the _CC tags also maintain categories like Lists of four-character combinations, which I for one would like to have around, even if you don't care about them. {{disambig}} won't do that, editors may not always remember to add the separate category tag, and -- if they do -- typing all that is a greater workload than typing {{_CC}} was. Why make things harder by eliminating shortcuts? -- Ben 12:39, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But Lists of four-character combinations can easily be kept populated by a bot that could locate all four-character dab pages. --A bit iffy 13:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Except that ACET (disambiguation), ACIS (disambiguation), AGCO (disambiguation), etc., aren't four-character titles. Ah, but maybe the bot could allow for the "_(disambiguation)"; and maybe it could tell the difference between "four-character combinations" (acronyms) and "four-letter words" (Beat, Camp, Dale); and maybe all categories can be replaced by bots busily buzzing away like bees across the clover fields of Wikipedia... but doesn't that take up more processing time than category labels?... and don't bots take longer to update lists than category labels do?... and hadn't we better see how well these bots actually work before we throw away the alternative? A famous recipe for rabbit stew begins: First, catch your rabbit. ... -- Ben 14:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We don't need a template to put a page into a category. Every (well almost) page on wikipedia belongs to a category and almost every one of those inclusions is done explicitly. Removing {{2CC}} and requiring the category to be added to every page makes the dab pages more consistent to how we handle all the other pages in WP. - grubber 16:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

{{disambig}} includes the category tag for disambiguation pages, for obvious reasons. We could make editors add the category tag separately every time, but why? A template is like a macro: it's supposed to save you time and effort. If you know in advance that a given category tag has to go on all the same pages as a given text box, why not let the same template provide both? Why force editors to do things the long way 'round, when the shortcut is so handy and already exists? Why take the shortcut away from them? What harm did it do you, or anyone else, to let them type the seven keystrokes {{nCC}} and be done with it? -- Ben 18:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Again it is the category that are the problem as they are a category that is completely arbitrary, not the Templates. Once the category is gone the templates are now superfluous and will be removed.

Keep -- I am lost on the argument for deletion. All the comments saying "delete but wait" are acknowledging that these templates are serving a purpose. They are marking a page as a disambiguation page, and as an initialism. Nothing is broken, nothing needs to change. — Randall Bart 01:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again it is is there is no differenation between true initialism and three letter words or both. Say RIP for example. And yes there is harm in the categories.
Barticus - all of the comments except for mine, I suppose. Perhaps I should clarify. One admin can't close this AFD and go through the action him or herself. I am motioning that the admin should wait until a systematic means for template replacement, like a bot, can clear the template from mainspace. The templates serve a purpose indeed, but not one useful enough, in my opinion. Gracenotes ^T § 01:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully we can clarify the issue for you, Barticus. The issue comes up with pages like XXX; true, it has many entries that refer to "XXX", but it also has entries that refer to "Triple X", which is certainly not an initialism. The templates are used very inconsitantly and often incorrectly on pages that include things other than just the abbreviations, and the confusion that they cause is not necessary when the {{disambig}} tag provides all the necessary information. -- Natalya 03:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Modest Delete although I like them. After a month, as mentioned above, redirect to disambig. Alex43223^{Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C} 05:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really care! But I'd like to suggest that if we delete the template, we should still put all of these pages in category:Acronyms. Pascal.Tesson 15:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Replace with {{disambig}} and then delete them all. --Russ (talk) 17:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete ; subst. Doesn't do anything regular disamb. doesn't. --Indolences 20:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep 2 and 3, delete 4 and 5. Two and three letter abbreviation disambigs are a bit different from disambigs of longer things that tend to be words. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:18, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Replace all four with a single template beginning "This page disambiguates an acronym.", or, if that's too specific, "This page disambiguates a multi-character combination." Zachary Gibbons 11:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would note that [[Jesus (disambiguation)] also indicated a multi-character combination. In fact, every single word in the English language is a multi-character combination! Gracenotes ^T § 19:20, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Except I and a, of course. Okay, so stick with "acronym" rather than "character combination." Zachary Gibbons 19:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
One disambig template {{disambig}} to rule them all. Pages like Bo may be two characters, but some of the entries are human names, some acronyms, some geographic places, and some actual words (not just "combinations"). Which template would you assign then? Long live {{disambig}}!! Gotta have some fun in WP sometimes :) - grubber 20:39, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Replace by disambiguation template. Miguel Andrade 15:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Replace all by {{disambig}}. Serve no non-trivial purpose. `'mikka 17:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Surely you mean "Serve no trivial purpose"? Unless Wikipedia really is a frivolous waste of time... Zachary Gibbons 19:32, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Lugnuts 20:14, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I've read through it all and I still think they serve a very useful purpose. Kolindigo 20:57, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SPEEDY KEEP!SPPEDY KEEP!SPEEDY KEEP! this template is for the Disambiguation see:Wikipedia:Disambiguation Jer10 95 00:52, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to see WP:CCC. What was in place previously may have been around, but if we decide to change it and there are no major, major technical issues, then so be it. And the idea is not to not mark the page as a disambiguation page. It will be marked, but with {{disambig}}. Gracenotes ^T § 02:08, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all after Replacing with {{disambig}}. I've always thought they served no useful purpose. Categories for abbreviations with x number of letters are no more useful than categories for words with x number of letters - in other words they're not useful in the slightest. -- Necrothesp 16:35, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all after Replacing with {{disambig}}. While my anal-retentive soul doth cry out upon such loss of sub-sub-categorization, I fail to see how this can truly enrich the Wikipedia. Scraimer 19:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all and replace by {{disambig}}. I do not see any useful and practical functionalities that will be lost by collecting all the disambigs together with one template. Splitting them off into separate categories is instruction creep, and we can streamline the style guidelines here at no cost. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Not infallible (see [1]), not useful. Don't mind categories for TLAs and ETLAs etc, but shouldn't have specific one for 3 letter dab pages. Rich Farmbrough, 09:57 16 February 2007 (GMT).
Also Linda is in while Rome (disambiguation) is out... Rich Farmbrough, 10:08 16 February 2007 (GMT).
Delete all after replacing with {{disambig}} - CarolGray 19:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, because I support keeping the categories. enochlau (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The categories are separate from the templates. If the categories are kept and the templates deleted, the categories can/will still be added to the disambiguation pages. The issue is that the templates are used incorrectly on pages and don't add to anything more than {{disambig}} does. -- Natalya 04:23, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - What harm is it to do the disambig tag and the cat inclusion at once - if all we're going to end up doing is include the cat tag on a separate line? enochlau (talk) 05:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - The issue arises when pages fall under multiple categories; many disambiguation page have acronyms as well as regular words. Having one standardized disambiguation tag means that they will all be tagged correctly, instead of a CC template being used on a page that is not in fact only acronyms. -- Natalya 02:36, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think I've explicitly !voted yet. I was fully prepared to keep both the templates and categories if anyone could provide a plausible explanation for what function they serve. But I've not seen any such a plausible rationale. So, Delete all and replace by {{disambig}}. older ≠ wiser 12:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete post haste! Ewlyahoocom 22:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: The templates provide all necessary information and insure that the categories will be updated not just now, but for as long as the template survives. --Ybbor ^T 19:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No change I can see the rationale for deleting these templates, but my WP:FAITH doesnt far enough for me to vote delete on these templates as the replacement is poorly defined as yet. I appreciate that the those proposing to delete these have also made attempts to define the replacement here and elsewhere, but that is very much the wrong way around. These templates are a core piece of Wikipedia plumbing, and this change will result in most Wikipedians having to adopt the replacement, and those with bots will possibly need to update the routines. The proposal should clearly outline out a solution that deals with all of the issues that people are raising here, provide a list of steps that will be taken to do the conversion, and then gain consensus for the new approach. Only when we can clearly see the replacement should we ditch the current solution. John Vandenberg 00:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above and below (counter-proposal). If these categories are deleted, then the Disambig category will become massive. ThePurpleMonkey_{(talk•portal•contribs•count)} 22:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Counter-proposal

One problem with Category:Disambiguation is that it's so darn big. With other big categories, we use subcategories to break them down into more manageable sizes: novelists and poets are grouped by nationality, and each categorized in, for instance, "Russian poets" or "French poets" rather than the overall "Poets" category, so only the un-subcategorizable show up in the top category. Maybe, "to be consistent", the same organizing principle should apply here.

Rather than eliminate the 2CC, 3CC, etc., special-categories, perhaps we should subdivide the disambig category, to get that top category tag off most of the entries:

Disambiguation

Biographical disambiguation (personal names)
Geographical disambiguation (place names)
Acronym disambiguation (non-word strings)

2-character combinations
3-character combinations
4-character combinations
5-character combinations
6-or-more-character combinations

(Other) Word disambiguation (including words that may also serve as acronyms) ...

Pages to disambig words that also serve as acronyms should have both the "single-word" tag and the appropriate "acronym"-or-subsubcategory tag, so they show up in both lists. Add other subcategories as needed to keep the top category to a reasonable size. Only those disambig pages outside all the subcategories would still have the "Category:Disambiguation" tag and show up individually in that top category. Sound feasible? -- Ben 16:00, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I (now) understand the reasoning to having sub-categories of disambiguation. But why can't all acronyms become one disambig category together? —Scouter Sig 16:48, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of this reviewing of the CC tags was to make things less confusing. At the same time, there are certainly uses for separating pages by categories, which in itself can be confusing. If I'm understand the proposal correctly, this could work, providing the following:

All disambiguation pages were marked with the {{disambig}} tag.
Categories for the appropriate disambiguation taking place on the pages were then added.
As many categories that apply to the page could be added.

No. 1 is important because there are a plethora of disambiguation pages that cover multiple topics, as we have all seen. No. 3 is important because then we can cover all the different uses of the entires on the pages.

I'm not 100% sure if disambiguation categories are necessary, but if we do decide that the disambiguation categories would be useful, it could be implemented while still fufilling some of the goals of this whole discussion. -- Natalya 16:56, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why the size of Category:Disambiguation is such a problem. Could you explain? Gracenotes ^T § 17:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since Natalya and Gracenotes are essentially asking two sides of the same question asked elsewhere (why have hierarchical subcategories instead of one huge 'flat file"?), I'll provide the same answer.

Consider Category:Novelists -- which has several subcategories, like Category:Novelists by nationality -- which in turn has subsubcategories, like Category:American novelists and Category:Russian novelists -- which in turn have most of the individual articles on novelists. Only those few novelists who can't readily be so grouped (because their nationality is unknown or unclear, e.g. due to emigration during their writing careers) end up in the overall Category:Novelists. You can find all the "novelist" pages by looking at the top category page and also following the subcategories downward. This hierarchy groups and subgroups related-topic pages. As a result, someone familiar with one nation's novelists, or who has a book on the topic, can pick that subcategory to work through, not have to pick that little subset one-by-one out of a huge crowd. That's a big reason for having subcategories. Likewise, someone with a background or book on biographies, or geography, or perhaps a huge list of acronyms and abbreviations, can pick that subcategory to work through. But if the proposal to eliminate the subsubcategories (at CfD and TfD) goes through, and Category:Disambiguation becomes more of a "flat file", any such editor will have to plow through bigger lists, and more pages unrelated to what he wants to edit, which means we're throwing one more obstacle in his way. We shouldn't do that. -- Ben 20:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Put another way: on your personal computer, do you keep all your files, of every type and topic, in one "flat" list, or do you organize them hierarchically, in folders and sub-folders and maybe even sub-sub-folders, so you can deal with just the set of files you want to deal with? Same principle. -- Ben 20:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the risk of jumping pages again, this whole discussion relates to the Categories not the Templates. Therefore, this should probably be discussed at Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2007_February_9#Character_Combination_lists. - grubber 20:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copying here a comment I made on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation:

Ben, I disagree. There is a need to identify which pages are disambiguation pages for maintenance purposes. For example, in order to track links to disambiguation pages, you have to know which pages are disambigs. Having them all in one category or having them all contain the same template helps accomplish that purpose. However, I've never seen anyone explain any reason for having disambiguation subcategories other than to make smaller categories. With all due respect, your proposal has the same flaw; you haven't offered any reason other than preferring smaller categories, and you haven't considered the maintenance problems that your proposal might cause. --Russ (talk) 17:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And to respond to Ben's question about whether one would rather organize their files (or data) in a "flat" list or in a hierarchy -- I'd say that entirely depends on what you intend to do with that data. For some applications, the flat-file structure is preferable. And although the proponents of disambig subcategories keep saying that they prefer to have smaller categories that are easier to review, no one has ever said for what purpose they would use these smaller categories. --Russ (talk) 23:15, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"No one has ever said for what purpose they would use these smaller categories"??? -- Russ, I did, both where you asked it at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation and directly above. -- Ben 23:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Above, you give an example about novelists. That's the sort of thing that makes sense to sub-catagorize. It seems reasonable that people might want to browse a list of novelists by country or birth or residence, or genre, or even gender (I haven't looked, do we have catagories for male and female novelists?). So, those sub-cats make sense. But who browses lists of dab pages? Sure, we could invent catagories for "dab pages with more than 10 entries", and "dab pages with redlinks", and "dab pages which refer to at least one animal, one vegetable, and one mineral", but why would we want to? Who would use those categories? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep, at least the 4CC and 5CC templates, for the reason that they include the categories. The templates could be converted to transclude {{disambig}}, however. I know there is a lot of talk about how the categories are useless, but it is fairly obvious from Ben's calculations above that the categories for 4- and 5-letter combinations are extremely useful, since we can't have a page listing all 4- or 5-letter combinations (thousands to millions) that could exist, but a category for 5-letter combinations can concisely and simply show the several hundred (or whatever) that do. The categories (and templates) for 2CC and maybe even 3CC could be deleted without adverse effect. -- Renesis (talk) 22:09, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another arbitrary yet convenient section break to make editing easier

Thus-accrued consensus in a box:

Option	Number of votes
Delete and replace all	26
Redirect	4
Keep	8
Delete 2CC, 3CC	1
delete 4CC, 5CCC	1
Combine into one template	1 (or 2)

Gracenotes ^T § 22:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

XFD is not a vote count. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 03:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are you simply counting "Keep" vs "Delete" as votes, rather than weighing arguments? No differential for strong/weak, no consideration of affirmative reasons vs WP:IDONTLIKEIT or WP:IDONTCARE? Since this issue really isn't independent of the CfD, and deleting the templates will drastically affect maintaining the categories, should this discussion close before that one's resolved? -- Ben 03:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, not at all. "Consensus in a box" is a bit tongue-in-cheek... sorry if I didn't communicate its facetiousness well enough. Of course, consensus is not generated by voting; it is generated by discussion. There has been a lot of discussion about this, and both sides have good arguments. I believe that it has come down to a matter of community preference. Consensus can change, and this issue is too big and controversial to merely rely upon what has previously been in place or decided. If you've noticed, there have been no arguments about why we need to keep or need to delete these templates, other than argument by analogy (which is good for illustrating, not proving). So no, don't take the numbers at face value, but before posting the table I made sure that consensus generally reflected the raw data. Not always the case, though.

Finally, the TFD linked to below provides examples of unequivocal usage (for most of the templates being XFD'd; I frankly think that some should have been deleted). While there is not much chance that something name "Blah High School" could describe anything other than a school, a 3 character combination is too ambiguous. We don't need to drive a wedge in categorizing disambiguation pages between using and mentioning; distinguishing between usages can be confusing enough. Gracenotes ^T § 05:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deleting the templates will not drastically affect anything. There's a huge work burden of tagging all the pages somehow, whether we use template or category tags. We are discussing which way is better. Converting between the two will (generally) be a task a bot can do. Which way do we do it? That's the question.... - grubber 19:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If I may offer my opinion here, this is an epitome of any template's purpose. I advocate having one template ({{disambig}}), with a category in it (School, math, etc. disambigs aren't like regular disambiguation pages, because they have a predefined scope that extends "having the same name" or arbitrary alphanumerical circumstances). In my opinion, not worrying about XCCs makes disambiguation easy, maintainable, not cutting off any normal need. Gracenotes ^T § 19:57, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, Replace with general disambiguation template! Lord Metroid 23:23, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep per comments at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 December 13#Various disambiguation page templates. TFD along with other XFDs are not vote counts. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 03:39, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! What worries me is the appearance that "I don't need it" delete votes are indeed simply being counted one-for-one against "I do need it" keep votes. There's hardly anything in Wikipedia that wouldn't get deleted by that measure. I have the sinking feeling that the whole idea of what constitutes consensus is fading away. -- Ben 04:12, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per result of the TFD cited by V60 above. Additionally, the size of the disambiguation category hierarchy is irrelevant if the community at large feels that such hierarchy is necessary. Based on the amount of transclusions for each template (the 3 and 4-digit templates numbering into the thousands), I think the community has deemed it necessary. --TMF ^{Let's Go Mets - Stats} 04:31, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment: The number of transclusions is not a valid argument as a bot went and created this for any disambig page. The question is whether or not it is actually useful to have categories for 2 letter, 3 letter, 4 letter ACRONYMS. Not one single person has given a valid reason why that is actually a useful subcategory of disambig pages. -- KelleyCook 17:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete these are unnecessary. Why have a category for disambigs, anyway, and if we have one, why worry that it gets overpopulated.... I sincerely doubt the reader is going to open the disambig cetegory to browse the wiki. That concept is kinda numb. It seems the cat is only to keep the pages in a cat, because we seem to have an edict that all pages have to be in at least one cat. Jerry lavoie 04:59, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Okay now, I like these. All of them. The previous TfD shows lots of keep reasons, and the number of uses as stated by my man up there who likes the Mets (WOOT) shows that deleting them could be... caterstrophic, if i spelled that right... → p00rleno (lvl 83) ←ROCKS ^C _RS 12:55, 21 February 2007 (UTC) [reply]

comment: Those other useful {{diambig}} templates that were linked above such as ship disambiguations, were valid reasons for not using the standard up the disambiguation template as they put that disambig page into a specific project. But a template which only differerence is a title tweaking and adding a category for {2..5}-letter acroynyms is just creating a category for a category sake. Especially if those four pointless categories end up getting deleted. -- KelleyCook 17:16, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whether we keep the categories and whether we keep the templates are different issues. Take Bo for example. This is a 2CC and a human name. The page should include both categories (assuming they are kept), but which template do we use? Do we create {{2CC-hndis}}? {{2cc}} and then add the other category? Visa versa? Coupling the categories and templates will get ridiculous. To me, the best solution is to include {{disambig}} and then add it to any category that is relevant -- just like we would do for any page on WP. - grubber 19:01, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably stirring up a hornet's nest by even mentioning this, but once we're done with getting rid of the CC cats, we should start on the stub cats. Whether an article is a stub and whether it is about South American Quadripeds are orthogonal concepts. The idea of mixing them together into a South American Quadriped Stubs category is silly. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Del per SnowFire 14:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC). —msh210℠ 18:37, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
'Delete per the procedure laid out by Noclip. I still haven't seen a coherent argument about why dab subcategories are useful. These just seem like makework. - BanyanTree 23:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Those categories are needed since if every disambiguation page is in Category:Disambiguation, it would be huge, and in fact, is huge already. You may check that category's TOC if you want to see. And no, they are not makework. Also, it does matter if any category gets huge. It doesn't matter if many people won't use that cat to browse WP. If anybody uses it to browse WP, the cat has to be presentable to that person. Apart from cats, if we put all the parameters for disambiguating different pages in one single {{disambig}} template, it would, first of all, get huge. Plus, it has been tested in a sandbox, that doing that to disambig would not work for every category, and of course the template would be broken. That could be a drastic change for pages currently using {{disambig}}. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 23:30, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - This entry is about templates not categories. There is a different discussion on the usefulness of the cats. - grubber 02:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Sure, there is. In that argument, I covered both templates and cats. They are both closely linked because of the parent template that will add the cat to the page its transcluded on! V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 02:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - It's really not worthy it to maintain these templates, with all their exceptions and special cases, in the hope that someone will have the time of their life browsing the associated category one day. The only way to make the disambiguation category appropriate for browsing is to use a lot of subcategories. I invite anyone try to and convince me that maintaining those subcategories, in hopes that our category-browsing Godot may one day come and vindicate our work, is really worth it. Most Wikipedia mirrors don't even include categories.
      - And of course, browsing the disambiguation pages on which the templates currently up for deletion are transcluded is a different issue. Although the exceptions and unusual cases are less (although perhaps proportional), there is no clearly defined purpose in keeping the categories. I would not consider having categories outside of the templates (this appears to be a textbook example of the purpose of templates), so I am against keeping the templates. Gracenotes ^T § 02:31, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I don't see a pressing need for them to be gone, they are better & more useful than their predecessors. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 01:57, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Last section full, another new section

Comment You just don't understand, that the templates and cats are intertwined. If we delete the templates and merge all the category junk onto {{disambig}}, that template will be broken. That is not a good thing since there are hundreds to millions to even trillions of pages using that template. It's even tried to be tested, here, but there are only two parameters officially supported. It will take a pretty long time to get all of these parameters supported, tested, and officially used. And probably after this, the users that want to keep these templates will repost them, and this will be regressed for the third time. The community at large does not want that to happen. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 02:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We're not discussing the disambiguation categories listed on that page. The discussion is about character combinations... but then again, your points are still valid. I'll put it this way: there should not be disambiguation subcategories if they are not covered by a specific content-related WikiProject. As I mentioned earlier, if there is no scope for a disambiguation page except the permutation of characters, then worrying about that first will make worrying about content later into a nightmare. Perhaps if I go through the whole list, you'll get an idea about where I'm coming from.

Keep Category:Disambiguation categories, not for mainspace, not relevant to this discussion. Delete Category:Ambiguous place names, because if I write a book called Albury, under what are we going to categorize Albury? Too inconsistent. Keep Category:Mathematical disambiguation, assuming that all articles therein are about mathematical concepts, processes, or the like. It's within the scope of WikiProject Mathematics, and can be used by the WikiProject. If a math item and another item happen to have another name, there can be two separate disambig pages, such as Progression (mathematics) and Progression . Keep Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title, the scope of content inclusion is clearly defined. Keep Category:Educational institution disambiguation, covered by WikiProject Schools. Keep Category:Tropical cyclone disambiguation, under WikiProject Hurricanes. Merge Category:Lists of U.S. Routes sharing the same title into Category:Lists of roads sharing the same title, no point of having two categories for that. Keep Category:WikiProject disambiguation pages, serves the same purpose as Category:Disambiguation, except marks a talk page rather than an article. Delete Category:Lists of ambiguous human names, check out Adams for why. Keep Category:Lists of Interstate Highways sharing the same title, specific scope and useful to a WikiProject. Delete Category:Lists of ambiguous numbers, how the heck is "number-oriented" supposed to help? Keep Category:Lists of political parties by generic name, under the scope of a WikiProject.

Why is Adams in Category:Lists of ambiguous human names if there are places there? Perhaps now can you induct my view on disambiguation categories/templates from these samples. If not, I'll be glad to delineate. Consistency is important on this large scale. Having character combination templates, and even categories, is useless to me, given my view of disambiguation categories. Gracenotes ^T § 03:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I find them helpful, they do a specific useful job and no better alternative is on offer. Richard Pinch 21:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm curious what the "specific useful job" is? - grubber 22:08, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I personally have found a better alternative: {{disambig}}. Gracenotes ^T § 01:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all. Dagnabit 22:35, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep until disambig replicates categorization. The 2,3,4-letter disambiguation categories provide a useful service to wikipedia editors. The disambiguation template must provide this same functionality, or these templates should be kept. Kellen ^T 10:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep All There are plenty of different disambiguation types, and this is nice and useful. There is no reason to remove these - very unnecessary to remove. Althepal 05:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Given that there are no categories anymore, what are they useful for? - grubber 17:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - It's just nice that it says what they are disambiguating. Yes, I know that it is obvious, but still. Althepal 18:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Let's say I've got a page Bob (disambiguation). It has entries for Bagels Over Botswana, A man's name, and A city in Outer Mongolia. What is it disambiguating? A human name? A place? An acronym? That's the whole point of dab pages -- they cut across classifications. -- RoySmith (talk) 19:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Categories have been deleted

Note that the corresponding categories have just been officially deleted [2]. Since the only plausible reason for the templates was to provide an easy way to put things in the categories, I think that pretty much means the template debate is settled. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Hm, I didn't expect that, but that does make this debate moot. In light of that and the fact that we had strong support for deletion of the templates anyhow, should we close this out? - grubber 18:35, 25 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, since as of right now, disambig only has one category in the noinclude, and that the changes to mesh every disambig template into one will make the current disambig template huge, hard to change, and possibly break the code for some usages. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 00:23, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Can you give an example of something that will break? - grubber 04:52, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I am also surprised that the categories have been approved for deletion. IMO listing both templates and categories at the same time was stacking the deck in favour of deletion as the two are interwoven, and some alternatives rely on using only the templates or only the categories -- the approval of the deletion of either causes the discussion of the other to fall over. It makes this debate more critical, because if both the templates and the categories are deleted, there is no longer any classification of these dab pages. If both are removed, those of us that clean up 3CC pages have lost the information we need to do that. And before anyone suggests that we can use the lists in Category:Lists of TLAs, please realise those pages link to articles as well (e.g. IBM). I would prefer to see that this discussion is put on hold until the bots that have been proposed are first written, so we can see the new solution in action first. John Vandenberg 00:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - In what way was it stacking the deck'? Of course they both got listed at the same time, because they are, as you point out, interwoven. What people are objecting to is the whole concept of classifying articles by how many letters are in their titles. The templates and the categories are just two faces of the same coin. You are correct that if both the templates and the cats are gone, there is no longer any classification of these dab pages. That's the whole point. The classification is just plain silly. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - John, I've suggested this to deal with having two discussions in one place, unless some other alternative is suggested. And RoySmith, it's more of a matter of community preferences about both the template and the category. There are logical arguments either way, sort of, but it really comes down to consensus, and not who's right. Gracenotes^T § 01:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Of course it comes down to consensus. There was overwhelming consensus on the MOS:DAB talk page to get rid of these. I brought it here to get wider exposure, and again there was consensus to delete (I know it's not a vote, but by the time the numbers are running in the 3:1 to 4:1 range, that's pretty good consensus to me). I absolutely agree with you that splitting the discussion into two different venues was sub-optimum, for all the reasons you pointed out in your excellent essay. Fortunately, the consensus on both the template and category discussions came down the same way. So, it seems like all that's left to do is to take User:ST47 up on his offer to do the bot thing. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Not really. If you would count the What Links Here transclusions for these templates, they are, as TMF has mentioned, numbering in the thousands. That means that the community that goes and does that have consensus to keep. And for those who have just said "delete all" and a sig, please provide valid reasoning for your argument. V60 ^{VTalk · VDemolitions · Editor review 2!} 01:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Consensus should not be simply a matter of a vote; it is reached by those opposing having their concerns met (or invalidated if they are being irrational). I dont think classification by length is "silly" as I find the 3CC pages useful and I like to put effort into improving them, but then I also like to classify everything. I'll go read the MOS:DAB talk. John Vandenberg 02:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Supermajority is a rough measure of consensus. There's no clear-cut answer for this issue. There are pros and cons to keeping all. Please seem to have decided for themselves that the cons outweigh the pros. Also, to quote from myself earlier: "Given a 5-second gap between bot edits (on an off-peak day), and these templates appearing on 10054 pages, a bot could do it in a bit more than half a day... about 14 hours. We're not in a rush, though." That's a lot of pages, but the plethora of pages shouldn't be an oppose reason. Gracenotes ^T § 02:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - There were two discussions because there were two different issues: 1) Are the xCC categories useful and worth the work to maintain? 2) Should we use templates to include articles into those categories? The second question depends on the outcome of the first. - grubber 04:59, 26 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - I don't understand why you say that. All disambiguation templates have their own category and vice versa, and the purpose of this TFD does not include altering or affirming that. Gracenotes ^T § 18:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Additionally, the reasons the CC templates were first put up for deletion was that they were more often than not used incorrectly on disambiguation pages, and made things unnecessarily complicated. At least, that was what first brought up the discussion. The reasons for keeping them due to the categories were valid, but since the categories have been deleted, there does not seem to be much purpose for them. I can see why there was objection when they included the categories on the pages, but now that does not really seem to come into play. -- Natalya 23:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Template:Anglicanism2

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 11:15, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duplicate template to Template:Anglicanism with image switched for POV reasons, per edit and single use edit summary. --Kyaa the Catlord 13:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep : It's highly improper for articles on the breakaway factions of the Anglican church such as Anglican_Mission_in_America to use photos of the Canterbury Cathedral when the Archbishop of Canterbury (and the membership of the Church shown in the pic) have expressly condemnned these breakaway factions, and don't consider them to be 'valid' churches of the same faith. Find a church from THAT denomination to use. Do you think the article on the Fundamental LDS Church of polygamist Warren Jeffs would use a pic of the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City? This is just as bad. - FAAFA 14:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Can you source that the AMiA is not part of the Anglican Communion? The sourced text in the article states that the AMiA is still part of the Anglican Communion and, therefore, should use the same image as all other Anglican related topics. You claim otherwise, back up your view with some RS, please. Kyaa the Catlord 14:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response The Anglican Mission in America article appears to contain no such sourced text, but does include a reference to comments by the former Archbishop of Canterbury denying the claim of the AMiA to be in Communion with his See. These churches are within the territorial jurisdiction of ECUSA - they are now out of communion with Canterbury, and hence have lost their claim to being part of the Anglican Communion. Fishhead64 20:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response (damn Firefox is not letting me use apostrophes today). I got it confused with the Apostolic Succession which seems to read that the church is part of the succession or whatnot. I redact my statement regardless. Kyaa the Catlord 22:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's still part of the Anglican communion, fractured as it currently is. - Ta bu shi da yu 07:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If Canterbury says a church is not in communion with him, its not in the Communion. That is what it means to be in the Anglican Communion, after all. Fishhead64 16:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this POV fork. If editors don't like the image on Template:Anglicanism (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), get consensus to replace the image. No signs of discussion at Template talk:Anglicanism. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I may be wrong, but I am almost certain that something only expressed as a personal opinion, even from the Archbishop of Canterbury, carries no official weight. Thus, being under the authority of member churches of the Anglican Communion would make the AMiA a member, meaning that this is a redundant template with no usages. -Amarkov moo! 14:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete This template seems like a POV fork. Unused except in a specific case.Bigmog 14:47, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There are many templates such as this so why should this be deleted? Telly addict^{Editor review!} 16:56, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Because it is unneeded and a POV fork from Template:Anglicanism? See also WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS and WP:NOHARM Kyaa the Catlord 17:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:NPOV concerns. Forking templates isn't good, and I have to wonder after looking at things why no discussion was conducted at Template:Anglicanism or anywhere else. --Elar a girl^Talk|Count 17:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete POV fork. No real reason for this to exist (Amarkov makes a good point here). Lack of consensus for its creation is also a concern.--Folantin 17:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, dupe'd POV forks are not happy. Just discuss a change to the image on the other template it you think there's something wrong with it. Discussion and consensus should be used, not lone-wolf forking. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, duplicate template, POV fork. Chris cheese whine 06:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, duplicate. - Patricknoddy (talk · contribs) 9:52am, February 11, 2007
Comment the keep |votes object to the image of Canterbury Cathedral on such schismatic groups as Anglican Mission in America; and so to the inclusion of [[tl|Anglicanism}} there. The fork is not a good way to do this; there are ways, starting with removing it and (when that fails) dispute tage, to dispute the presence of that template in those articles; the fork is not one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one template. —An gr 19:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. While these schismatic groups like the AMiA or the REC are not in communion with Canterbury, and thus their claim to even being called Anglican is extremely dubious, the discussion should occur on Template talk:Anglicanism, not through the incitement of a POV fork. Fishhead64 20:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: A discussion on amending the template has now be opened at Template talk:Anglicanism. Fishhead64 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. per Fishhead64 and Angus McLellan.Wassupwestcoast 02:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: as Fishhead64 and Angus McLellan above. Creating a separate template was not the way to go about this — PM J 17:11, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Template:Black Sea Economic Cooperation countries

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 11:18, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This organization has very little influence (unlike other organizations, like EU, NATO or CIS) and it's just cluttering the articles. There are dozens of similar organizations (like Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe, Southeast European Cooperation Process, Central European Free Trade Agreement, Central European Initiative, Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, Black Sea Forum...) and we can't have templates for each of them. bogdan 13:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Actually I think that this one along with CEI and CEFTA (which also has its own template) is quite significant. I'd like it to stay.--Pethr 05:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CEFTA should indeed stay, but BSEC has absolutely no relevance. Please tell me why is it significant? bogdan 07:46, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Patricknoddy (talk · contribs) 9:53am, February 11, 2007
Strong delete. This is something so trivial. Can people imagine how many international organizations countries participate in? Dozens to hundredths. Do we want 90% of article area to be boxes? Pavel Vozenilek 21:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some people find it easier to understand something with a visual image (in this case this template) and others like just to read something from an article. I think that in an article, the template and a written description can be used. --Boguslavmandzyuk 22:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as per nom and User:Pavel Vozenilek. Someone interested in the BSEC will not find any more relevant info in the individual country pages. Let's set a precedent to limit the rampant proliferation of trivial templates. -- P199 16:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Templates on Wikipedia:Inline templates linking country articles

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus. Tried twice, but no consensus. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 08:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

These are from a set of templates designed to render a flag icon next to the country name. See Wikipedia:Inline templates linking country articles for details. For some reason, a small set of countries have additional templates that are redundant to the existing three-letter code versions that do the same thing, namely, {{NIU}}, {{NRU}}, {{ENG}}, {{CPV}}, {{BDI}}, {{PRK}} respectively for these six that I have nominated for deletion. None of these templates are currently in use anymore; I have changed the handful of instances to use the "standard" template instead. --Andrwsc 01:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Deprecate and delete as redundant. Chris cheese whine 04:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Relisting to try to build a consensus. --Woohookitty^Woohoo! 12:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nom (normally I wouldn't bother with this sort of !vote, as it doesn't add much to the discussion, but this is a relist). --ais523 13:27, 9 February 2007 (U T C)
Redirect to the TLC templates. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 16:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Well, if I thought that a redirect was the best solution, I would have done that myself. I'm asking for admin help to delete them because I don't think we need to expand the template namespace to accomodate yet more ways to render a flag. Since none of these are currently in use, a redirect only serves future edits, and I would rather point editors to the standard templates instead. Andrwsc 00:15, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep In some cases these goto articles about historical things.

Example. Olympics games of some year. Certain areas that are no longer countries use those templates at times... Example. During the 1960's the British West Indies played as a single unit at the Olympics. It wouldn't have played as "Jamaica", "Barbados", "Trinidad and Tobago" etc. So I believe the British West Indies also has a template etc. for things like that. Or in the case of England. There's probably some "Football" articles that link specifically to "England" as oppose to "UK" I say keep. CaribDigita 01:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- I think you are missing the point. I have proposed deletion for this exact set of six templates. I have not included anything about the British West Indies, nor any other template. As for England, we already have {{ENG}}, which is very widely used. I am proposing that we delete {{ENGLAND}}, which does exactly the same thing, but is currently completely unused. We do not need multiple identical templates, and I don't think that redirects are useful here. Andrwsc 01:28, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in most cases they could be redundant, but I prefer to err on the side of being exact when using flags. Kolindigo 01:18, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

Template:Tricameral legislature of Islamic Republic of Iran

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Woohookitty^Woohoo! 11:22, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The template was made by User:Patchouli using his own original research. Whereas Britannica [3] and Encarta [4] and reliable sources such as CIA factbook[5] state its unicameral, we have failed to find any reliable source supporting its tricamerality. Gerash77 06:26, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The CIA factbook seems extremely reliable to me, although this means assuming that this website is incorrect. That Britannica and Encarta support its unicamerality (sp?) is somewhat convincing, however. I wouldn't so much suggest a delete as a move — {{Tricameral legislature of Islamic Republic of Iran}} → {{Unicameral legislature of Islamic Republic of Iran}}. In order to preserve the page history... if a page is inaccurate, this can be fixed by, well, fixing it, rather than deleting. So: change the template itself to reflect what the CIA factbook notes, and change the template's name as well. Any arguments that introduce further information and sources are welcome. Gracenotes ^T § 00:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the state.gov website talks about "The tricameral government structure", not a tricameral legislature. In fact while searching for a tricameral evidence on google, I could only find webistes that link to this OR on wiki.--Gerash77 01:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Yup, no tricameral legislature. Besides, there is no "privy council" considering this isn't a monarchy we are talking about here. The Behnam 02:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The Iranian legislature is definitely not tricameral. For example, the Assembly of Experts is not a legislative body; it does not make laws. Agha Nader 03:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)Agha Nader[reply]

Based on Article 108, the Assembly of Experts has legislative function in the issues relating to their own duties and no institution review their bills. And they do not review bills of the Majlis. Based on Article 108 they can ratify various laws such as limitting the terms of leadership or making it lifetime, etc. if they want. So, it is a kind of Bicameral legislature. Farhoudk 08:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From my understanding, this does not make the Assembly of Experts a legislative body. The only laws it can make pertain to itself, and are only subsequent changes to the law created by the Guardian Council and the Supreme Leader. The Assembly of Experts is, in fact, an oversight body of the executive branch. Please see [6]. Moreover, the Iranian legislature is unicameral, and only consists of the Majlis (not bicameral). Please see [7]. The Expediency Council and Guardian Council are also oversight bodies, and not part of the legislative branch. To call the Iranian legislature bicameral or tricameral would be analogous to calling the U.S. legislature as tricameral (The Supreme Court does not make laws, but it can review and overturn laws). Do you have any sources that say the Iranian legislature is bicameral? Agha Nader 04:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)Agha Nader[reply]

Bicameral means two legislatures stacked on top of one another, making laws and giving approval to the same law. Such as American congress: senate and the house.

feel free to improve this template: Template:Unicameral_legislature_of_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran--Gerash77 04:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Gracenotes frowns. It would be best to preserve page history, in my opinion. No reason to delete it when move would do. 05:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Template:Unicameral_legislature_of_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran is fine. Moving the origninal to current requires an administrator.--Patchouli 07:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Only the assmbly of Experts can ratify law about Leadership. Is not it legislation? Farhoudk 10:16, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - original research. --Mardavich 00:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.