Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects

Format of rules

Currently, rules are formatted as: {{Redirect}} → '''{{Template}}'''

There is a hidden note in the rules description on the page questioning this and suggesting we reorder the rules as: '''{{Template}}''' ← {{Redirect}}

I'm removing the note as it's more appropriate to discuss here. Should we rearrange the rules? It would make the page easier to read and alphabetise if all the templates were aligned on the left-hand side. Would it be possible to get a bot or script to do this? MClay1 (talk) 08:14, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Mclay1: I don't think this is practical, as the page is read and decoded by the AWB software itself (using LoadTemplateRedirects in Templates.cs). A change to the format would have to be coordinated with an update to the software, and both the page format change and the software update would have to be rolled out across all projects that make use of a "Template redirects" page. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:43, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Bots or humans acting like bots should not automatically replace all shortcut template names with expanded ones

First and foremost, these edits are (at least mildly) disruptive, creating needless churn that clutters up watchlists and is annoying to skim over in diffs. Unlike other kinds of bot edits (say those replacing hyphens with en dashes or curly quotation marks with straight ones) there is no visible difference to readers, so this is purely a cosmetic change to the source code based on some editors' personal stylistic markup preferences.

But beyond that, these shortcuts reduce the visual clutter which the templates impose. There is a reason that widely used templates / shortcuts end up with very short names like {{t}}, {{y}}, {{n}}, {{!}}, {{`}}, {{r}}, {{cn}}, {{sfn}}, etc. These are easier to remember the spelling for, easier to write, easier to read after seeing them a few times, and most importantly easier to skim past.

When two templates are merged together or a redirect happens to be a common typo, automatically replacing the name with a standardized variant is still in my opinion somewhat pointless but not really a huge bother. Likewise for templates that are only used sparingly or alone on a line, e.g. at the top of a talk page or beginning of a section or something. I don't think anyone cares too much if {{Mainarticle}} gets replaced with {{main}}, {{Book reference}} gets replaced with {{cite book}} or {{Infobox golf course}} gets replaced with {{Infobox golf facility}}. Replacing {{cn}} with {{Citation needed}} is a good encouragement for other editors to just delete the template altogether (with or without adding a reference), as it becomes a huge eyesore in both the source and the rendered page.

When the "standard" name for a template is a reasonably compact shortcut name, as in {{Mousetext}} -> {{abbr}} it's a bit annoying but also not a huge problem to do these replacements.

Thankfully some of the common useful shortcuts aren't butchered up by this page and whatever bots or bot-mimicking humans use it for reference. For instance it would be hugely disruptive to try to replace {{c.}} with {{circa}} everywhere (while we're here, {{ca}} and {{ca.}} should be replaced with the abbreviation {{c.}}, if they need replacement at all.)

But replacing e.g. every instance of {{slink}} with {{Section link}} is very annoying. It (in this case) doubles the amount of visual clutter for essentially no benefit. These automatic edits are the worst kind of bikeshedding: drive-by bot-like editors coming to cosmetically twiddle the source based on some arbitrary personal preference of whoever happened to write this list without any interest in the substantive content of the articles or any practical benefit to readers.

As a general guideline, I propose that shortcuts officially listed on a template documentation page's list of shortcuts (at top right of the page) should generally not ever appear in the automatic replacement list on this page, and as a general rule, "unofficial" shortcut names for templates that appear commonly in the middle of running prose should be replaced with "official" shortcut names rather than with expanded names. –jacobolus (t) 06:09, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

There are previous discussions from 2010, and from 2016 after the list was blanked. I'll be running AWB with general fixes turned off until this discussion reaches a consensus. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:13, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Those previous discussions look like a bunch of people were annoyed but their concerns were mostly ignored. Was there some broader community input or consensus? –jacobolus (t) 07:21, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Jacobolus: Not that I'm aware of. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:26, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I find meaningless names hard to understand and requires a pointless click to go to the template page to see what that template does. WP:TPN (another unclear shortcut name) says Template names are easiest to remember if they follow standard English spelling, spacing, and capitalization. If the watchlist annoys you, then just ignore it. Gonnym (talk) 16:11, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

There is a template, {{WP}} that can make some shortcuts more 'readable' by adding a title= attribute. This template is dependent on the target having a {{Nutshell}} template. Compare:

• [[WP:TPN]] → WP:TPN
• {{WP|TPN}} → WP:TPN

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

If you are reading the source of a specific page and come across a template shortcut name that seems inordinately obscure whose meaning you can't figure out, feel free to change it manually; if other editors object, you can hash it out on the specific talk page. That's not the problem. The problem is people with automated tools doing mindless edits without any direct intention, based on some list made by someone else, without any wide-scale consensus. Template naming is hard (cf. the joke "There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things.") but in many cases the use of shortcut name makes the page more legible rather than less, because it results in less visual clutter. The "TPN" guideline should be taken as a general rule for infrequently used templates, but is not ideal for those scattered liberally in running prose. –jacobolus (t) 16:59, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to resurface this discussion again - which I was only recently made aware of due to User:SdkbBot running against pages I am watching and expanding {{bsn}} to {{better source needed}}, and of course the very commonplace {{cn}}. Discussion with the bot's owner lead me here - and frankly I am a bit shocked to see both the project and some of the content of the list. I have read through this discussion as well as the archived ones mentioned earlier and find the entire premise of it for what are extremely common shorthand tags to be almost nonsensical. Many of these abbreviated templates and tags are in very common use and are not at all a detriment to the project. It makes editors who use them more efficient, educates editors those users who do not, reduces overall character count (which in turn has a compounding effect of reducing what I call tag-fat / tag-bloat by up to 70% across the entire WP project), reduces visual wikicode clutter while reviewing & editing and has been shown to reduce error count while editing. While I could see some benefit by changing some of the more obscure or lesser used abbreviations to lean more towards clarity vs. ambiguity - I do not for things that are far more common like citation needed and better source - among the myriad of other common ones.

Quite frankly - I am amazed this initiative exists, and even more amazed (and borderline appalled) that this issue has not yet reached consensus. What's next - killing functional wikicode abbreviations like REF and BR tags to their expanded forms? Let's be serious here - and smart about this. These abbreviations are not displayed/read portions of the articles - so they do not detract from the articles in any way. Efficiency and brevity are good things.

So is consensus - so let's get some.--Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 16:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

If there are templates that should not be replaced automatically, they can be removed from this list. {{ill}} is one such example, which has a long enough full name that it is less useful than the redirect. {{cn}} might also fall into that category. I do not think we should broadly say "we shouldn't be replacing redirects", but instead discussing specific ones. Primefac (talk) 17:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I am all for discussing specific ones - but the damage is already done on many of the obvious ones and precisely because "we should be replacing redirects" was broadly applied. Even on the specific ones we would need consensus now, and it is going to burn a LOT of cycles for a lot of people in order to reach said consensus if we are going to do this onsey-twosey. The scrutiny should probably have been done up front if that was the application being used - not working backwards once already applied - and possibly needing to even UNDO some of the resultant changes. I guess I also should ask why doesn't WP:NOTBROKEN apply here (yes - even to templates/tags) ? --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 19:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't really buy into the "damage has already been done" statement. {{citation needed}} is called 500k times, but {{cn}} accounts for a full 100k of those uses. The more useful a redirect is, the more it will be used. I would say if the use ratio for a template is more than about 10%, it should probably stay as a redirect on articles and not be included on this list. Primefac (talk) 19:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I get this position, but I maintain we need to stay as friendly to new editors as we reasonably can. I don't mind an editor typing in "cn" for expediency, but if a later (proper) fix expands it later, that's just making it clearer for the newer editors. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

As a former software developer and 20-year editor, I support having English-readable template names for editors' sake, especially new editors. I am for self-explaining code that doesn't require an editor to look something up before understanding what the template is doing. At the same time, I don't think these should be expanded unless the AWB or otherwise editor is also making a reader-viewable improvement. I believe this is the rule of the road anyway. As for "tag bloat", that is a technical non-issue, or at least something regular users of the site are not supposed to be concerned about. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 17:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that for bots, these changes will/should only be enacted when a substantive edit is also made alongside. Personally I do not think users should be making edits that only replace template redirects, as it would still fall under the AWB's cosmetic edit guidelines (i.e. "don't"). Primefac (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, but isn't that what I said? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 18:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

It is, I think I was attempting to respond to my own comment and didn't realise you had snuck in a comment. Primefac (talk) 18:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah - but you are not a "regular user" - nor am I. I will say that among code developers you are likely in the minority for preferring verbosity in . Most every other coder I have worked with has preferred short-word subs (sorry - substitutions) and used abbreviated calls to subroutines - again for efficiency's sake and keeping codesets small and lightweight. Or did you actually put every sub inline with the rest of the code? I think we both know the answer - and for the same reasons you didn't, that same logic applies here - both on the front end for the experienced editor, and for the backend. Streamlining that by the order of magnitude it is present on WP is absolutely an issue. We are talking hundreds of thousands of instances. Sure - maybe you need to look up something once - but it isn't so hard to right-click it to a new tab, or even to hover over it and wait for the target preview to pop up. The latter is even a feature that was implemented at WP not that long ago. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 18:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's not get too bogged down in the philosophical arguments here. Primefac (talk) 18:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for that. Was just responding to Stefan's rather philosophical points for justification with applicable points for reconsideration. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 19:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Who is "Stefan"? I am the Stefen Tower. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:38, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Ironically - I'm abbreviating. :) --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 19:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Where I come from, it's called misspelling, Pikard. heh. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:52, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not "verbosity" that I prefer. We typically don't allow over-long template names. "Citation needed" is not "verbose" but rather is bare-bones-descriptive. Also, we aren't coding for other software developers but rather for basically folks off the streets. I am for clarity, not verbosity. While it may not be "that hard" to look up a template, I would prefer to not do that very much, and especially would rather newbie editors not get frustrated with this. Again, if "streamlining" was an "issue", the techs who run the wiki sites would have brought that up well over a decade ago. It is not a significant technical issue, trust. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:37, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Concurred with Stefen. A sizable portion even of more experienced editors doesn't know what something like "bsn" means. Sdkb ^talk 18:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I think that is a highly subjective and likely inaccurate statement. And just because you don't know what it means doesn't mean that you should ignore the opportunity to learn it. "cn" is commonplace now and is likely used by far more than it isn't. Do you mean to tell me that you also prefer to type out Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest vs. WP:MOS and WP:COI? You didn't know what those were either until the first time you clicked the abbreviated links - or hovered over them. Never reject a free opportunity to learn something fast and easy. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 18:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

We are not requiring nor do we want to require anyone type out the whole template name. If they want to type "cn" for expediency, that's quite all right. I even use template abbreviations in some cases. But it also does no harm to expand these to their full name when doing another substantial edit, so that more editors can readily see what they are all about. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG! Sdkb ^talk 22:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Thankfully that is simply a (rather short-sighted) essay - not a policy or guideline. Kinda like WP:DTTR (and of course WP:TR). --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 13:39, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. I frequently encounter these abbreviations and can't remember what their purpose is, and have to spend time looking them up. Now imagine what the poor wiki-novice has to go through. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Even templates with a long verbose name aren't immediately obvious and must be explicitly looked up to understand their parameters and behavior. I don't think the use of shortcut names makes an inordinate difference here. –jacobolus (t) 19:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you. Some of these templates can't be sufficiently described by a name and thus may require a lookup. But I think in the general case, the name can well be a sufficient reminder to the editor as to what it does. Also, to repeat myself, I'm not against an editor using a shortcut for expediency, but also I think it's eminently reasonable to expand them (within an overall legitimate edit!) for the sake of other editors, especially new editors. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Whether this is net harmful or helpful depends primarily on the type of template. Templates commonly used in article body copy such as {{′}}, {{`}}, {{!}}, {{*}}, {{r}}, {{sfn}}, {{efn}}, {{harv}}, {{c.}}, {{fl.}}, {{nobr}}, {{mvar}}, {{tmath}}, {{ill}}, {{slink}}, etc. should have names or shortcuts which are as short as possible because long template names used repeatedly in running prose are incredibly visually distracting and make the source harder to read.

Templates used at the top of a section or top of an article can be longer without issue. –jacobolus (t) 20:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Which is of course why we can discuss which ones we will not expand. As always. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:42, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

General response: Start an RfC to get a new consensus, if you like. What we're currently doing here doesn't assist with that. Here, it's just banter with no consequences. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 19:54, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the reasonable thing to do is for any editor who likes to remove any template from the list here that seems unhelpful. If someone disagrees they should be responsible for starting an RfC. None of this conversion was ever based on consensus. –jacobolus (t) 20:19, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like you want to start a conflict rather than seek consensus. That is not the wiki way. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Personally it seems to me like the creators/maintainers of this list are on a kind of power trip, and aren't interested in listening to the legitimate and clearly expressed concerns of other editors. –jacobolus (t) 21:43, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not a "maintainer" of this list ordinarily. I'm just making sure someone with an itch to scratch isn't simply making a whim deletion as you just did. You should revert this longstanding entry back - remember, there can be consensus from WP:SILENCE. Why do you believe that you and only you gets to remove the circa entry? And why is that not a power trip? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 21:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

That page, Wikipedia:Silence and consensus, doesn't say anything like what you are implying.

What it says is (1) "Consensus can be presumed until disagreement becomes evident." But actually there has been repeated disagreement about bot-like mass template auto-normalization. That such disagreements were dismissed and swept under the rug doesn't make the result a "consensus" position.

It furthermore says (2) "a lack of response to an edit does not necessarily imply community consent. Wikipedia is huge and our editors' time is limited." To elaborate with respect to template name conversions: Few editors pay any attention at all to bot-like minor edits doing miscellaneous template name changes, mucking about with whitespace, converting curly quotes to straight quotes or hyphens to dashes, etc. There's just not enough time in the day even though many of these edits are useless or even (mildly) harmful. Of editors who do, most don't know what the AWB script is, or that it pulls its template normalization list from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects which they can edit to remove an annoyance, or that there is a place to complain/discuss here at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects. If you want to test in the opposite direction, feel free to leave the circa entry as I've changed it, instead of knee-jerk reverting, wait a few years, and see how many complaints it gets. I would put my money on zero complaints.

As for this specific entry though, (almost?) no authors use the abbreviations {{ca}} or {{ca.}} for the template ordinarily written using the shortcut {{c.}} (which renders like c., which explains the shortcut name). But if anyone does ever write {{ca.}} instead of {{c.}} it seems likely that they would prefer to have it normalized (if at all) to {{c.}} rather than {{circa}} – after all if they wanted to write {{circa}} they could easily have just done so. The abbreviation {{c.}} is in very widespread use (if not for the history of this script obnoxiously "expanding" it, it would likely even be the majority use). writing {{c.|1500}} instead of {{circa|1500}} is no harder for source readers to make sense of, and saves on visual clutter.

If it were up to me personally, I'd get rid of this template and just replace it with just using the plain text c. 1500 in the source, since a hover displaying the Latin word circa is not really any more reader friendly than the standard abbreviation "c.", but any time anyone writes c. into an article a wannabe bot comes and changes it to a template, so I'm resigned to at least needing the curly braces. –jacobolus (t) 22:20, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Enough with the wikilawyering. The point is that if something is longstanding and not disputed for a long time, simply removing it appears to go against a natural consensus. This list is for expansion to full template names. Your suggestion for the initial change didn't fall into that use. The removal, though, amounts to you deciding by yourself that we don't need it. The removal borders on a kind of disruptive editing where you are putting a burden on other editors to go through a process to restore what was already there for a very long time. That's not how this ordinarily works.

As for your reasoning for removal, it is something to consider but you could have started a discussion section about that, per the usual process. It seems to me that you have been a Wikipedian long enough to realize that discussion of a likely controversial change before it's done is the norm. I suggest that you restore the entry and we have a proper discussion. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

There is no "usual process" as far as I can tell. Nor is this general script "longstanding and not disputed". Indeed, every discussion about this in the past has had reasonable complaints that were largely ignored.

I propose that we should err on the side of not doing controversial and disruptive bot-like edits, so it seems "natural" to me to remove controversial items from this list pending explicit consensus. Changes to this list are not changes to articles per se; instead, removal of items from this list prevents changes to articles. It does no harm at all to leave items off the list while they are under discussion, because if they are added again in the future some bot-like editor will be enforcing them. By contrast, leaving controversial items on this list results in a Wikipedia:Fait accompli; once these script-assisted changes are forced through, they are inordinately difficult to reverse and unlikely to be reversed in practice.

As such, knee-jerk reversion of item removals, without establishing consensus in discussion, are inappropriate. The burden must be on editors who want to keep an item on this list to demonstrate consensus before an item is restored. While the page here says "Before adding a rule here, you must ensure that there is consensus in favour of the template renaming" I don't see much evidence that this happens in practice. Instead, items are just added at editors' whim. For example the change of "ca" and "ca." to "circa" was added as part of a huge addition to this list in special:diff/1141545200 in 2023, and I can't find any evidence that there was a discussion about it whatsoever.

I don't know what you think constitutes "wikilawyering" here. You inappropriately invoked WP:SILENCE as a way to cut off discussion, a very lawyerly appeal to authority, and I am just pointing out that it doesn't say what you implied. (Though the page Wikipedia:Silence and consensus is quite reasonable, relevant, and worth reading.)

This list is for expansion to full template names – This seems incorrect to me, or at least, seems like it shouldn't be how this list works, whether or not it does precisely today. From what I can tell, the purpose/justification of this list is to normalize template names to reduce the number of trivial variants so we can help readers become familiar with common names and make markup more legible. To that end, we should be picking the name which seems most useful/legible in each context, and not automatically settling on a single one in any cases where multiple names might be plausibly better in one or another circumstance.

To that end, I think we should be (1) standardizing misspellings, minor variants, templates that were merged together, etc. to whatever the most legible name is, and (2) standardizing obscure and uncommon shortcut names to the most common shortcut name. But there's no particular reason that each template has to be normalized to only a single name, or that the name we normalize to has to be the "main" title of the template rather than a redirect. For example, it would reduce a lot of people's unhappiness with this script if we split the list here for {{citation needed}} into two parts, normalizing all of the shortcut names (Facts, Me-fact, CB, Sourceme, Cb, FACT, Proveit, CN, Refnec, Source?, Fact, Refplease, Needcite, Needsref, Ref?, Prove it, Ctn, Cit, Fact?, Need-ref, Citn, Needs-cite) to the name {{cn}} and normalizing all of the miscellaneous misspellings and longer name variants to the name {{citation needed}}. And similarly for {{bsn}} etc.

Exactly the bounds of that should certainly be up for change and discussion.

you deciding by yourself – Nearly every item added to this list was someone "deciding for [themself]", without any broader consensus, that a name change should be enforced site-wide. Adding things to this list is much more potentially damaging than removing items from this list. But nobody is knee-jerk preventing new items from being added pending separate discussions. –jacobolus (t) 00:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not responding to your wall o' text. You have been here long enough to know what we do in the Wikipedia. I will be awaiting the discussion you start on this change that you want. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 00:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

There was nothing "patronizing" here. You are seriously running up against wiki norms in obvious bullying tactics, and I don't have to engage with that. That is my right. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 02:54, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Me very generously spending a lot of time replying at length to your off-hand dismissals and name calling is not "bullying". You can engage or not with whatever you like, but please cut the rudeness. –jacobolus (t) 03:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I have three points in regards to this subthread and will then look to see what is below:

- @StefenTower - you said, "The point is that if something is longstanding and not disputed for a long time, simply removing it appears to go against a natural consensus." That's a bit ironic. Abbreviated template tags like {{cn}}, {{c.}} and {{bsn}} (among many, many others) have existed for a long time, were not administratively reverted or removed at or soon after the time of their creations - even by those who monitor and patrol such new creations. The fact taht 1, 2 or even a handful of people dispute it does not make sufficient ground for reversal, either - especially if you feel that silence is to be interpreted as consensus.

- Second, @Jacobolus used {{c.}} as an example - and unironically that is even how "circa" has been utilized in print long before WP existed. I even remember that being taught way back in elementary school and later on even in writing classes. If there ever was a based standard for an abbreviation to stand on in the context of this discussion - c. is the one.

- Third - I also have to agree with jacobolus with the notion of objections to things in this list (and actions by bots) being largely ignored. I have spent time going through some of the archived discussions - and have barely broken the ice. The number of unique objections and repeating patterns of a lot of those discussions by unique users very clearly demonstrates that at the very least the content of this list for expansion leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. But it gets categorically dismissed by the same handful of people and then archived before any additional discussion can be had on it - only to be started yet again later on by someone else as the previous person had given up their quest. So seems the way with so many obvious Bad Things (tm) on WP - and that's not what "wiki norms" should ever be. I wont go so far as jacobolus in claiming a power trip (that's one I reserve for bad administrators) - but I will say agree with the dismissiveness & ignoring of things brought up here. Stefen's outright rejection of jacobolus' very well researched and stated position under the guise of "bullying" is not only way out of line & completely incorrect - but also exemplifies the dismissive nature against things brought up in counter, here. That's not very cool at all - and is in no way does service to the WP project as a whole. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 14:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not surprising that you don't see posts from silent majority who don't care, and only see the posts from the vocal minority who complain. Gonnym (talk) 14:31, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The vast majority never even try to edit Wikipedia articles. The majority of the rest look and get confused or make some simple edit that gets reverted and never come back. The majority of the rest after those only make minor edits. The majority of the rest after those write a few articles or sections but still largely just interact as readers. The majority of the rest after those get involved in writing articles and care about them, and are annoyed by the steady churn of drive-by grammatical disimprovements and factual inaccuracies added by other editors and unnecessary format twiddling/mangling by bots and scripts but don't have the energy to do anything about it. Etc. Then if you keep going eventually you get to the rarefied few maintainers of this page who think they should unilaterally personally decide how every page's templates should be spelled, and aren't really interested in outside feedback. –jacobolus (t) 19:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This may be the most truthful & accurate comment on a talk page in WP history. 100% agreement. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 16:53, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

`transl` → `transliteration`

I do understand there is ambiguity between the words 'transliteration' and 'translation' here, but it seems that ambiguity is largely dispelled by seeing...whether the word is translated or not! Otherwise, that extra iteration can do a lot to visually clutter non-English-text heavy articles, so I don't think it's a very good auto-redirect by default. Remsense聊 21:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

I wonder if an even more concise abbreviation could be found. –jacobolus (t) 22:24, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I use {{tlit}}, now. There are a lot of options—however, I will specifically ask that `tlit` not be automatically substituted with something longer.Remsense诉 22:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

{{tlit}} seems like a good choice. Do you know which shortcut is most common? If {{tlit}} is used often, in my opinion it should be listed explicitly as a shortcut at the top and in the documentation of {{transliteration}}. –jacobolus (t) 00:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I thought I had added it—not that I would really know for sure, but I'm probably its biggest proponent since I added it. Remsense诉 00:41, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I added the shortcut to Template:Transliteration/doc. I don't use this template enough to feel comfortable mucking with the documentation more substantially. –jacobolus (t) 01:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! For some reason, I think I felt self-conscious about adding my own shortcut to this one. Remsense诉 01:46, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Anything shorter than 'transl' would not, um, translate for typical editors IMHO. How about if we use 'translit' for the purposes of this expansion list, even though it's not the typical full expansion? Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:48, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

{{translit}} already exists. Stefen Tower_{s among the rest!} ^{Gab • Gruntwerk} 22:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Minimal concrete proposal: stop rewriting "cn" etc. to "citation needed"

Here's a straightforward change that I think would non-trivially reduce how many complaints the template renaming feature gets:

The name chosen as the change target for each template name written in article markup should be based on whichever name is most legible for a given context while reasonably matching wiki authors' intentions. This need not be the canonical title of a template. In particular, I recommend that this script should not normally change template names away from an officially blessed and documented shortcut name, as listed in a {{template shortcut}} box at the top of the template's documentation page or described in the documentation. (For some templates, we may want to extend or prune the list of official shortcuts.)

This applies especially to any template intended for use in the middle of running prose, where the visual clutter of long template names causes a significant interruption to reading/writing. Whether shortcut names are used for templates placed at the top of an article or section makes much less difference, since a longer name is not nearly as distracting to anyone reading the source markup, in that context.

One of the most commonly modified template names is {{citation needed}}, so let's use it as a minimal concrete proposal as a case study:

This script should stop rewriting any of {{cn}}, {{CN}}, {{cb}}, {{CB}}, {{ctn}}, {{cit}}, {{citn}}, {{fact}}, {{FACT}}, {{facts}}, {{fact?}}, {{me-fact}}, {{ref?}}, {{need-ref}}, {{refnec}}, {{needsref}}, {{needcite}}, {{needs-cite}}, {{refplease}}, {{source?}}, {{sourceme}}, {{proveit}}, or {{prove it}} to {{citation needed}}, and instead should redirect them to some community-preferred one or two common shortcuts, I propose {{cn}} (but it could also or instead be {{fact}}).

Longer redirect names, such as for example {{needs citations}}, {{reference necessary}}, {{citation requested}}, {{unreferenced inline}}, etc. could continue to be changed to {{citation needed}}.

There are several other templates that would benefit from the same type of treatment, and indeed such a reform would even allow some additional templates to be added to this list, where the various shortcuts were removed from (or weren't added) this list because changing convenient and preferred shortcut names to long unwieldy canonical names site-wide would be disruptive, but where there is an unhelpful variety of shortcuts in current use that might benefit from being normalized to a single concise shortcut that would be easier for editors to learn and remember. –jacobolus (t) 02:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. I find the argument to use made-up unrecognizable names unconvincing. Having the wikitext of a single page as clear as possible is always an improvement. Gonnym (talk) 14:27, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

To make "wikitext as clear as possible" what we want to do is pull as much extraneous visual clutter out of the text as possible. Ideally even, the citation needed template parameters (and parameters for other templates appearing in running prose) could also be made more concise. But let's imagine some possible strings of concrete markup. You tell me which one makes reading the text easier:

Sourced statement, seems pretty reliable.{{r|smith}} Another sourced statement, about the ''Illiad''{{'}}s poetry – not sure about this one.{{sfn|Sanchez|2010}}{{fcn|2020-03}} Questionable statement.{{cn|2023-02}} Something about {{lang|grc|οἶκος}} ({{tlit|grc|oíkos}}, {{lit|house}}), [[Minnan]] {{ill|Chhù|zh-min-nan|italic=y}}.{{r|jones}}

vs.

Sourced statement, seems pretty reliable.<ref name=smith>{{cite book |last=Smith |first=John |year=2000 |title=Factual Statements |publisher=Simon & Schuster |location=New York |page=125 |isbn=123-456-789-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/factualstmntssmith2000xyz/page/125/}}</ref> Another sourced statement, about the ''Illiad''{{Apostrophe}}s poetry {{En dash}} not sure about this one.{{Shortened footnote|Sanchez|2010}}{{Full citation needed|date=March 2020}} Questionable statement.{{Citation needed |date=February 2023}} Something about {{Foreign language text|grc|οἶκος}} ({{Transliteration|grc|oíkos}}, {{Literal translation|house}}), [[Southern Min|Minnan]] {{Interlanguage link|Chhù|zh-min-nan|italic=yes}}<ref name=jones>{{cite journal |last=Jones |first=Jane |year=1995 |title=A book about houses |journal=International House Studies |doi=10.5/househouse |bibcode=xyzhouse }}</ref>

In my view, if our source markup looks more like the first example and less like the second it becomes much closer to "as clear as possible". –jacobolus (t) 18:52, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I would be okay with removing {{cn}} as it is the most commonly-used shorthand, but keep the rest. It's not a hill I feel the need to die on, so if consensus is to keep it on the list I'm fine with that as well. Primefac (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Support. While the current list of redirs (sorry - redirects) for citation needed is far too long and does contain some that are obscure or otherwise not necessarily clear - there are a few which are easily understood, are very common in use and are also long-standing on WP (sorry - Wikipedia) which also make a lot of sense based on both the explanation above, and the first-hand accounts of many editors.

Reading @Gonnym's objection makes me think that he missed probably the most important part of the proposal - so I will quote it here: "and instead should redirect them to some community-preferred one or two common shortcuts, I propose {{cn}} (but it could also or instead be {{fact}})."

Limiting the number of redirs (sorry - redirects) to only those which make the most sense would easily address Gonnym's concerns. In addition to the two mentioned above - I would add {{ref?}} and/or {{source?}} as I also see them in very common use and is quite clear in how they are to be applied.

It would be easy to go on a tangent with a lengthy list of other examples - but per the discussion above - we need to start with one thing to illustrate a solid foundation in order to move this effort forward. I will just wrap by saying WP (sorry - Wikipedia) as a whole has a foundation of utilizing abbreviations where it makes sense - and it is demonstrated at multiple levels throughout. It is even reflected in policies & guidelines as well as top-level resource navigation within the project. Cases in point include WP:WELC for Wikipedia:Welcome and WP:MOS for Wikipedia:Manual of Style - among a literal endless string of others. No editor or even casual reader of WP (sorry - Wikipedia) knows what "MOS" was the first time or even first few times they saw it. But - the opportunities for brevity and learning presented themselves and those quickly became commonplace and globally understood across the project. The same can be said for functional tags as well such as ref, /ref, br and the like. Why wouldn't common-sense abbreviations be employed at all levels of the project, including tags and templates?

If employed in a sensible manner & standard they are easily understood - or understanding can be easily attained, it can be very beneficial. It makes editors who use them more efficient, educates editors and those users who do not, reduces overall character count (which in turn has a ridiculously compounding effect of reducing what I call tag-fat / tag-bloat by up to 70% across the entire WP project), reduces visual wikicode clutter while reviewing & editing and has been shown to reduce error count while editing.

All that being said - I believe WP:NOTBROKEN also needs to be considered here as well - but I put more weight on the statements in the proposal and in my followup statements. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 17:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Oppose:

1. {{cn}} is a less-user-friendly option to new editors.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  17:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
2. Overchoice - {{citation needed}} provides standardization against {{cn}}'s 69 other redirects (of which the proposer only listed ~1/3), which present a challenge to novice editors. I remember seeing many different versions used on different pages, sometimes even many different versions on the same page, and naively thinking they did different things. Being confused, and a bit lazy, I decided against placing & modifying them at the time. If there had been fewer variations, it would have been more intuitive. This isn't to say that those however-many #Rs shouldn't exist; they speed up editing for those familiar with them, and should be used freely. However, once someone has edited, they need to relinquish ownership of that content, for the good of the project, whichever form that may take. Should a bot regularly convert all #Rs to their canonical form? No. Should editors be allowed to convert #Rs semi-automatically as they perform substantive edits? Yes, I think that is beneficial, especially for an example like this.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  20:22, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

New editor friendliness or confusion is very weak reasoning. New editors don't need to use it as the expanded form is still available - but they can easily learn what it means and how it is applied by hovering over it or following the link. By your argument - WP (sorry - Wikipedia) should toss out all forms of abbreviations because it is not friendly for new editors. We can start with the link in your signature, and then move on to ref /ref tags and br. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 18:19, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

See WP:WTF? OMG! TMD TLA. ARG!. MClay1 (talk) 14:58, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

I've already addressed that above, at the previous mention. In addition to my previous reply - it is also in regards to article & discussion text - not markups, tags and templates. If this effort is going to start targeting that - then the first candidates are <ref>, </ref> and <br> tags. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 15:20, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

The point is that abbreviations are hard to understand for newcomers, and that is not "weak reasoning". Whether or not html mark-up is also hard to understand is irrelevant to this page. One thing being confusing is not a reason to make everything deliberately confusing. And anyway, WP:HTML does state most HTML can be included by using equivalent wiki markup or templates; these are generally preferred within articles, as they are sometimes simpler for most editors and less intrusive in the editing window. MClay1 (talk) 23:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it is weak reasoning - and very weak reasoning at that. There are lots of far more confusing things on/about WP to newcomers than markup abbreviations - and new users (not even editors) eventually learn those too. For the thought to be that new editors presumably already know about HTML markups is flatly unrealistic - especially considering that there have been GUI based html editors out there for no less than 2 decades. Also <ref> </ref> isn't html. So for that to be OK under that all that guise just doesn't hold water. If the understanding of HTML is irrelevant then there wouldn't be the page and statement that you linked to. Can't have it both ways.

I do agree with you though - "one thing being confusing is not a reason to make everything [...] confusing". You are spot on... and things like {{cn}}, {{c.}} and the like should not be made confusing as a result.

Lastly, just because you don't know what it means doesn't mean that you should ignore the opportunity to learn it. "cn" is commonplace now and is likely used by far more than it isn't. Do you mean to tell me that you also prefer to type out Wikipedia:Manual of Style and Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest vs. WP:MOS and WP:COI? You didn't know what those were either until the first time you clicked the abbreviated links - or hovered over them. Never reject a free opportunity to learn something fast and easy.

Nobody knows anything about anything until the first time to see it, research it, learn it, try it or use it. --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 13:30, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree on overchoice - but you making that point makes me think you too have missed probably the most important part of the original proposal - so I will quote it here: "and instead should redirect them to some community-preferred one or two common shortcuts". --Picard's Facepalm • ^{Made It So} _Engage! • 20:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I only listed the clearly shortcut-length redirects which were included on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects, which are the main ones relevant to my point (but plausibly some others not currently listed at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Template redirects should also be redirected to some blessed shortcut name). –jacobolus (t) 22:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose – I forgot to reply to you last year, but here is my two cents on the whole issue. There is growing consensus that template names use plain English so as to be easily understood by everyone, especially new users. Shortcuts like {{cn}} are very hard to understand until you get used to how Wikipedia works. There's a reason why the template was moved to {{Citation needed}}, and for those reasons, we should use that name in articles. It's also confusing to have multiple names for the same template. If shortcuts are easier to type, there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from using them, and it does not affect those users in any way if those shortcuts are later replaced. These template redirect replacements should only occur alongside other meaningful changes (or if needed following a discussion/move/etc) – they're not intended to be done for the sake of it by bots. MClay1 (talk) 07:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)