Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates/Unused Templates Task Force/Archive 1
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Archive 1 |
Seeking feedback on some batch nominations
- Set of 9 named "experiment" templates Template:Uw-test1-rand/Experiment 1
- Set of 23? "random" templates that randomly insert a different user notification template e.g. Template:Uw-vandal-rand1
- Set of "Pas de" templates (e.g. Template:Pas de onze 5W6M), if WP DANCE is happy. c.f. Category:Ballet templates
- Set of 5 Seignories of Quebec templates (eg. Template:Seignories of Quebec) which are all unused and just duplicate images
- 6 templates relating to copying data from an external website for world records (eg. Template:Rita Hanscom W55 Heptathlon World Record)
- Most templates in Category:Wiktionary link templates, which simply duplicate Template:Wikt-lang, including 10 unused templates starting with "Wikt"
I basically think instead of overloading TfD with these nominations, for these batches it is best for me to check if there are any major issues here and then nominate ones we think are feasible for deletion at TfD. Tom (LT) (talk) 03:41, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
PS is there a way to nominate multiple templates in bulk at a single TfD? (or is it a combination of linking and AWB...?) Tom (LT) (talk) 03:41, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Tom (LT), all you have to do is list each template with the asterisk and the Tfd links bracket format. For instance:
====[[Template:Foreign relations of the United States]]====
- {{Tfd links|Template:Foreign relations of the United States}}
- {{Tfd links|Template:Foreign relations of the United Kindom}}
- I see that you have nominated one of the Uw...-rand templates. I commented there.
- As for the "Pas de ..." templates in Category:Ballet templates, they are used only in User:Robertgreer/sandbox/NYCB/Winter and similar sandboxes. I recommend nominating all of them (not just the unused ones) to be userfied into that editor's user space, in case they want to continue their experiment.
- All of the "Seignories of Quebec" templates should be nominated as unused and redundant to straightforward calls to File space.
- The "World Record" templates, if they are unused, should be deleted as a batch. I recommend linking to List of world records in masters athletics in your nomination to show that these individual templates have been replaced by direct transclusions of {{Heptathlon 80m H Score}} and similar templates in that article.
- The "wikt" templates may be an uphill battle; some people may argue that they are useful shortcuts instead of having to type three or four parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:39, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
Some template questions
Hi all. Before I nominate some templates for deletion could I seek opinion on:Tom (LT) (talk) 03:41, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Set of 10 - 14 "/hide" templates for WikiProjects which just seem to display text - e.g. Template:WikiProject Football/hide? Is there any purpose to these (I can't see any)?
Doing...
Set of election templates ending in / shortname should all be marked as included only/transclusionless right? (e.g. Template:Chure Bhawar Rastriya Ekta Party Nepal/meta/shortname)Not done
- 30 or more templates in Category:R-phrase templates and a similar number in Category:S-phrase templates which seems to be redundant now to Template:Rlink - these could be nominated in batch?
Doing...
- Could I confirm that Special:Diff/382659011/1051514187 is what I should be doing for a template that is subst only?
- Are editintros (eg Template:Course page/Pod/editintro, roughly 20 - 30 similar entries) useful in any way, or are they now redundant to editnotices?
Doing... awaiting a response from the creator
- Are there any ways to know for sure if a column / row templates are actually in use as subst only? (guestimate: around 50 - 100 within the list). (e.g. Template:Transperth bus transfer/row)
- I don't know about the /shortname templates. Have you gotten feedback on them somewhere else?
- Re the subst only that you did on the Peer review preload template: did you verify that it is actually used as part of a page or section creation process?
- Yes lol, actually I myself maintain them. They are used when creating a preloaded page based on category. The process has worked smoothly for over a decade so these should be kept. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Re {{Course page}} and its subpages: That looks like an academic course creation system that has not been used in a while, but you would have to do some searching to find out. It may be useful in the future if professors are made aware of it.
- Update: I've contacted the original creator and am awaiting a reply. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- The Transperth bus transfer set of three templates appears to be abandoned, not subst-only. I would nominate them for deletion as a batch. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:48, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
- Great idea. I don't have access to AWB or (unfortunately) that much time at present, would you be able to nominate them? Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95 what about the general /column and /row templates? IS there a way to know if they're used? Apart from the buses, there are heaps of unused other ones. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:17, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95 and Tom (LT): I'd strongly suggest ignoring the
/shortname
templates. They will all eventually be deleted and replaced with Module:Political party, so there's no point in shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:58, 28 October 2021 (UTC)- @Elli: Ah, great. Well, no need to worry about those templates then. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Elli, if the /shortname templates that are not currently used are never going to be used because there is a new module to replace them, why would we not delete them in order to help with that process? Can you please link to a project or discussion page where this process is being discussed? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:49, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Taking them to TfD wouldn't help facilitate the process at all and would only waste valuable time. Module talk:Political party is the workpage for this project and this is the discussion that originally got consensus for the change. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:58, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks for the links. That makes sense. I have filtered them out of my table. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95: Taking them to TfD wouldn't help facilitate the process at all and would only waste valuable time. Module talk:Political party is the workpage for this project and this is the discussion that originally got consensus for the change. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:58, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- Elli, if the /shortname templates that are not currently used are never going to be used because there is a new module to replace them, why would we not delete them in order to help with that process? Can you please link to a project or discussion page where this process is being discussed? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:49, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
- @Elli: Ah, great. Well, no need to worry about those templates then. Tom (LT) (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2021 (UTC)
Some unused templates are more equal than others
While going through your lists, can you make up some guidelines about what criteria to use for dealing with them? Also, will they be deleted, or userfied, or something else? Simply unused by itself shouldn't necessarily be the sole criterion, i.e., what if it was created yesterday, or what if it might get a burst of activity when some future event happens (next Olympics or World Cup?). That last might be part of an expanded Consideration #4. Whatever the criteria are, they should be discussable and a consensus should form around it, to guide participants. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:35, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- Mathglot, a template that has been unused, whether it was created five years ago or even five weeks ago, do qualify under deletion guidelines as Wikipedia is not a storage space or a holding cell. It's a reason drafts are deleted after six months of no activity. And here on the talk page of our task force, we are here to discuss any potential errors that could be caused by deletion from Tfd's. Consideration number 4 explains the concerns in my view well enough. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 14:29, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- There is an informal consensus developing here, and the best "exclusion" list for this project that I know of is at User:Jonesey95/unused templates. That list needs further development and links to explanatory discussions, i.e. a link to a discussion about /Adminstats. The list should probably also be moved to this page, with a link to it from my subpage. All contributions are welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:22, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. Would creators/major contributors get a courtesy notice on their UTP, the way they do now roughly one month before a Draft page is deleted? If so, if you included some text like, "...and if you no longer need it, you can just add {{db-g7}} to the page and a bot will delete it" you might even reduce the load here. Mathglot (talk) 23:43, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- The TFD instructions include notification of the template's creator. Is that what you mean? That notification looks like this; if you have suggestions for improving that notification, it lives at Template:Tfd notice. I use WP:Twinkle, which does the nomination and notification in a couple of easy steps. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:00, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. Would creators/major contributors get a courtesy notice on their UTP, the way they do now roughly one month before a Draft page is deleted? If so, if you included some text like, "...and if you no longer need it, you can just add {{db-g7}} to the page and a bot will delete it" you might even reduce the load here. Mathglot (talk) 23:43, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- There is an informal consensus developing here, and the best "exclusion" list for this project that I know of is at User:Jonesey95/unused templates. That list needs further development and links to explanatory discussions, i.e. a link to a discussion about /Adminstats. The list should probably also be moved to this page, with a link to it from my subpage. All contributions are welcome. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:22, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Uncategorized Templates reports
Should we look at the Uncategorized templates reports which are no longer used? The ones being User:DH85868993/Uncategorized templates, Wikipedia:Database reports/Uncategorized templates. And one by Tim.landschiedt at User:Tim.landscheidt/Sandbox/Uncategorized templates. The first two are kept for historical record and the Tim's hasn't been updated since February 28, 2013. Maybe we could look at this last and probably update accordingly. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 02:09, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- How does categorization of templates fit within the scope of this task force? Also, working from very old reports is usually a challenge. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:06, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
- It fits as some that I've looked at are on the respective unused templates reports, thus reducing the backlog fits into this, and adding part of our scope to add any unused templates that have potential to add them to the relevant articles. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 19:14, 1 November 2021 (UTC)
Shorter batches
After scrolling through Jonesey's subpage of the unused templates. Going through by letter, currently, nine are easy to go through due to a short number of templates with the rest being the longer parts of the list. Templates under the letter Q have been taken to Tfd with one I added to the templates with potential list.
The list is as follows:
- Numbered templates (7 to 67) (short)
- A (145 to 572) (short)
- B (574 to 747) (short)
- C (751 to 1573)
- D (1575 to 1851) (short)
- E (1852 to 2054) (short)
- F (2060 to 2326) (short)
- G (2328 to 2551) (short)
- H (2552 to 2831)
- I (2832 to 3428)
J (3430 to 3505) (short)K (3511 to 3597) (short)- L (3600 to 3926) (short)
- M (3927 to 4316) (short)
N (4321 to 4678) (short)O (4681 to 4774) (short)- P (4776 to 5342)
- R (5363 to 5956)
- S (5957 to 6617)
- T (6618 to 7089)
- U (7099 to 7256; 9428 to 9501) (Not counting User templates)
- V (9502 to 9582)
- W (9585 to 10279)
I suggest tackling the shorter batches then deal with the longer parts of the list and when we do, it will become easier. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:53, 2 November 2021 (UTC)
Rail-interchange doc templates need to be marked as transclusionless, I think
A bunch of Template:Rail-interchange documentation templates need to be marked as transclusionless to keep them off of our reports, unless there is a better solution. Here's a sample edit. They are currently listed at 5468 to 5516 at User:Jonesey95/unused templates.
In theory, they should be transcluded, possibly in a collapsed section, on the template's documentation page, but I tried to do that, and the resulting page is too large for the parser. The pages are linked from the template's documentation page, so they are being used, just not transcluded. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:56, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:44, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
Removing some templates from the list
User X templates
@Jonesey95 is it possible to remove templates that start with "User X" from your list? There are many such templates and it seems the appetite for removing these at MfD is low.Tom (LT) (talk) 03:41, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- I see what you mean. There are probably some of them worthy of either tagging with {{transclusionless}}, nominating for deletion, or excluding from the automated report. Templates like {{User Aguascalientes/par}}, for example, are discussed on the main page; I have added their category to the configuration page so that they will (I think) be excluded from the automated report. Let's see what the list looks like after the next report refresh, which should happen in about 24 hours. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:20, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. I think your idea for the task force is a great idea and hopefully my contributions aren't too disruptive. Tom (LT) (talk) 06:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Tom (LT), this was actually my idea, see Proposal to create a Unused Templates Task Force. And your edits aren't disruptive. It's helping to deal with backlog. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Tom (LT), it's not disruptive at all. I'm just wary of ignoring a whole set of templates that are unrelated to one another, when it contains things like {{User Ashley Y/Userbox/Believes in Allah}}, which looks like an experimental copy of an existing template. We need to go through the "Template:User X" list one by one to look for pages like this that should be deleted or tagged. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:05, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
- Another example: {{User Family History=she}}, which led me to multiple templates that I recommended merging and/or deleting. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
- Tom (LT), it's not disruptive at all. I'm just wary of ignoring a whole set of templates that are unrelated to one another, when it contains things like {{User Ashley Y/Userbox/Believes in Allah}}, which looks like an experimental copy of an existing template. We need to go through the "Template:User X" list one by one to look for pages like this that should be deleted or tagged. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:05, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
- Tom (LT), this was actually my idea, see Proposal to create a Unused Templates Task Force. And your edits aren't disruptive. It's helping to deal with backlog. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 14:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- Thanks. I think your idea for the task force is a great idea and hopefully my contributions aren't too disruptive. Tom (LT) (talk) 06:56, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
- The WP:Babel user language templates, i.e. all those in Category:Language user templates and its subcats, should be kept even if unused in my opinion. They don't do any harm sitting unused, and could make speakers of rarer languages feel more welcome on Wikipedia if a userbox already exists for their language. Sod25 (talk) 00:35, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
- I have excluded those two categories from the report, which should refresh in less than 24 hours. I do not know of a way to exclude subcategories. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:28, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Estonian parish templates
Hello all, I just wanted to let the task force know that I am presently engaged in a major cleanup of Estonian parish templates. Some were already unused and many others have just been replaced or expanded. I would greatly appreciate if other members of the task force would leave these templates alone for the time being as I continue the cleanup. There was a major administrative restructuring in Estonia in 2017, and many templates and articles themselves were never updated or only partially updated. It's actually a great example of the need for this task force, as the forest of defunct templates, defunct village stubs, useless categories, and outdated articles combines for a difficult cleanup. Thank you for your understanding. Newshunter12 (talk) 21:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
- I just don't have time for all this unfortunately. Newshunter12 (talk) 13:30, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
Not everything needs a template
I've created a user essay similar to NEAN that addresses the issue of unnecessary template creations called Not everything needs a template. Take a look and feel free to make improvements to it. I plan to move it out of user space and have it be an essay editors cite at Tfd's like NEAN. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 18:27, 11 December 2021 (UTC)
Suggestions for User:Jonesey95/unused templates
I was poking around a bit on User:Jonesey95/unused templates and had some suggestions, and it forwarded me here.
A) Exclude templates that use {{transclusionless}}. I know this may be hard, as that is usually on the /doc subpage.
B) I noticed many are called by other templates and yet don’t seem to be showing up on “what links here”. I noticed this with many of the ones relating to the automated taxobox system.
Not sure if these are feasible, but wanted to point them out. Cheers. --awkwafaba (📥) 17:07, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
- (A) should already be happening. If you know of a template that was marked as transclusionless as of the last updated date on the report, but is still on the report, please let me know. For (B), please give a specific example. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:05, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
- Bullet #7 (meta/*) should be removed and those templates (which mostly shouldn't exist) be included in the list. Any one at this point should either be TfD for deletion as unused or merged into the module. Gonnym (talk) 01:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
Done. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:31, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
- Bullet #7 (meta/*) should be removed and those templates (which mostly shouldn't exist) be included in the list. Any one at this point should either be TfD for deletion as unused or merged into the module. Gonnym (talk) 01:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
User templates
Done
Jonesey95, I'd recommend removing Userbox templates from 7350 to 9139, 9141 to 9310, 9319 to 9333, 9337 to 9384, 9405/9407 to 9443, 9448 to 9544. Much like the adminstats templates that are kept for historical record, these have the same potential to be used at some point. I added one of them, 7350, to my user page as it accurately describes me and my Wikipedia habits at this point. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 23:18, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
- See above. Have you checked every one of these to ensure that it is valid and useful? Template:User Ashley Y/Userbox/Believes in Allah, for example, is within your recommended range, but it was a deletion candidate, as was Template:User Family History=she. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:50, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- Most are things like this user speaks a certain language or is from this country or has some interest in this place. Pretty harmless in my view. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
- I have filtered templates of the form "Template:User [a-z][a-z][a-z]?-[0-5]", which filters out most language templates. There are still some left. I'm looking for a better way to filter them from my table, and to filter the valid ones from the database report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95, can you get a full list of the templates in Category:Language user templates and Category:Computer language user templates using petscan or some other tool? Sod25 (talk) 08:00, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
- Probably. I don't know how that will help. The language templates appear to be organized in a few different ways when it comes to categories. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:27, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
- @Jonesey95, can you get a full list of the templates in Category:Language user templates and Category:Computer language user templates using petscan or some other tool? Sod25 (talk) 08:00, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
- I have filtered templates of the form "Template:User [a-z][a-z][a-z]?-[0-5]", which filters out most language templates. There are still some left. I'm looking for a better way to filter them from my table, and to filter the valid ones from the database report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:39, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
- Most are things like this user speaks a certain language or is from this country or has some interest in this place. Pretty harmless in my view. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:30, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
I have reviewed all 1,000+ unused templates in my report that started with "User ", including the trailing space. I nominated about 20 of them for deletion and filtered the rest out of the report, since userboxes are generally kept. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonesey95 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
Progress
If anyone has seen my latest edits to the main page to the Wikipedia database reports section from today December 6, 2021, as of now, there is only one full page of unused templates that are not redirects or stubs. Page 17 is now an empty page and now the stubs begin from page two.
We're making significant progress to deal with this backlog and from Jonesey95's page, there are now 4,769 currently listed. Perhaps within early 2022, the number of pre-2021 templates will be diminished and I'm sure any template created in 2021 and soon into the next year will be very minimal. But the task force will still be necessary but our workload will become easier to deal with. Thanks to all who joined in on my idea to create this project and everyone here has made a great impact. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:54, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- Between filtering out batches of templates, marking some as transclusionless or subst only via their documentation, and running templates through TFD, we are reducing the count on my report by 200 to 300 per week, with little sign of slowing down. There are still some big batches that need to be analyzed to determine if they should be ignored, nominated, or something else. I am spending a few hours per week poking through the report looking for likely batches. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:42, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
- I wonder if there is a way for a report to include templates which are only used on their own page and in their sub pages. So stuff which is only used in the /doc or /testcases or /sandbox for example. These are basically unused but since they register a transclusion they aren't on the list. Gonnym (talk) 10:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
I think we should try to do a challenge for reducing the backlog similar to the 10,000 Challenge and 50,000 Challenege. Where those challenges are to improve articles related to the projects, we should try to set a goal for a deadline sometime early next year to reduce the pre-2021 unused templates. Since we're logging 200 to 300 per week from Jonesey95's report page then our chances of hitting a set goal can be accomplished a lot sooner. The number of templates can be reduced monthly by more than two to three hundred. Maybe we should set an end date for the challenge perhaps to be on March 31, 2022. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:28, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
- I think a good interim goal would be to get the automated weekly report at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/1 down to a single page of non-redirects. I think we can achieve that with three main steps: 1. Getting Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/Configuration copied to the actual location on toolforge where the report's configuration lives, 2. Starting to include some "edited in 2021" templates in my filtered report (maybe anything not edited in the most recent six months?), and 3. Continuing to identify unused templates to mark as subst only / transclusionless / exclude from report / delete / merge / redirect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
- I'm in complete agreement with you over this. But in order to remove non-redirects which now start on page two, we would have to ramp up nominations to get there. We should hold off any templates edited in 2021 and in the recent six months as they coincide. We can filter this in after and only after we finish the pre-2021 templates. The third part can happen with very little opposition. So in order to accomplish we should set a date as a potential deadline to reduce the backlog. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
- I think that you have completely misunderstood me. The non-redirects end on page two. I propose to get us to the point where they end on page 1, in other words, fewer than 5,000 actual templates on the automated report. One way to do that is to relax the filtering on my report so that unused templates with a "last edit date" before July 2021 are included. That may allow us to see more batches of templates that were created but never used, and consider how to process them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, yeah, I confused the non-redirect part a bit. What I meant was in order to get it on page one of the database reports is to ramp up nominations entirely, same as to how we all turned page 17 now into another blank page within under three months since I started the task force. You could add the templates before July 2021 edits just to see what else we're working with. But before you make any changes, you should say how many templates are unused prior to the July 2021 edit date. It'd be best to know how many there are because we wouldn't want more templates piled on. Even though we're close to reducing the pre-2021 templates already. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:51, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- See User:Jonesey95/unused templates2021 for a list of 1,121 unused templates last edited between January and June of 2021. That's only about four weeks of our current progress, so I think we should include them sometime between now and January 1, 2022. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Well, any template that's sent to a Tfd or had been at a Tfd but was kept will obviously be counted as having been edited in 2021. Much like you had excluded them from the main report because it's obvious they are going to be deleted. We should instead use your 2021 page should only include for the time being those created in 2021. Then we can perhaps add them as part of your main report starting next month/year. But we can try to challenge our way to do away with the pre-2021 templates first then the 2021 creations. And the challenge itself should be completed by sometime next year. Then the 2021 creations, I think, there are 531 of them which will be much easier since it's under a thousand. Or if someone else on the task force wants to tackle just the 2021 creations, then they can go for it. But I'm sure there are another thousand post-July 2021 if added to the pre-July 2021 filter. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 02:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry, I can't parse that at all. Sometimes it helps to read your writing aloud before publishing it. If English is not your first language, though, you write a lot better than I could write in your language, so good job! I'll keep working on the current list of unused templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- English is my native tongue. Don't see what was confusing about it. Everything was clearly stated. A refresher, your 2021 page should only include 2021 creations since any template taken to a Tfd would count as a 2021 edit currently. 531 templates were created in 2021 and it should only feature those for the pre-July criteria, but we should also see the complete list using regardless of those created before July. When the time is right to add the 2021 creations then we can add it to your main unused template report. But for now, we should focus on the main report by starting a challenge to see how far we get at a certain point next year. And then deal with 2021 and post-2021 unused template creations. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:33, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry, I can't parse that at all. Sometimes it helps to read your writing aloud before publishing it. If English is not your first language, though, you write a lot better than I could write in your language, so good job! I'll keep working on the current list of unused templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:58, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Well, any template that's sent to a Tfd or had been at a Tfd but was kept will obviously be counted as having been edited in 2021. Much like you had excluded them from the main report because it's obvious they are going to be deleted. We should instead use your 2021 page should only include for the time being those created in 2021. Then we can perhaps add them as part of your main report starting next month/year. But we can try to challenge our way to do away with the pre-2021 templates first then the 2021 creations. And the challenge itself should be completed by sometime next year. Then the 2021 creations, I think, there are 531 of them which will be much easier since it's under a thousand. Or if someone else on the task force wants to tackle just the 2021 creations, then they can go for it. But I'm sure there are another thousand post-July 2021 if added to the pre-July 2021 filter. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 02:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- See User:Jonesey95/unused templates2021 for a list of 1,121 unused templates last edited between January and June of 2021. That's only about four weeks of our current progress, so I think we should include them sometime between now and January 1, 2022. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:50, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- Ah, yeah, I confused the non-redirect part a bit. What I meant was in order to get it on page one of the database reports is to ramp up nominations entirely, same as to how we all turned page 17 now into another blank page within under three months since I started the task force. You could add the templates before July 2021 edits just to see what else we're working with. But before you make any changes, you should say how many templates are unused prior to the July 2021 edit date. It'd be best to know how many there are because we wouldn't want more templates piled on. Even though we're close to reducing the pre-2021 templates already. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:51, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- I think that you have completely misunderstood me. The non-redirects end on page two. I propose to get us to the point where they end on page 1, in other words, fewer than 5,000 actual templates on the automated report. One way to do that is to relax the filtering on my report so that unused templates with a "last edit date" before July 2021 are included. That may allow us to see more batches of templates that were created but never used, and consider how to process them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:36, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
- I'm in complete agreement with you over this. But in order to remove non-redirects which now start on page two, we would have to ramp up nominations to get there. We should hold off any templates edited in 2021 and in the recent six months as they coincide. We can filter this in after and only after we finish the pre-2021 templates. The third part can happen with very little opposition. So in order to accomplish we should set a date as a potential deadline to reduce the backlog. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:31, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
- I think a good interim goal would be to get the automated weekly report at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/1 down to a single page of non-redirects. I think we can achieve that with three main steps: 1. Getting Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/Configuration copied to the actual location on toolforge where the report's configuration lives, 2. Starting to include some "edited in 2021" templates in my filtered report (maybe anything not edited in the most recent six months?), and 3. Continuing to identify unused templates to mark as subst only / transclusionless / exclude from report / delete / merge / redirect. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:02, 8 December 2021 (UTC)
Update: Since last week's update to my filtered report, we have gone from 4,769 to 4,386 in the list, and in the first-half-of-2021 list linked above, we have gone from 1,121 to 888. That is 616 of 5,890 templates processed in just one week. Impressive, and there is still low-hanging fruit: I just found another half-dozen test templates to tag for speedy deletion. – Jonesey95 (talk) 07:07, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
- Jonesey95, could you make your 2021 report just feature 2021 creations? I'll take it on as a side project apart from your main report and the main database report. We don't need pre-2021 creations when we have the main report for that purpose. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 23:34, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
- The table is sortable. Click on the column header "First edit" to sort by creation date, after which you can scroll through the 2021 creations. You can also sort by Revisions to find templates that have had only one edit, which is sometimes a sign that something has gone wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- That I'm aware of but it should just be 2021 creations from January to December. Pre-2021 creations aren't needed on this report when they're already included on other reports. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- Pre-2021 creations are not included on my main report if they were edited in 2021. You are welcome to copy any of the existing reports and make your own filtered version. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- Regardless, it should just be the 2021 creations from the entire year. Just a thought you should consider. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 16:22, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- Pre-2021 creations are not included on my main report if they were edited in 2021. You are welcome to copy any of the existing reports and make your own filtered version. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- That I'm aware of but it should just be 2021 creations from January to December. Pre-2021 creations aren't needed on this report when they're already included on other reports. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:55, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
- The table is sortable. Click on the column header "First edit" to sort by creation date, after which you can scroll through the 2021 creations. You can also sort by Revisions to find templates that have had only one edit, which is sometimes a sign that something has gone wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:28, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia GUS userboxes
If anyone of these is unused and are nominated for deletion, do these go to Tfd's or Mfd's? --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:01, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
- @WikiCleanerMan: They have been going to TFD but there's been discussion of whether it should be TFD or MFD per here and here. There are some in the deleted category that have been migrated but not at TFD/MFD. Might as well send them to MFD if they're unusedc (as they're userboxes) and link the TFD discussion about whether it should be filed at TFD/MFD. Please note that some may be in use Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2021_December_10#Template:Userbox/User_tries_kind. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:32, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
- Also found that three of them are are Wikipedia:Bot_requests so it'd be best to leave them alone. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
- Nearly all of these should have simply been moved to User:UBX/userbox name, IMO. The so-called German userbox migration process has too many steps, especially for pages that do not appear to normal readers. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
- Also found that three of them are are Wikipedia:Bot_requests so it'd be best to leave them alone. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 21:52, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
Proposal to create a Unused Templates Task Force
If anybody's curious, here is the link to the original discussion that led to the creation of the task force. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
How to check if editintros are used?
How do I check if an editintro is used? Specifically, Template:Editintro/Group/Template:Taxonomy. Gonnym (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
- Not sure about the general question, but that specific example has absolutely no meaningful content (just an empty #switch) statement, so should be deleted regardless of its use. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:14, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
- Good point. Sent to TfD. Gonnym (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2022 (UTC)
Unused S-line redirects
This is not as urgent as actual unused template pages with code on them, but there are 900+ unused {{S-line}} subpage redirects listed at Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/12, if anyone has a semi-automated way of getting them deleted or wants to take them to RFD. S-line templates are being eliminated in favor of {{Adjacent stations}}, so unused redirects do not appear to have any valid future use. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
- I have bad experiences with RfD. The regulars there keep almost anything, even if it is completely garbage. However, if someone does send them there, please ping me. Gonnym (talk) 16:13, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
- Fair enough. We might have to wait until the redirect targets are actually deleted. It looks like there are about 5,000 of those. It's a heck of a conversion project. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:42, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Stats
Is there a table for stats so we can see the progress per month? Gonnym (talk) 14:31, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
- No, but you're welcome to make one. You can look in the history of User:Jonesey95/unused templates if you want to use a filtered count (roughly our project scope), or look in the history or Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/1 etc. for a raw count. We could probably adapt {{GAN changes}}, which makes a nice table that you can see in use at Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Backlog elimination drives/November 2021#Progress chart. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
- We have made a lot of progress in less than three months! Take a look at the 15 October 2021 version of my report, and admire the sea of red links (which were not there when the page was created). Also on that date, Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/17 went up to 82,551, and today, Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/16 maxes out at 76,501. We have deleted, transcluded, documented, merged, redirected, or otherwise cleaned up over 6,000 template pages in less than three months. Great work! – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Template category map
I've created a subpage to map out all template categories to find some troublesome templates that don't fit the requirements of having certain templates. It's not intended to find unused templates as we already have a way to do so already, but it can help reduce another problem of having unnecessary templates. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:22, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
2021 report
Jonesey95, why have you discontinued updating the 2021 subpage. Are all the templates on the 2021 page on your main unused report? --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, they are. See the header of the main report to see the filters that have been applied. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
- Well, we could now add all 2021 creations to the main report. And you can have that 2021 page deleted under G7. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
- Pre–July 2021 creations are included on my report if they were last edited no later than 30 June 2021. It makes no sense to me to include a 31 December 2021 creation on the report; it's only two weeks old, and unless it is garbage, sending it to TFD seems bitey. You are welcome to copy any of the existing reports, which are all sortable, and make your own filtered version. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- Well, on second thought we could just use the main database report for all 2021 creations. It's better to have that and we are making progress in decreasing the backlog. The redirects are almost at the top of page two of the report. Soon, your report won't be needed as it would duplicate page one of the main report. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- After some thought, I modified User:Jonesey95/unused templates2021 to show templates created after 1 January 2021 and last edited after 1 July 2021, with the usual other filters applied. See if it helps. Please remember not to WP:BITE newbie template creators or people who are just getting started on a project. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- Jonesey95, just for a thought, how many templates on both of your reports were deleted? --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
- I do not understand your question. If you look back at old versions of the various reports, you will see redlinks for templates that have been deleted. Does that help? – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:47, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
- Jonesey95, just for a thought, how many templates on both of your reports were deleted? --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:49, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
- After some thought, I modified User:Jonesey95/unused templates2021 to show templates created after 1 January 2021 and last edited after 1 July 2021, with the usual other filters applied. See if it helps. Please remember not to WP:BITE newbie template creators or people who are just getting started on a project. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- Well, on second thought we could just use the main database report for all 2021 creations. It's better to have that and we are making progress in decreasing the backlog. The redirects are almost at the top of page two of the report. Soon, your report won't be needed as it would duplicate page one of the main report. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:16, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- Pre–July 2021 creations are included on my report if they were last edited no later than 30 June 2021. It makes no sense to me to include a 31 December 2021 creation on the report; it's only two weeks old, and unless it is garbage, sending it to TFD seems bitey. You are welcome to copy any of the existing reports, which are all sortable, and make your own filtered version. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
- Well, we could now add all 2021 creations to the main report. And you can have that 2021 page deleted under G7. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:58, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
Single full report
Our diligent work has reduced the number of actual non-stub templates in the weekly unused template report to 5,628. I have taken the liberty of adding the 628 templates on page 2 of the report to Wikipedia:Database reports/Unused templates/1, which should make it easier to see and sort all of the unused templates in a single table without creating a page that is too big to handle. We reduced the count by over 600 this week; most of that was related to processing over 400 */par templates to exclude them from the automated report. Maybe in three or four weeks we'll get the actual count under 5,000. – Jonesey95 (talk) 06:36, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
- Good job all! One of the big groups is the unused rail maps. I wouldn't be surprised if there are more than a hundred of those. The problem with those is that you can't group them as that will get kept and most likely stay unused. A second (much smaller) group is Template:GeoTemplate which I have no idea what that is, but it doesn't really seem like a template. Gonnym (talk) 15:47, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
- Someone needs to ask the Rail WikiProject about the unused rail diagrams. I have noticed that people are still creating new ones that do not appear to be used. It seems like a lot of complex work to create something that just sits in Template space.
- On an unrelated note, I have added {{transclusionless}} to {{User x}}, which should remove a big chunk of User xxx-# language proficiency templates from the main report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
- Those user babel templates can be reduced by 4/5 in total by using switch (Template:User en/sandbox). It's just time consuming and boring to do. Gonnym (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
- I took care of the GeoTemplate pages by asking at Template talk:GeoTemplate. There are a couple of them that are marked as deprecated that could probably be deleted; I did not investigate them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- Good work. I still don't entirely understand that set so I'll leave it be. Gonnym (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- That is wise. I am still finding userboxes, failed experiments, templates that were copy-pasted to a better name, and other junk in the report, so we are nowhere close to running out of easy unused templates to process. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- There are 618 templates currently at TfD. I wouldn't be surprised if on average there is 1 redirect per template. If all deleted, that's over 1.2k templates gone from the list in a week. (edit: from sampling this week's nominations it doesn't seem to have a lot of redirects, so my assumption is not correct it seems). Gonnym (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
- Following up: We almost made it to 5,000 templates in the report today (5,036). Next week's report should go under 5,000 and be on one page. I adjusted User:Jonesey95/unused templates to exclude templates with last-edit dates after September 2021 (previously this was December 2020, and then June 2021), so you will see some new items in there.
- I have asked about the unused rail templates. I found over 200 of them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
- There are 618 templates currently at TfD. I wouldn't be surprised if on average there is 1 redirect per template. If all deleted, that's over 1.2k templates gone from the list in a week. (edit: from sampling this week's nominations it doesn't seem to have a lot of redirects, so my assumption is not correct it seems). Gonnym (talk) 23:01, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
- That is wise. I am still finding userboxes, failed experiments, templates that were copy-pasted to a better name, and other junk in the report, so we are nowhere close to running out of easy unused templates to process. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:09, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- Good work. I still don't entirely understand that set so I'll leave it be. Gonnym (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- I took care of the GeoTemplate pages by asking at Template talk:GeoTemplate. There are a couple of them that are marked as deprecated that could probably be deleted; I did not investigate them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2022 (UTC)
- Those user babel templates can be reduced by 4/5 in total by using switch (Template:User en/sandbox). It's just time consuming and boring to do. Gonnym (talk) 18:30, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
Re-adding /doc pages to the report
I believe that the condition in the configuration of the weekly report that removes /doc pages should be removed. If a template uses {{Documentation}} then that page is transcluded (/sandbox sadly doesn't have something like this). When it has zero transclusions, that either means that the parent template was deleted, that a parent has moved but the /doc wasn't or that the /doc page was replaced with something else. These are all valid cases for fixing or speedy deletion as housekeeping. Gonnym (talk) 17:52, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- See this talk page for my attempt to get the report's configuration updated. No luck so far. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:56, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
- I can see that G8 would cover the situation where the parent has been deleted. However mostly they seem to be due to the parent becoming a redirect. Is the advice to simply turn the /doc into a redirect too (assuming there's a target) or do we want to delete it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigej (talk • contribs) 19:30, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- There is no good reason to delete such pages rather than redirecting. * Pppery * it has begun... 19:44, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- I disagree. There is no value sub pages of redirected pages, which themselves are only kept for merge reasons. G8 away. Gonnym (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- G8 only applies to pages dependent on non-existent pages. Redirects exist. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:26, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- You can keep saying that, but that is only your opinion. Gonnym (talk) 20:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- It's not just my opinion, it's the actual text of the deletion criterion being applied and a fact that should be obvious (that redirects exist). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- And yet, that is your opinion. As evidence by the multiple admins that agree and delete these. Also, do you want editors to start saying "Merge, delete sub-pages" now just to make it clear what they mean? I know that every time I said merge, that is what I meant. Gonnym (talk) 20:33, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- Standard procedure with a move is to redirect the parent page and all subpages. I am finding that most orphaned /doc subpages are the result of a move done by an editor who did not know that the /doc page should be moved also. Sometimes the answer is to move that /doc page to be the subpage of the moved template page, and sometimes the answer is to redirect it to a page that was recreated by the page mover or someone else. I find that deleting the /doc subpage is appropriate only if the moved template uses a shared doc page that lives somewhere else, so there is no appropriate move or redirect target. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:59, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- And yet, that is your opinion. As evidence by the multiple admins that agree and delete these. Also, do you want editors to start saying "Merge, delete sub-pages" now just to make it clear what they mean? I know that every time I said merge, that is what I meant. Gonnym (talk) 20:33, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- It's not just my opinion, it's the actual text of the deletion criterion being applied and a fact that should be obvious (that redirects exist). * Pppery * it has begun... 20:29, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- You can keep saying that, but that is only your opinion. Gonnym (talk) 20:27, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- G8 only applies to pages dependent on non-existent pages. Redirects exist. * Pppery * it has begun... 20:26, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
Userboxes
We have a number of wrongly named userboxes eg {{Mackinaw City, Michigan}}. WP:UBXNS says "In the template namespace, userbox names must begin with "User ", so I assume they need renaming. Do we just move them? Nigej (talk) 09:56, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
- I move those templates to User:UBX/template name, per WP:UBXNS. Note that if you are not familiar with moving, the interface is a little tricky the first time. Select "User" in the namespace field, then prepend "UBX/" to the page name. I use the edit summary "move per WP:UBXNS". – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:31, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
Redirects now on page one of Database Report
Today I've just noticed that on page one of the main database report now has redirects starting from number 4389. A significant chunk of unused templates have been taken to Tfd and/or have been deleted. Page 17 as it had been for a period before is now once again a blank page.
It's important to note, that some templates that were unused are being used at the relevant spaces. But this is a tiny sum in comparison to what was an enormous backlog at the start back in October 2021. February 11 is when the redirects were started to be featured through the BernsteinBot update.
In less than five months, we have managed to take out at least a thousand templates. Both of Jonesey's subpages documenting such templates are now easier to navigate. Soon enough, we could just be dealing with templates created in 2022, but it's too early to consider at this point. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:53, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
- Although it's clear that there a large number of essentially unused templates not on the list. eg {{2019 IPL match 1}} is not on the list since it contains some references which create a transclusion for some reason. I've found others which are only used by the creator in his own space to show off his work. Nigej (talk) 05:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
- Yes, there are a lot of templates that are only used on one of their own pages (template, sandbox, doc or testcases). I wonder if this is something the query can handle - "Get a list of templates with up to 4 transclusions; keep only those who are transcluded only on the same name as the template or sub-pages of the template". Regarding the templates that are only used on its creator's page, that could be something like the previous one, with the additional check if the template is transcluded on a page or sub-page of the user that created it. Gonnym (talk) 06:14, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
- @MZMcBride is there any magic you can do with this? Gonnym (talk) 06:15, 18 February 2022 (UTC)
I'm looking into this a bit, tho it's making my head hurt. If we look at pages in the template namespace, there are about 586,000 non-redirects and about 146,000 redirects, combined for about 732,000 pages. Of these 732,000 template pages, about 100,000 have only one transclusion. This includes many /doc subpages of course.
Taking a small step back and looking at templates that transclude themselves, we have cases such as Template:&numero, which would not be included in a standard unused templates report, but has some goofy usage:
MariaDB [enwiki_p]> select * from templatelinks where tl_title = '&numero' and tl_namespace = 10;
+----------+--------------+----------+-------------------+
| tl_from | tl_namespace | tl_title | tl_from_namespace |
+----------+--------------+----------+-------------------+
| 15267422 | 10 | &numero | 1 |
| 64549733 | 10 | &numero | 10 |
| 64549801 | 10 | &numero | 10 |
| 64560820 | 10 | &numero | 4 |
| 64562102 | 10 | &numero | 4 |
| 64950685 | 10 | &numero | 2 |
| 65086844 | 10 | &numero | 5 |
+----------+--------------+----------+-------------------+
7 rows in set (0.01 sec)
This type of template usage is probably too complicated to focus on at the moment. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:30, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
Special:Permalink/1073314636 is a list of non-redirect pages in the template namespace with only one transclusion and it's a self-transclusion. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:25, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- Nice, thanks! I've did a quick browse through that but there are certainly some large groups of unused templates there. Gonnym (talk) 08:36, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- @MZMcBride if the list can be refined a bit by removing /sandbox and /testcases pages it would be much appreciated. Gonnym (talk) 11:24, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- I have trimmed that report a bit at User:Jonesey95/self-transcluded-templates. If this useful report is to be repeated, it should follow the same exclusion rules as the regular unused template report (i.e. excluding DYK pages, subst only pages, and pages marked as transclusionless), or whatever rule was used to create this report could be incorporated into the existing unused templates report. I wonder what the deal is with all of those taxonomy templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- I've asked Peter coxhead about those and waiting on his answer. Gonnym (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- See also this discussion. MZMcBride, if there is any way to integrate these "non-redirect pages in the template namespace with only one transclusion and it's a self-transclusion" pages into the unused template report, that would be very helpful, and probably the least amount of ongoing maintenance. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- I'm pretty hesitant since the unused templates (configuration) report is already pretty unwieldy and it would probably further confuse report readers and anyone trying to modify the report code. Reports are cheap enough to create, we can probably just make a separate one. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- Sure, another report also works. Btw, my above original request to have this report check up to 4 transclusions was to catch templates like Template:Party shading/Documentation template, which are unused, but have 4 transclusions. Gonnym (talk) 06:52, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
- I'm pretty hesitant since the unused templates (configuration) report is already pretty unwieldy and it would probably further confuse report readers and anyone trying to modify the report code. Reports are cheap enough to create, we can probably just make a separate one. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:56, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- See also this discussion. MZMcBride, if there is any way to integrate these "non-redirect pages in the template namespace with only one transclusion and it's a self-transclusion" pages into the unused template report, that would be very helpful, and probably the least amount of ongoing maintenance. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- I've asked Peter coxhead about those and waiting on his answer. Gonnym (talk) 15:57, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- I have trimmed that report a bit at User:Jonesey95/self-transcluded-templates. If this useful report is to be repeated, it should follow the same exclusion rules as the regular unused template report (i.e. excluding DYK pages, subst only pages, and pages marked as transclusionless), or whatever rule was used to create this report could be incorporated into the existing unused templates report. I wonder what the deal is with all of those taxonomy templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:53, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
- Definitely a useful addition IMO. Superficially a template that's only self-transcluded is just as much "unused" as a template with no transclusions. Nigej (talk) 08:08, 23 February 2022 (UTC)
Hello. I investigated Gonnym's suggestion. Special:Permalink/1073879511 has some of the results. I looked at a large sampling of pages in the template namespace with 4 transclusions or fewer. Then I excluded all /doc templates, all redirects, all templates with any transclusions in the article namespace, and all templates in Category:Wikipedia substituted templates and friends. For each template row remaining, I posted the usage distribution per namespace. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
- Again I think that this is useful. See eg {{2007 ISAF Sailing World Championships}} which has a transclusion but only because the creator is listing his creations in his own userspace. Nigej (talk) 07:44, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
- @MZMcBride not quite my suggestion as my <= 4 condition was for those 4 transclusions to only be part of the same template or its sub-pages so something like "Template:x" and "Template:x/doc", "Template:x/sandbox" and "Template:x/testcases". Though your list did bring up also valuable data on unused pages such as Template:1940s in music (UK). Additionally, you should exclude the /sandbox templates from the result. Gonnym (talk) 07:53, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
- Special:Permalink/1074423108 is a further refined list. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:48, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
Graph
of template counts given in User:Jonesey95/unused templates (collected from page history).
![]() | Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
60.241.251.59 (talk) 00:38, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
- Note that the criteria for including pages on that report have become more inclusive since its creation. It started out excluding any template page edited in 2021, then included the first half of 2021 on 3 January 2022, then included all of 2021 on 13 February 2022. That makes the decrease even more impressive. Good work, everyone. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:40, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
"Unused Templates Task Force" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Unused Templates Task Force and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 March 3#Unused Templates Task Force until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. eviolite (talk) 00:12, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
2021 report 2
Jonesey95, your 2021 report is now almost reduced as the count is now at 205. Could you remove any template that's on your main unused report from the 2021 report? The 2021 report is now becoming less necessary in line of recent nominations and deletions. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 18:07, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- I have removed all pages that show a last edit date of 2021, since article meeting that criterion now appear on User:Jonesey95/unused templates. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
- Now there are eight templates, I'd recommend moving those eight templates onto your main report and tag the 2021 report page for deletion. We no longer have to filter anything created in 2021 from the main report. Just 2022. The backlog has been significantly reduced. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- I have blanked the 2021 report. Thank you for your attention to the pages on it. The criteria for what makes it onto User:Jonesey95/unused templates are listed at the top of that page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- No problem. But thanks to you we wouldn't have a filtered report to begin with. We all play a useful part. No matter how small or big. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:54, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- I have blanked the 2021 report. Thank you for your attention to the pages on it. The criteria for what makes it onto User:Jonesey95/unused templates are listed at the top of that page. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:48, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- Now there are eight templates, I'd recommend moving those eight templates onto your main report and tag the 2021 report page for deletion. We no longer have to filter anything created in 2021 from the main report. Just 2022. The backlog has been significantly reduced. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 01:13, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
New batch of s-line templates
There are over 400 unused s-line templates in today's update. That's too much for my patience in tagging. Gonnym (talk) 07:04, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- I've nominated the MVV ones (over 200). If someone could add some technical details there, it'd be most appreciated. I've notified User:Tobibln who seems to have created them. Again, please notify other interested users. Nigej (talk) 11:29, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
More unused templates incoming in the near future
A heads up, in the next update of the citation module (whenever that happens), there is a fix that will now prevent templates with citations from doing a check that caused it to transclude themselves. This means that previously "hidden" templates will now appear on the usual report. Gonnym (talk) 08:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
Taking a break from Tfd nominations
Hi all, I'm going to be taking a break from nominating and going through the unused template reports. Now that Jonesey95's 2021 report has now been eliminated by my efforts in the past few days, I'm going to try to finish the ongoing projects on my sandbox that I intended to finish back in December 2021, but only got some of them done, such as cleaning up and creating bilateral relations templates.
I was given The Technician Barnstar by the one and only Mathglot for "your tireless efforts in contributing to the maintenance of the Template namespace, and retirement of unused templates. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed." Thank you very much, Mathglot.
But I'd recommend everyone who is or was a member of this task force as they all played a huge part in helping clear what was once a colossal backlog. This includes Frietjes, Nigej, and Gonnym. While not official members, they've played a part, directly or indirectly in helping out. Even MZMcBride whose unused templates database report served as my inspiration to start this task force. I could not do it without all of you.
I'll still be voting at Tfd's but won't return until I clear up my sandbox. But in the meantime, everyone keep pushing through, and let's get this backlog reduced. Keep up the good work and thank you. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
- Good luck with the sandbox. :-) And thank you for all your efforts to help keep this place tidy. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:57, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
Depreciated templates
We should build a consensus and add this as consideration number eight on whether or not any unused template that has been depreciated, and are kept for historical record, should remain as is or be deleted. In my view, they should be kept per the grounds of historical record and they don't do any harm much like the unused stub templates. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 16:27, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
- I've never understood why we keep templates around as deprecated; if a template isn't in active use, its existence serves no purpose and it should be deleted. * Pppery * it has begun... 16:54, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with Pppery here. Some of the templates tagged with "deprecated" haven't been done so after a TfD and others might have at one point in time ended with a consensus for that, but WP:CCC. Gonnym (talk) 14:30, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
- Deprecation gives article editors a chance to update content. It is not meant to be a permanent state. However, it's sometimes worth thinking about a long-term deprecation of a year or more. Imagine a template that's widely used, but replaced (e.g., split into two related templates). We don't always want every single old version of an article to be broken right away (e.g., in case all of the recent versions have to be revdel'd for copyvio). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:35, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
- I agree with Pppery here. Some of the templates tagged with "deprecated" haven't been done so after a TfD and others might have at one point in time ended with a consensus for that, but WP:CCC. Gonnym (talk) 14:30, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Should User x templates be exluded?
Should the "User x" templates such as Template:User Kaomoji be excluded from the report? Even when unused there isn't anything we can do about it as MfD just does not delete these. If excluded, should the exclusion be based on the name of the template (starts with "User") or based on the category the template is located in (if even possible)? According to Category:Userboxes, the sub-categories all seem to be "X user templates" so if it would work, it would need to check for the phrase "user templates" in a category name. Gonnym (talk) 08:35, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
- I exclude them from my filtered report, FWIW, after checking to make sure that they are valid user templates. Many user templates, since they are created by editors and not systematically maintained, are not in categories, or are in a variety of subcategories. The only way to exclude them from the automatic report, AFAIK, would be to filter on "Template:User " (with the space), which would no doubt remove a few templates that should really be deleted. It's a bit of a conundrum, unless something fundamental changes about the Userbox system. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:51, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- I'm sure someone who knows how, can generate a list of templates transcluding Template:Userbox which are uncategorized. Then either manually or if a lot, with a bot add them to a category. Gonnym (talk) 16:26, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
- Though if the unused template report can also check the transclusion, then we don't even need that part. Gonnym (talk) 16:28, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
Jonesey95's unused templates
Jonesey95, I think your User:Jonesey95/unused templates report page is no longer needed. From what I could tell, all or most of the templates listed are now on the main unused database report. Might want to check just to be sure. Since page one on the main report for a few months has now featured redirects, two reports is no longer necessary. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 21:07, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- The last few updates to my filtered report have produced minimal changes. With the refinement of the main report that makes it easier to view diffs, my secondary report is probably not useful for now. User:Jonesey95/self-transcluded-templates is something people could work from until the CS1 citation modules are updated; it contains template pages that are transcluded only in themselves, typically because they contain citation templates. After the CS1 modules are updated, many of the pages on that list should appear in the main unused template report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:12, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
- Then might as well blank the page and keep it around for historical record as you did with the 2021 subpage. Two unused reports are no longer necessary. The self-transcluded page will be less of a headache to go through. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:43, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
No longer needed as I've blanked it the way you did with your 2021 subpage. It mostly matches the main database report. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 19:18, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- No thank you. Please do not edit pages in my user space. I expect that this report will continue to be useful as a historic document, and it will probably be useful again once the CS1 modules have been updated, as I indicated above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- Fair enough. But you should remove any deleted and now used just as a bit of housekeeping as you normally do. But it's no longer useful for this project. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 23:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- As I have said many times about this page that is in my user space, you are welcome to make your own copy and edit it in any way that makes sense to you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:44, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
- Fair enough. But you should remove any deleted and now used just as a bit of housekeeping as you normally do. But it's no longer useful for this project. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 23:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
Does the CS1 apply to your self-transcluded report as well? I'm almost done digging through that one as well. A few more nominations are on the way from there. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- The CS1 update is supposed to stop these templates from transcluding themselves if the only reason they are transcluding themselves is because they contain a CS1 template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:51, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- I see. But is it likely that this report is going to be updated in the recent future? Seems a small number of templates are using the CS1 template. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 19:04, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- The CS1 templates are typically updated a few times per year. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:26, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
- I see. But is it likely that this report is going to be updated in the recent future? Seems a small number of templates are using the CS1 template. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 19:04, 18 April 2022 (UTC)
Citation Style 1 modules updated; some templates will stop transcluding themselves
I think you can look in the archives of this page for the technical details (or in this discussion), but in short, pages transclude themselves when they contain {{cite web}} or similar Citation Style 1 (CS1) templates. A change has been made today to the CS1 modules that will prevent template pages from transcluding themselves. I expect that this will lead to a significant influx of new template pages into the unused template reports. It may take days to weeks for the affected template pages to appear in the report as the job queue catches up with processing the millions of affected pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
2022 creations
Since the halfway mark of the year has passed, past June that is, I'd say any unused template that merits deletion should be nominated in the coming days or weeks. That is anything created before July 2022. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 16:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
- There are a lot of templates available for deletion (for example, 150 or so release version templates), just need people to tag them :) Gonnym (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
This report is active again following my request at Wikipedia talk:Database reports. There are 9,455 template listed across ten pages. We do have another batch of templates that qualify for deletion even though all are used. A.k.a single-use, failing NENAN. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 17:49, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
- Many of them are valid and just need categories added. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:39, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, but we'll still find some that don't belong in staying. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 16:25, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Template:Attached KML subpages
There's thousands of Template:Attached KML subpages from page 1 to 7 that are unused and I think are able to be deleted without disruption. But since there are so many to go through and not a single person is responsible for creating them, we should determine a consensus before making any further moves. WikiCleanerMan (talk) 15:58, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Update to filtered template report
It's a pain to update my filtered report since the main report was drastically broken in June (see discussion above), but I have updated User:Jonesey95/unused templates for the first time since the report was broken. Here's a diff for those of you who are curious.
Thanks to WikiCleanerMan for updating the links to the portions of the report that are still useful. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
- I have scanned through the updated report and nominated a pile of templates at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. Comments are welcome there. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:15, 4 September 2022 (UTC)