Template talk:Tweet/Archive 1

Archive 1

Box styling

@Anne drew Andrew and Drew: What do you think of changing the border and background colour to a more conventional style, similar to that used on infoboxes?

Name✓	via Twitter
@example

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

January 8, 1975

Right now it's hard to distinguish in the article body, and IMO it follows corporate style guidelines so closely, which kind of goes against the spirit of WP:NPOV. User:Axisixa [t] [c] 23:01, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

 Done​ AdA&D ★ 23:08, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Retweets and likes

It would be nice if it could optionally show the number retweets and likes (as of a certain date, obviously). Those numbers give an idea of the impact the tweet had. Alexis Jazz (talk) 22:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The template already tries to be a facsimile rather than a quotation, something we've agreed not to do. If you want to make a point about a tweet being (un)impactful, simply cite a reliable source that supports such an assertion. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

"Verified" sign doesn't belong in Wikipedia articles

The "verified" sign doesn't belong in a quote in a Wikipedia article.

1. It serves as advertisement and specifically as product placement for an external commercial company – would we add the logo of Wal-Mart every time we wrote about something related to Wal-Mart or quoted one of their employees?
2. it adds nothing of value to Wikipedia's articles. Also, we wouldn't even include a quote from Twitter if there was any doubt as to its authenticity. Per MOS:CONFORM, "a quotation is not a facsimile and, in most cases, it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved." When quoting someone, the manual of style dictates that we only include pertinent material.
3. more crucially, it's a biased and unsourced statement because Wikipedia has no control over this alleged verification. They have not been verified by us, Wikipedia, or in a transparent manner that is compatible with our content policies. Verification of content in Wikipedia articles takes place here on Wikipedia, usually on article talk pages, not elsewhere. Twitter's verification procedure has also been subjected to criticism and there is no documentation of what it entails.
4. there is also the question of what "verified" really means in a Wikipedia context. For example: Julian Assange had a Twitter account, and it was amply documented by third-party reliable sources that it belonged to him, so there would be a very strong case for noting that it was "verified" to belong to him, per Wikipedia's content policies, based on third-party reliable sources. The fact that it wasn't marked as "verified" by an external company, Twitter, wouldn't really matter for us when the whole point was quoting what Assange wrote, not providing free advertisement/product placement for Twitter.

We shouldn't treat alleged "verification" by external websites in an uncritical way, or highlight it visually in a way that unduly promotes the external company. We can write about, in an objective manner, that Twitter has "verified" Donald Trump's account and "not verified" Julian Assange's account, but there would be no reason to treat quotes from their respective accounts differently in Wikipedia articles, given that both are verified, according to Wikipedia content policies, to belong to their owners. In other words, writing objectively about the fact that Twitter has "verified" (the specific Twitter procedure) Trump's account is not the same as noting in Wikipedia's voice that the account is verified, without any quotation marks or relevant context, and even highlighting it visually in a way that looks like an endorsement and like the quote has more authority and is "more verified" (in the Wikipedia and normal meaning of the word) than a quote from, say, Assange's account. --Tataral (talk) 10:50, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree, Tataral. It's unnecessary at best and extremely misleading at worst. It also plainly violates both MOS:CONFORM and MOS:TEXTASIMAGES. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:54, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Box for deleted /archived tweet

This article features this archived tweet in a dedicated box, and since her Twitter account is currently disabled, the original link is dead and there is no option to add an archive link on the template. Is it possible to add the option of linking to the archived version similar to regular links linking to archived content? Thank you. -- Bohbye (talk) 21:46, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Looks like the account has been restored, however having the option to link to an archived version when tweets are removed will be great for Wikipedia. Thank you Bohbye (talk) 22:45, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

"via Twitter"

My general issue with this template is that it tries too hard to replicate the look of embedded tweets, even graying out the Twitter handle (Wikipedia is not Twitter and shouldn't trip over itself to try to be, as it's an encyclopedia and has an entirely different purpose and mission).

But one thing I specifically take issue with is the "via Twitter" note. It's not really proper here because "via" is meant to indicate that the embed was from Twitter itself. We're not embedding anything here, we're just quoting. We didn't go to Twitter and click the "share button" or add any code that fetches the tweet from Twitter's servers. The quote is not via Twitter. I propose removing this wording. Opencooper (talk) 11:28, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

[Via is] not really proper here because "via" is meant to indicate that the embed was from Twitter itself

I guess I'm not seeing that connection. Via means "by means of". All that's meant by the via Twitter is that the person being quoted published the statement on Twitter. From Twitter sounds like Twitter itself made the quote. I would be okay with on Twitter as an alternative. AdA&D ★ 15:43, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Nice template

I wanted to share that I like the layout of this template. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:04, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Font

And looking now, this template decides to use a completely different font selection to look even more out of place and inconsistent with our articles! For some reason the template has decided to go with mimicking the exact look of Twitter over visual consistency with our own quotes and templates. There's a reason Wikipedia's own stylesheet does not specify specific fonts, and we should not override that unless necessary to properly display rarer scripts. Opencooper (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Opencooper, I think adds on to your point in the section "via Twitter". A good example is the page Covfefe. It once even had the profile picture of Donald Trump if I recall correctly. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:45, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Mobile

It seems max-width:100% doesn't work. The "no" tweet at dril falls off the left side of the page on mobile. Hairy Dude (talk) 18:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I think I've fixed it. Let me know if you're still seeing an issue. – Anne drew 19:28, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It's better, you can actually read the tweets now, but I'm still seeing tweets drop off the left edge of the screen on both Firefox and Chrome (see the other tweets at dril). Hairy Dude (talk) 19:32, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Also this is causing text flow despite block = yes at wider screen widths. Hairy Dude (talk) 19:40, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I have a new version of this template ready to go in Template:Tweet/sandbox. I've remade it using the {{Quote box}} template, which is widely used so it shouldn't have this mobile issue. Changing {{Tweet}} to use that template does alter the visual style though, so take a look at test cases and let me know if the change seems reasonable. – Anne drew 20:36, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Margins

I've added margins to match {{Quote}} when block=yes per a discussion on my talk page. – Anne drew 15:32, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Update

I've updated this template to use {{Quote box}} internally. Please let me know if you have any formatting issues because of this change that you can't fix. – Anne drew 21:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

That works, thanks. IIRC {{quote box}} uses tables so unfortunately we lose the semantics of <blockquote>, but something that's legible is better than something that isn't. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:49, 20 October 2020 (UTC) Fixed a common spacing error where <includeonly> was on its own line, causing spurious paragraph breaks. Hairy Dude (talk) 00:52, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Anne drew Andrew and Drew: Comment: I liked the old look of the template better (the rounded edges and the lighter border in particular) – in my mind, it meshed better in articles as being "image-like" compared to being "table-like", as it is now (if that makes any sense). If there was a technical reason for the change, though, I understand. — Goszei (talk) 03:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I hear where you're coming from, but you'll find many people who disagree with you in the archives. The current version of the template follows the guidance of MOS:CONFORM. – Anne drew 00:33, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Archive parameter needed

This template seems to be often used to display Donald Trump's tweets. Since Twitter has suspended his account, all the reference urls are dead. Please add an archive function, like {{cite tweet}} has.--Auric talk 12:04, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done. Nardog (talk) 12:28, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

Updated instructions

Just a note to say I updated instructions, and removed from the Examples potentially controversial items, from people that have been banned from Twitter. I added a blank full syntax because the original didn't have the explanation code within hidden remarks, and that was causing pages that transcluded this template to be placed into: Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls. Cheers! Funandtrvl (talk) 17:54, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Does this template have to have verified badges?

I just saw this template used on the Robinhood (company) page. It showed a verified badge on the page. This makes no sense in my opinion. Verified badges should not be in existence on the internet, let alone Wikipedia... All it does is make people cringe. Matthew Cenance (talk) 03:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@MatthewCenance: verified badge? I don't understand what you mean. I don't see a verified badge on the template. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 16:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Elliot321: See Special:PermaLink/1003481094#2021 short squeeze. And now BlackShadowG has incorporated the badge into the template despite this thread.

I agree with MatthewCenance that this is unnecessary, though not because it "make[s] people cringe"—but because Twitter's own account identity verification is hardly if ever germane to a quote using this template (and if it is, that should be addressed in the prose). Nardog (talk) 16:52, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

ah, I don't see the issue - it's just duplicating the information from Twitter. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 17:10, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

How much duplication of information is even necessary, though? How would readers benefit from seeing if the tweeter is "verified" on Twitter? Nardog (talk) 17:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Why not? Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 12:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the idea would be to exactly mirror what a tweet would look like, as embedding one directly would violate external links guidelines. However, that's just speculation on my part–perhaps CycloneGU (the template's creator) could weigh in. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

If we want to mirror the experience of reading a tweet then we'll need some spambots and someone hired to punch readers in the face. If we aren't sure that a tweet is from the figure cited then it's a violation of WP:BLP to include it, and if we are sure then a tick doesn't mean anything. Using ticks violates WP:NPOV because we are in some way implicitly viewing Twitter's verification system as valid or appropriate, which is a political stance many here would oppose, and similar icons like country flags are rejected in similar circumstances. — Bilorv (talk) 20:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

That certainly seems the motivation behind some of the recent changes to the template, and I don't see the point. I don't even think the ability to have the profile image is warranted given this is a free encyclopedia and most profile images aren't free (libre). Nardog (talk) 21:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

To address that point: In every one of these cases, the photo added to the profile icon is not a copyrighted photo but rather one on their page. Currently, Elon Musk's icon on Twitter is a rocket; the tweet instead used a photo of him. AllegedlyHuman (talk) 22:14, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

All the more reason not to have this feature. FWIW I'd be shocked if any of them used a non-free photo, which I'm sure wouldn't last long as in no way would it meet WP:NFCC. Nardog (talk) 22:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

It absolutely should not. Wikipedia is not Twitter. We should not be replicating their interface bit-for-bit (at one point even the font declarations were being copied). Twitter is a social network and has its own purpose for such a badge, but Wikipedia has its own processes for determining reliable sources. It is not Wikipedia policy to lend authority to Twitter verification, and it is not a factor in determining notability or anything else. Regarding this template itself, it's extremely unnecessary to have a purpose-built template for tweets when we already have {{quote}} which can handle quoting just fine. The creator of this template seems to have had an unfortunate need to ape Twitter embeds as if that lends them any more credence or gives them any more utility on Wikipedia (profile pictures make no sense here). Finally, Twitter is planning to use the existence of Wikipedia articles as a factor in granting the badge, raising WP:CIRCULAR concerns. See also previous discussion with both User:Tataral and User:Finnusertop advocating removal. Opencooper (talk) 21:41, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure there's a room for a template that cites and quotes a tweet at once, but I agree with your overall point. We should perhaps make this template a mere wrapper for {{quote}} (and {{cite tweet}}). Nardog (talk) 21:51, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• @Nardog: Thanks for the heads-up! I just saw that the badge was used at GameStop short squeeze and opted to make it native to the template. I think if we are replicating a Tweet wholly—including username, stylized profile picture, and MOS-violating stylized date—we might as well complete the picture with the verified badge. IMO, if we are not supposed to copy the elements of a tweet, we should just use {{quote}}. IceWelder [✉] 11:01, 9 March 2021 (UTC)

Necessity of a template specifically for a tweet

It seems odd to me that Twitter should be treated specially with an "on-brand" template complete with its trade dress when {{quote}} could achieve the same goals. Wikipedia famously refused to use Google's ReCaptcha for privacy and branding reasons; I see no reason Twitter should be treated any differently. Ideally, we shouldn't be treating any company/social media outlet in a preferential or "seamless" fashion - this would better protect WP's independence. 142.157.234.234 (talk) 03:14, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree, a whole box for a tweet is ridiculous. I prefer the way the Minecraft Wiki does it; the format is: "{quotation}" – @{author} on Twitter, {date}

Clean and simple. See https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Template:Tweet

I disagree that the {{quote}} template would be applied consistently in the case of tweets. A dedicated tweet template enforces a more consistent usage, as long as it's kept simple and not burdened to ridiculous lengths with useless parameters. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:38, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

The MC wiki option certainly looks a lot better, though we shouldn't be linking directly to twitter except through a formatted citation. 142.157.234.234 (talk) 03:47, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Automatic generation

I think it would be useful to have a script or something that automatically generates a tweet citation from a provided tweet. Something like this which is the ideal form of a tweet citation

Donald J. Trump Twitter @realDonaldTrump

My use of social media is not Presidential – it's MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!

July 1, 2017

is very difficult for someone to make who is unfamiliar with the template. Some things like the image are not accessible (unless we did some kind of image hotlinking which would likely violate policies), but I think the template is too hard for a lot of people to use. Immanuelle 💗 (please tag me) 05:17, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

References

Double spaces

I noticed that much like regular plaintext on Wikipedia, this template does remove duplicate spaces in the text field. Is there a way to include an option to disable this? For example the recent controversial Kanye tweet doesnt use periods but instead double and even triple spaces to separate sentences, this is lost when using this template. I get why its done for wikitext, because in that case it is likely user error, but I think the same way we include misspellings in quotes, this sort of unusual orthography should also be duplicated. --jonas (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Adding multiple tweets from a single account generates an error

I just noticed on Jorts (cat) that adding two or more tweets of the same account generates a reference error, since both use the same name (Tweet+username) which is automatically generated. Changing the username is obviously not an option. Is there any way to fix that? Or at least figure out a workaround. - Ïvana (talk) 00:28, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Twitter threads

I think it would be useful to include parameters for replies if said tweet is part of a thread or if there were notable replies. Knightoftheswords281 (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that instance would be extremely rare, the reader(s) can look for replies/context on their own. - FlightTime (open channel) 02:58, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I guess we could just <br/><br/> it to indicate a different tweet. Knightoftheswords281 (talk) 03:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Compatibility with RTL languages

@Ravenpuff, Anne drew Andrew and Drew, Hubble-3, IceWelder, Nardog, Funandtrvl, BlackShadowG, Elli, Cupper52, Samsara, Hairy Dude, Opencooper, Northern Moonlight, and Jonesey95: This template has problems with RTL languages. In the now-current version of Republican Palace, Khartoum, the template is used, but has a div-span-flip lint error. The markup:

{{Tweet
| name = [[Rapid Support Forces|Rapid Support Forces - قوات الدعم السريع]]
| username = RSFSudan
| date = 9 May 2023
| text = {{rtl-para|بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم <br>
قوات الدعم السريع <br>
بيان هام<br>
9 مايو 2023<br>
 نفذت قيادة القوات الانقلابية وفلول النظام البائد المتطرفة اليوم هجوم بالطيران على القصر الجمهوري القديم باستخدام صواريخ مما أدى إلى تدميره.}}
| ID = 1655935487885070343
| lang = ar
| translation = In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful<br>Rapid Support Forces<br>Important statement<br>May 9, 2023<br>Today, the leadership of the coup forces and the extremist remnants of the defunct regime carried out an air attack on the Old Republican Palace using missiles, which led to its destruction.
| image = Emblem of the Rapid Support Forces.png
| width = 300px
}}

• To avoid proliferation of lint errors, I'm not placing the markup here without <pre>...</pre>. I have created a test bed at User:Anomalocaris/sandbox/Lint Test. Feel free to experiment there and I'll wipe that page when this is fixed.
• If one removes {{rtl-para}}, the lint error goes away, but the Arabic text becomes left-justified on each line.
• The div-span-flip is because {{rtl-para}} wraps its argument in <div dir="rtl" style="text-align:right">...</div> and when the language is Arabic, {{Tweet}} wraps the text argument in <span lang="ar" dir="rtl">...</span>
• Taking the output from ExpandTemplates and changing the <span>...</span> to <div>...</div> would solve the problem.
• I think a better fix is for the template to automatically right-align the text markup for RTL languages such as Arabic.

—Anomalocaris (talk) 23:08, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I have adjusted {{Tweet/sandbox}} with some clunky test code that sets the alignment of the tweet text to the right if |lang=ar. There may be a way to generalize this test to look for rtl=yes in Template:lang-xx, or to do some similar test. Trappist the monk does a lot of work with languages and may be able to think of a way to perform this test. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:43, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Jonesey95: I don't know if Wikipedia has a complete list of RTL languages or scripts. Right-to-left script mentions a bunch. —Anomalocaris (talk) 03:25, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Module:Lang calls is_rtl() in Module:Unicode data to determine if a string of text is rtl. Alas, Module:Unicode data is not written to allow access to is_rtl() from an {{#invoke:}} so I added a function is_rtl_frame() that accepts a parameter value from an invoke and then calls is_rtl() to make the determination. A problem with is_rtl() is that any non-rtl character will cause a false return. In the above example, the <br /> tags will cause a false return. is_rtl_frame() strips html and html-like tags from the input string before it calls is_rtl(). This, from the example above, returns true:

{{#invoke:Unicode data|is_rtl_frame|بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم <br>
قوات الدعم السريع <br>
بيان هام<br>
9 مايو 2023<br>
 نفذت قيادة القوات الانقلابية وفلول النظام البائد المتطرفة اليوم هجوم بالطيران على القصر الجمهوري القديم باستخدام صواريخ مما أدى إلى تدميره.}}

→ true

So, modifying Editor Jonesey95's adjustment to this template:

{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:Unicode data|is_rtl_frame|{{{text|}}}}}|true|right|left}}

(and replacing {{{text|}}} with the Arabic string from the example) gives:

→ right

For completeness, the same with ltr text:

{{#ifeq:{{#invoke:Unicode data|is_rtl_frame|Once upon a time ...}}|true|right|left}}

→ left

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:14, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I copied Trappist the monk's line to where Jonesey95 modified Template:Tweet/sandbox, and then I tested the sandbox version with the markup from Republican Palace, Khartoum. Two problems: The word "Arabic" is right-justified instead of left-justified, and the div-span-flip is still there. —Anomalocaris (talk) 18:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

'Arabic' is right-justified because you have set text-align:right and then called {{lang-ar}} which, as part of its normal operation, emits a wikilinked label for the language of the succeeding text. If you want that wikilink to remain left-justified render the language link before setting text-align:right. To get a linked language name:

{{lang|fn=name_from_tag|ar|link=yes}} → Arabic (the colon and whatever other characters you need are your responsibility)

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Trappist the monk: What I "want" is for someone who is good at editing templates to fix this template!