Template talk:WikiProject Oregon

Banner Meta conversion

(Copied from User talk:Msgj:) I reverted your edits to {{WikiProject Oregon}} as they break the auto categorization of invalid parameter values. Also that logic provides clear error indication and linkage to comprehensive usage instructions. I, for one, depend on that instead of looking at the documentation when tagging articles. —EncMstr (talk) 17:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps first I can explain why I made those edits, and then I'll discuss the particular issue of invalid parameter warnings that you raise. The {{WPBannerMeta}} is the meta-template for creating project banners which all projects are gradually converting to. While it can seem like a big step, the idea is that no functionality or appearance is significantly changed and it brings with it huge advantages.

• It makes adding new functionality to the template very easy (e.g. support for taskforces and subprojects) which would take a long time to do manually.
• It also means that any improvements and developments to templates and software can be implemented with a single edit for all project banners, without each project having to maintain their own banner.
• As it used by many thousands of pages, it is very comprehensively tested and any errors are quickly fixed.

About the error messages on this template, it's an interesting idea and admittedly not something that the meta can handle. However I believe it is unnecessary. If an incorrect parameter is used then it is quite obvious, on saving the page, that it hasn't worked properly. For example, if the class parameter is wrong then it will be marked as unassessed. You shouldn't need a special category for it, as it will be in Category:Unassessed Oregon articles. (I agree that it is nice that it links to the template instructions; a link to that could easily be added.) So while you may be used to the way it is currently, I'm hoping you will agree that the advantages of converting outweight any small perceived disadvantages. Martin 05:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Note: the proposed conversion is now in the sandbox: Template:WikiProject Oregon/sandbox. Martin 05:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

For small projects, inspection of the talk pages would probably be adequate for revealing mistaggings. However, we have more than 8000 pages tagged—and growing. Using the established logic, tagging errors are easily identified by inspecting Category:Oregon articles needing attention. This catches errors beyond the two common assessment parameters, and probable parameter errors, including photo requests as well as intentionally flagged articles. It's brilliantly easy to keep the documentation linked to errors. The meta template really ought to do that too.

Also, there is the possibility we—as a project—might not embrace changes to the classification scale (which was expanded not too long ago to include C-class) or create our own extensions to it. If we made such decisions, we would almost certainly enact them through the template.

Making it easy to add subprojects doesn't strike me as an obvious good feature: the proliferation of subprojects on the cinema project and attendant complication of the template seem good arguments for making it harder to add such functionality, though I understand your motivation.

I didn't notice whether or not the "collaboration of the week" banner message was showing on your version, but it certainly has to. It is a major way of advertising the latest project focus.

As far as standardization across projects goes, there is really little incentive for us. The existing code is thoroughly debugged. Project members who modify and work with its guts don't care what other projects are doing and have already adapted to its structure. Having it depend on something else can be more bewildering than having everything all at once visible. —EncMstr (talk) 17:58, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I really understand what the mistaggings issue is about, but I'd like to voice my support for EncMstr's general approach here. WikiProject Oregon is a very dynamic project, with a number of active members and a number of people tweaking its inner workings. The idea that we might want to do something differently from other WikiProjects strikes me as not just a possibility, but a likelihood. That said, I appreciate Martin's efforts to streamline the WikiProject world. -Pete (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

An example would be {{WikiProject Oregon|class=something invalid|importance=extra high|reqphoto=pacific ocean}}. (That's three mistaggings, but any one of them would make the error category light up.) —EncMstr (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

It's actually fairly easy to work a similar error-reporting system into WPBM; I've implemented it in the sandbox here. What do you think? Happy‑melon 15:28, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

You're talking about this, right? Template:WikiProject Oregon/sandbox

To the degree I understand all this (not very high!) that looks great! I'd want EncMstr's stamp of approval before we proceed with any changes, though...he's by far our best code brain, and has implemented most of the techy WP:ORE stuff. If he doesn't reply here, you might want to ping his talk page. Thanks for working on this!! -Pete (talk) 19:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

 Done I've now made this conversion. Happy‑melon 10:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've undone it again. I hadn't noticed it before, but photo requests do not properly get categorized—at least some of them. The category Category:WikiProject Oregon image requests in North Central Oregon was empty.

Hmmm... I've now looked at all the photo request categories; that one may have been the exception rather than the rule. Oh, here's another empty one: Category:WikiProject Oregon image requests in John Day area. —EncMstr (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Category:WikiProject Oregon image requests in North Central Oregon should have worked fine, as would Category:WikiProject Oregon image requests in John Day area (note this one is empty anyway). I think you would be better working with us on this, rather than imposing your version. Minor details can be sorted out easily and are not a reason to revert the whole template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Correction, it was Category:WikiProject Oregon image requests in North Central. This was a mistake, but would have been easily fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Third time lucky :D. I've rechecked the photo categories, confirmed that they're all right (AFAICT), and reimplemented the WPBannerMeta version here. Do please let me know if anything is amiss. Happy‑melon 17:21, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

add reqphoto category?

I'm thinking about adding a reqphoto category called 'historic'. There are a number of entries that need a historic, not current photo, and reqphoto seems to be tuned to current photos. It would remove the regional aspect of reqphoto for historic photos, but I think that's okay. Any objections? tedder (talk) 04:09, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Draft class

@EncMstr: Hey it's been a while since we worked on the project tag. Apparently there's a new "Draft" class. Just noting it here in case you (or anyone else) wants to add that. Also, I can't find the pages where we worked on this years ago and was curious about it. Ideas? Valfontis (talk) 21:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Hey, @Valfontis:: Long time no typey.

I have been uncharacteristically absent for the last few months. IRL has been hectic and I had a let a few things slide. I still have to fix the bot which updates the lists of articles in WP:ORE.

Which pages do you mean? All I remember is working on this template (and the exasperation of this template being overridden by something I don't think any of us cared about). —EncMstr (talk) 05:14, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

It seems like there was lengthy "workshop" page on which we discussed the various parameters of the thing and tried out different stuff. It seems like there were bits of the code that were tricky. It was 50 years ago in dog years, I think. No worries, I just like revisiting them. Even the Project has history now! Oh and the bot hasn't been updated?! Why are all you techy types so busy now? @Tedder: I'm looking at you. Valfontis (talk) 06:16, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

I sort of remember some discussion of how the template should work back when I was editing it. I thought it was in WT:ORE, but either the archive search is broken, or it is somewhere else. Do you remember any details that would be more deterministic to search than "template:Wikiproject Oregon"? —EncMstr (talk) 07:39, 6 November 2015 (UTC)