Template talk:IOBDB title

Template leads to deadlink

I tried to use the iobdb template that was posted on the page for The River Niger ( ​The River Niger​ at the Internet Off-Broadway Database ), but I got a deadlink. It looks like the old Lortel URL, http://www.lortel.org/LLA_archive/index.cfm has been changed, but I can't figure out how to update the URL on the template page. The new URL seems to be http://lortel.org/Archives/Search?searchText=, but I can't figure out how to get it to search by iobdb numbers. Help?? Aristophanes68 (talk) 00:02, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Aristophanes68, it looks like the URL has changed to http://www.lortel.org/Archives/Production/2882. You'll note that the number has changed from 3244 to 2882, which means that both the base URL and the number have changed. This means the existing transclusions will have to be modified, but it will have to be done manually. I'll work up something to let people know it needs updating. Primefac (talk) 12:52, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Aristophanes68, don't know if you've seen what I've done, but I updated all of the templates to the proper URL and added some tracking categories. If you're interested in helping the cleanup efforts (since there are about 1300 pages with only a generic "search" link rather than a more desirable direct link), feel free to edit the pages that use {{iobdb}} (they're in this category). Thanks for bringing this change up. Primefac (talk) 21:31, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I got confused with the URL format and all the + signs between words and the search parameters going after the title. Thanks! Aristophanes68 (talk) 04:06, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

If you ask at WP:MUSICALS and WP:THEATRE, maybe you can get a group of people together to help update all the links. For those who are not very template-savvy, though, please leave instructions on how to update each sort of template (shows and names). Maybe there is some other sort of board where you could get additional volunteers to help? -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:12, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Template snafu

The new Off-Broadway template is broken. For example: <ref>{{iobdb|Ruth|Maleczech}}</ref>
The advisory note Please use a more specific IOBDb template. See the documentation for available templates does not help. Quis separabit? 16:53, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Quis, not to ask the stupid question, but did you go to the link for the documentation? What more could be added to it to make it clearer which template should be used? Primefac (talk) 17:06, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

You mean lortel.org? Of course, but I can't fix the hundreds of articles that were given this defective template by some bot. I was just letting you all know. Quis separabit? 17:10, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Okay, so you didn't follow the link to Template:Iobdb/doc, which was what is linked to in the big red error message, and what tells you how to fix the template call. Primefac (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

EDIT: I've reworded it so it reads "template documentation" so that it's more obvious that it's a wikilink and not an elink. Primefac (talk) 17:13, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I tried it out and got this message: The resource you are looking for has been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Quis separabit? 17:26, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, I wonder if you're seeing a cached version of the template... Let's take a look at Ruth Maleczech - {{iobdb|Ruth|Maleczech}} links here, which gives an ID of 506, so then we change it to {{iobdb name|506}}. Primefac (talk) 17:31, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

That works, thanks. Are you going to get a bot to fix all the pages with the old template? Quis separabit? 17:37, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

No real way to do that, I'm afraid. They've changed all of their URLs and there's no particular pattern to how they changed them. I'll be going through and cleaning out as many as I can, and I've dropped notes to a few related WikiProjects for assistance. Primefac (talk) 17:41, 11 June 2017 (UTC)