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Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2023 September 23

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September 23 edit

Template:Featured article tools edit

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more templates or modules. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was keep and update. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 13:40, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All but two of the links are Dispenser links. Dispenser's site is no longer functional, and the user has effectively retired. For replacements of the functioning links, Citationbot can be invoked with the Wikipedia:Citation expander gadget, and the XTools link can be found in either the meta:MoreMenu or the XTools gadgets. SWinxy (talk) 22:55, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep and update with new links as needed. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:04, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and update. The other tools are still as helpful, especially the alt text toolbox. Though, was there supposed to be Earwig copyvio detecter link there?--ZKang123 (talk) 09:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close and move discussion on updating the template to its talk page per Nikkimaria and ZKang123. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:06, 24 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and update It serves a useful function (or did when it was still working OK. Replacing the dead tools with others is a better path. - SchroCat (talk) 07:58, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and update per the above. The remaining tools may still be useful, and we really should add other links such as the copyvio detector as ZKang123 says. – Epicgenius (talk) 13:21, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and update, still useful for reviewers. SounderBruce 06:10, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template or module's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Google Books URL edit

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more templates or modules. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was no consensus. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:19, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Replacing actual URLs with this template inside citations' |url= parameters is not even slightly helpful. All that does is greatly impede the ability of editors to fact-check our articles, by "hiding" the URLs, while at the time time increasing the template/transclusion count and parser load on the page. I could see this maybe being kept, if it were redocumented as not for use inside citations, but I really don't see any general use for it. It is much simpler to just paste the URL in than to carefully extract an exact string from it, so as a "utility" template it doesn't actually offer any utility. As far as its use inside citation templates goes, this is quite counter-productive. Update: See also GreenC's comment below about maintenance and correction problems introduced by templates like this.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC); rev'd. 07:52, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • KEEP. The use of the template on over 4,300 pages is evidence that other editors do find it useful. For me, a large part of the template's value is that once the editor has identified the Google Books ID, it's plug-and-play; unlike you, I don't start with an URL to "just paste," I start with the template and go to the URL to confirm that the desired page is available. I acknowledge that you have a well-informed opinion and considerable experience, and I submit that this is a case of different strokes. No doubt, your choices are simpler for you and offer greater utility to you. Others find enough value in this template to keep it as it is. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 21:27, 15 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It is not such evidence at all. 4,300 pages on a site with millions is nothing. Surely at least hundreds of thousands with GBooks links, and something like 400 more of them are added per day (without this template). And various editors go around robotically applying templates anywhere they think they can without much regard to whether they're making an improvement.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    English wiki has 1,974,794 Google Books links ie. the template is used in 0.00217 or two-tenths of 1 percent. -- GreenC 18:11, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Couldn't the main Google books template serve in its place? Because on the main template, there is the ability to link to the page number when citing a book using the Google Book option. From both template pages using examples of linking or citing a page, Google books: Brackenridge, H. M. History of the Western Insurrection, p. 42, at Google Books; Google Books URL: Brackenridge, H.M. History of the Western Insurrection. p. 42. Both links go the same page and have the same URL. The same link location is also there for the options for the front cover, keyword search, text search, and title page complete with inscriptions. We have two templates that can do the same job. Template:Google books is used on about 14,000 pages. Perhaps this should be merged instead of going for an outright delete. --WikiCleanerMan (talk) 00:29, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It should at least be merged, since it's redundant.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:59, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This template produces a URL, while the main template produces an entire formatted reference. jlwoodwa (talk) 01:53, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Nothing useful is accomplished here - the URL itself describes the book's parameters in a key-value format. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:23, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an opaque and sometimes redundant format, though. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:04, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's true of lots of URLs, but they are for clicking on, not for manually examining element-by-element within them by a human.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:47, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The URL isn't "hidden", it's just represented in a way that's easier to understand and edit (e.g. url-encoding q/dq values). That's the priority for article sources! It's rendered articles that are optimized for browsing.
    Also, Google Books tends to push its new UI on users, which produces worse and longer links. {{GBurl}} lets one avoid this, as long as they can find the book ID. jlwoodwa (talk) 03:12, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way, the TFD tag for this discussion is noincluded, meaning it doesn't show up in transclusions like normal. I'm concerned that this might limit its visibility, but I also understand that this template's deletion is more relevant to editors than to readers. jlwoodwa (talk) 06:19, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It was necessary, to keep from breaking an F-load of citations in live articles. If you want to increase visibility you could drop a notice about this TfD at, e.g., WT:CITE and WT:CS1.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:52, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I feel like I vaguely recall User:GreenC once mentioning something about how google books links are extra susceptible to link rot due to how the service will reformat its URLs from time to time. I might be misremembering this, but I wonder if GreenC might have some input here as a link rot expert. It seems like if my hazy recollection is accurate, this template (which I personally don't use) might be a single point of update in case of a google books URL change, which could save a bot run of length equal to this template's mainspace transclusion count. The comment I'm kinda remembering may have been referring to google books altering its primary keys, rather than URL format, in which case this template seems not helpful.
    Separately, I think I would oppose redocumenting this template to suggest use solely outside of citation templates. I was once cleaning up some article that used this template in "author, page" inline citation style, with the page numbers piped into a URL created from this template. The URLs did not work, so all I had to go on was the surname of an author to try to determine what book they were supposed to reference. After about 45 minutes of searching, I found a work that seemed very plausible, only later to discover that the work was indeed cited in full in the article, in the References subheading, with no citation template. Apart from my own error of not scrolling all the way to the bottom section of the article before attempting citation cleanup, the point is that not documenting the bibliographic information before using this template to return a direct page URL at the top of the article was not a good practice, although the scenario I created for myself through inattention was probably borderline worst-case in terms of failure mode. Folly Mox (talk) 16:42, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    A more common problem is if one of the URLs goes dead. This happens. None of our tools are going to detect it because they don't support the template. This is a general problem with all URL templates, there are thousands. It's cleaner and better to use plain URLs standard tools can parse, not hide them inside special templates no one is checking for link rot. -- GreenC 18:51, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    In my experience, auto-archived Google Books links are almost never functional. jlwoodwa (talk) 05:28, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I appreciate this makes it look cleaner in the wikitext without all those weird key/values that get copy pasted in. And it has a nice uniform Wikitext standard feel to it. Citation bot cleans up these URLs so that's not really a problem. The 1.9m Google Books figure I gave above does not include the 4,300 that use this template. Because the tool that counts links assumes they are plain URLs and not a special template. This underscores the problem with URL templates, of which Enwiki has many thousands. Tools don't support them because there are too many and hard to program for. They create all sorts of unintentional problems. It's a growing problem. Another example: InternetArchiveBot, Citation bot, WaybackMedic, etc.. they don't support this template, link rot will go undetected and and unfixed. So whatever minor convenience and aesthetic factor this template is used for, it creates real problems longer term with maintenance and whatever else people use Wikitext for. -- GreenC 18:45, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If those closes delete, I can write a tool to convert them to plain URLs. -- GreenC 18:52, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment SMcCandlish raises a good point. And I think that rather than use Google Books URLs at all, we should be using ISBNs and linking Special:BookSources via Template:Cite book. SWinxy (talk) 21:29, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it's better if GB links can be avoided entirely, but {{GBurl}} seems like the "lesser evil". jlwoodwa (talk) 05:29, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • After reading this discussion, I support deletion, as per SMcCandlish and GreenC. Kpratter (talk) 07:41, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Authors often paste Google Books URLs that have extra parameters they don't understand and didn't intend to go in the URL. Using this template is cleaner and helps people understand what they're doing. Additionally, using a template allows changes to be made globally, for instance if Google Books modifies their URL scheme. In fact, Google Books has already done that several times. As an example, if I go to Google Books, search "Encyclopedia Britannica", and click the link for "Britannica Concise Encyclopedia" from 2008, I end up with this in my address bar: "https://www.google.com/books/edition/Britannica_Concise_Encyclopedia/ea-bAAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=encyclopedia+britannica&printsec=frontcover&bshm=rimc/1". Google Books URLs did not used to have this format. andkore 00:57, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Replace with {{google books|plainurl=yes}}. I have long been a proponent of URL-formatting templates that actually help stave off link-rot by allowing the maintenance of many links at once, but we don't need this duplication. We have a long history of folks decrying the use of templates in favour of doing everything by hand but eventually we saw sense. —Phil | Talk 14:15, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 14:10, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, helps by splitting the Google URL into id and page number, and can be used to avoid nonfunctional archiving. —Kusma (talk) 09:59, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and rewrite as a wrapper to {{Google books}} with |plainurl=yes. We have hundreds of templates that generate URLs. This allows tracking, and more importantly, normalization and reacting to changes in the providers' URL scheme. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:46, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template or module's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:ROW Rybnik sections edit

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more templates or modules. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was relisted on 2023 September 30. Izno (talk) 16:54, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template or module's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

Template:Racing Club de Avellaneda sections edit

The following is an archived discussion concerning one or more templates or modules. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 13:39, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

None link to any club department or section. Links that direct to sports articles do not count as "team links". Per this discussion. Fma12 (talk) 09:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template or module's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.
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