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Wikipedia:Avoid conditional templates

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Delete as fork. Tally was D:15/K:3/R:4/U:1/M:1 -- xaosflux Talk/CVU 02:20, 14 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Page is a fork of WP:AUM. There has been a long standing conflict over the use of meta-templates. This new page covers the same arguments and issues as proposed in the original broader page (avoid using meta-templates) under more specific page (avoid conditional templates) --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 21:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete Redirect to WP:AUM per nom. Conditionals has been WP:AUM "Achilles Heel," but this policy is trying to circumvent the argument altogether instead of discuss the issue in WT:AUM.--TheFarix 22:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    "Circumvent the argument"? I'm just taking the subject elsewhere for discussion and consensus. Conditionals are being over-used across the template space, and rather trivially. I look at how both Qif and hiddenStructure are being mis-used to add minor tidbits which are only a fraction of the articles using some templates. This page deals with that design approach and describes what to avoid. -- Netoholic @ 22:55, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The consensus' rejection of WP:AUM is largely because of conditionals, or more specifically the lack of native conditional support within MediaWiki which you've also opposed. But instead of accepting the consensus' decision or even making the case against conditionals over there, you created another proposal that says "conditionals as evil" and "optional template fields are evil, too." If you can somehow get WP:ACT accepted as either guideline or policy, then it would stand to reason that WP:AUM will also have to be accepted as either guideline or policy--since ACT will eliminate the objections to AUM. That is what I'm referring to by "circumventing the argument." --TheFarix 04:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kill with an axe as stupid instruction creep. The page contains pure technical nonsense. Another fork of this silly WP:AUM. This is clearly a bad faith creation. Another attempt by Netoholic to bind Wikipedians into a stupid endless discussion with the goal to distroy certain templates which he failed to achieve otherwise. One last note to this stupid madness: please note: Nearly every use of this so called ugly qif can be converted to Wikipedia:hiddenStructure. Netoholic has even demonstrated this himself on template:book reference. hiddenStructure was rejected because it is incompatible with non-CSS browsers. It is silly to believe that the announced built-in conditional is so limited that it can't even do the same as hiddenStructure. As such it is silly to try to establish now a policy that mandates the elimination of qif despite knowing we will get a media-wiki built-in conditional function. BTW if qif is supposed to be that bad and that brittle, why does it work so well and why does it do so little "harm" that we even don't notice any negative impact? And per the vandal vector: The only vandalism vector I see on this issue is vandalism by policy and the deliberate destruction of things like {{if}} by admins while still being used ("killed with an axe"). Well then, go on if you like. It's really true as Netoholic said himself: you will be looking like fools as soon as we have a built-in conditional. qif uses only standard functions provided by the current template system. The correctness of qif can even be mathematically proven. It is not a hack. It can break if the MediaWiki software is changed, that's true. But then the current existing set of functions is reduced. BTW it is good practice to deprecate functionality before removing it from a live system. qif is no abuse of the current functionality. It only uses parameter default and template inclusion with parameters. --Adrian Buehlmann 22:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd never support this page as a policy... but the Template namespace, while there is a lot of technical documentation, is completely lacking good and practical design guidelines. We need a manual of style for templates. -- Netoholic @ 23:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not a bad faith creation. It is patantly clear that Netoholic firmly believes these proposals to be necessary. Here he was clearly trying to find something that might achieve consensus. Why is that bad? A little more WP:AGFing would go down a treat. Nevertheless, I recommend that, in general, it is best to propose potentially contraversial policies in the user namespace first. On the other hand, I see no reason why this should be deleted. (Keep as policy proposal per standard procedure, if someone needs big bold statements to replace considered statements) Sam Korn (smoddy) 23:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC) OK, so I've changed my mind. Redirect to WP:AUM. Sam Korn (smoddy) 19:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, Netoholic honestly believes that such a guideline is necessary, but the community disagrees. Now that it's clear that WP:AUM is overwhelmingly opposed, he's decided to repackage it under a different name and begin the debate anew, all the while claiming that any similarities are coincidental. That's bad faith. —David Levy 23:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not bad faith. He thinks (probably wrongly) that this is more likely to gain consensus. There is nothing wrong with his actions here, other than naivite. Sam Korn (smoddy) 17:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    You give Netoholic too little credit. His understanding of the policy creation process is excellent, and he's deliberately exploiting it to the best of his abilities (gaming the system). He couldn't possibly believe that this proposal is more likely than WP:AUM to gain consensus, given the fact that the two pages are essentially the same. —David Levy 19:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Assuming good faith only applies until the presence of evidence to the contrary. Neto has always used "meta-template" to refer to both conditional and nested templates, and used WP:AUM as justification for revert wars about both. This is just another attempt to break the discussion apart so that people who haven't encountered him before assume that he has some authority behind his actions; so that when he says "revert warring as per WP:ACT", there isn't a big "disputed" tag at the top, and the other party is mislead to believe that there's a consensus behind his changes. If he wants to be explicit about what templates are included in WP:AUM, he can rename it (as we've been proposing for a long time). He previously opposed attempts at renaming the page to cover the various types unambiguously. — Omegatron 23:58, 7 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    So put a big "disputed" notice at the top! Is he not allowed to make a new proposal? I haven't seen any evidence that, in the creation of this page, he has been acting in anything other than good faith. Sam Korn (smoddy) 17:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. The "disputed" designation doesn't apply, given the fact that no one (including Netoholic) is claiming that this is anything other than a proposal (whether made in good faith or not). 2. Yes, he is allowed to make a new proposal. The problem is that this isn't one; it's an old, failed proposal with a new name. —David Levy 19:03, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. — Omegatron 19:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point. I have changed my "vote" to redirect instead. Sam Korn (smoddy) 19:12, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I did move this to his userspace. His reaction? Instead of accepting that he needs to refine this "proposal" before submitting it to the community at large, he hopped on IRC and got an arbitrator to assist him in moving it back (and then said arbitrator move-protected it to keep it there). And the part people seem to forget about "assume good faith" is that it's only for initial encounters: if I don't know someone, I assume good faith in their actions. But I know Netoholic, I've seen his Wiki-filibustering, his debate without end tactics (of which this is just the latest incarnation IMHO). He's trying to wait out the opposition to AUM (and now ACT) in an attempt to gain consensus by lack of opposition (because we'll all, in theory, get tired and give up after the 15th proposal with a slightly reworded title/basis). It's pure insanity to hold people hostage like this over something we've decided is not good for Wikipedia. Please don't support this disruptive behavior, please don't make me lose faith that the ArbCom will put an end to this endless debate. —Locke Cole • t • c 02:29, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Seriously. People do get tired and give up after they've dealt with his abuse for the 138643th time. Please don't encourage this behavior. He's been fighting the exact same proposal in a disruptive and excessively confrontational manner for more than a year, with clear opposition from almost everyone on almost every point, and won't give up a square inch to consensus. It needs to end. — Omegatron 06:04, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the second similar page, not the fifteenth. Netoholic is persistent, no doubts there, and he lacks some social skills, but I remain to be convinced that he has not acted in good faith. Yes, misguided. No, not in bad faith. As to the revert of the move, that is the kind of thing that you discuss before you do. Are you surprised that it got reverted? You and N have been at each other's throats for some time now, so this is not the kind of thing you do yourself. Sam Korn (smoddy) 17:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I said "15th proposal", not "15th page"– he's modified AUM ever so slightly and then tried to reignite the debate as if it were a brand new proposal. He's doing it again here (except now he's actually using a new page). And why should the move be discussed? It's nearly the same proposal as WP:AUM, it's been discussed. Is there something wrong with trying to put out a fire before it spreads again? There's nothing "good faith" about this creation in the least. —Locke Cole • t • c 21:59, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See Neto's talk page. The original response by Locke Cole here was to userfy. I'm not sure what happened there, but it's now redlinked, so I assume that went over like the proverbial lead brick. ... aa:talk 00:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - In addition to being an obvious attempt to recreate a failed proposal (with several passages copied verbatim) the entire premise is simply wrong. Conditional templates are usually an improvement on the alternatives. --CBDunkerson 19:39, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It's comments like this that make me think people are voting ont he page title, not the content... What I am proposing on this new page is that templates need to be evaluated carefully before implementing conditional sections, such as optional parameters. People are adding optional parameters to templates with very little regard to the growing complexity that's involved. I'm challenging why people use conditionals in templates. -- Netoholic @ 22:43, 8 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Netoholic, let's suppose that it's a mad mad world and you are right... there is a looming epidemic of people doing things like making 'Name' conditional on biography templates. So what? What's the worst that could happen? Are people likely to frequently forget to pass a 'name' parameter to the template? If they did and we didn't see the name section... would it really be difficult to figure out that the person in the picture is the same one the article is about? Is it really so impossible for people to figure out that the name is missing if there isn't a blank labelled 'Name' there? Obviously, the answer to all of those is no. So what's the deal? Why would we want to 'avoid conditional templates'? In the writeup you say that people might add parameters after the fact and hide them to avoid displaying blanks on older calls... horrors! Why on earth would anyone consider that a bad thing? We must seek every effort to display ugly blank spaces in the middle of infoboxes? What? The rest of the 'reasoning' is copied virtually word for word from AUM, severely infected with POV, and equally unconvincing. --CBDunkerson 12:39, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The debate here isn't about if conditionals are either a good or bad thing, that should be left to the proposal's talk page. The debate here is about whether the proposal is a fork of another proposal that the consensus is in the process of rejecting.--TheFarix 14:22, 9 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed that conditionals are usually an improvement. — Omegatron 01:32, 9 March 2006 (UTC)]][reply]
  • Strong keep. This is a different proposal, which sheds some of the most objectionable features of WP:AUM. I don't think it will be accepted; but I deny that WP:SNOW is grounds for deletion. It should be voted upon, and kept. Septentrionalis 15:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Those who oppsose this proposal are missing their best bet. If this is firmly rejected, then, whenever WP:AUM appears in TfD again, the reply will be: "Irrelevant, WP:ACM was rejected.". Septentrionalis 15:49, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I disagree. This new "proposal" takes the most objectionable parts of WP:AUM and tries to restart/reset the debate all over again. I'm not going to comment on the content of the proposal because, to be clear, it's already been said and rejected at WP:AUM, and further, it's inappropriate to debate the proposal here (as TheFarix says below, we're discussing whether or not this is a fork, not whether or not the proposal is valid). —Locke Cole • t • c 03:35, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]


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