Knowledge (XXG):Templates for deletion/Log/2007 March 7

1912:. The template actually marks articles lacking in-text citations, so it should perhaps be called {{nointext}} or something. It is a useful template because it is more specific than saying 'this article needs references'. It's necessary for those annoying articles one frequently finds where somebody, back in the past, has included a list of books at the end, but the reader has no clue which bits of information come from which book, and which bits of information are not from any of those books. The template certainly does "provide information to the reader": it warns them that the article is not yet properly sourced, and that the book list at the end may have only a tenuous relationship with the article itself - that is very important. And as for the reader not being able to provide the required citations, that's not the point - it's more about nudging the people working on the article: it tells them "come on, guys, you've only done half the job of referencing". 1526:

talk-citation in say 14-point font on the top of the article and that's it, it wouldn't be visually distracting but it would let any interested editor obviously see what some people think should be changed. furthermore i find that this sort of tag (template) is very useful for prolific editors and admins/sysops because there are pages that automatically list every article with this sort of problem one of those aforementioned people or any other interested party that's good with citations which some people are not, personally i have been editing wikipedia for years now and i just can't do them correctly just the simple "and the population is 500 " format, not the kind with the date and article pages and time, and writer. getting rid of this template would slow article improvement in my opinion.

1924:, rename if you want. Although there may be some articles where in text/footnotes aren't necessary, there are many articles that could greatly benefit from this. Before we were so rigorous sometimes users would just add a bunch of books to make it look well referenced. It is vitally important that we make sure the article is related to the book without having to read a whole book to check on things. Articles need all facts cited to a specific page and I can't think of a better way to do it. Editors should add this judiciously. A film stub with an infobox linking to IMDb may not need this (since the source is rather apaprent). But, better a messy template and taking a little effort to cite than unclear pages. 1968:, this template is extremely helpful to motivate users to add intext citations, especially when a group of editors are trying to get an article to GA or FA status. This is also a great template to use when only one or two references are listed in an external links or further reading section, and the reader has no idea where the reference applies. Citations are a part of any academic article, and this template helps motivate Wikipedians to follow that structure. If the template does not apply to an article, as stated in the deletion request summary above, then just don't use this template in that article. 2063:. This template does nothing but reiterate policy, and if this template were used at full scope, it would appear on the majority of articles. To what end? None of the arguments above hold water; if a "disclaimer" is needed, it's a disclaimer that applies to Knowledge (XXG) as a whole, and needn't appear as a blue box at the top of articles. It does not motivate "editors trying to get an article to GA or FA status"; that makes so little sense to me that I can't refute it, except to say that those editors already know what they have to do. Here's an article with no references: 3972:. Since the talk pages should no longer be used for anything, keeping them and this template for historical interest should do no harm, and avoids making a large number of edits and/or deletions for no good reason. Besides, if the XFF setup should ever go flaky for any reason on either our or AOL's end, the notices might turn out to be useful after all. (The XFF scheme, while neat, does tend to be rather fragile sometimes. It took a long time to get it actually working for AOL, even after everything necessary was 2577:. I fixed both infoboxes (which are way too complicated btw) to use parserfunctions. I think the database needs a while to reflect this in the What links here, but if you look at individual pages you will see that they no longer use "hide" and "unhide" variants. As far as I can currently identify, all other uses are mostly examples of how to use the template. 1090:. This template seems more than a little rude to me. While GA noms should not be a replacement for third opinions or peer reviews, a declined nom should be accompanied by appropriate feedback. Whether an article meets or fails GA standards, it should be clearly explained why. Besides that, there's already a single template that covers pass/hold/fail. 2121:

use this template? When I'm trying to get an article to GA or FA status I believe it does help motivate users to add in citations. I also add the template in when someone has done the work of using references, but does not use inline cites. The only person who knows what references what is the one

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that they shouldn't trust anything they read in the article. Should the majority of Knowledge (XXG) articles have a tag of some kind? Yup, since as we all know, the vast majority of Knowledge (XXG) articles are embarassingly awful and completely untrustworthy. And yet millions of readers see the word

1884:

I might have been hasty when saying it motivates editors. Let me expound - These templates motivate, and sometimes warns anyone reading the article to help improve it or state that improvements are needed. It makes those readers want to click "edit this page" and add in citations if they know any.

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bitter from pointless wasting (idealy, the quickfail happens within 15 minutes of someone noticing it on their watchlist). I mostly made it just as a test to see how people would catch on to it though, and pretty much had forgotten about it until recently. The GAC page still is pretty backed up with

2030:

As mentioned by others above, it is essential to know whether information in an article is from a reliable source or not. I've used this template on biographies where references are listed but the article contains statements like "he had 7 illegitimate children" or "she had her first face-lift aged

1852:

Cleanup-template-cruft. This template marks articles that lack footnotes, which is a state of affairs that is entirely appropriate for some articles, and not really suitable for evaluation by a drive-by tagger. The template also appears in mainspace as currently used, but provides no information to

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We know the better ways: actually write comments. These should be treated just like any other GA failing candidate. Editors shouldn't get the special privilege of slapping a template on a page without explaining to the other editors the problems with the page. These are the pages that need guidance

890:

Truthfully, this template is the lazy way of writing comments at the end of the talk page. This is so that editors can just slap a template on the page without having to explain to the nominator that there are clear problems with the page. It seems unreasonable and frankly a slap in the face to the

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show any more edits, the only reason someone would look at the talk page would probably be if they started editing again. In that case, wouldn't it be a good idea to leave a message suggesting that if this IP has resumed editing, either the proxy list needs updating or something else is wrong? I

2215:

or near absence of them - if one is trying to check the accuracy of an article, the scarcity of in-text citations is a bleeping nuisance that makes the job ten times longer than it would otherwise. As to when to remove the tag, you use your own judgement: if you feel the work has now been done and

1508:

where I am aware of its use, it did not encourge the editor to fix his references, as he says he is baffled by our system. (The tag was applied *and* the main contributor contacted, which should be encouraged--if kept something about this should be added to the template's page.) But at some point,

1951:

Though you might be right, Knowledge (XXG) isn't the average encyclopedia. It's edited by users, many of whom have bias. This is one reason citations are critical. I've come across a lot of editors and admins who say the specific cites are essential. Is Grenavitar's comment liberal-minded? I

1380:, this template should be used on Talk pages. Could a bot go through and transfer all the mainspace transclusions to the respective Talk pages? The template is useful for editors who wish to achieve consistency, and for identifying pages that have a bunch of references with no citations to them. – 2147:

But often times these editors have long since edited the article, or are no longer active on Knowledge (XXG)! That is why the template is thrown up. Either to find someone else who recognizes those references and can put in citations (unlikely), or to move those references to a further reading

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to warn readers, but to motivate or inform editors/readers that changes should probably be made. Your argument "article space is not for motivating or communicating with editors" would imply that this template, the ones I listed, and all other related templates should only be put on talk pages,

2166:. The template gives no information about what, exactly, is supposed to need a citation. So a comment on the talk page is required. But then the template is no longer needed. I also agree with the comments of Outriggr and Opabinia regalis about the overall lack of impact of tags such as this. 1525:

article. I think the best thing that can be done is that all templates like this go on the articles' talk pages as a larger banner but a small one word template or template row appears on the top of any given page and all link directly to the article talk pages for instance it would just say

1470:(for article space). Templates like this are useful to alert people that the external link section should be cleaned-out. There are many articles where the external links section is filled with perfectly good references, but they should not be in an external links section (I use 2421:

It looks like Otav347 was right. This league has been replaced by the "United Soccer Leagues PDL Southeast Division." Those articles no longer use this template. If this were an article I'd say keep it for historical purposes; but it's not - so I say go ahead and delete it.

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Cleanup-template-cruft. Seems to be used mainly for articles where a newbie has manually numbered his references rather than using one of the footnote systems. Applied on the article page, despite providing essentially no information to the reader. Narrowly kept in

931:. I don't see what possible benefit this template could have over just using the normal fail template and one line of text. If it was quickfailed for fair-use images without rationales, fail it and say "Sorry, you have fair-use images that lack rationales." Etc. -- 1413:

If it's being moved to talk pages, it doesn't need the 'see the talk page' sentence and code, so I removed it. It was rather useless anyway, as an exceedingly small number of uses of this template ever left anything resembling a comment on the talk page about it.

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Completely unused template. Non-free image tag. Potential images could be tagged with something else — the last thing we need is a ton of extremely-specific non-free tags to keep sifting through — and this tag still asks for another fair use tag on top of that. —

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articles though, and keeping obviously unready articles off so we have time for properly prepared articles is what it was designed for in the first place. Anyways, I can see reasons to both keep and delete it now, so I don't really mind what happens to it.--

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that every article must have a certain number of in-text citations, unless you tell people exactly what you would like to see cited, there is no way to tell when to remove the tag. If the tag is a few months old, how can I tell whether to remove it or not?

1716:. If a license gives Knowledge (XXG) special permission, this could be mentioned so long as it can still be used for other reasons (like fair use), but there's no reason to encourage such things with a template, especially as it's barely used as is. -- 2096:: It is not a disclaimer that applies to Knowledge (XXG) as a whole. Some articles are well-referenced with in-line citations that show clearly where every item of information comes from. And the tag belongs in the article space because it is a 4011:

or change content of template. If AOL is now sending XFF, then this template is incorrect & useless. However Ilmari Karonen brings up a good point. Perhaps we could just change the content of the template to include this information?

3838:(XFF) headers, which identifies AOL users' home IP addresses and makes it possible to block users directly (bypassing AOL's proxy system). Earlier problems with CIDR ranges seem to have been fixed. The proxy IP addresses are blocked with {{ 2181:

When I add this tag to an article it's normally because there are no in-text citations at all. If there are just a few bits of info remaining uncited I would add an inline instead. As for why it's in the article space, see my comment

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who added in the inline cites in the first place. As an editor who feels like "soapbox" content is increasing on Knowledge (XXG), this tool is one of the few we have to counter that movement. Does that better explain my comments?

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Hm. That template is primarily a block reason template, so I think it's best not to add more information. We could instead change the AOL template to concisely explain the current situation with AOL proxies and link to

962:

it was quick-failed, and this does not say, just gives a list of possible reasons. Many things would be faster if people could just provide a templated list of possible reasons for an action, but they'd also be stupid.

1980:. I agree it's sometimes misused, but that's an argument for removing it from pages where it doesn't belong, not for deleting it. It's a state of affairs in between "sourced well" (no template) and "lacks references" ( 891:

person who nominated the page to end up with this template on their page. While there is a backlog, the articles will never be promoted if the editors to the pages don't know what to do, and this really doesn't help.

3842:}}, in case someone manages to edit through them. AOL user and talk pages should probably be deleted, since they're no longer relevant; as far as we're concerned, the AOL proxy IP addresses no longer exist. See 521:

per nom. Besides that, it seems to be a joke (note the excessive number of exclamation marks and the use of uppercase text as an emphasis). And the colors are horribly clashing; my eyes hurt looking at it.

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have three templates at the top? What would it gain if it did? You can't enforce Knowledge (XXG) policy with article-space "reminders" that are, as Opabinia says, vanishingly unlikely to be acted on. –

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It does not motivate "editors trying to get an article to GA or FA status"; that makes so little sense to me that I can't refute it, except to say that those editors already know what they have to do.

2138:

if you want to complain about their referencing style, not to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who loads the page in the interim, because they aren't going to be able to do what the template asks them to.

552:- not exactly material for BJAODN, but at least I laughed, so do that and delete. Perhaps a custom message (with clashing colors!!!!!) can be put in place if such a backlog occurs again. Or just use 538:

all good points (: I only created it in the first place because there were almost 400 entires on CSD at the time, and thought the extra exclamation points might attract some much needed attention (:

876:

I have seen people use this template in a valid way before, though I don't think i've ever used it myself. If speedy delisting is re-instituted though, then I think this template may be less useful.

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1049:

Although the template has been used, it isn't listed in any policy I can find. Is this an "official" GA template to use? I dont do much with the GA process, but I can't find any mention of it. -

1889:

Refer to {{expert}}, {{histinfo}}, {{cleanup-combine}}, {{sections}}, {{Expand}}, {{update}}, {{copyedit}}, {{uncategorized}}, or{{orphan}}. If you notice these are a few templates which exist

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Bad addition to GA process. Just leaves any newbie that puts something up for a GA left with no advice, and no commentary. Should we have a template to officially sanction this behaviour? --

912:

Well, it seemed to make sense to have a "lazy fail" for "lazy nominees" at the time. Plus, I did always say not to use it if the article has been nominated for a day, as to not make people

1450:; this should alert people to move the template to the talk page (and it's possible a bot might help, although I'm not sure whether there are any bots doing checktalking at the moment). -- 2191:

Placing the tag based entirely on the density of citations with no regard to the actual content of the article is certainly putting form before function. Since there is no requirement in

2250:. If you've identified a statement that requires citation, use the appropriate template to mark it. If you haven't, you don't really have any business saying the article requires them. 2148:

section (or just remove them) and add in new inline references. It wouldn't make much sense for us to throw up a "{{Unreferenced}}" tag if there were references but no inline cites.

3904:

For the benefit of any non-AOL users who might come across one of those user pages from browsing a history, perhaps rather than delete, we should replace it with a redirect to

1102:

I've struck out my keep vote, now that speedy delisting is back, I think the usage of this quickfail template won't be as useful, though not quite worthless enough to delete.

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are all references, but not noted as such (when references are not attributed to statements they are just plain external links, and that may result in them being removed per

3914:

so people know not to bother leaving messages. Also this would save either having dead template links, or bot-editing all these pages to remove the dead template link.—

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CSS hack to hide parameters (which breaks accessibility and causes problems for screen readers and browers that do not support CSS).Some pages still use this template

2117:" Sorry it doesn't make sense to you, it's really quite simple to me. You're right, a lot of articles don't have any referencing (which drives me nuts). So when do 3878:

Although those IPs are still owned by AOL, they no longer exist as far as we're concerned, and cannot start editing because they are indefinitely blocked; see the

3313:: I've combined these into one nomination (rather than three), since they are part of the system, and there's no reason why we would delete some and keep others. 1509:

I'm sure another editor will read the article, say "WTF?", and take care appropriate action, so I think it's outlived its usefulness on that one particular page.

943:. Failing a GA candidate requires some meaningful comments. This template discourages any thoughtful commentary and advice on how the article can be improved. 653:

If the point of this template is to make the page so irritating that admins won't even look at it, let alone work on it, well, it's certainly worked for me. —

4062:

No, not really. This is more like "This IP address is in AOL's subnet, but for technical reasons you should not see any edits come from here ever again."

1659:. Specifically, "Licenses which restrict the use of the media to non-profit or educational purposes only (i.e. noncommercial use only), or are given 1206:

This template does not appear to be used anywhere. I suggest it be deleted, since no pages link to it (no worries about leaving behind redlinks). —

21: 3782:, but without prejudice to relisting. In the event of a relist, perhaps notices should be placed at the relevant noiceboards/village pumps. 2216:

the tag is ready to be removed, you remove it. If anyone complains, you apologise and put it back, or else you discuss it on the talk page.

1692:. Not an acceptable license, used on only three images, and associated with bogus or confusing copyright information in all three cases. 997:

the most, not the ones that actually get all the attention. So, respectfully, I really don't see where you were going with your comment.

1677: 17: 3864:: Aren't these IPs still "owned" by AOL? If so, is it worthwhile to identify them as such on the talk page? Since none of these IPs 1984:), especially for long and controversial articles with many references, but no attribution of particular claims to particular ones. -- 3664: 3540: 2408: 3672: 839:

not GA status. This template helps clear the undeniable GAC backlog. Once those problems are fixed, they are welcome to reapply. —

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per nom. BTW. When I looked at the What links here, I soon identified 2 templates that were responsible for most of it's uses.

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article space is not for motivating or communicating with editors, especially not about some editors' misunderstanding that

1540: 2067:. Why does it have three templates related to that fact on it, including this one? Here's an article with no references: 1656: 1397: 306:. I can see the usefulness of categorizing particularly frequently used image sources, but this one isn't used at all. -- 158:. I can see the usefulness of categorizing particularly frequently used image sources, but this one isn't used at all. -- 27: 3104: 2254: 2031:

just 16" and you can't tell whether that's just some rubbish inserted by someone or actually from the reference stated.

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per all above. Plus the fact that the template says "This is ineligible for copyright protection, except if it isn't." -

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While there are better ways to do this, I feel that this template is need until the other "better ways" are known.

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