Template talk:Subpages4

I like this much better than the version that sits to the right. Only problem is that there are now two titles in a row plus the title bolded in the opening. This is overkill. Could we enlarge the size of the title in the template and ditch the standard title? I think that would look nice. --Joe Quick (Talk) 00:40, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Hmm. Not quite what I meant. I liked the way the template looked (plus the main article bit). Aesthetically, I'd rather see the default title that automatically appears at the top of the article removed. (Or maybe move the template above the main title?) Are either of these even possible? --Joe Quick (Talk) 01:18, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Not possible, as far as I know.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 01:23, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Apparently, Wikihow has figured out a way to do it.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 01:30, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Sorry for the multiple postings. It is a feature of Wikimedia that just has to be enabled, see here and here. Hmm.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 01:34, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

I found a wiki with it enabled, http://www.cyclechaos.com/wiki/Motorcycle_Wiki, made an account, and tested it in a few ways. Main problem: you leave it blank it defaults to the title of the page anyway. Too, it diminishes the functionality of the search feature. When you click "Go" it does not bring you to the article title added to {{DISPLAYTITLE:xyz}} but it does show up in the search. That would require making that trade-off, therefore.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 02:02, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Hmm. Probably not worth the trade off. Thanks for looking into it. --Joe Quick (Talk) 14:28, 8 July 2007 (CDT)

Complicated?

Hi Chris,

I think I see what you're after with the info page, but isn't this ultimately too complicated, and too low payoff, to expect people to maintain this information correctly? That's the problem with all metadata. It has to be obviously of high usefulness, or people just won't care. --Larry Sanger 00:51, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

It depends. Only experienced users would be altering the data template. For the experienced users I actually think having all this data in one place is big advantage.

Inexperienced users will be wanting to start new subpages and putting one simple template on the page will work very well for them.

What of the payoff of being able to put the categories determined from the checklist onto the draft page, or even the article page? In my mind that is a high return rather than having all the talk page links in the categories. Chris Day (talk) 01:16, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

OK, sorry...can you explain to me briefly what this does? How does your reimplementation work? I could study the code but, well, it's getting late in this part of the world... --Larry Sanger 12:39, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

The quick version is that only one template needs to be added to the top of all pages. See the Anthropology cluster for an example, ALL the pages use the standard {{Subpages4}} template, no field variables are required. I've also fixed it so a signed article can use the same template (if you're interested {{../../Info|info=pagename}} returns {{Anthropology/Info|info=pagename}} when used on the Anthropology/Signed_articles/A_test_signed_article). The pagename variable is stored in the central info cache for each article along with all the other critical info for each article (see example at Template:Anthropology/Info).

With this centralised solution to the template information it is now possible to automate the placement of all header templates, including approval templates, checklist templates. Best the categories can be placed on any page not restricted to the talk page.

So why is this an advantage?

1. In my experience new users don't understand templates or how they work. Now all a new user has to know is how to place one universal template on all the pages. It can't get simpler than that.
2. Ideally the creator of the article would also fill out the checklist fields in the articles information template but even this is not necessary since a category for articles 'with out a checklist' allows more experienced users to add the checklist data at a latter date.
3. New users also find workgroup category placement confusing and even the more experienced users forget to add them after filling out the checklist or changing the checklist. This new template will be able to automatically add categories to the articles using the information in the checklist. If someone adds or removes a workgroup from the checklist this will be reflected in the cluster by systematic changes across ALL the subpages, as well as the article.

I have not quite finished the anthropology example, I need to fix the article and draft article templates. I'll let you know when the working model is completed, then you'll get a better idea. Take home message is to use a complex template (obviously not great) to automate and centralise the use of clusters so that they are all internally consitent and user friendly. Chris Day (talk) 13:09, 24 July 2007 (CDT)

OK, finally I've had a chance to grok what you're up to, and YAY, this is exactly what we need. Thanks again, Chris! You are absolutely right that the simplicity is a huge advantage. (I believe it's technically possible--by the way--to pre-populate new pages with a piece of text, so that when somebody edits a blank page, then {{subpages}} is automatically put there.) I particularly love the fact that all of the categories, including the main article categories, can be generated from one place. This is how it should work.

Basically, this is going to demonstrate almost exactly how, functionally at least, the mediawiki enhancements that we need should work. Very elegant (in concept, anyway, even if it's not perfectly cleaned up yet).

OK, next, can you bring me up to speed on your latest thoughts vis-a-vis subpage approval? Where has the discussion taken place, only in the forums? This seems very hard. Do we approve each subpage individually? Presumably. Does that mean we have draft pages for each subpage? Surely not. What a nightmare. So then...? Well, I have ideas but I will spare you right now. --Larry Sanger 09:41, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

P.S. Note this means we don't have to get rid of "CZ Live." It's just autogenerated by the template if the article is internal!

With regard to CZ-live, exactly, I'm trying to remove the human error/oversight element that will otherwise make categories less useful. Everyone makes mistakes, hopefully this will reduce the problem to a tolerable level.

I'v added a few more thoughts here Template:Subpages4#Random_thoughts with a view of where we can take this to further improve the project.

With regard to subpages I have suggested in the past that approval should deal the whole cluster. It would be far too complicated to approve subpages seperately (I'll try and find the discussion, I remember that Matt and Nancy were involved). Since each cluster is under one approval umbrella i think it is best that there is only one talk page per cluster and thus the talk pages for each subpage can serve as a draft. Personally, I don't think this would be too complicated and the Talk:Draft page would serve this purpose well (a big talk button on the navigation box will help people get there very easily). In biology we redirect the gallery talk and the main aticle talk to the Draft talk page so we know a centralised talk page can work. Chris Day (talk) 10:32, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

Bells and whistles

I having been using the template Template:Approved2 to test this subpage template and took the opportunity to add some bells and whistles to the approved template (see example at Life). There is a link to printer friendly version of the article. There is a link that allows an author to compare the updates to the Draft version with the current approved version. Finally there is a link to the approval notes subpage. Some of these, the print button particularly might be useful buttons to incoporate into the template (note none of the header templates show up in the print version!). Chris Day (talk) 09:59, 26 July 2007 (CDT)