Forum:Templates

Forums: Index > Policy > Templates

This page is for discussing a policy related to the Mass Effect Wiki that may or may not be passed by the community. The Form below serves to describe the Policy and what it is about, or what it will modify.

Policy:

Description of Policy: Organizing the templates used in the wiki

Notes:
Supporting links or images:

Other Notes

There are Four issues in regards to current use of templates:

1. No naming convention: A template could be named {{ME2Armor}} or {{Armor (Mass Effect 3)}}, it could suggest the type of the template {{WeaponsQuickLinks}} or use an obscure form, like {{Weapon Upgrade (ME3)}}.
2. Mirror templates: Basically templates that call other templates by passing a parameter, most notably the spoiler (X) templates like: {{Spoilers (Ascension)}}, {{Spoilers (Evolution)}}, etc. which basically call the {{SpoilerBanner}} template by passing the Evolution or Ascension parameter - this does make it shorter or make it easier for contributors to remember the name.
3. Documentation: Either we have no documentation, or a poor one that does not cover and explain the usage and the expected result.
4. Categorization: Templates should have two main categories (at least) applied to them: the first is the Templates category which list all the templates in the wiki and the second is a more specific category for the template, such as Category:Infobox Templates or Category:Cluster Templates. There are still templates that are only listed in the main category and have no way of locating them other then browsing the Mass Effect Wiki:Templates article.

The Proposal:

1. Naming convention: we use the current naming convention: "Template_name", "Template_name (Mass Effect 2)", and "Template_name (Mass Effect 3)", also indicate in the name the layout of the template: "Template_name infobox" or "Template_name footer (Mass Effect 2)".
2. Mirror templates: Mostly to stay intact for the time being - they are commonly used and authors are already familiar with using them, but careful consideration should be applied in the future and prevented unless necessary.
3. Documentation: A creation of "Template:Doc" or "Template:Documentation" to be applied in current and future template with authors only needing to fill in the blank values. The template itself should take care of presentation (similar to the template at the top of this forum).
4. Categorization: Creation of "Category:Support templates" for templates used in the development or use of other templates. Templates that will go into the category: {{!}}, {{StoreItem}}, {{Ifexists}}, {{ItemsChart}}, etc.

Voting

Support

1. As the proposer --silverstrike 13:29, May 2, 2012 (UTC)
2. Definitely — Teugene (Talk) 13:40, May 2, 2012 (UTC)
3. Much needed organization. Trandra 18:17, May 2, 2012 (UTC)
4. Support. PNCHNOUT 03:41, May 7, 2012 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Lancer1289 13:15, May 7, 2012 (UTC)

Discussion

Yup, it is one of the things that's in the back on my mind for a while and irks me very much, especially with point #1 and #3.

For #2, not sure if this a good idea to apply for infobox/footer/etc templates as well. Example: using {{Weapon infobox|x}} where x value is "ME", "ME2", or "ME3" to return the corresponding template (eg. {{Weapon infobox|ME3}} returns {{Weapon infobox (Mass Effect 3)}}).

As with #3, coincidentally, I was just looking into WOWWiki's template a couple of hours ago and they document their templates with /doc sub-page (Example - template:Template:Npcbox, doc:Template:Npcbox/doc). Perhaps we could use this example as a method as for documentation too?

To add on for #4, other than the Category:Templates (or template subcategories), IMO, all other non-relevant categories should be removed to prevent templates clogging main article categories (such Category:Planets, etc).

#2: No reason for mirroring. You just create one template named "Weapon infobox" and based on what argument passed to that template (in the form you suggested) it will return the relevant infobox. On some template it will work fine, on some template it will make the code shorter and easier to read, and on some it will make the code longer and a tad more complex - this needs to be verified.

#3: We can certainly do that. We can also create another category for documentations, but I rather just put the documentation in the same page as the template itself as it prevents clutter of information. The documentation template could also take care of categorizing and make sure that it categorized properly (too many issues here) and if we want to change the categories or their structure, we only need to alter one template. --silverstrike 15:00, May 2, 2012 (UTC)