Template talk:Subpages4

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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)


Outline of the Big Subpagination...

See the bottom of CZ:Subpage Pilot. --Larry Sanger 01:23, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

Got it. We should start a discussion on the forum. This will be a hard one to get right.
Also, I just noted your redirect of Mayr to the draft. So you are game for having all articles start as drafts and only move to main article on approval? I'm not sure which way I am leaning yet, but I thought if we don't play with the format we'll never know how it looks. i can see both pro's and con's so a lot of input from others will be good. Chris Day (talk) 01:40, 28 July 2007 (CDT)

Changes to subpage list template

I just made a ot of changes. First, I have cleaned up the code significanlty. There are also a lot more comments in there now, although it could still be better. Second, I have implented a more simple subpage list (see {{Subpage list 2}}). Now the button name and the subpage name MUST be the same. Note I have already moved ..../Related subpages to their new home at ...../Related Articles. I will do the same for ..../Links to .../External Links, .../Signed articles to .../Signed Articles, .../News guide to .../News Guide and ..../Debate guide to ..../Debate Guide. Any comments before i start this? Chris Day (talk) 14:57, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

usage here for now

Usage

Examples of this templates use can be found at the Anthropology cluster (not approved) and the Life cluster (approved).


Function

Two functions are associated with this template. First to place a subpage navigation box with the appropriate buttons on each page. Second, to define the header and categories for each subpage.Templates associated with the {{subpages4}} template are described below:


Navigation box

Defines the button names and whether they are Default or Optional
Adds the Default buttons to the navigation box whether they exist or not (so expect to see some red links, the idea is to encourage people to create those missing subpages)
Adds the Optional buttons to the navigation box if they exist in the cluster. (these are added to the navigation box after the default buttons have been set).
Toggles button to on ON or OFF. ON if the subpage is being viewed. (also distinguish between a signed article (sub-subpage) and a regular subpage). (I am sure there is a more economic way to do this. If you're watching, and know how, feel free to step in and fix it :) Actually, I'm sure many parts of the whole set can be improved. Please go ahead and tinker if you have some ideas.)
Define the ON and OFF button colour and style respectively.

For additional subpage ideas a new button can be added to the navigation box by replacing the Button available place holders in the {{Subpage list 2}} template. If there are no free buttons in the existing template then additional button code must be added to the following four templates: {{Subpage list 2}}, {{Default button 2}}, {{Optional button 2}} and {{Unused subpages}}.

Header and categories

If the subpage4 concept is adopted each article will have its own info template (Anthropology linked above as an example). The info template is critical to the functionality of the subpages4 template since it is the central depository for all the information related to the article. This includes the checklist template information, the approved template information and the ToApprove template information.

All the header templates discussed below access data from the info template. This is a huge advantage since all the subpages are coordinated with the articles changing status, as recorded in the info template.

One of these will be placed on the article page depending on whether the article is approved or not. Much of their usage depends on how we use the Draft pages in the future. At present, the example of subpages4 at the Anthropology cluster assumes that all writing will be done on the draft page, whereas the article will only have text once it is approved (NOTE: this is not current practice but is an option that has been discussed in the forums. I have set it up this way to visualise how such a solution might look in practice.)
The draft header will place either a short advert for the approved version (if exists) or an appeal to improve the article to a state where it can be approved.
The checklist3 template places the categories designated from the checklist data onto the Draft page (currently they go to the Talk:Draft page) or on the article in the case of an approved article. This is advantageous since at present every entry in the different categories starts with "Talk:". This is not a huge problem but having the page name first is an improvement, despite the fact that many names will have "/Draft" after them (exceptions are the approved articles).
These represent preliminary ideas for adding a simple descriptive banner and categories to the subpages. They uses the information from the info template to add specific categories dependent on workgroups and whether the article is approved or not. Below are others that will probably function in a similar way.
This variant of the checklist is placed on the Talk:Draft page and adds the checklist to the top of the page. Visually this is similar to the current checklist except the categories are not placed on this page and the data is cribbed from the articles info template.
This is used to identify any unused subpages in a particular cluster.
This is used in both checklists

Random thoughts

Feel free to add new additions or suggest changes. Discussion of these points can continue of the talk page Template_talk:Subpages4.

Ideas not yet incorporated into this tempalte:

  1. The placement of the ToApprove template will be controlled by this template when an editor adds their name to the ToA Editor field and completes all the other ToApprove fields in the "info template".
    The navigation box will be a different colour for approved articles (Green?). This allows a reader to quickly note if the content has been approved, even when browsing the subpages. Could also have a colour that designates when the cluster has a ToApprove template placed since it is often a time to mention problems with the articles and subpages on the talk page. These types of visual signals should aid the readers as well as authors.
    I just implemented this change. The green colour is not the best choice the concept is now working.
    With the navigation box on the Talk:Draft page the archive box is semi-redundant. The archive links can be incorporated into the {{checklist2}} table on the Talk:Draft page to free up space at the top of the page. This is done now too although i note that the archive names chosen for chiropractic don't allow it to function.
  2. Need to have categories added automatically to the main article when not approved. This is necessary, if we decide to only use the draft page after approval.
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