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Update directions & need help at Template:WPFOOD

When you added the default flag for importance, in both the main & B ck-list areas, and when you enabled the TF6-10 prompts for creating categories, are we supposed to have a yes/no for each TF 6-10 and have that default flag in the code on our WP templates? Do the instructions need to be updated on the /doc page? Reason for asking - don't know how to get {{WPFOOD}} to prompt for the missing Herbs & Spices categories. Thanks! --Funandtrvl (talk) 15:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The TF_6-10 checks are only a tool for the convenience of editors constructing complicated banners. They don't actually work. They will prompt for the missing categories on the template page, but then they need to be "hooked". You won't get prompts on {{WPFOOD}} because they are using a custom mask. However I have created a version on Template:WikiProject Food and drink/sandbox which is prompting for them now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:47, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Terrific, thank you for the help and explanation! --Funandtrvl (talk) 16:13, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

B checklist

On {{WPBeatles}}, the B checklist is implemented, but an article can still be assessed as B-Class even if b1–b6 are set to "no".

Is this a bug in that banner (in which case, how do I fix it?), or is it due to a recent change in WPBannerMeta (in which case the documentation should be updated)? Dendodge _T\^C 16:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is a Happy-melon error on your custom mask. Easily fixed though. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

How do I fix it? Dendodge _T\^C 17:10, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I fixed it. Also on WPGermany; I'm going to go through and check the others. :S Happy‑melon 18:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like we've all done it!! Even Martin, although that was to a sandbox, so it only counts as half... :D Happy‑melon 18:20, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Umm, hope you didn't "fix" any others in this way! (Extra =) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:35, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you're talking about... :S Happy‑melon 20:44, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Questions

I've done a lot of work today to bring {{WikiProject Mississippi}} up to standards, including creating many sub pages this template required. Happy-melon converted it to WPBannerMeta on April 3rd, but many of the parameters weren't implemented during that conversion, hence my work today. Most of what I've done is via reading documentation and looking at other project templats. I do have some questions however and would appreciate any help..

• Used to, articles classed as NA would go into Category:Non-article Mississippi pages. Now I see that page was deleted twice in April. So my question is, where are the NA articles going now?
• Second question.. I think I have some coding wrong somewhere as Category:Mississippi articles needing attention is showing articles instead of placing them in the subcats. Thoughts?

It's all confusing to me but I think I've done a good job bringing the template from what it was to what it is now. Any further help fine tuning it would be most appreciated. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 02:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

It's looking good! I've made a few suggestions, feel free to revert them.

• NA-Class articles will be in Category:NA-Class Mississippi articles, although as you have full quality scale enabled only those pages which don't come under any other class will be in here.
• I don't understand. What subcategories do you want to use? I don't see any specifc coding relating to the attention category ...

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:09, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. I wasn't aware of Category:NA-Class Mississippi articles. I do my best to keep this project running. I wished I knew of way to know when new project related pages were created such as this one. I kept wondering why in the world Category:Non-article Mississippi pages kept getting deleted and showing as red link in the template's assessment documentation and I didn't know what to replace it with. lol I changed the images back in the template due to past discussion a wiki-lifetime ago (I think it was 2 years, maybe just under). But as I think about it, I don't guess it would matter now since all those that were a part of the discussion have seemingly disappeared. I of course find the Mississippi state flag offensive but that's another discussion for another place.

As for those subcats, I was just noticing like on Category:Nevada articles needing attention, they have no individual articles listed there.. just all subcats, whereas Category:Mississippi articles needing attention has the subcats and some stray individual articles.

Thanks for your help and looking at the template. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 07:24, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

The banner has the following parameter set:

|attention={{{attention|}}}

Since no category is defined, I assume the meta feeds Category:Foo articles needing attention by default, though this is not mentioned in the documentation. Happy Melon or Martin will know better than me, though. PC78 (talk) 09:49, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Not mentioned? What's this then: "By default, they are categorised into Category:PROJECT articles needing attention." Navada articles needing attention will go into that category - it just so happens that there are none at the moment. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:27, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahh ok, Thanks Martin. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 20:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah, well. Clearly I can't read then. :) PC78 (talk) 22:37, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Another question

Would someone take a look at {{WikiProject Mississippi}} and fix whatever is causing it to call for {{WikiProject Mississippi/class}}. I only noticed this because when you're in edit mode for the template and scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page here it shows all templates being called for, it was red. Thanks. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 04:24, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

This is not an error, and happens on every banner. It's because the meta checks that page in case there is a custom class mask in place. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, thank you for explaining it to me. - ALLST✰R▼^echo _{wuz here @} 07:26, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmn, we could fix this by adding the surrounding #ifexist check, as we do on the main banner. How close to the limit did you say you were with the category checks, Martin? Happy‑melon 15:00, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Bot requests#BannerBOT

Some feedback would be appreciated. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 07:43, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Hide importance row on non-articles

Another request born of MSGJ's and my efforts to convert {{WikiProject Anime and manga}} to use WPBM; currently WP:ANIME's banner does not display the importance row on non-articles (where importance is automatically set equal to NA), whereas WPBM does. Once again, MSGJ has said he agrees with how WP:ANIME's banner does it, and suggested I raise the issue here. Thoughts? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 19:08, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Ha, you've got your work cut out trying to persuade that lot to convert :) I agree that it's a bit pointless displaying an NA-importance, athough we should to continue categorising in those categories. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

But if a page was manually rated with an importance rating (even if it were NA), then that should be displayed. Essentially you want to hide the importance scale (but still categorise) if the importance rating is "unspecified". That's much trickier than just hiding it in certain namespaces(which is trivial). Happy‑melon 14:34, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I was thinking about hiding it whenever the importance was NA ... (I don't think whether NA is actually specified should make any difference?). This would have to be checked on /importancescale itself, after the importance is passed through the mask. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I was talking specifically about hiding in certain namespaces (everything but article talk), but showing in those namespaces if (for whatever reason) the importance has been specified. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 20:15, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Isn't that the same as what I said? (Unless you put NA importance on an article, which is silly ...) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Cough redirects cough. :D Happy‑melon 21:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

And disambiguation pages... Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 04:49, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Sure, well these are all non-articles anyway. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well I propose we trial it for a while, and continue to seek comments on it. I don't expect it to be controversial because it is just hiding a row of information which is basically irrelevant anyway. There is some proposed code in the sandbox awaiting a check. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:02, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we can do it like this, setting /importance to return "NA" when the rating is explicitly set to NA, and "nA" when it's set by default. Then we can make the distinction I wanted, and only hide importance ratings when they're not explicitly set. I've had a look through the hooks; I think the only place where it'll have an effect is /hooks/qualimpintersect, where I've already armoured the parameters against the change. We'll need to use ucfirst: in the same way for displaying the importance rating in the header, above; that's no big deal. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 14:54, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well the physics projects sets its importance rating to NA-class manually/by bot. This is sort of a paranoid protection against people who might be tempted to assess templates, categories, etc... That being said, there is nothing lost by not displaying the "NA", IMO. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:09, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I really can't see why we would want to distinguish between automatic NA and imposed NA. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:11, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I have implemented the simplified version. Yes, there are thousands of category talk pages which are bot-created with class=NA/Cat, importance=NA, and the reason for this I suppose, is that the previous version of the banners did not automatically classify as NA. Therefore I see no reason to treat these any differently. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:02, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Meh :D It's not exactly an earth-shattering change... Happy‑melon 14:07, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

New hook for custom importance scales

There were more and more projects wanting to use weird and wonderful importance ratings, so I have built a hook /customimportance for this purpose. Just to let you all know. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:31, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks for that ! SyG (talk) 09:02, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:WikiProjectBoxing

Can one of you guys have a look at this banner? The "to-do" list is not collapsing on article talk pages (see Talk:2011 World Amateur Boxing Championships), which I'm guessing is something to do with the recent changes to NOTES & C_NOTES. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 11:09, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it was an error on their todo list Template:WPB Announcements. A table was opened but not closed. I've removed the table entirely from that page, should be fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

You sure? I'm still seeing the uncollapsed list on the talk page I linked above. PC78 (talk) 11:49, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Try purging? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:58, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. This looks fine on Mozilla, but does not collapse on IE. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

This seems to affect all transclusions of the to-do hook in which the class parameter is not defined. Specifying the class seems to fix it! Otherwise the [show] button doesn't even appear. Hmm. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:09, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Funnily enough the code for the new collapsed section contains a comment "TO FIX IE", which suggests that H-M was expecting something to go wrong here. I'll leave it for him to work out. There's nothing wrong with the todo hook as far I can see. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

and there also seems to be an extra td in the same line. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:31, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean whenever |TODO_STLE= is not set? Happy‑melon 13:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

No! I mean this one on the core. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:16, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, that didn't fix the issue. We've still got banners

• with sections which should be collapsed but no show/hide button appearing
• with collapsed sections which are uncollapsed by default (and showing the "hide" button)

Please install internet explorer, then you can see it! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to your 12:09 post, "in which the class paramter is not defined"; seems very bizzarre otherwise. Although I see where you're coming from; the presence of the |class= parameter does affect the structure of the header row.

Although I do tend to forget, I do still have IE... do remind me of that fact from time to time :D I see the issue on WPKorea, although I have no idea off the top of my head what's going on there... I'll have a poke. Happy‑melon 14:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not being clear. I was talking about the class parameter of the template. Setting it causes the table to collapse as normal on IE. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:00, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed. Stupid piece of crap that calls itself a browser... :D Happy‑melon 16:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't think it is ... This is still a mess on IE. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:43, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed ??? Happy‑melon 11:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

The show/hide on the Korea banner seems to be broken again. PC78 (talk) 13:29, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Broken how? Doesn't collapse in IE? Or is it a different issue? Happy‑melon 13:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

All related to the same problem I think. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:22, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Well this one's not fixed, so perhaps not? Happy‑melon 16:23, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

It collapses correctly when I copy the content to Special:ExpandTemplates. That's just taking the piss :D Happy‑melon 16:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Well done chaps, it all looks good to me in both IE and FF. :) PC78 (talk) 12:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Martin's example above is still broken for me on IE7/Vista. Is it for you? Happy‑melon 10:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I think I might have fixed it; but I have no faith in it to stay fixed any more, so do let me know if you spot anything else not collapsing when it should... Happy‑melon 11:05, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to confirm that it's all looking good now, and any explanation you can offer as to how you fixed it and what causes this error would be helpful, just in case you are not around next time it happens! Also, do we know why it only happened with unassessed articles? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:41, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced that it's fixed, what with the ongoing discusison at TT:WPBS, but that seems to be tangentially connected.

Ok, whistlestop tour of WPBM header structure... The challenge in redesigning the header was to get a reliable 50% division in the header row, whilst still having the show/hide button float correctly to the right. The show/hide JavaScript adds the button to the first <th> cell it encounters, so splitting the header row up into multiple cells would normally result in the button appearing midway across the row. There's also the need to have more than one cell in the row, or the 100% width declaration in the mbox-text class doesn't properly push the box out to its maximum allowed width. Our infamous width issue is a myserious bug whereby this feature also doesn't work when the cell with mbox-text class has colspan=3, but that's another issue :D

The very first implementation just had the project link, taskforces and assessment all together as freeflowing text in one th cell, with a {{td}} providing the second cell (the outer table of WPBM actually only has two rows; all the contents of the banner proper are inside a second nested table). However this was pretty hideous, and I had for a long time on the todo list "fix header alignment/linewrapping/general awfulness"... The second generation still had all the content in one cell, but everything other than the collapse button was inside another nested table. However, this was a pain because the nested table couldn't be given 100% width (or it linewrapped to underneath the show/hide button), which meant trying to specify fixed widths to the cells inside failed horribly on several browsers; this was the Safari and Chrome bug we had a while back.

The third and most recent implementation throws all of that out the window. I was looking at the code and realised that all this time, the show/hide button hadn't been applying to the first cell in the row; the whole way through we'd had a {{td}} to get the mbox magic. But because the cell generated by that template is a <td> and not a <th>, it was being ignored by the JavaScript. So this generation applies that principle to the header. Now there are two full-width cells in the header row (plus a tiny {{td}}), but the first one (which contains the project link and taskforces) is not a th, it's a td with font-weight:bold. Only the second one (with the assessment rating) is a th. That's the case if quality assessments are used by the banner, anyway; otherwise the header is still one th with colspan=2.

Now to the bug. With the way we show assessments in the collapsed banner (ie not showing "(Rated ???-Class)") the th in the header row is empty if |class= is not set. The CollapsibleTables JavaScript coughs and dies on IE when it's asked to add a show/hide button to an empty th, for some unknown reason. We realised this over at Common.js, and the fix is to ensure that the empty th is made not empty, by adding a hidden span or something. I killed two birds with one stone here on WPBM by filling the hidden span with useful machine-readable metadata, with which one can do interesting things with JavaScript. But I realised a few days ago (when one of said scripts broke) that the position meant that the metadata was only being included if the project used a quality scale! So I moved it such that it would always be available. Which of course left the cell empty again (serves me right for removing the "this fixes IE" comment), and in came the bug reports above :D I recognised the bug symptoms and reinserted the fix, but with a crucial difference: the span I added had no actual content other than an HTML comment. And as I've found through experimentation today... Tidy eats empty spans, so it wasn't making it into the final output. I'm not sure why the problem went away on the testcases I checked after adding the empty span, but that was my over-optimistic 16:23 post above. Adding an nbsp into the span forces it to display in all its invisible glory, and fixes the problem properly. Happy‑melon 19:24, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Wow, thanks. This may take some digesting ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:00, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

So empty table cells are always problematic? Or just ones in the header with the show/hide button? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:01, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Only when the CollapsibleTables JS tries to stick a show/hide button in them. Happy‑melon 08:50, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Bad assignment to unassessed

Changes over the last day (or so) are now meaning that numbers of our projects (WP:Novels) articles are being assigned to Unassessed see "Category:Unassessed Fantasy fiction articles" as an example. all of these are assessed, at least as far as the "class" is concerned. This should not be happening. Please fix urgently. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

In {{WPBannerMeta/hooks/taskforces/core}}, the QUALITY parameter is wrong and class is not been passed through for tf 3 & tf 4. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:57, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

So is anyone able to sort this out for us then as I don't understand this new template code and I am not an admin and have now access anyway. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 15:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

I've put in an {{editprotected}} request on Template talk:WPBannerMeta/hooks/taskforces/core -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:16, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

 Fixed now. Sorry about this; I'm really not sure how that crept in. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:31, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Partly because I assumed they were carbon-copies and only checked that the numbers were incremented correctly; I completely missed that error, so my apologies too. Happy‑melon 18:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Template:WPMED

I wanted to know if the following is possible?

I was thinking, instead of having a photo for the dermatology icon (as it is hard to find a great derm photo that scales down nicely) could we have that space read something like "DERM" inside a colored box? Similar to how the class and importance scale information is displayed?

Is this functionality available, and, if not, could someone add it? ---kilbad (talk) 20:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

You would have to make an image of the text, if that makes sense. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:59, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Like it? File:DERM.gif No, well, probably not. But there are some nice tools out there ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:46, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up the image inclusion syntax is on the todo list; I'm looking at {{image}}, which has nice features we could use. You could use that to include text instead of images, but only if the text is linked (ie, the first character is "["). That's better than nothing, though. Happy‑melon 09:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:impor

Requesting a sanity-check on applying this diff to Template:WPBannerMeta/importancescale. Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

That looks sane to me. Mind you... :D Happy‑melon 21:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Ha ha.  Done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Requesting check for applying this diff to Template:WPBannerMeta. As {{WPBannerMeta/importance}} interprets ¬ the same as blank, this shouldn't have any effect at this stage. My idea eventually is to deprecate IMPORTANCE_SCALE. But before that can happen, we need to track which banners pass importance but don't use importance. Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:38, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that should be ok. Happy‑melon 22:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm about ready to replace {{#if:{{{IMPORTANCE_SCALE|}}}| with {{#ifeq:{{{importance|}}}|¬||. The job queue seems to have been lightening fast recently (I populated category of 2000 in less than 2 mins a couple of days ago) so I'm reasonably sure that there are no more banners which pass importance and don't use the importance scale. I might look at doing something similar with taskforces and hooks later. (Think I've finally got the hang of ¬, woohoo!) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, seems to be working. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we're ready to roll this out to the 5 main taskforces as well now. Does anyone have any concerns about this? In a nutshell, the switch for the importance scale will be whether or not an importance parameter is passed or not, and the IMPORTANCE_SCALE parameter becomes redundant. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:04, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

As long as we're happy that there aren't any parameters being passed when they shouldn't be, and so we're not going to accidentally activate any importance scales. Happy‑melon 10:18, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm happy ;) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, now for the taskforce hook ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:26, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Request for a code-check on Template:WPBannerMeta/hooks/taskforces/sandbox please. Main changes/benefits are:

• Removal of duplication of code for live and templatepage versions.
• Avoidance of calling {{WPBannerMeta/class}} 10 times through the use of a core.
• Deprecation of the IMPORTANCE parameters, as per the main template.

Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:46, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me, my edit was just code layout tweaks. I'm sure it could be simplified/optimised further (the double parsers in the core look like a ripe target), but it'll only make the code less readable. Happy‑melon 18:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Forgot to say that it's implemented on Template:ChristianityWikiProject/sandbox, and I can't see any problems either. I thought for a long time about how to do this efficiently, but if you can do it more simply then great. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:17, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say I could do it more simply: if I were forced to optimise it further, I'd probably do something wierd like move the yesno templates in the main hook to the parameter names, thereby recovering the defined/undefined nature of the trigger parameters; and use that to remove the double parsers in the core. But that's just stupid :D Happy‑melon 18:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done, and error fixed thanks to WOS. I think we can now remove the calls to the importance mask from Template:WPBannerMeta/taskforce now as importance is pre-normalised. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:16, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, /core and /hooks/taskforces are the only valid entry points; anything else that breaks is because someone's not doing it properly. Happy‑melon 08:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done. Fixed a couple of small errors as well: a switch that looked as though it should be an ifeq, and a | missing in the MAIN_CAT conditional. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:22, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

That #switch looks like it's (or should be) a class test; is there any reason we can't switch based on class rather than namespace? And avoid "this article..." on redirects, dabs, etc? Happy‑melon 14:51, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've been thinking about making a template to show something more descriptive here. Such as file, disambiguation page, etc. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

WPBannerMeta/taskforce

The last edit to WPBannerMeta/taskforce added an extra | into the #if for MAIN_CAT, so now the taskforce MAIN_CATs are only shown if category=no. Can it be fixed. Thanks -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Oops, what was I thinking?  Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Standard or not?

Is it recommended to use WPBannerMeta in project templates isntead of the own project code? Starting this thread due to this discussion. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 14:56, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

There's certainly no mad axeman waiting outside to butcher a project that doesn't use it, but I certainly would recommend it (you're probably in the wrong place if you were expecting a different answer :D). I can usually come along and write a list of at least ten things that are 'wrong' with any particular banner coding-wise, and people usually now have a hell of a time to find something that WPBM can't do (or can't be made to do, as long as the thing actually makes sense in the first place). Happy‑melon 15:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Alternate B-Class checklist display

WP:ANIME's banner, which uses the B-Class checklist, currently has it display in a collapsible brown box in the same cell as the quality assessment description (the actual code for the box can be found here, and there's a sandbox here, if anyone feels like playing with it). This is quite different from WPBM's current display method of creating another row specifically for the checklist, and results in a much more compact presentation. MSGJ has stated that he would probably support the addition of similar functionality to WPBM if the color was changed, but I don't have much of a head for color issues. =) Thoughts? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 19:05, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Style-wise, that looks absolutely vile, and I think I prefer the separate rows; it's clearer and I like the separate icon and B-class colour. I think WPBM's style draws better attention to the checklist, which can be an easy source of confusion ("Oi, I said B-Class, stupid banner! Why does it still say C-Class? Mummeee!!!..."). The Anime version is too easily overlooked, which is IMO a Bad Thing. Happy‑melon 14:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's not perfect currently. But there is one advantage: the checklist is actually next to the class rather than interrupted by the importance rating. That does seem more logical. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's true, and it would make the two cells blend together more when the article is B-Class. We could do that trivially though, just moving things around in WPBM/core. Happy‑melon 17:12, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

As I said originally, you're free to play with the styles if you'd like. Actually, I'd be interested in seeing what you might come up with for it. =) I think separate rows or a subbox is a matter of personal taste, and I'm probably biased towards the latter myself simply because I'm so used to it. 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{(Dinoguy1000)} 20:17, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

 Done I've moved it up underneath the class rating. Happy‑melon 14:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I think we could experiment with having it in the same row. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:02, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

But then what would we do with your beautiful B-Checklist icon!?! :D Happy‑melon 08:46, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I know! It would be a tragedy if we didn't use it ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Ow, yuck. The checklist looks really rubbish on Google Chrome. See File:Bchecklist on Google Chrome.jpg. Look where the show/hide buttons are on Germany and Poland. Can we do something about this please? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

WTF? After so many appearances, the "oh look the mbox magic isn't working and pushing the tables out to maximum width" bug doesn't surprise me any more. But that's actually linewrapping instead of pushing out!!! Can you take another with #bodyContent * {border:1px solid red!important;} in your CSS? I wonder whether the issue is actually the {{td}}, which is on the right in the bchecklist for some reason, is actually expanding rather than the table shrinking. Either way, it's a pain, and nasty as you say. Happy‑melon 15:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Bchecklist on Google Chrome with red lines.jpg. This is Talk:Judaism by the way. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:47, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Short main text on Chrome.jpg

And another one for you. This is Template:WikiProject Anatomy/sandbox on Chrome! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:33, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

So basically, Chrome is totally screwed... :P Happy‑melon 09:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Are they any better now? I've added explicit width declarations to the inner tables; might be the same issue we had with the second generation of the header... Happy‑melon 10:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, both  Fixed on Chrome, thanks. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:09, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Displaying B-checklist on Start-Class articles

Would there be any opposition to displaying the B-checklist when the class is Start, even when none of the parameters are defined? The reason is that a few banners using a custom mask, will classify as Start unless a certain number of criteria are checked. Therefore you could have the situation where class is defined as B or C, but it comes out as Start without any explanation. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

You can just pass one or more of the b-checklist parameters as |b1={{{b1|?}}}:

Only problem with that is that the "please fill in the checklist" prompt no longer appears. But better to fix that, IMO. Happy‑melon 14:56, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is really with those banners which use criterion marking for C-class: either the meta-banner allows for that, or the projects should be reminded of the problems that their current system causes. I would propose the opposite solution to that which Martin suggests: that the B-checklist should only be displayed if the article has been rated above C-class or if at least one of the parameters has been checked. At the moment, we are claiming that "This article has been checked against the following criteria" when, in most cases, it hasn't been formally checked at all (all the criteria are marked as "?"). Physchim62 (talk) 15:04, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't fully understand what you're saying here; "criterion marking"?? The banner says, if no parameters have been checked the banner says "has not yet been checked":

The difference in the banner above is another thing that needs to be tweaked; both are a result of too-late normalisation. Is there any reason why we can't normalise the B-Checklist parameters in WPBM proper? Does this cover all bases?

{{#switch: {{lc:{{{b1|¬}}}}}
  |yes|y|1|pass = y
  |no|n|0|fail  = n
  |na|n/a       = x
  |¬            = ¬
  |<yes/no>
  |yes/no
  |             = <!--NULL-->
  |?|#default   = ?
}}

We can use ¬ and just get projects to not pass |b6= to only use the 5-point scale, deprecating the |b6=unused option. How widely are the "not applicable" and "invalid parameter" options used (is it used?)?? With some proper normalisation in place, we can make these things consistent. But there's still the distinction between "not yet set", which gives the null string, and "not yet assessed", which gives "?". Thoughts? Happy‑melon 16:01, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

• Support using b6=¬ instead of b6=unused.
• Also would support b1!=¬ instead of B_CHECKLIST=yes.
• I think the n/a option and invalid warning are useful; they probably should be documented somewhere though ...
• No I don't think there is any benefit in normalising them on WPBM because the class mask would have to normalise again anyway for the use of hooks.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:17, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a good point about the hooks/ I guess it needs to be a deeper check... I still think it could do with being normalised somewhere though. Also support deprecating B_CHECKLIST... although that might cause a few tantrums with the people who fought to get it passed to the custom masks!! Happy‑melon 18:23, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure about your proposed solution. Changing b1={{{b1|}}} to b1={{{b1|?}}} would then permanently display the checklist on all stubs as well, and I don't think this is desired. Do you feel that displaying it on all start-class articles is not a good idea? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

It would at the moment, you're right. I think people should have the option, but I don't think it's a good idea to make it the default. And there's generally a lot of cleanup we can do here. Perhaps what we need is criteria like this:

• FA/A/GA - never
• B/C - always
• Start - if any criteria are set
• Stub - if more than X criteria are set

Where X is a number more than 1. Then projects could do what I said to trigger it for Start-Class, or set them all to the ? default to get it for Stub-Class as well if they really want. Thoughts? Happy‑melon 14:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

 Review Ok, I have just such a setup in the sandbox. Have a look/play and tell me what you think. Happy‑melon 17:53, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Comments:

1. It seems to achieve what you want, and I like the solution whereby if any parameter is filled then it will be displayed on Start-Class. However I might argue that you have significantly complicated the template for the very slim possibility that a project will want the checklist displayed on stubs. By all means, if a project comes and asks for it, then we can do it, but until that unlikely day, maybe you can consider leaving this out? (Sorry if that means the fantastic logic tests will not be as impressive!)
2. <yes/no> seems to be treated as "yes", although this seems to be the case currently as well! Maybe we can subtemplate the mask for these parameters?
3. /criterion will need to be edited to accept "x" and "?".
4. The method for opting out of b6 doesn't seem to work. Not sure why. See Template:WikiProject Former countries/testcases.  Fixed

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:57, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the review.

1. I don't actually think that removing the check on Stub-Class will actually simplify the logic very much; am I missing something? It seems to me that it just means moving Stub in with FA/A/GA at the top. When Brion finally scaps again (we're 2500 code revisions out of date now :( we will finally get native string functions (Rob Rohde added them to ParserFunctions in r50997, yay for Rob!), which will make the second part a simple switch too (I didn't want to use our own evil {{str len}} cos it's evil as we all know). Do you have a suggestion for how it can be simplified by removing Stub?
2. Are you sure? It looks like it's treated as "" to me.
3.  Done Actually it only needed "x"; but I added "¬" for completeness too (not that it should ever be exposed to them).

Happy‑melon 10:40, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

1. Well maybe it wouldn't simplify it much. I just think you are implementing something which is never likely to be wanted. If you think it might really be useful for a project then go ahead.
2. My mistake due to strange normalisation on Template:WikiProject Former countries/class.
3. On /core, shouldn't "?" be treated as "yes/no" rather than the default which triggers the parameter error.

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:00, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

1) I can see it being useful; although it's one of those things that as you say is probably going to be used never to rarely. But I honestly don't see how we can regain simplicity simply by not including it, so we might as well.

3) I don't think the orange checkmark is actually reachable any more; |b1=cheesecake is normalised to |b1=? now. Is that a problem?

Happy‑melon 11:22, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. Well, either we have a separate value for "errors", or we count yes/no towards the trigger for displaying the checklist ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:04, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

That is, the only value that should not count towards displaying the checklist is ""? I can see the logic in that. Happy‑melon 21:11, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Not only yes/no, but any defined value (even blank) should count towards the trigger, otherwise the checklist may disappear! (See below) Of course this wouldn't be possible without changing all banners to pass {{{b1|¬}}} etc. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Scenario

1. Current proposal is implemented
2. WikiProject decides to display b-checklist on start-class articles
3. Editor sees checklist on a start-class article and defines blank parameters b1-6 in preparation for improving the article to b-class
4. "?" is no longer passed from project banner to WPBM
5. B-checklist disappears
6. Editor confused

— Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

This is a good point, but the implementation is a bit trickier. Because you remember we wanted |b6=¬ to signify "unused"?!? And potentially, of course, we could do the same with the other b parameters and deprecate B_CHECKLIST. So we can't use ¬ to signify "used by the banner but not set on instance" in this case, because we wanted it to mean "not passed by the banner". We could pick another character, of course, but that might be confusing. I'm not sure how best to proceed. Happy‑melon 08:45, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Temporary solution while we continue to discuss this: a simple trick which will un-break AVIATION and not affect any others (I think). Display the B-checklist on start-class articles if and only if the following returns "Start". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:58, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

{{WPBannerMeta/class|class=B|BCHK=yes|b1=no|b2=no|b3=no|b4=no|b5=no|b6=no}}

Er... maybe I'm misreading this, but won't that just return "B" if the project isn't using a B-Class checklist (unreachable since /bchecklist won't be called in that case) and "Start" if it is? Ergo, checklist will always display on Start-Class articles? Am I missing a trick? Happy‑melon 09:09, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Most class masks that use the checklist will return C. There is only aviation and (if they ever convert) Anime which will auto-demote to Start-class. And these are the ones which need the checklist displayed on start-class. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:12, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I must be getting old... :D WPAviation is the exception, not the rule. I'm going to have to go go live in a desert at this rate... :D

Actually, that's quite nice; it also cleans up the scenario I've just thought of where a project uses the B-checklist but not C-Class (a-la Milhist), which exhibits the same behaviour. Happy‑melon 18:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I did put some code in the /sandbox yesterday which you might have missed. It may or may not achieve what we want ... we need to decide what kinds of parameter input should count towards the display trigger. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:51, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I like the edit summary :D What that snippet does is switch us from "we always display the checklist on C-Class" to "we always display the checklist on the class(es) articles are downgraded to", which could include start in several situations. That resolves the original issue, but not the scenario that's the title of this subsection. I guess the question is, are we treating this as a redesign for its own sake, or as a fix for a specific bug? Happy‑melon 23:00, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am trying to fix my original issue (and I fix this does fix the scenario above as well) as well as incorporating any other improvements along the way (such as b6!=¬ instead of b6=unused). — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:24, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I've implemented this small fix for now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, where are we with this? I see your {{WPBannerMeta/bchecklist/b}}; is that in use? Happy‑melon 11:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I just made the fix for my original issue, which is working quite nicely I think. The b mask is not in use yet. And we haven't changed the implementation of the 5 point checklist yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:12, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Displaying the importance in the collapsed version...

Having to "uncollapse" the banners to see the importance ratings is very annoying. Placing (A-Class, High-Imp) instead of only (A-Class) would fix this. Likewise, when unassessed, the collapsed version could be displaying (???-Class, ???-Imp) instead of nothing. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:14, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, can you tell us which template or page you are referring to? Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:22, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

All banners, I think; this has come across from Template talk:WikiProjectBannerShell, which is also on my watchlist :D

I'm not fundamentally against this change; the way the banners are currently set up, the left side (with the project link and any taskforces) fills up a lot quicker than the right (with only the class assessment); but it's by no means a trivial change. There is also the question of how to handle projects that use "priority" rather than "importance" scales. Happy‑melon 13:32, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

This might be worth thinking about, but I would oppose displaying ??? for its ugliness. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

In the same way that we don't display "(Rated -Class)" for unassessed articles, yes, definitely. Happy‑melon 14:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that it shouldn't be displayed. This distinguishes the banners from things that simply tag the page. If the project doesn't use the assessment or importance ratings, then ??? shouldn't be displayed, agreed. But otherwise you'll want to indicate that something is missing, IMO. It is possible that I am a minority opinion here.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 11:58, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

By the way,

1. Why is the division line between the project name and class in the middle? Normally the left side will be fuller, as you say.
2. There seems to be quite a big border on the left of a collapsed banner which is unused. See my example underneath.
3. Is there any simpler way to get Biography and Milhist to line up with WPBM banners? It looks a bit ugly when there is a mixture of styles. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

It's been a complete pig to get the centrelines to line up at all; you know how many obscure browser bugs we found trying to get a system that worked! The reason for the large left padding is that there's a transparent span the same size and shape as the show/hide button, to balance the remaining space (otherwise the centreline would be left of centre). We might be able to get rid of that with the most recent incarnation of the header structure; I'll have a looksee. Despite the imbalance, I think it looks nicest when it is centred: the Australia banner you give is of course an extreme example; I haven't seen any article in more than a couple of taskforces. And I'm not sure how easy it would be to persuade all browsers to set the midline consistently at anywhere other than the centre. Although it might work. Milhist and WPBio could be given the same structure as the WPBM fairly easily. And since they're likely to be some of the last banners to be converted (WPBio because of the listas thing, Milhist just because they're so well supported themselves), it might be a good idea to do so. Happy‑melon 17:11, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, I think Oregon might be the last to be persuaded, although maths and us roads will give them some competition. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:31, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

In terms of needing to be "persuaded", I think Tropical cyclones can give all the others a run for their money; at least Oregon raises legitimate concerns, even if they do take every little thing as an excuse to revert. I was thinking more in terms of actual technical difficulty in adapting banners to WPBM form; WPBio is a nonstarter if listas doesn't work, and MilHist is so well-developed that getting WPBM to match its unique features is going to be a nightmare. But at least both those projects are, IMO, amenable to listening to suggestions for improvement; Kirill over at Milhist in particular is very good at keeping their banner bang up to date: it was the first banner after WPBM to implement the new nesting code, for instance. Happy‑melon 19:38, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

The example above was slightly extreme, but for a ridiculous example have a look at Christianity which I have just finished converting. Lol, I thought 36 had to be the record but then I counted Australia's. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyway back to business. I would have thought a split of 3/4 and 1/4 would have been almost as easy and would also look good. But I'll take your word if you say it's hard. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I've stuck something in the sandbox that removes the huge left margin; it only actually saves two lines. Iff that new incarnation of the structure doesn't crash and burn in browser X, we can see if we can play with the position of the centreline; it might actually be possible. How does the monster testcase look in people's browsers? Happy‑melon 20:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

In FF3 Vista, it does this. Dendodge _T\^C 20:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Internet explorer 7 on Vista — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:55, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Not on my FF3 in Vista. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, it is happening on mine in FF and IE. I never tried the "show" button! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's a column inbalance, very wierd. Try purging, null editing, etc? Happy‑melon 21:13, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel like an idiot, honest :D How about now? Happy‑melon 21:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Deployed. Hopefully nothing will fall apart this time... :S Happy‑melon 10:26, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Lol, fix one thing and break another. Our width issue is back. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:48, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Grrr... :D  Fixed Happy‑melon 16:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Section break (collapsed importance)

Ok, so it looks like there's nothing jaw-droppingly wrong with the new header structure. What do people think about actually implementing this proposal? How do you think we should format it? All in the same bracket, or in separate brackets? Happy‑melon 20:46, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I would go with a bold ( A-Class, Top-Importance ), dropping the "rated" to save space. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:19, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Also as a style issue, I would make place each project name with their slashes in a {{nowrap}}, so lines either end with slashes or with the final project. (I see New South Wales on two lines, and it's rather ugly). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:22, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm persuadable, but at the moment I'm going with weak oppose. I think it's fair to say that as the importance is project-specific (well the quality is as well, but that's another discussion ...) and so it's probably of interest only to that project and so doesn't need to be displayed in the collapsed version. There is no more reason to display importance than another parameter. In fact you might make a stronger case for displaying a message when attention=yes. Obviously we can't display all information - collapsing is supposing to be supressing additional information - and I'm not persuaded that importance should be an exception. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Martin here. The project importance scales are defined so as to be specific to that particular project. The resulting metadata is useful outside of the project, of course, but it is hardly vital. Michael Jackson (an FA) is obviously rated of Top-Importance for WikiProject Michael Jackson, but only of Low-Importance for WikiProject Christianity (or WikiProject Janet Jackson, for that matter). Such differences are normal, and arise only because of the way that WikiProjects are organised. If there's a serious difference in the quality assessment between projects, on the other hand, that probably means that the article needs improving in some way. Physchim62 (talk) 15:44, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Well for instance, it greatly simplifies the task of people who wants to review the ratings. Which is what triggered this request. Displaying the taskforce-specific ratings would be overkill, I agree, but there is space to display the project ratings, so why not use it? While we're on the topic, I'm not opposed to display things like |attention=yes either, but there simple icons such as could be used (if indeed people want them). Which leads me to perhaps overhauling the class/imp display to color coded boxes. Something like "WikiProject Physics | [GA-class][Top-Imp]" (in their usual colours). I'll build an example of what I mean. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:50, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Hey, we might even have a use for all those class icons now. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:03, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright, see User:Headbomb/Sandbox6 (its crude, but you'll get the idea).Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:17, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting! I think I will need some time to decide if I like it or not ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:05, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I've expanded it a bit to show what I think should be the behaviour in various situations. I think its self-explanatory, but if you have questions, just ask. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The last part (content transfered to the banner shell when fully-collapsed) is technically impossible (except with some very messy JavaScript). I'm not convinced by using the background colours (although maybe using the text colours from Pyrospirit's metadata script could work?). The icons, on the other hand, are inspired. Now, where can we find some importance icons? :D Happy‑melon 21:51, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

If you add the messagebox & standard-talk classes to those examples, it gives it more of that "familiar" brown looking appearance. -- WOSlinker (talk) 22:19, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Yes there a lot one could do to tweak the appearance, I've just shown what I think was the "core idea" of what the layout should be. Aka italics, bolds, nowraps (see code), behaviour, etc... There's a lot of things I didn't address because it involves dealing with spans and table code way too much for my liking. For example, I didn't bother doing borders properly, so I used the mdash line to show where I think should be a visual delimitation. Another thing is I don't think there should be vertical lines, but I didn't bother to remove them, etc... I just used the default wikitable background because it was simpler, etc... If something is not possible (or way too excruciating to bother doing), then lets not worry to much about and do the rest. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:44, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Some minor tweaks (for unassessed class and unknown importance mostly) were made. See User:Headbomb/Sandbox6.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:11, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Anymore feedback on this idea? Should we (well mostly you I suppose) go ahead with it? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether we've got much of a consensus here. I guess we could try it for a few days and see what howls of complaint or support we get. But the implementation itself might be a bit messy, the separator needs to only be added when both quality and importance are assessed, the surrounding braces when either-or, and so forth. Happy‑melon 15:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I like it, but I'd maybe prefer the class icons (we have one for all of them, even redirect and stuff, don't we?) to the coloured boxes. However, I like either way. Dendodge _T\^C 16:48, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not much of a fan of the class icons. They are rather small, and for most of them, aren't all that clear (start vs stub for example). However, I wouldn't mind seeing the various {{X-Class}} be updated to incorporated the class icons like {{GA-Class}} and {{FA-Class}} already do. The seperators could be there by default (a later feature would be to make them dependant on wheter or not the banner has the importance scale enabled). See the fluid dynamics example for what I mean. Emdashes when the importance scale is disabled, {{-importance}} when the scale is enabled, but unfilled. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:16, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

You mean icons in the coloured cells for the quality assessment? They're already there, have been for months. :P You just need to add .wpb .assess * {display: inline!important;} to your stylesheets to see them.

It's current practice to only display the "(Rated X-Class)" when the article has actually been rated, and I don't think it should be otherwise. That is, the banner shouldn't say "(Rated ???-Class, ???-Importance)" when neither are filled in, but not display anything, similarly "(Rated X-Class)" instead of "(Rated X-Class, ???-Importance)", and (potentially, although unlikely) "(Rated Y-Importance)" when the importance is set but the quality is not. Otherwise the shell gets unnecessarily messy. Happy‑melon 20:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) No they're not. See for example Talk:Hydrogen spectral series (there's no C-class icon , only the C-class yellow box. As for ???-Class/Importance, they really should be there IMO. They currently take a lot of space because they are placed on two lines, and I suspect this is the reason why these are not displayed, but my way of doing things is really minimalist as far as space is concerned. The ??? indicates that the article has not yet been rated, while the &emdash; indicates that no rating needs to be provided. The initial coding would probably be easier if it behaves like I suggest, as the undisplay of ???-class and/or ???-imp would probably be a real PITA. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:00, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Oh I assure you they are there, you just need to look carefully :P. That, and put the necessary code in your monobook.css in order to make them visible :D.

Are we talking about the same feature here? Currently when placed inside a banner shell, WikiProject banners collapse to look something like this:

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

With all the other gunk hidden inside the collapse. We are proposing to make a change to:

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

Also displaying the importance rating. Now currently, when no rating is given, the banner displays like this:

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

Rather than like this:

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

And I think that this is the correct behaviour. Anything else is, IMO, messy. Coding complexity is to functionality as performance is to coding: it is not impossible, just fiddly. This change is likely to be somewhat controversial; it has much more likelihood of sticking if no more functionality is changed than is necessary. Happy‑melon 22:17, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

If this requires monobook.css modifications, then its not what 95%+ of users will see. If we're talking about current behaviour, then the above modification would be OK I suppose, although I would remove "rated" since its pretty redundant.

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

and (depending on the situation)

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

although (if there is consensus against displaying ???), then I suppose

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

−

This is a test

+

This was a test!

would be okay. However, I was arguing for something that would look a bit more like (with whatever magic markup you use for your tables)

WikiProject Tulips / Floridae

A

Top

and (depending on the situation)

WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	A	???
WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	???	Top
WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	???	???

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 22:50, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Yuck. Sorry, but that's not going to get my vote any time soon. Why are the colours needed? What value do they add?

Vis the icons, we had a fairly large discussion when they were first added a while back (when they were initially visible to everyone); the consensus was against icons for all classes, so they were hidden by default, and people like me who like to see them can add a line to their monobook to make them visible again. If you like them, do so and see them. Happy‑melon 23:03, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

(Retweak widths to something more reasonable). The main reason for moving to the colour boxes is that it allows to further reduce verbiage (no need to write "class" and "importance" anymore), and liberates space for the Wikiproject column. If colors are to be avoided, then

WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	A-Class	Top-Importance
WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	???-Class	Top-Importance
WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	A-Class	???-Importance
WikiProject Tulips / Floridae	???-Class	???-Importance

Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:13, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

But now what's the difference between that and the brackets? Happy‑melon 08:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

More spaces for the projects and taskforces mostly. And that's without the icon expansion (see my sandbox linked above).Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 08:42, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I propose we go forward with what you've said above. Other things (like the icons) can be added later. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 17:06, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Another section break (collapsed importance)

 Review Ok, I have something that seems to do the trick; and also only displays the protect-IE-from-itself hack when it's actually needed. How does it look? Happy‑melon 11:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, firstly, it is showing NA-importance when (a) importance is not used and (b) when importance is something strange like "bottom". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:23, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay I have switched off the display of NA-importance so that's the first problem sorted I think, as it's the only importance automatically set by the mask. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:40, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh damn, it doesn't integrate with custom importance scales. Hmm, do we bite the bullet and implement custom importance masks in the main banner? It could be a big shakeup, but I am actually tempted... Happy‑melon 16:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

What would be the alternative solutions? Is there any reasons to not switch towards supporting custom importance classes? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 21:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there are any, really. It's just another massive amount of work, and it's not as neat as the class mask because one depends on the other: the importance mask has to be given the normalised output of the class mask, so it has to occur at a different level in the stupid quasi-programming language we're playing with. However, I am inclined to think that it is a good idea overall. But it moves this out of the realm of the quick fix. Happy‑melon 21:39, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Ugh, I would advise against this. We now have a fairly effective way of implementing custom importance scales for the very few number of projects which use it. There is no reason why the Top/High/Mid/Low/NA scale should not be suitable for every project, and I don't see an advantage in encouraging more projects to use weird and wonderful importance ratings just because they can :) If the nested importance thing goes ahead, then personally I think these few projects can live without this feature. But for consistency it would require a check on importance=¬, otherwise it will display on some and not other articles within the same project which is probably not a good idea. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Mmm. You certainly have a point in that if we make it easy, people will do it, which is not always good. The problem will be that those projects that do use a custom scale may get, as you say, nothing displayed when they set |importance=Bottom. What do you mean about the |importance=¬ check? Happy‑melon 13:07, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I meant that it would not be desirable for nested importances to be shown on some instances of a project banner (e.g. when the articles was rated with one of standard importance ratings) and not others (e.g. when an article is rated bottom-importance). It should be all or nothing for each banner. Therefore a check to see whether the importance parameter is passed by the banner should be used. Any clearer? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Because when a custom scale is used, |importance= is not passed through the main banner. Yes, clearer. But ¬ is normalised to "unknown", so I don't think it would display in any case...? I can check, but I think the question of "what to display when the rest of the banner is showing Bottom-importance" is actually unreachable... Happy‑melon 14:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yup, no display, ever. Does this resolve the issues? I confess I've somewhat lost track of where some of the things here are at in terms of review (to much RL intruding :D) Happy‑melon 14:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you are still not understanding my point, so I'll try again. I am proposing that Rocketry articles should never get nested importance, not just the ones which are rated Bottom-importance. Why? Because then it is simply the case that we can't offer that project a new feature because they are using a custom importance scale, which is fine. The alternative is an inconsistent result (depending on the importance rating) which may give the impression that the meta banner is operating in an undesirable way and "broken". — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. When the banner uses a custom imporance scale, the nested-importance code always thinks that the importance is undefined, and so displays nothing. This is what you want, no? I've added some more examples to the shell at the top of this subsection. Happy‑melon 15:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC

Okay, you were understanding perfectly and I'm just being stupid! Yes, only Unknown and NA can be set automatically and neither of these will be displayed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Why not simply a |bottom=yes in the metabanner?Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 13:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Because it's not just {{Bottom-importance}}; although there is certainly less variety in the importance custom scales than the quality scales. How would we react to a request to add a "Middle-importance"? Happy‑melon 14:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Tell them to stop being silly and use Mid-importance :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. And if new ones show up (such as pink-importance), then you could always implement |pink=yes.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

But do we want to open the door to an unclosed set of extra parameters which have to be passed all the way down to /importancescale every time it's called (and would have to be set again in hooks etc)? That is not good practice. If we do make it easier to implement custom scales, it should be by making it possible to make all the changes in one place - a custom importance mask - rather than having to repeat them wherever an importance rating is required. Happy‑melon 15:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, so is this good to go? Happy‑melon 21:01, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

No harm in giving it a spin. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok then, let's shake the tree and see what falls out :D Happy‑melon 22:19, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Champagne & Caviar

I'd like to ask everyone to raise a glass to Rob Halsell, who has (ish)recently change enwiki's default category sortkey to no longer include the namespace prefix (Template:Bug). This means that I've just been able to resolve one of our longest-standing issues, the totally-broken |listas= functionality, by simply removing the sortkeys from all our categories. The cats should sort themselves out over the next few days; Rob is colluding with Tim to run a parallelised version of the maintenance script to update the sortkeys wiki-wide; as the regular serial version will, in the words of Brion, "take a billion years to run" over enwiki's 40-million-or-so-row categorylinks table.

Points to note:

1. When adding categories for whatever reason, they should now usually not have a sortkey of any kind (except for filtering in tracking cats, of course). So use [[Category:Foo]] instead of [[Category:Foo|{{PAGENAME}}]]. This actually applies wiki-wide, not just to WPBM.
2. There is now nothing to stop us converting over {{WPBiography}}. <evil laugh/>

Happy‑melon 09:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Caviar for Funandtrvl

WOOHOO!! DeFaultRyan 14:55, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Still a bit confused about listas. Does this prevent the default sort conflicts which used to occur? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

All |listas=foo has ever done here has been to add a {{DEFUALTSORT:FOO}} to the page when set. We then proceeded to totally disregard that sort by adding an explicit sortkey of {{PAGENAME}} to every category. The defaultsort conflicts were from other banners' attempts to resolve the same issue (talk pages all appearing under "T" if no DEFAULTSORT was set) by specifying {{DEFAULTSORT:{{PAGENAME}}}} if nothing else was given. Now all this hacking around is unnecessary, because Talk:Foo will be sorted by default under "F" if no sortkey is specified, either by DEFAULTSORT or with an explicit key in the category link. All in all a very positive development. Happy‑melon 17:19, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, where's the caviar? --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's good! --Funandtrvl (talk) 18:59, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

We're running for the big league now: Template talk:WPBiography#WPBannerMeta, reprise. Although actually this template, used on 2.1 million pages, makes WPBiography, with a 'mere' 720,000, look almost orphaned... :D Happy‑melon 21:25, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Very funny! --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:00, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The caviar is just for me?? Wow!! I need to go on another cruise vacation, where they have it!! --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Can't get the redirect class to work on {{WikiProject Elements}}

See Talk:Aluminium-27. I place |class=redirect and it never shows up. All others classes work just fine.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 14:27, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

You need a custom class mask to implement Redirect-Class these days. See Template:WPBannerMeta/class for details. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:42, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

But there is a custom class mask. See {{WikiProject Elements/Class}}, which I copied from {{physics/class}}.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:52, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I think I found the problem. I've capitalized "/Class" but the template is looking for "/class".Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 15:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, well spotted. There are a couple of inconsistencies on that class mask. For example Image-Class is used in one place but pages in the File talk namespace are given NA-Class. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:00, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:WPBiography/testcases

Hi-Could you check out why the "priority" parameter doesn't work for the testcases? Thanks. --Funandtrvl (talk) 00:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The priority parameter was not being passed through. Diff -- WOSlinker (talk) 06:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

/Comments subpages bleeding through to talk page TOC

See Talk:Eastern Nazarene College, the Talk:Eastern Nazarene College/Comments subpage seems to be bleeding through somehow. Also had to force a TOC. –xeno^talk 19:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

It's because there's a section header in the comments subpage. Dendodge _T\^C 19:10, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought that might be it. Thanks, –xeno^talk 19:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Minor apperance tweak

Currently the projects and taskforces listed appear as '''Wikiproject Australia''' / '''Adelaide''' / '''Brisbane''' / '''Canberra''' / '''New South Wales''' / '''Melbourne''' / '''Perth''' / '''Queensland''' / '''Sidney''' / '''Tasmania''' / '''Victoria''' However, this causes slashes to appear on new lines rather than at the end of a line. This should be revised to '''Wikiproject Australia'''&nbsp;/ '''Adelaide'''&nbsp;/ '''Brisbane'''&nbsp;/ '''Canberra'''&nbsp;/ '''New South Wales'''&nbsp;/ '''Melbourne'''&nbsp;/ '''Perth'''&nbsp;/ '''Queensland'''&nbsp;/ '''Sidney'''&nbsp;/ '''Tasmania'''&nbsp;/ '''Victoria''' or equivalent.

Or

Wikiproject Australia / Adelaide / Brisbane / Canberra / New South Wales / Melbourne / Perth / Queensland / Sidney / Tasmania / Victoria

vs.

Wikiproject Australia / Adelaide / Brisbane / Canberra / New South Wales / Melbourne / Perth / Queensland / Sidney / Tasmania / Victoria

(difference might not show up depending on zoom level and screen size)

Also, it would be interesting to investigate

Wikiproject Australia:  Adelaide / Brisbane / Canberra / New South Wales / Melbourne / Perth / Queensland / Sidney / Tasmania / Victoria

as a possibility. See User:Headbomb/Sandbox6 (taskforces collasped) for an example. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 01:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've done the linewrapping tweak, that was easy. I don't think I'm a fan of the italics; in some cases (eg {{WikiProject Africa}}) the 'taskforces' are just as important as the main project; it would be a disservice to reduce their prominence. And I don't think there's a serious space shortage (or much space to be gained by changing the formatting). Happy‑melon 08:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Task forces in collapsed banners

Has there been some kind of recent change regarding this? It was switched off in {{WikiProject Korea}}, but now seems to be on. PC78 (talk) 23:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I added it on 8 June. Sorry if it wasn't desired; do you want them removed? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:46, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Please. I must have missed that. PC78 (talk) 20:08, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done, although I can't see any disadvantage in having them. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:29, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It just adds unnecessary clutter, IMHO. The task forces aren't all that active anyway. Cheers! PC78 (talk) 22:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Ancient Germanic studies

Anyone know how to remove the "importance" parameters from the above template for the Runes task force? John Carter (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

If I've interpreted your question correctly, you don't wish there to be importance assessments for the task force. You just need to remove the tf 1 importance parameter, as I have now  Done. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

You did. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Palaeontology

Could someone take a look at this template? Problems: 1. Isn't the "note" for TFs not the way to do it? 2. in the "include only", there's no closing "/include only" and what does all that stuff after include only do again? Thanks --Funandtrvl (talk) 03:28, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right, it was a mess. I've done my best with it. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 07:32, 25 June 2009 (UTC)