Template talk:Article history

Template:Article history is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.

Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

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Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11: 12 months

Should old article history templates be deleted?

In this edit @Bdushaw deleted the article history, saying in the edit summary that the article was completely different now. I agree but I wonder if there might be reasons for maintaining the info nevertheless? Johnjbarton (talk) 02:53, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The page changing isn't a reason to remove the article history template, it's history relating to the development of the page. CMD (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted the removal; CMD is right -- the point of the template is documentation of the article's history. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:08, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template-protected edit request on 16 October 2024

Similar to my request here, I request an extra parameter be added that includes a link to the specific nomination discussion for the article. Something like:

A news item involving {event} was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 14 October 2024. The nomination can be seen here

Or

A news item involving {event} was nominated and featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 14 October 2024.

— Knightoftheswords 16:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template-protected edit request on 20 November 2024

This edit request to Module:Article history/config has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Around line 441, it should be changed to something along the following to reflect the FPO process is deprecated:

Update: see below

		text = "The '''$2 Portal''' was '''[[Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:$2|identified]]''' " ..
			"as a [[Wikipedia:Featured portals|featured portal]] " ..
			'before the [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 138#RfC about marking the Featured portals process as "historical"|discontinuation of the Featured Portal system in 2017]].' ..
			"It was considered one of the best portals on [[Wikipedia]]. " ..
			"If you see a way this portal can be updated or improved without " ..
			"compromising previous work, please feel free to contribute.",

Bonus points for replacing the icon and hover text as well, though I haven't looked into a suitable replacement image (maybe there's something like the featured star, but greyed out). Retro (talk | contribs) 20:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have to admit... I'm not crazy about the "can be updated or improved without compromising previous work" wording. Sometimes previous work needs to be compromised for whatever reason, even when a page is or was once thought to be emaculate, in order to improve this encyclopedia. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 03:37, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At one point we used File:Linecons big-star.svg on featured portals. Then it was decided that annotating them on the main page was silly and Template:Featured portal was deleted. That image would work fell here. I'm also inclined to delete the last three sentences entirely, and just say "was identified as a featured portal" as a factual statement with no further details. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:49, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

{{icon}} also uses that image since 2017, so that should work well. Phrasing-wise, I generally agree, but I'd prefer to mention the process was ended for clarity (see below). Retro (talk | contribs) 02:38, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Updated version: Module:Article history/config/sandbox.

More phrasing revisions (from incorporating feedback above, brevity, and consistency) and updated the image. Looks good in the testcase I created. Retro (talk | contribs) 02:38, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:26, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding parameter for "Articles for creation"

Talk:Christopher Mellon was a product of "Articles for creation" and that is mentioned on the talk page. I don't think it is currently possible to include that information in the template. Would it be possible to get that added? I think it might be relevant on other articles as well. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 05:19, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What's wrong with using {{WikiProject Articles for creation}}? There is at least one script that adds that automatically. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:39, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess if AFC was able to be added to the article history template then it would be one more template which could be removed from the the top of a lot of article talk pages. Nothing wrong with using the Wikiproject template when none of the other entries which occur in article history are present, however it would be nice to have further options to reduce talk page clutter where possible. TarnishedPath^talk 07:45, 14 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can "Top 25 Report" be included here?

Overall, it would be nice to see most of the random banners from the top of talk pages merged into the article history, since they tend to clutter talk pages and leaving them indefinitely at the top at some point becomes more distracting than helpful. {{Top 25 report}} is the one that I just encountered, and I can't think off-hand of any more that aren't yet included here, but I'm sure there are some others as well. –jacobolus (t) 21:57, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another that I proposed at some point in the past but didn't get much discussion about was adding rows for article splits, merges, page moves, etc., which sometimes otherwise sit in their own banners indefinitely. It would be nice if we could also include these in the article history list, as they help tell the story of the article's development, and one row in a collapsible list is a lot less distracting and obtrusive than a separate banner. –jacobolus (t) 22:01, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The most recent of these was at Template talk:Article history/Archive 11#Add lines for merges/splits to the chronological history list. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:00, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, nobody at that discussion seemed to have any thoughts about whether to include merges/splits/moves, but my proposal there to allow custom entries was opposed. I also suggested we could include the info from {{EB1911}} in the history, which nobody responded to. –jacobolus (t) 23:02, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dates without year render as current year

I just fixed a GA date in article_history that did not include the year. To my surprise it rendered as 2025 before I fixed it. I think this is a bug -- I don't know what it should do, but rendering as the current year is definitely not the right answer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:44, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is an inherent feature of the MediaWiki date handling code. Consider: {{#time: H:i, j F Y (e)|2 March}} → 00:00, 2 March 2025 (UTC). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:53, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's undesirable behaviour in this template though as in the example I just fixed it was showing 2025 whereas the date was added in 2010. Izno at VPT just posted this: You can probably just insert around Module:Article history#L-542 some basic "does this have a 4 digit number" in the input, which is a fairly easy check (string.find(str, "2%d%d%d")).. This seems worth adding. I'm not familiar with Lua but can try in the sandbox if nobody more expert wants to implement this. Would this make instances of this warning findable, though? That is, would I be able to do a search to find talk pages that had this warning? That would be ideal, so they could be fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:08, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This would only find the string. You would need to put some conditional in that makes the relevant block error with a category or red text or both. There is a relevant block there already, so it's a matter of adding this in the appropriate fashion. Izno (talk) 20:16, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I did realize that! Will make the change in the sandbox when I have a few minutes tomorrow. But will it be possible to find instances of the template with invalid dates? Perhaps by adding a category in that case? Without that I don't see how I would find and fix them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:20, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]