Template talk:Hatnote group

Preview warning and hatnotes moving to templatestyles

Page watchers may be interested in MediaWiki talk:Common.css § Preview warning and hatnotes moving to TemplateStyles Izno (talk) 00:22, 29 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nice addition

I just wanted to say that this template is the best thing to ever happen to hatnotes. Reducing hatnote bloat is almost a joy now. Almost. Now if only something could be done about the hatnote insanity on Science Publishing Group. Praemonitus (talk) 18:51, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear. If you think the hatnotes are bad, just look at the article's incoming redirects [1]: there's over a thousands of them, likely for every predatory journal ever published by that company, complete with all plausible abbreviations of those titles.

As for the hatnote group template, I agree it's very useful. However, it's meant to be used in rare cases. There's still the general expectation that different hatnote types (say {{about}} and {{redirect}}) should stay on different lines: see #5 of WP:HNR. – Uanfala (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This would be a great addition to the documentation. I just encountered this template for the first time, and thought, "Sounds like something I should be using with reckless abandon!" I'm glad I poked a little deeper before making it a part of my repertoire. NapoliRoma (talk) 20:33, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser § GENFIX error

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser § GENFIX error. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:39, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Any way to get punctuation?

Any way to get punctuation between hatnotes such as {{main}} and {{see also}} so they don't run together like in this section hatnote? — AjaxSmack 05:17, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@AjaxSmack: It wuld be nice if it automatically detected a hatnote wihout a period and inserted it. The author Nihiltres hasn't edited since April. It strips things which aren't hatnotes so it doesn't work to just place a period betwen the hatnotes:

{{hatnote|.}} is kept but gets space before it so it looks bad:

I think {{hatnote|{{middot}}}} is better but still not good:

PrimeHunter (talk) 10:55, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. — AjaxSmack 22:36, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The underlying Module:Hatnote group parses apart the whole mess to isolate each separate hatnote. It could easily iterate over that list of hatnotes to add a period to any that do not have one before joining the list into a single string. DMacks (talk) 23:25, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My opinion is that that example is an abuse of this template: if a hatnote is not a complete sentence then it should not be grouped nor have a period appended. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 01:58, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you consider this abuse? What about a semicolon instead of a period? — AjaxSmack 22:36, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“Abuse” has stronger connotations than I might like; I basically mean that it shouldn’t be used on labelled lists like that because it offers no real benefit (it’s arguably presentationally better to spread those lists across a couple of lines) and makes the formatting awkward (including by perhaps compromising the structure of the message for things like screen readers). Using a semicolon instead of a period wouldn’t address those concerns. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 00:42, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I mentioned elsewhere, this situation is akin to MOS:CAPTION, where a single sentence-fragment with no period is typical, or else sentence(s) with periods. The guideline states "However, if any complete sentence occurs in a caption, then every sentence and every sentence fragment in that caption should end with a period." The analogous logic is that if any hatnote already has a period, then all should when they get concatenated into a single string. For the record, I fundamentally dislike the concept of hatnote-group, but if it exists it should work properly to the extent others think it should be used. DMacks (talk) 02:34, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"...I fundamentally dislike the concept of hatnote-group..." I'm curious why; if you've stated it before, please link to that. — AjaxSmack 22:32, 13 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I broadly agree with your analysis, though I still think it’s preferable to not group these sorts of hatnote in the first place. For the record, I have some concerns about the template too: I wrote it partly as a proof of concept for building hatnotes in a more modular way, and then people started using it in articles without there having been any discussion of whether it was a good design … but since enough people clearly prefer the results it produces, I’ve not let myself worry about it much. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 00:49, 14 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]