Template talk:Long comment

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Template:Long comment 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.

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Silly template

Wouldn't be better to ask the devs for some way to omit (from Special:Shortpages) those which belong to a certain category such as "Disambiguation"? — CharlotteWebb 22:35, 20 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Having this appear on dab pages is silly. Is this the work of a bot? And what purpose does tracking short pages have, in comparison to the existing stub system? No pointer to discussions, etc. leaves people confused. Ham Pastrami (talk) 01:40, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it was just added to a dab page of 5,939 bytes![1] How short is short? -- PBS (talk) 21:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Short disambiguation pages are often in need of help, help which they get from editors looking through Short pages. —Centrx→talk • 22:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Purpose of this template

Still not getting it. I'm inclined to drag it to TFD to die. (Esp. as it's being used on pages like Hack—how is that a short page?) Anybody care? --MZMcBride (talk) 18:58, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's supposed to be used on very short pages that most likely won't be expanded in the near future, like tiny two-member dabs and redirects to Wiktionary that don't need to clog up the list. Somebody seems to have taken it upon themselves to put it in just about every disambiguation page, which is wrong. Don't delete it just because it's being misused by one person. Harrumph. --Closedmouth (talk) 04:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All right, then. I ran a query for page titles and page lengths. The results are available here. Are you volunteering to clean up this mess? :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 05:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, I've got shit else to do at the moment. --Closedmouth (talk) 05:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Minor fixes

{{editprotected}} Couple of problems in the text - prevent it from being listed instead of prevent it being listed, and Template:Long comment instead of Template:Longcomment. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 07:00, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 21:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion in WP:ORDER

I have posted at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Template:Long_comment_placement to request that the placement of {{subst:long comment}} / {{short pages monitor}} be put into WP:ORDER. Thanks Rjwilmsi 20:49, 22 January 2013‎ (UTC)[reply]

Bot request for approval

I have an open bot request for a bot which will automatically manage the "long comment / short pages" system. See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Bot1058 5, and feel free to comment either here or there. Thanks, wbm1058 (talk) 03:09, 1 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See also the fairly recent discussion at User talk:Sam Sailor/Archive 21 § Question about short pages monitor – wbm1058 (talk) 11:34, 19 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Template-protected edit request on 9 March 2019

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To my mind, in "Please do not remove the monitor template without removing the comment as well", for the sake of unambiguity, it should rather read "... removing this comment ...".--Hildeoc (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC) Hildeoc (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:44, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Usage on pages that don't appear on ShortPages

Is there a way we can possibly clear the long comment from pages that wouldn't otherwise appear on ShortPages, i.e. tagged disambiguation pages (specifically those with a footer that generate the disambiguation editnotice) and redirects? It appears to be such a waste of an edit to tag such pages with a long comment when they don't actually appear there. it's also become a waste of time for me as I've recently started clearing these pages using this search.

Also pinging Wbm1058 to this discussion as the developer of Bot1058, the latter of which was programmed to remove long comment from pages over 600 bytes as part of Task 5. I'm not sure if a task can be programmed into Bot1058 to do exactly this. Jalen Folf (talk) 02:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, great idea, JalenFolf – it looks like the majority of tagged pages in this category are disambiguations. The solution lies in tweaking {{short pages monitor}} to flag these, and then the bot to edit them. Interestingly enough, I just noticed the comment Template talk:Short pages monitor#Add by default to DAB pages? was added a day after I last edited that template! I don't recall seeing that before. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:54, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The reason all those pages are tagged is that (1) up until January 2016 it was necessary and (2) word that this was no longer needed after 01/2016 was not widely advertised. wbm1058 (talk) 04:11, 3 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

BRFA filed – I haven't found a way to flag these by tweaking {{short pages monitor}}, but as there are so many of them, I just wrote a new PHP program to walk through the entire Category:Monitored short pages and remove the dabs. wbm1058 (talk) 15:15, 5 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Wbm1058: Does this mean that we should no longer be tagging short dabs with the long comment boilerplate? I rarely add it manually but tools such as Dabfix add it automatically. Certes (talk) 18:56, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Certes, Yes. It's only still needed on things like set indexes, surname lists and Wiktionary redirects. I just left a note at User talk:Dispenser/Dabfix#Disambiguation pages no longer need short-page monitoring, as I only became aware of this after my bot was approved. Not a single one of my 50 test edits was reverted. wbm1058 (talk) 19:04, 27 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Edit request 25 April 2025

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Diff:

Description of suggested change: This change adjusts the capitalization of Special:ShortPages to match the page name and adds a trailing space to the comment for better visual consistency. Xoontor (talk) 16:17, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:36, 25 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template-protected edit request on 30 April 2025

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The links added here do not show up in the article when substituted onto a short article and therefore do not need to be included in the long comment. Please unlink both Special:ShortPages and Template:Long comment from the hidden notice. Thank you. Jalen Barks (Woof) 04:01, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: editor JalenBarks, that link code was not added to make those pages linkable, it was added per editor Jonesey95 to "make it clear where the page names end" (from the edit summary) to aid other editors. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 08:05, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC on when to insert a long comment to a legitimately short page

Resolved

– Monitor string adjusted to 560 which settles the all the OP's concerns

Is the current long comment sufficient, and given the current code of Bot1058, if no change is to be made, should the maximum length for Short pages monitor be changed? Jalen Barks (Woof) 02:03, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Original discussion

Following a discussion that started at User talk:204.111.137.20#Long comment, I am starting this RfC on what size short pages Long comment should be applied, and if the WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS of pages under 256 (2⁸) bytes holds, rather than the new hard coded limit of 246 bytes as of the latest edit on 25 April 2025, what we can change the long comment to say to uphold the implicit consensus. From what I'm gathering on both sides of this argument, the users that have gotten used to the new long comment agree that the links were absolutely necessary to distinguish not only {{long}} from {{long comment}}, but also to point to Special:ShortPages, the purpose for this long comment in the first place. Meanwhile, those against the recent change (currently known to be only the IP in question) argue a "hiccup" in the normal operations of Bot1058 and (as I initially said in the thread above before siding with the users) that the addition of the links were completely unnecessary, without stating the exact reasoning other than the implicit consensus in question. So I'd like to start this RfC to ask those questions: does the current implicit consensus (256 byte limit) hold, and if it does, can we truncate the long comment to uphold this implicit consensus? Jalen Barks (Woof) 22:13, 23 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "hard-coded" limit. The length of whatever string is chosen for the long comment is likewise not particularly important by itself, it only becomes important when it is combined with the operation of the bot. However adjustment of the operation of one or both of those merely conveniences those involved in maintenance since even without adjusting either normal maintenance can continue simply by using an older long comment variation, many thousands of which are already substituted into mainspace, or by rewording which incidentally may or may not include brackets. I see no discussion where users agreed the brackets were "absolutely necessary" or that users have gotten used to them (whatever that means). As far as I can tell the only one arguing to reduce the limit from its historical norm of 256 to 246 is you. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 02:42, 24 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise, you're the only one I've seen so far who insists on using an older version of Long comment that is not substituted (as it's clearly stated on the template) and also insists that all pages under 256 bytes getting the Long comment has always been a thing per WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS, when it actually hasn't. @Wbm1058 added Task 5 to Bot1058 in 2018 as a solution to the exorbitant amount of articles in Category:Long monitored short pages at the time. The implementation of the script at the time allowed pages over 1000 bytes to be removed from the Short pages category (a 1001 byte page would be brought down to just 708 bytes from the then 292 byte comment plus line break). The implementation of, and further changes to, {{Short pages monitor/maximum length}} would slowly bring that size limit down to what it is today, and two separate extensions to the long comment by @Jonesey95 in 2019 and 2 months ago allowed more pages to stay off the monitor. Bot1058 never had any "hiccups"; Wbm just made changes to the code that allows it to continue to perform its normal function. I can agree with you that 256 appears to be chosen as a nice neat solution from a computer standard (even though a 551 byte page with the pre-2025 version of the comment can be brought down to 255 bytes), yet there are some things you still haven't explained about your opposition to the current version. For example, why do you believe there's no need for the wikilink markup here? And now that you know the maximum length template exists, why do you believe 256 should remain the historical norm in the hypothetical possibility that the maximum length is lowered even further? Jalen Barks (Woof) 04:39, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This rests on multiple false premises. I have not transcluded long comment, and if I did it would be substituted by a bot. The 1000 byte bot convenience limit has nothing to do with this, as short pages has never been cleared to that level, and you would probably run into many valid pages below that line that were not set indices and like. That is not to say higher would not be a good idea, probably somewhere in the 300 to 500 range at a guess, just that the framing is misleading. Fundamentally bots are there to aid editors, not the other way around, if bots are failing in that task they should be modified, and apparently this one has been. Regardless, I have repeatedly explained my reasoning why the markup is not needed one example, again not that it needs to be removed, just that it is not needed either. I am disinclined to repeat myself over and over again when you do not display any indication of reading my replies. We want to make it easier to find pages that have deficiencies, lowering the limit defeats that purpose and would have prevented me from finding deficient pages in just the last few days. The limit should be raised, but unlike you I am not intent on forcing through changes unilaterally. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 05:05, 25 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC discussion

I do have one proposal to try and quell the initial two-editor conflict:

Remove only the link to Special:ShortPages from the long comment. Unlike the confusion between {{long}} and {{Long comment}} as described above, there isn't any confusion for a Special page name, especially when Special:Short doesn't exist and it wouldn't make sense to have such a special page anyway.
Raise the limit of {{Short pages monitor/maximum length}} back to 600 bytes. (see this diff that reduced the limit to 550 bytes) As the IP has argued above, many illegitimate short pages end up with a size under a more reasonable 300 bytes, and while other illegitimate short pages exist above that size, the cases under that size seem to be the more extreme cases here.

With this proposal, sensible maintenance of Special:ShortPages from all users can continue as normal and ensures that the legitimate articles at the top of this list remain above a reasonable amount. Especially since after my own maintenance of some monitored pages, I have updated all older Long comments which had unnecessarily long spaces into the comment's current form. From here, I'll leave this discussion for others to comment and I'll reply as needed. Jalen Barks (Woof) 04:29, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Adjusting Template:Short pages monitor/maximum length is fine, fairly standard maintenance actually which should be done concurrent with any non-trivial edits to this template. Even 560 would work, though some padding to proof against future copyedits is advisable. While it may seem logical to update substituted templates in mainspace, you should not in general be doing that with older long comments, at least not with AWB, see WP:COSMETICEDIT. What's done is done no point in WP:COSMETICREVERTs either, but please don't do that again. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 05:29, 29 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't entirely understand the above conversation, but it appears that adjusting the max length to 560 in {{Short pages monitor/maximum length}} may resolve the issue. I have adjusted that template. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:39, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll go ahead and mark this resolved. 204.111.137.20 (talk) 17:44, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]