Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates/Archive 5

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Template:How I Met Your Mother

Can we get some opinions at Template talk:How I Met Your Mother about linking to subsections? BOVINEBOY 2008 :) 23:45, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

List of Carpenter named articles

Regarding: Categories,_lists,_and_navigation_templates including but not limited to the following portion quoted; "Many users prefer to browse Wikipedia through its lists, while others prefer to navigate by category; and lists are more obvious to beginners, who may not discover the category system right away. Therefore, the "category camp" should not delete or dismantle Wikipedia's lists, and the "list camp" shouldn't tear down Wikipedia's category system—doing so wastes valuable resources. Instead, each should be used to update the other."

Should this also include the "disabiguation camp" that removes partial listings used as navigation aids and who remove list pages? Example: List of Carpenter named articles - nominated for deletion mainly because it duplicates Carpenter (disambiguation).

Any input here or comments on the deletion discussion page would be appreciated. Jrcrin001 (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the issue currently being discussed on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Carpenter named articles is unrelated to the guidelines listed here. Instead, it seems to be more of an issue regarding Wikipedia:Disambiguation as to whether such disambig list pages should be titled "X (disambiguation)", "List of X named articles", or have both list pages. Zzyzx11 (talk) 21:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Correct assessment. Given that "X (disambiguation)" is expected by users and by mediawiki search it would make little sense to "List of X named articles" other than as a redirect to the disambiguation page. Any distinct content should be merged to the dab page.LeadSongDog come howl 16:46, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I can live with a merge. The problem why the list was created was that one disambig editor removed partial listings and items mentioning Carpenter that he felt were no use to the disambig page. I asked for assistance and tried a compromise. Obviously it failed. If you support "merge," please note it at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Carpenter named articles. Thank you. Jrcrin001 (talk) 02:43, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Guidance for sidebar navboxes (navigation templates)?

By "sidebar navbox", I mean the navbox that often appear at the top-right of articles, sometimes "part of a series on ...", sometimes not. There is a dubious sidebar navbox under discussion elsewhere: the key issue is whether or not the list of articles in the sidebar navbox would be better served by a Category. I was looking for some guideline on that issue, but I could not find it. The guideline I would suggest would be something like: Articles listed within a sidebar navbox must be bound together as part of a single coherent subject (e.g. Template:Philosophy), contrasted with categories or lists, which can contain articles that are only loosely related (e.g. Category:People from Long Island). In other words: A sidebar navbox should not be used merely to list a bunch of loosely-related articles.

Another key point is that the dubious sidebar navbox is not associated with an article. That is, there is no article "for" the infobox - the navbox is functioning more-or-less as a List or Category.

In addition, since these sidebar navboxes are so common, and so prominent, shouldn't WP have some more guidance on conventions and styles? Im thinking of guidelines like:

(1) Aesthetic recommendations on layout, colors, etc

(2) Articles listed within a sidebar navbox must be bound together as part of a single coherent subject (e.g. Template:Philosophy), contrasted with categories or lists, which can contain articles that are only loosely related (e.g. Category:People from Long Island);

(3) Suggest that there should be an article corresponding to the topic of the sidebar navbox (which is not normally required for categories or lists).

(4) The sidebar is the first thing readers will see when they visit an article, so sidebars should be accessible/understandable to all readers

(5) Recommend that at most one sidebar navbox be used in an article - additional sidebars should have some extraordinary justification

(6) Place sidebar navbox at the top of an article; only place in middle of article with some extraordinary justification

(7) Recommend that each sidebar navbox be sponsored by a WP project, if possible.

(8) Suggest conventions for "Part of a Series on ..." sidebars

(9) Discuss the sensitive topic of maximum recommended size (similar to guidelines for article sizes)

Are these issues already addressed in some WP guideline somewhere ?

Of these nine items, the items that would be most helpful to resolve "dubious navbox" issues are (2) and (3) ... guidelines on that may help reduce or eliminate future lengthy discussions at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. So those are the two guidelines that I would suggest we establish, if not already extant.

Proposal

Based on the above, I propose to add the following to the Navigation Template section of this guideline:

A Navigation Template should have an article that corresponds to the topic (subject) of the Navigation Template. If an article does not exist, consider creating one. If an article cannot sensibly be created for the topic, that is an indication that a Navigation Template is probably not appropriate, and a Category or List should be used instead. The Navigation Box's title should be a wiki-link to the corresponding article.
The articles within the Navigation Template should be closely related. Reliable Sources should discuss the topics (of the articles) as a group, and should relate the topics to each other. The articles in the Navigation Template should refer to each other to a reasonable extent. If the articles are just loosely related (that is, if no Reliable Source discusses the entire group in a cohesive manner) consider a Category or List instead. If the articles are grouped merely because they share some common attribute (such as "Baseball players from Rhode Island") use a Category or List, not a Navigation Template.

Comments? --Noleander (talk) 00:50, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

IMO, your proposal would be beyond the scope of this page. This page is primarily designed to basically compare and contrast each of the three systems. But unlike Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists), there has never been any official detailed guideline for navigation templates period. Wikipedia:Navigation templates and Wikipedia:Article series and the like have only managed to get to essay status. I would prefer you get those two pages and/or your proposal up to guideline status on separate pages before adding it here. Zzyzx11 (talk) 02:15, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you are saying.

However, because there is no dedicated guideline for NavBoxes, this compare/contrast guideline has become the default home for WP's NavBox guidance: in fact, this guideline already has some prescriptive info for Navboxes: "The article links in a navigation template should have some ordering, whether chronological or otherwise....[more guidance omitted] ... As with categories, all the articles in a template should substantially deal with the subject of the box. Ask yourself, is the subject of this box something that would be mentioned on every article in it? If the answer is "no", a category or list is probably more appropriate."

Therefore, it looks like the choices are:

A) add the guidance into this article, co-located with the existing NavBox guidance; or

B) create an entirely new guideline dedicated to NavBoxes (probably use essay Wikipedia:Navigation templates as a starting point)

I don't mind doing the work for (B) of creating a new guideline. But before I embark on that, I'd like to hear a couple of other editors confirm that there is a need for a Navbox guideline. As you say, Lists and Categories have their own guidelines, so perhaps Navboxes should also. But if no other editors endorse that path, I may humbly suggest just going with (A) and adding some detail into this guideline. Let's see what other editors recommend. --Noleander (talk) 04:12, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I for one would favour a guideline that pushes towards increased uniformity in the look and feel of navboxes and infoboxes. But I'm a bit pessimistic about imposing this. Pichpich (talk) 06:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Pichpich: could you clarify a bit? Guidelines usually contain "should" rather than "must" instructions, and exceptions are always permitted. So when you say you are "pessimistic about imposing" a guideline, do you mean that you dont think it would be adopted as a guideline, or you think no editors would follow it? (PS: There already is a guideline for Infoboxes at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (infoboxes), but that is limited to Infoboxes, which are a subset of Sidebar navboxes, which are a subset of Navbox templates.) --Noleander (talk) 14:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure we can find a few people to write a very reasonable guideline. But my experience with infoboxes and bottom navtemplates is that there's a lot of resistance once you try to apply a guideline to specific templates. See for instance this recent dispute. Pichpich (talk) 15:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay ... I dont mind helping write the guideline. I'm not too worried about enforcing consistency. My primary concern was having something concrete to point to when disputes arise. Essays are nearly worthless. --Noleander (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a lotta love here for a whole new guideline on Navboxes. Therefore, I propose to implement approach (A) above, namely adding a some guidance (proposed at the top of this section called Proposal) into the existing prescriptive material in this guideline. Any objections? --Noleander (talk) 14:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

First, thank you for collating the related links (I've added a few more, above), and restarting the discussion. Secondly, I agree that some specific (but non-rigid) guidance would be helpful. Third, re: your specific proposal, you seem to be addressing all navbox templates - I think including footer-navboxes would make this vastly more complicated, and we should stick to just "sidebar navboxes" for now. I'll try to stare at the related pages some more, later, and see if further ideas come to mind. (My ideal solution, would involve merging & redirecting all the historic proposals into a single page, to avoid the confusing profusion of historic pages that currently appear in searches for information). -- Quiddity (talk) 20:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Regarding "footer Navboxes" vs "sidebar navboxes": Yes, that is a critical distinction, and I was surprised to find virtually no mention of those two concepts in the current guidelines. I thought every single detail of WP style was nailed-down, but it looks like Navboxes are the last of the wild frontier. Conceptually I picture the hypothetical Navbox guideline as follows:

Definition - What is a Navbox;

Kinds - Distinguish footer Navbox vs sidebar Navbox (also: many horiz Navboxes are not located in the footer ... need a name for those); "One of a series ..." is a particular kind of sidebar Navbox

Guidelines for all Navboxes - generic guidelines: should have an associated article (and that article should be a wikilink in the Navbox title); the set of articles in a Navbox must be tightly bound (this requirement for Navboxes is more stringent that the similar reqmnt for articles in a List or Category - this is the key guideline I'm trying to establish); Guidelines on collapsible sections; aesthetics, etc.

Guidelines for footer Navboxes - Perhaps not as strict as sidebar Navboxes

Guidelines for sidebar Navboxes - Must be clean, nice-looking; not too big; Should have a photo or icon, etc

Guidelines for 'Part of a Series on ...' sidebar Navboxes - Should have a WP project that sponsors the Navbox

Alternatives - Lists, Categories, Infoboxes (refer to this guideline)

As an editor, that is the kind of guidance I would want. PS: any other editor is free to edit/add to the above outline. --Noleander (talk) 20:29, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Taxonomy for Navboxes

Here are some varieties of Navboxes I've been able to identify:

Horizontal layout:

Footer navboxes - the vast majority of Navboxes are at the bottom of articles
Header navboxes - A bit rare. Usually seen at the top of WP admin pages like Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents
Horizontal navboxes - A "footer template" can be placed in the middle of an article, as is done in: History of Jamaica that has a "footer template" right in the middle (look for British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations).

Vertical layout

Sidebar navboxes - Summarize a group of closely related articles as in Template:Philosophy-sidebar. Usually appear at the top-right of an article, but can sometimes be found in the middle-right of an article.
"Part of a series ..." Sidebars - a special variety of Sidebar navbox
mid-article sidebars - Smallish sidebars scattered thru an article, see Wikipedia:Verifiability which contains several. These appear to be very rare, at least in the main article space.

I don't claim this is comprehensive. Nor do I suggest that a guideline should define or address them all. I list them to ensure that any name we choose for kind of Navbox is a good name. Based on the above list, the name "footer navbox" may not be ideal. Maybe it is better to designate the groups as "horizontal navbox" and "sidebar navbox"; or perhaps "horizontal navbox" and "vertical navbox"? --Noleander (talk) 23:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Im still not seeing much interest or response to this. I'll renew my proposal: to update this guideline (in the Navbox section) to include the two guidelines (above, at the top of the "Proposal" section); and take into account Quiddity's suggestion that the gudielines focus on sidebar (aka "vertical") Navboxes rather than footer (aka horizontal) Navboxes. --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm very interested, I just don't have much time to devote to this rather complex issue currently (ie, all the preliminary reading). Vertical navbox focus works for me. Placing it in this guideline doesn't seem to work though, as it doesn't fit within the mandate of this page (see, nutshell description). I'll try to get back to this soon. (All tasks, and editors, progress at different speeds :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:16, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, this article is the only guideline that contains Navbox guidance (in spite of the fact that it may be slightly outside the scope of this guideline). Other editors have put Navbox guidance in this guideline (apparently because no other guideline was available). Other editors attempted to create dedicated Navbox guidelines, but those efforts stalled. What if I just add the guidance into this guideline, next to the existing Navbox guidance. Then, we can work on a new Navbox guideline? If the new Navbox guideline dies (that may take several months or a year to manifest itself) at least during that time WP would have some Sidebar Navbox guidance available to those in need. --Noleander (talk) 19:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Based on the above, I made some improvements to the NavTemplate section: (1) added more examples; (2) clarified the wording and flow; (3) added detail to the existing guidance about how the articles should be fairly closely related (using "should" rather than "must", to indicate that it is guidance, not a mandate); and (4) added an explanation of the difference between a horizontal navbox and a vertical navbox. --Noleander (talk) 16:12, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Coming in late here and confused. Just too many links to try to follow. Is there a good overview somewhere?

There's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine#Adding template about the new Disability template being added indiscriminately to articles on various disorders. It would be very nice to be able to point to one well-organized page of guidelines! Thanks, Hordaland (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hordaland: Yes, it is confusing. Like you, I stumbled on this due to a Nav template that was being (in my opinion) misused. If you want the problem in a nutshell: it is that there is no guideline for Nav Templates (aka Navboxes): there is merely an essay at WP:Navboxes. This guideline (the one we are on the Talk page of) is a true guideline, but it does not focus on Navboxes, and instead is simply a pros/cons comparison of Lists vs Categories vs Navboxes. Therefore, the best path forward is for some editor to take the WP:Navboxes essay and work on it and improve it and turn it into a guideline. The guideline WP:Categories, lists, and navigation templates does have some guidance for Navboxes, which is better than nothing, but still there should be a dedicated guideline. --Noleander (talk) 14:44, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Hordaland and User talk:Noleander, et al., I am the creator of the Disability template and I can tell you that my adding of it to distinctly disability-related articles does mean that the adding is anything but indiscriminate. I do agree with both of you that there should definitely be a central location at which to discuss the appropriateness or inappropriateness of templates — it would make life for Wikipedians a whole lot easier, including myself. For instance, I have had zero idea of whether to paste it into just articles that refer strictly to disability culture and organizations, or whether to also paste it into articles about conditions that are widely recognized by humanity to be definitive disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. So I've largely done both. That does not mean my major "tagging" job has been indiscriminate or that I am trying to make trouble by defending my case. I just wish that this could all remain open to discussion by as many different people as possible, and I also hope that mass reverts won't occur in an effort to purge most of these without discussions as to their appropriateness within each individual article's Talk page (for the most part anyhow). Lastly, again, I hope that some kind of discussion area for the specific guidelines' for sidebars could be started, or better yet, an official Wikipedia page detailing a policy on them. Kikodawgzzz (talk) 13:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Navboxes (both side and footer) should generally only appear in the articles that they list. If they list an article, they should appear within that article. Edge-cases require discussion. (Something like that should appear (or already appears?) in this guideline or the hypothetical-future-guideline). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:52, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Simple proposal on text colors

also posted at Wikipedia talk:Navigation templates#Simple proposal.Moxy (talk) 07:19, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
I have in the past and recently come across footer templates that have coloured links..this in its self it not a big deal. However i do believe that certain colours should be discouraged based on the fact the templates are to help people navigate Wikipedia. Specifically the use of the colours black and red. As black is hiding the link to most new or unexperienced Internet users. Well as for red..this means an empty page to most. SO what i am asking for is a talk about hiding links with black font... and think it should be a guideline that this odd colours should be avoided...due to the fact that new and unexperienced Internet users will not know that links also are in normal black text. I dont believe style should trump easy of use....What do you guys think ...should this be a rule/guideline?....thinking of the new userMoxy (talk) 07:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

i.e from the past pls note that titles are black but actually are links... the second one is what it looks like now after a discussion at the Canada project.