Forum:Smasherspace editing template
Yeah, very descriptive title on my part, but that's mostly because I don't actually know what to call such templates.
Anyways.
One of our admins has a habit of going full-on passive-aggressive when it comes to smasher articles being created without a relevant results table. While I don't much cotton for his lack of tact and rather indirect way of enforcing policy, he does have a point, I feel.
I know some pages will kick up a warning when editors try to edit them, such as how trying to edit while not logged on kicks up a warning, or how editing pages above 32,000 kilobytes kicks up another warning. Would the userbase be down with a similar template that appears when a smasher article is being created that states "bladdy blah blah blah try to include a results table" or nah?
--- Monsieur Crow, Author Extraordinaire, 14:24, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- That would be quite helpful, but there is one potential flaw I see in it: What if it's an already-created smasher article and it already has a results table? Doesn't that kinda defeat the point in those cases? Disaster Flare
(talk) 15:22, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- The key phrase being "when a smasher article is being created".
- Part of the reason I bring it up is not only because I want to see if there's support for this idea, but also because I don't actually know if MediaWiki could support such a proposal. Wanted to see if people would be on board first before I bug either Toomai or Porple about it.
- --- Monsieur Crow, Author Extraordinaire, 15:30, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- I'll mention send this on Discord to get people involved. Disaster Flare (talk) 17:04, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- I'll mention send this on Discord to get people involved. Disaster Flare
- --- Monsieur Crow, Author Extraordinaire, 15:30, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
I don't know if this is the format we're doing this in, but I'd support something like this. It'd be a nice way to deter people from making pages based on "perceived notability", for lack of a better term, and would make creating empty fluff Smasher articles a lot less justifiable. I think it's important to consider though that there are certain types of people (commentators and "scientists" specifically) who could deserve a page without necessarily needing a results table. Cases like those are pretty rare though, so I don't know if it'd be worth mentioning in the template (especially since some people may see that and just assume their article is the magical exception). Thank you for putting this on discord Disaster Flare 
Nymbare and his talk 19:00, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- I wanted to see if anyone else would be on-board with an idea similar to this, as well as potentially solicit ideas for what such a template would cover or not cover. You bring up an excellent point about commentators and technical players, and I agree that we should try to make it clear that pages for such players would not require a results table. Regardless, even though such pages are much less common than regular player pages, it should still be noted because they have the potential to exist. Most web browsers, for instance, can easily display and edit any article you throw at it; some, however, will cut off text if the page is more than 32,000 bytes in size, and although it is rare, the chance isn't non-zero, and as a result, we have that trusty template that warns editors when the page is more than 32k bytes.
On the technically-enforceable side, we can make a specific warning box appear for all pages in a namespace, but all page creations show MediaWiki:Newarticletext regardless of namespace. We could put "if you're making a smasher page, do this" in there, but I highly doubt anyone will read it. Toomai Glittershine 
The Chilled 20:44, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
- Why can't we use MediaWiki:Newarticletext, then do like
{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACENUMBER}}|100|<warning box here>}}Just below the existing blurp? Use the same colors as the over 32,000k warning and it should catch the eye. Serpent
King 21:01, 2 July 2017 (EDT)
