Talk:William Ware Theiss

October 9

Template:Val

Template:Val (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Through its use of template delimitnum it formats long numbers in a novel, nonstandard way: groups of 3 digits separated by commas to the left of the decimal, but groups of 3 digits separated by thin spaces to the right of the decimal. This defies both WP:MOSNUM and international standards Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Gerry Ashton is being disruptive to make a point. Here on WT:MOSNUM, there is a debate about bringing the formatting of numbers on some of Wikipedia’s mathematics articles into conformance with the rest of Wikipedia’s articles on our technical and applied mathematics articles. The details of the dispute are arcane, but it essentially is debate over delmiting long numbers so they can be parsed easily, such as 2.718281828.

  You should know that the {{val}} template was extensively discussed long ago on MOSNUM (here on Archive 94) and was further discussed on WT:MOS (here on Archive 97). In both cases, there was a broad-based consensus that the envisioned template {{delimitnum}} was a good and it was well-received by the community. This all transpired in February of this year. The only thoroughly disaffected editor who opposed the template was Gerry (here on MOSNUM Archive 94). He hated the idea and tried to block it with the suggestion that a consensus should also have to be obtained on WT:MOS. Well, a while later—as I mentioned above—that is precisely what eventually happened; I later noticed an issue there about the formatting of scientific notation and told them of what had been discussed on WT:MOSNUM. We had a great discussion that resulted in a tweak to the proposed template. The clear consensus in both venues was that it was a good idea.

  Note: The {{delimitnum}} template never worked well for long strings and much greater favor was found with a {{val}} template created by SkyLined. The template can also be used to create values in what is known as “concise form” like h = 6.62606896(33)×10⁻³⁴ J·s. This is the same, SI-compliant way the NIST shows the value (see example).

  The {val} template is used in a wide variety of Wikipedia’s articles and is used extensively on Kilogram, which just received GA status. The deletion of {val} and {delimitnum} would be terribly disruptive to a wide variety of articles on Wikipedia, at least one of which is a GA article. We need this tool.

  Now Gerry, who has long opposed these templates (he wrote “I oppose this proposal on the grounds that it is a bastard.” ) [1] knows full well that these templates were well-received in the community and that the templates—particularly {val}—are used extensively in Wikipedia’s articles. This is simply disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.

  I ask that this nomination be quickly cleared and that Gerry Ashton be sanctioned for this unabashed effort at being severely disruptive. He knew full well what he was doing here. Greg L (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Looking at "What links here" for the Val template leads me to believe the vast majority of the use is through an Infobox; I believe it is Infobox settlement. I believe the sooner this tempate is done away with, the less damage will be done by the spread of a number format that is unique to the English Wikipedia, and defies all existing standard number formats. I was content to leave the matter alone in hopes that someone would find a solution to the problem of grouping numbers to the right of the decimal point in a way that would be acceptable to American readers, but no such solution has emerged. Since Greg L has chosen this time to propose wider use of the Val template, I believe this is the time to bring this issue to a wider audience and see if the wider audience agrees this template is a bad idea. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Your opinion on this is clear and your statement above contains statements that are beyond fallacious. This is not how you try to get your way and is disruptive. The {{val}} template was extensively discussed long ago on MOSNUM (here on Archive 94) and was further discussed on WT:MOS (here on Archive 97) where everyone expressed great pleasure with the tool. There is clearly a general consensus on this and SkyLined put a lot of effort into the {{val}} template to make sure it was in conformance with that consensus decision. There is no debate; only an editor who disagreed with the consensus view, got angry this morning, and went out of his way to disrupt Wikipedia. Greg L (talk) 21:09, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Per WP:TfD#What not to propose for deletion here, referenced in the guideline WP:MOSNUM. (Whether I or the nominator agrees with the guideline is irrelevant.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I missed that it is currently listed in WP:MOSNUM, although the guideline also says "currently has known bugs". Interestingly, the template probably violates the guideline, which says

• Commas are used to break the sequence every three places left of the decimal point; spaces or dots are not used in this role (2,900,000, not 2 900 000), except in technical tables or in quotations where the original does so (such as in scientific publications).

(Unless you interpret that to mean grouping with spaces is only discouraged to the left of the decimal, and it's ok to do it to the right of the decimal.) --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. This isn’t the proper venue to re-open debate on this. Like Dweller once wrote: “What consenting mathematicians get up to behind closed doors is their business, but please don't do it in public.” These two templates ({{val}} and {{delimitnum}}) were thoroughly discussed, achieved broad consensus to be made, and directly resulted in a Bugzilla request of the developers to produce the special parsing functions to enable them. Further, there are articles that depend upon them, one of which is a GA article. Greg L (talk) 23:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I believe the good article Greg L is referrring to is Kilogram. Please edit the source of that article (without saving any changes) and notice there are comments warning that the template does not work for certain numbers. If you believe editors can be trusted to carfully inspect every use of this template in their preview, even when this template is transcluded through a different template, that belief would weaken the case for deleting this template. If you suspect editors won't be that careful and will have undetected errors in their numbers, that would strengthen the case for deleting this template. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:44, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I know. I put those editors comments there myself. And, more importantly, MOSNUM already advises editors to be careful about this idiosyncrasy of {val} (here). Further, {val} has built-in error checking that catches much of this. And finally, once the developers finally respond to a six-month-old Bugzilla request to make the special character-counting parser functions, {val} will be revised to exploit those new functions and all articles that rely upon {val} won’t be affected in the least. And at that time, the adviso on MOSNUM cautioning editors on this point will be removed. Greg L (talk) 01:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep—any supposed shortcomings didn't prevent Kilogram from achieving and retaining GA status. We should think very carefully before deleting a template that is in use in valuable articles. Tony (talk) 01:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Delimitnum

Template:Delimitnum (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

This template formats long numbers in a novel, nonstandard way: groups of 3 digits separated by commas to the left of the decimal, but groups of 3 digits separated by thin spaces to the right of the decimal. This defies both WP:MOSNUM and international standards Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• No. See response above regarding {val}. [User:Gerry_Ashton|Gerry Ashton]] is being disruptive to make a point. The deletion of {val} and {delimitnum} would be terribly disruptive to a wide variety of articles on Wikipedia, at least one of which is a GA article.

  I ask that this nomination be quickly cleared and that Gerry Ashton be sanctioned for this unabashed effort at being severely disruptive. He knew full well what he was doing here. Greg L (talk) 19:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. Per WP:TfD#What not to propose for deletion here, referenced in the guideline WP:MOSNUM. (Whether I or the nominator agrees with the guideline is irrelevant.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Blankingdebates

Template:Blankingdebates (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages) and

Template:Hidden-blank-reason (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Unused templates created by now banned user. Unlikely to be used template. -- Suntag ☼ 15:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:English official language clickable map

Template:English official language clickable map (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Agh, misclicked and lost the already typed up reason. Nutshell: usually for nav templates, but this is excessive, loads a large image in a number of articles unnecessarily, can't imagine any benefit this would have that Template:Anglophone states doesn't (I should mention that that template almost got deleted for a few flag images, and this gets away with a full-screen world map). I vote to delete. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 14:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

keep. I see no reason at all to delete this. Extremely useful template, and a lot of effort went into compiling it. The "large image" weighs all of 65k. That's "large" by 1995 standards perhaps, if even that. Whether or not it is useful to transclude the template is of course a matter to be decided for each article individually. Try to get consensus to remove it from each article that presently transcludes it, individually. Once it is orphaned, feel free to redirect it. Even if it remains transcluded from a single article (Anglosphere), there will be no reason to delete it. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding either on the purpose of TfD, or the nature of navigation template. The mere existence of a nav template constitutes no obligation to transclude it from each article it happens to link to.

it is also dubious whether this is a "navigation template". Note that I have created this in November 2007 by exporting portions from an article body, for the purpose of transcluding the same material into the body of two or more articles. If people have since made it collapsible, out of concern of saving "screen real estate", or just for the hell of it, that doesn't automatically change its nature to that of a "navigation template". --dab (𒁳) 15:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

But its use on the various articles it links to, amongst the other navigation templates, does. I would have no problem with it if it got removed from the blue navbar thing and transcluded only in one (or a few) articles (in the article body, as you say it was intended). I am not dismissing your (good) work, I just found it a tad extreme for a navigation template. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 15:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Template:Uw-username/doc

Template:Uw-username/doc (talk · history · transclusions · logs · subpages)

Old documentation subpage unused since July 2008. Anomie⚔ 00:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Unused. MBisanz ^talk 01:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Obsolete. CWii_{(Talk|Contribs)} 04:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)