Template talk:list

More than one spelling/word

It should be possibe have more than one word per argument; for instance there are two Norwegian words for 'month', but something like |hypernym=månad/måned does not work. It would also be nice to somehow indicate which written standard each of the two words belong to. I'd also like to have more than one word per meaning for the list itself. --Harald Khan Ճ 11:47, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Due to my recent edits, you may now use |hypernym=månad|hypernym2=måned. You may also add more than one word per meaning normally as new items on any list. Additional information such as written standards may be found at each respective entry. --Daniel. 14:21, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Regarding different spellings; I just thought that it would nice to separate them with a "/" or something. At Template:list:days of the week/nn it looks like the week has eight days in Norwegian Nynorsk:

(days of the week) vekedagar; sundag/søndag, måndag, tysdag, onsdag/mekedag, torsdag, fredag, laurdag ^{(Category: nn:Days of the week)}

--Harald Khan Ճ 15:25, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Then, I think you are right. These confusing "eight days" should be clarified, so I introduced parameters for synonyms and updated {{list|nn|days of the week}}. It should clearly display seven days of the week by now. --Daniel. 19:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

These are English names

Discussion moved from Template talk:list:Latin script letter names/en#These are English names.

I added the word English but rolled back, I think it may have caused problems. --Anatoli 00:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I've moved your comment to here to keep all related discussions in one place rather than in various individual template talk pages. You are correct, the page Template:list:Latin script letter names/en contains Latin script letter names in English. However, in my opinion, Latin script letter names is a good description, better than the alternative Latin script English letter names which was temporarily chosen by you. One reason is: Such disambiguation is not necessary, because this template was created to be used solely in English sections. --Daniel. 05:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

sc=

I've just made one of these bad boys for Persian and it doesn't seem to have any way to specify the necessary script templates. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:42, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I could solve this problem. The Arab script is now specified automatically for all Persian lists. --Daniel. 07:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Multi-script languages

What to do about languages that use multiple alphabets? Azeri, Serbo-Croatian... list/az/Arab, list/az/Cyrl? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:28, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. Since I read your suggestion, I implemented it. See Template:list:sexual orientations/ja/Latn. --Daniel. 21:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome. --Daniel. 01:12, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Couple things...

1. Is there a way to add multiple syn-type parameters for one word, if there's more than one alternative spelling?
2. Shouldn't languages with only one script hide the "This list in all scripts" section?
3. What exactly is the point of linking to the category when the entire category is listed right there? Shouldn't it be possible to hide the category link?

Thanks. --Yair rand 22:07, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

On #1, I thought of that also... but didn't feel it was important enough at the time to bring up. Not a bad idea, though.

On #2, I agree - but I didn't want to push this because I didn't know how fun it would be to fix this.

On #3, it's not always the whole category. There are tons of entries that go in Category:Sexuality that aren't represented by {{list:sexual orientations/en}}. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 22:16, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

(On #3) Yes, that's why I said it should be possible to hide the category link, not required. If the whole category is larger than just the list, then having the link makes sense. --Yair rand 22:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

You could just not specify cat= in your list. If you still want the category to be added on the entries, you can do it manually. I don't see why it's really that important to hide the link...when it's at the bottom of the page anyway. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 22:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I implemented the function of automatically-not-showing-the-list-of-scripts-when-the-language-has-only-one-script. Specifically, if you choose a script, the list of scripts will be shown; otherwise, it won't. For instance, Template:list:chess pieces/en would not show that list, but Template:list:chess pieces/en/Latn would. --Daniel. 01:37, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

On the topic of scripts, why exactly did you move {{list:sexual orientations/ja}} to {{list:sexual orientations/ja/Jpan}}??? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I moved that template because, as I explained, the {{list:sexual orientations/ja}} would not display the section "This Japanese list in all scripts". --Daniel. 02:03, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Now I implemented some additional parameters for synonyms; for instance, see Template:list:senses/en. --Daniel. 07:38, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Books of the Bible

Can someone please create a list of books of the Bible in English? --Daniel. 01:12, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Do Old Testament and New Testament instead. Just look for a list of the books on Pedia. I mean come on, how hard can it be. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 01:33, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Two lists, one of the New Testament and another of the Old Testament would be a great alternative as you pointed. Anyway, I'm still not inclined to do that job now. Let me, say, spend my time at Wiktionary creating complex template functions instead. (: I'd like to use that introduction "Here you may [...] request [...] new lists" as an excuse for occasional laziness or prioritization while still seeing some work done indirectly, if people are willing to follow suggestions for tasks at hand. --Daniel. 01:55, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks you for creating both lists, Opiaterein. --Daniel. 21:44, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

What is all this?

I just encountered this being used in Canada.[1] I'd like to try to improve the typography, but even after looking over the docs I cannot tell what this represents:

• (countries of North America) country of North America; Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Canada, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, United States of America
• (provinces of Canada) province of Canada; Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan ^{(Category: en:Provinces of Canada)}
• (territories of Canada) territory of Canada; Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon ^{(Category: en:Territories of Canada)}

Why does the text “countries of North America” link to countries of the World instead? Why is the heading text formatted and capitalized like a restricted-use label? – confusing. Why is the heading repeated in singular, and why is that boldfaced? Why is page clutter being increased by repeating the category links already present at the bottom of the page? (And why is the parenthesis set raised above the baseline?)

I get that these are lists of 'nyms, but the organization and the rationale for the various bits are completely opaque. We need some docs for readers, or at least a simple explanation. —Michael Z. 2010-05-16 23:43 z

The text "countries of North America" links to Appendix:Countries of the world because it is the only Wiktionary appendix that contains information about names in English of countries of North America.

The italicized text between parentheses was introduced by me because it looks good, and if I recall correctly, the capitalization was introduced by Conrad and I also like it. Nonetheless, you and I talked shortly about possible new formats which I'd also agree, like your suggestion of the <dd> and <dt>. Although, any new formats would require community's approval, since the list templates are so widely used by now.

I already replied to you about the heading in singular and I don't think this issue requires any additional explanation. To quote me: The list includes the term "week" because it explains well how the items are connected. If a person does not know what is a week, he or she might learn by clicking on the link. Similarly, and more likely to be unclear, if a person sees a list of types of random access memory "(random access memory) random access memory; single data rate, double data rate, static random access memory, dynamic random access memory", he or she might learn about that hypernym easily that way.

The hypernym is boldfaced because it works as a title for the terms of the list.

The category links are repeated because that repetition is easy, harmless and the visible link to the category tree is useful to search for related terms.

The category links in parentheses are placed above the headline because they don't need much attention as the items of the list. In this case, tiny is good.

The lists "countries of North America", "provinces of Canada" and "territories of Canada" represent what is said in their titles. Specifically, these are the English names. It is possible to create similar lists for other languages as well.

--Daniel. 00:18, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

And for editors, If the bolded hypernym is the title, then why is it not in the title= parameter? (And why is one “hypernym”/“title”/“heading” now disappeared?) Can we establish names for the different parts of this, so we can know that everyone agrees and understands what they are? —Michael Z. 2010-05-17 13:31 z

The text "country of North America" has been temporarily removed from the template by Conrad; until I readded it.

There are two parameters, "title=" and "hypernym=", because they perform diferent functions:

• "title=" is the pluralized English text for lists of all languages. Since all languages are recognized by this single text, it makes comparison and copy-paste-translate easier. Its contents appear inside parenthesis and may be linked to an appendix.
• "hypernym=" is the hypernym in the current language. Its contents appear after the parethensis and may be linked to one or more entries.

Therefore, the English template would contain "|title=countries of North America|hypernym=country of North America" and the Portuguese template would contain "|title=countries of North America|hypernym=país da América do Norte".

--Daniel. 21:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

On the topic of usability, can we please delete, {{list:moons of Earth/en}} and anything similar. It looks atrocious, is hard to read (the / binds more tightly than "of"), and the name is misleading (there's only one moon in the list). It adds no new information to moon except for sum-of-parts synonyms of "moon of Earth", a fairly obscure phrase in-and-of itself. I would strongly advocate removing support for synonyms from this template, and discourage including alternative spellings/forms. It's fine for topical lists on entries, it does not need the extra features, they serve merely to obscure. Conrad.Irwin 11:06, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I found the synonym thing handy with the fundamental interactions lists, mainly for the weak and strong interactions, which are sometimes called "weak interaction" and "strong interaction", and sometimes called "weak nuclear interaction" and "strong nuclear interaction". I don't think either is more correct (in physics) so it'd be weird to not have both.

The hypernyms do get a little silly with the lists of states, counties, countries and whatever, but I can see how it could be marginally useful for the non-English lists. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 12:22, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Hrm, I'd not say there was much of a need to include both, but that template doesn't look quite so bad. Perhaps my actual problem is with the inclusion of hypernyms that aren't dictionary entries. (That said it would be nice to abbreviate (fundamental particles) fundamental particle) Conrad.Irwin 12:28, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

I personally like the parameters for synonyms, the organization of hypernyms and the list of moons of Earth; otherwise, I wouldn't create them. Conrad expressed opinions different from mine, particularly against the hypernyms of the list of moons of Earth. Specifically, that list contains the following text: "moon of Earth/natural satellite of Earth/satellite of Earth"; if I understood correctly, these various hypernyms are sum-of-parts, therefore they should be removed according to his opinion. I see room for improvement here, but I prefer these hypernyms kept, not deleted. The hypernyms are comprised of dictionary terms: satellite, natural satellite, moon and Earth; which may improve understanding the items of the list.

Some informed issues "looks atrocious, is hard to read" may be fixed through proper formatting. Firstly, let's see two possible lists of days of the week, with the current format:

• (days of the week) day of the week; Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday ^{(Category:Days of the week) [edit]}
• (days of the week) dia da semana; domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado ^{(Category:pt:Days of the week) [edit]}

Michael Brown made a suggestion at my talk page last month [2]; I've modified it a little to contain the "edit" and other links. This would be the final result of those two lists as I see:

Days of the week (day of the week)

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday ^{(Category:Days of the week) [edit]}

Days of the week (dia da semana)

domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado ^{(Category:pt:Days of the week) [edit]}

--Daniel. 21:59, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Going back to the moon template, I don't see how you can argue that "(moons of Earth) moon of Earth/natural satellite of Earth/satellite of Earth;" provides useful information, or is easy to read. (particularly given that "natural satellite" is SoP). To me, it reads like information automatically generated by one of those obnoxious "You might like..." routines. The use of a / (which is a very small symbol) to divide up phrases containing connectives just doesn't work for me, I read (moon) of (Earth/natural satellite) of (Earth/satellite) of (Earth) - encouraged by the colouring - unless I concentrate.

In general I like the format using the definition list better - but I would still strongly argue for removing redundant information. "Days of the week (day of the week)" is pointless in English - though I like it in Portuguese. "Category:Days of the week" is pointless too, not only is there already a link to the category at the bottom of the page, the list contains the entire contents of the category. My initial assumption was that lists would be for useful subsets of categories, as this isn't the case here (or ever, according to your ideals, I thikn), this is linking to a page that displays even more messily the exact contents of the line. Can you give reasons that you prefer your layout above over the following? Conrad.Irwin 22:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Days of the week

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday ^[edit]

Days of the week (dia da semana)

domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado ^[edit]

This is much better. If “Days of the week” is a heading, then make it look like a heading by boldfacing it, thank you. If we are offering the English and a translation, then please, 1 write a translation with the same meaning and, 2 omit the translation for English. (I know it wasn't intended as such, but it's just confusing the way it is.) It would look even more like a heading if it wasn't a blue link, and heavens!, please not multicoloured like country of North America. Neither linked word is a hypernym for the example above, so what's the point? And let's follow the principle of not misleading the reader: don't just pull something out of a hat and link to it for the sake of linking! – “countries of North America” linking to Appendix:Countries of the world will just make the reader go WTF? And please, please do not put whole words and passages in parenthesized, small, raised text, because a sentence is not a footnote marker. Just put parenthetic links in parentheses or whatever.

What about the relationship of these lists to the entry? We have headings for hypernyms, coordinate terms, and hyponyms, so why are all these mixed up in See also? The lists in Canada just look like three lists of vaguely related words, and the reader has to scan through all three and make a vague guess as to why they're there. —Michael Z. 2010-05-18 23:21 z

Moons of Earth

Conrad and Michael, I'm indeed arguing that "(moons of Earth) moon of Earth/natural satellite of Earth/satellite of Earth;" provides useful information and is easy to read. Its usefulness come mainly from the fact that a reader might want to know what is a moon, as I mentioned. However, if "natural satellite" is SoP, of course it'll be removed from the list according to my standards (and apparent consensus, unless somebody wants to keep that link there); I'm not sure about it, so I created a WT:TR discussion about it. My ease to read may come from the fact that I probably already know the utility of each aspect of the list template; the presence or absence of slashes, boldfaces, etc. and other formatting details may be discussed below. --Daniel. 02:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I just had a look at moon#See also. Oh my goodness. That's quite a block of links, with zero explanation to the reader of why they are there. I'll also comment that these are not lists of words or proper nouns, they are lists of moons (e.g. S/2003 J 9, S/2003 J 5 is not a list of English words). To me, this looks daunting, opaque, and out of our scope. —Michael Z. 2010-05-19 02:38 z

I have removed the hypernyms and the nameless entities, I think this clarifies things greatly, but still think a Category would be a much better and more scalable way of doing this. Conrad.Irwin 10:44, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Much cleaner, but it's still a list of proper names. Agreed, this is redundant with categories in principle, but a link to w: Category:Moons is simpler, better, and more appropriate in this case. —Michael Z. 2010-05-19 15:31 z

I agree, though it would be nice to have our own moon category too (assuming Moons meet the placename CFI...). Conrad.Irwin 15:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

You mean names of moons. —Michael Z. 2010-05-19 16:39 z

Scope of the appendix

Michael, I agree with you: if the text "countries of North America" is possibly linked to an appendix, said appendix should naturally be about countries of North America. However, as I said, the only appendix that I found with such information is Appendix:Countries of the world. Then, we have the following options:

1. Link "countries of North America" to Appendix:Countries of the world.
2. Create an Appendix:Countries of North America (either from scratch or by splitting Appendix:Countries of the world) and linking the text "countries of North America" to it.
3. Ignore appendices and appendix links at all.
4. Do something else.

I chose the first option, though it may of course be revoked in favour of another. --Daniel. 02:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Links in headings is not great style. It's discouraged in Wikipedia's style guide, and there's no reason to for us to adopt different practices. Link text that differs from the link destination can confuse the reader instead of preparing her for where she's going.

If you want to link to a specific appendix that's nonexistent, either create the appendix or omit the link. If you want to link to Appendix:Countries of the world, then use the text Appendix:Countries of the world. Throwing in a link for its own sake doesn't serve the reader. —Michael Z. 2010-05-19 03:21 z

3. Please. If there's nothing worth linking to, don't link to it. As the reader has no idea what might be in any of these appendices, it is better to put the appendix link on a separate line where it may be better seen and better explained. Conrad.Irwin 10:29, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Overall list format

There are various issues informed.

• Apparently, there is a consensus (although I'm not sure about Opiaterein's opinion) that the category link should not be displayed close to the list itself, because it repeats the categories shown at the bottom of each entry, among other reasons.
• If the list format that was originally suggested by Michael is used, the title should not contain links.
• The slashes for synonyms are bad.
  • Arguably, synonyms are bad themselves; although, I disagree, synonyms are good.
• Small and raised text, like ^{(Category:Days of the week)}, is bad.
  • I'm not sure if the ^[edit] is bad too; I personally think that it's wonderful.
• Hypernyms should not be linked. Then, the "translated hypernyms" should only appear in lists of foreign terms.
  • I disagree strongly with that, because it implies the assumptions that hypernyms or English are less important or more obvious.

Here is my next try of a list format to possibly achieve consensus, among other qualities such as readability and usefulness.

Days of the week (day of the week)

Appendix:Days of the week; domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado ^[edit]

Days of the week (dia da semana)

Appendix:Days of the week; domingo, segunda, terça, quarta, quinta, sexta, sábado ^[edit]

Moons of Mars (moon of Mars; satellite of Mars)

Appendix:Moons of Mars; Phobos, Deimos ^[edit]

Moons of Mars (lua de Marte; satélite de Marte)

Appendix:Moons of Mars; Fobos, Deimos ^[edit]

Provinces of Canada (province of Canada)

Appendix:Provinces of Canada; Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan ^[edit]

Provinces of Canada (província do Canadá)

Appendix:Provinces of Canada; Alberta, Colúmbia Britânica, Ilha do Príncipe Eduardo, Manitoba, Nova Brunswick, Nova Escócia, Ontário, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Terra Nova e Labrador ^[edit]

--Daniel. 02:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

To me, hypernyms of moon include heavenly body, season, year. If you list such terms under moon#Hypernyms, then readers would know that's what they are. Moons of Earth is just the title of a (short) list of moons. Please put it into an appendix or a category, but I don't see moon#See also as an improvement to the entry. —Michael Z. 2010-05-19 03:36 z

I repeat that there is no need, and it look awful, to repeat "Days of the week (day of the week)". Just "Days of the week" is enough. Conrad.Irwin 10:27, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

left-to-right order

IMO English Wiktionary should have lists of words in left-to-right order, even for right-to-left languages. In that case, {{list helper}} should have &lrm; between every two terms.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Seeing no objection, done.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Deletion debate

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

Template:list

This is unnecessary as topical categories (and to a certain extent appendices) fulfill the exact same purpose (and it makes it harder to quickly look up foreign-language equivalents, too). Also, this is coded in an absolutely horrible way that outright murders the servers (just check out a!). -- Liliana • 22:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Strong oppose. Much more convenient than topical categories. — [Ric Laurent] — 22:37, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

How? -- Liliana • 22:38, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Less scrolling. Less clicking. More potential for organization. — [Ric Laurent] — 22:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I created {{topicsee}} just for you. It looks like list but uses the existing topical category system, so we don't have needless duplication. -- Liliana • 06:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Hate it. Lol — [Ric Laurent] — 13:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Oppose, but this template seriously needs cleaning up. Do we really need each individual item to be wrapped in a script template, instead of just wrapping the whole thing in one? --Yair rand 23:37, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

• Support I never figured out what this was for, and the template's page can't even say what the heck it is. —Michael Z. 2012-01-23 03:28 z

I quite like it. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I love it. Always have. — [Ric Laurent] — 13:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose as creator and admirer of that template. Please keep it forever. --Daniel 14:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

•  Keep. Often we want to semantically link a group of words, such as days of the week, in an order other than alphabetical. Robin 07:50, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Would some ardent admirers please add an introduction to the template's documentation, which makes it clear what it is for, what it's not for, with links to the relevant parts of WT:ELE? Thanks. —Michael Z. 2012-01-26 17:49 z

What exactly it is and isn't for has never been defined or, to my knowledge, even discussed. — [Ric Laurent] — 19:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

How does one find out how to create a list? This looks like another nightmare of template obscurantism. DCDuring TALK 23:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Intuitive choices:

1. Copy another list template
2. Or read the doc
3. Or use commas and parentheses and whatnot to achieve the same effect without ever using the template

--Daniel 23:50, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

You forgot the fourth option: Use {{list}} while the template doesn't exist and click the convenient "create" button which then gives a full preload text with explanations of what parameters do what. --Yair rand 01:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I prefer the third choice (or {{topicsee}}!). Also, I'd like to inform you that since AutoFormat and {{list}} are incompatible, any pages using the list template are conveniently ignored. -- Liliana • 00:53, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

That's problematic. What do you mean by "incompatible", exactly? Do other templates in See also sections listed in bullet points also cause problems? --Yair rand 01:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

So far only the list template has shown this behavior. It is easily reproducible by adding or removing the template to any page. -- Liliana • 01:26, 13 February 2012 (UTC) (addendum: and incompatible = crash)

But why? Also, isn't it better to fix the bot code than to delete this template? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:06, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be an elemental bug with Python itself. The only solution would be porting it to another language like C++, but that's something I'm not in the position to do, and it would take a long time. -- Liliana • 15:37, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain this in more detail? How in the world can the presence of a template in a wiki page be causing trouble to a Python script in such a way that there is no workaround? --Dan Polansky 15:49, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I wish I could answer you that question, but I am myself on a loss on why and how this happens. I just know that it does. -- Liliana • 04:24, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

RFD passed. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:33, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

That's not how I read the discussion above, but I certainly am not complaining. How do we go about orphaning it, now?​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:27, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Passed as in kept! Mglovesfun (talk) 21:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• The {{list}} page still has the RFD banner across the top. Is it OK to remove that? -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:24, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

How can this template be simplified?

Right now the code in this template is very slow, which is probably because it's so complicated. How can it be simplified? I'm looking at the code now and I'm noticing some things...

• {{list}} itself is actually still fairly simple. It transcludes the list template given by the arguments. But it also has an #ifexist check which really isn't necessary, because how often does someone include a list that doesn't exist? And if someone does, do we really need to display a fancy link when a red link would suffice?
• It seems to me that {{list}} isn't even needed, since the page can just transclude the specific template directly. Why write {{list|en|days of the week}} when you can write {{list:days of the week/en}} or something similar and take out the middleman template? This is the approach I used for {{zu-concord-table}}, and it works just nicely.
• All the really complicated stuff is concentrated in {{list helper}}. But a lot of it is overly complicated if all we want is to display a simple list. I see no problem in drastically simplifying it by removing features that are not worth the extra processing overhead.
• There is a giant switch statement in that template, which checks whether the current page name is equal to one of the list items. If it is, then it adds the page to a category. Do we really need the template to check this?
• Daniel's practice seemed to be to get templates to generate their own documentation. This isn't a bad idea in principle, but it does add a lot of extra code to the template with no real benefit to the template itself (that is, it slows the template and makes editing it harder, without making it do more). Is it desirable for {{list:days of the week/en}} and every other list template to generate documentation in this way?

—CodeCat 22:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we should replace this template with direct transclusions of simple lists. The complex code it currently uses is unnecessary and apparently detrimental. - -sche (discuss) 22:46, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

On your points:

A single #ifexist is not the problem, but eliminating them if the only cost is a redlink seems like a good idea.

I object to more undocumented, uncategorized template subpages.

I doubt that there is any processing overhead apart from multiple #ifexists and calls for dynamic content. "Days of the week" should be static content. Many of the instances of the use of this should be static.

Would a single #ifexist to check for the existence of a prexisting static template eliminate the need to dynamically construct the content? Couldn't we just insert the assumed static-content template in the entries and use Specialpages:Wantedtemplates to construct the templates that were needed? Or is there some baroque system for inserting these where needed based on category membership or something? DCDuring TALK 22:55, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Does {{listhelper}} actually execute all that?

I don't even like the look of the output of this for the one instance I looked at. DCDuring TALK 23:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

{{list helper}} currently contains most of the code. In particular it contains 60 if-expressions and a switch with 60 items, which I suspect are the main causes for the slowdown. It shouldn't be that hard to eliminate those, though. The switch in particular is almost entirely superfluous. —CodeCat 23:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

But if the "if"s don't require any out-of-template information how bad can they be? I should just keep quiet. I just don't understand what essential purpose all of the testing has. Is it just error-trapping? How likely are the errors? What bad things happen if there are errors? DCDuring TALK 23:44, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure of that either. Presumably Daniel wanted the template to look nice even if the list template that was being included did not exist. He also figured it would be more elegant to add entries to the category (such as Category:en:Days of the week) only if they are part of the template's list. That way, Monday would be added to the category but day would not be, even when both of them transclude the list. It seems like a lot of work for very little benefit, especially when the template could simply have a nocat=1 switch to prevent categorising, if necessary. —CodeCat 00:02, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Taking a somewhat nihilist approach, is {{list}} really necessary? I've been simply copying and pasting lists with links in them (as in the Latvian days of the week, e.g. pirmdiena) without much trouble. I know, if you feel like changing the list, you could do it once and have it be transcluded if you use {{list}}, but isn't that too little advantage to justify its rather resource-absorbing structure? Copying and pasting link lists without {{list}} isn't that much trouble, I think. --Pereru (talk) 02:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

That's why I mentioned {{zu-concord-table}}. It has a very simple structure that doesn't add much overhead while still letting you customise it easily. And I think a template is still better than none if you want to have the same information in several places. —CodeCat 02:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

A problem with not having universal templates is the loss of uniformity of appearance, which has effects on the usability of the site. We mostly believe in the uniformity within languages, less so between languages. Language-specific templates are a reasonable, labor-saving accommodation. If they are properly categorized, then we can encourage or enforce uniformity of appearance with a modest expenditure of crowd-sourced effort. DCDuring TALK 02:43, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

It shouldn't be too hard to make this template appear relatively uniform across languages, without making it too complicated. —CodeCat 02:46, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

RFD

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

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Template:list

A while ago this was simplified a lot, to the point that it no longer really has any value over just manually transcluding the list template. It has now been subst:ed everywhere so it has no more transclusions. —CodeCat 23:06, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Delete, but make sure to fix the documentation. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Delete. - -sche (discuss) 00:20, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Delete. And thank you. DCDuring TALK 02:49, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

No objection, I know this template has been so problematic that editors from other projects have come here to our Grease Pit to complain about it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Well actually, there's nothing wrong with this template, apart from that it just doesn't do much. It is {{list helper}} that has been the real culprit. —CodeCat 20:46, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Deleted —CodeCat 19:05, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

RFDO discussion: May–July 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Wiktionary:List index

Crappy page... --Celui qui crée ébauches de football anglais (talk) 22:30, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

• Seems pretty pointless. Delete SemperBlotto (talk) 20:17, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
• RFD failed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)