Forum:Ambox and stub abuse

Forums: Village pump → Ambox and stub abuse
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So, {{ambox}} and {{Stub/Box}} haven't really been updated since they were created back in 2007. This results in a problem I like to call "Christmas Trees instead of content". For instance, look at Legion Invasion. As I write this, there are FOUR amboxes and a WorldEvent template at the top of the page. This actually works much better in mobile (yay, mobile getting something right for once...) by collapsing all of the ambox templates into a 'Page issues' link.

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  Ambox overload

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  Ambox overload on mobile

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  Mobile ambox issues

Part of the issue is that it's too easy to slap something like {{cleanup}} or {{ood}} without actually giving a reason... then the template lives on for years without someone actually removing it. It's even worse for stubs. We're creating entirely too many articles as "stubs" and then never removing the tag.

I'm going to update {{ambox}} by rolling in ~10 years of updates from enwiki, which should hopefully get us closer to autocollapsing templates if more than one of them appear. Also, this gets us the |date= parameter so we can see when the template was slapped on a page.

We need to come up with a solution for all of this.

First off, calling nearly-fully-formed articles "stubs" when they're for future content (ptr, beta, etc) needs to stop immediately. We should create {{future content}} or something so that it's easy to 1) hide the template on the page once it's no longer actually "future content" and 2) use bots to remove outdated uses.

Second, any templates like ood or cleanup need to get updated so that if a reason and a date isn't given, nothing actually displays. A no-content {{cleanup}} is less than useless.

Finally, we need to go on a pass and wipe out most stub template uses on the wiki. I can bot most of them away and it won't take much time, but that's a bit heavy-handed.

Anyway, thoughts? Now's as good of a time as any, as our viewership is going to be going up in 5 weeks. --k_d³ 23:58, 22 July 2016 (UTC)

I can try to go through some of them manually. In the past I have used such things as an "I give up trying to clean up after people, someone else do it" tag.--SWM2448 00:03, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

True. I don't mind the Stub/Legion but a futurecontent could do the same purpose. I only browse wowpedia on computer, so these issues aren't something I've had too close to me. I can at least focus on unstubbing some of the many item/stubs we have. PeterWind (talk) 00:09, 23 July 2016 (UTC)