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Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2013 April 24#Template:PDFlink

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=April 24=

{{PAGENAME}}

== [[Template:PureVolume]] ==

:The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:33, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

:{{Tfd links|PureVolume}}

Social networking site, seems to be an WP:ELNO candidate. Corresponding article was deleted via A7. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 19:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

==[[Template:MTG characters]]==

:The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was delete. --BDD (talk) 15:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

:{{Tfd links|MTG characters}}

Unused. Izno (talk) 15:22, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Delete - unused. the list article that presumably used to use it has been deleted. -- Whpq (talk) 16:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
  • delete Frietjes (talk) 17:59, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

== [[Template:PDFlink]] ==

:The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the discussion was deprecate and merge with core citation templates with {{para|format}} and {{para|formatsize}} or {{para|filesize}} or {{para|urlsize}} (see this discussion)  Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 23:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

:{{Tfd links|PDFlink}}

Template is misused, is little known, and is of little use. As used, (example: [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sago_Mine_disaster&oldid=551573702it Sago Mine disaster]) it produces bare urls, does not account for publisher, author, date, agency, accessdate and other significant citation details. It is not tracked or tagged for dead links, nor repaired for them by automated tools. It is not on the new editor training path, nor is it commonly used or suggested in discussion. The entirety of the functionality of this template is replaced by the citation parameters "{{para|format}}PDF" No other indication of PDF status beyond this is ever required. and {{para|formatsize}} (new, see below) (useful for those with limited or expensive internet connectivity). This template was last nominated for deletion in 2006 and kept. Well, it's not 2006 anymore. People know about PDF and know exactly what to do about it. Mediawiki even adds a cute little graphical indicator automatically wherever links to PDFs are used, completely obviating the need for this "user warning" template. Its sole functions are to change font and add a size parameter in that same font. Its use is finicky, incompatible with "=" in URLs, incompatible with Cite templates, and so on. Why it's used in over 9000 places is beyond comprehension. Does the bot designed to "keep size parameter up to date" run? If so, why doesn't it tag dead URLs as dead (see example article linked above). The way I see it, this is a big albatross, and it's time to cut it loose, and set an AWB task to replace all of its 9000 uses with standard citation or external link formulations. Lexein (talk) 12:47, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

  • I'd wager that the vast majority of its uses are historical, and that very few of the transclusions are recent. Anyway, the nom is correct that this is past its sell-by date, and that transclusions should simply be nullified (by altering the template to simply output {{{1}}} and then substituting it). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:25, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • If we really need this in the citation templates, then a case should be made to add support directly to the templates. User:PDFbot maintains these links and there is an associated class PDFlink. --  Gadget850 talk 13:40, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
  • :Looking at a small sample, this template is being used as a citation template in a lot of uses, for example:
  • ::Proceedings of the 6th European VLBI Network Symposium, {{PDF|[http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/evn2002/book/EPreuss.pdf The Beginnings of VLBI at the 100-m Radio Telescope]|100 KB}}, June 25th-28th 2002, Bonn, Germany
  • :The citation templates already have support via the 'format' parameter. I don't understand the need to updated the PDF sizes. --  Gadget850 talk 12:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • ::Adding the PDF size is a something that Nielsen has suggested for good usability (see for example [http://www.nngroup.com/articles/avoid-pdf-for-on-screen-reading/] on the "portal page" concept of his). I'm for it [PDF size], because large PDFs can and do choke the machines which link to them (and per say where you got it, we encourage linking directly to the PDFs rather than the portal pages if they exist anyway). That article looks like it's a bit old (2005ish), but it's still a problem. --Izno (talk) 16:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • :::My misunderstanding. I thought the bot updated the size, where it actually adds the size. I am not adverse to including the size, but it should be expanded to include other formats such as DOC, XLS and the like. --  Gadget850 talk 17:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • ::::Sure. You're the template (CS1) guy. {{para|formatsize}}? --Izno (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • :::::Exactly. The ideal solution would be for the bot detect if 'format' is defined, then add 'formatsize' if it isn't already defined. --  Gadget850 talk 18:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • ::::::Module talk:Citation/CS1/Feature requests#Format size. --  Gadget850 talk 12:00, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep (speedy) - This is excellent for 19+ MB PDFs, like the one here (and the TfD template is super annoying, as you can see on that same page). - tucoxn\talk 20:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
  • : Sorry about the TfD template, that's not under my control (yes, I wish it was simply superscripted red text). If PDFlink is kept, it should be an error if it's used naked (that is, not used inside a citation template). IMHO. It's detrimental to the project that any templates exist that obscure bare and dead URLs from bare & deadlink checking/fixing bots. Can we agree on that? Addendum I'm in agreement with Gadget850 in the sense that PDFlink's functionality could be subsumed into the citation templates. That is, if {{para|format}}=PDF is specified, perhaps {{para|pdfsize}} should be specified. Error if not?--Lexein (talk) 23:33, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
  • :: I'm in favor of adding a {{para|pdfsize}} or better a {{para|formatsize}} (that includes .pdf and .doc or .xls or other types of files) option to the citation templates and I would support such a proposal. However, I've hit harsh resistance (from the cabal?) every time I've proposed changes to that often used set of templates. - tucoxn\talk 04:01, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Merge functionality into existing citation templates with an optional {{para|pdfsize}} parameter for exceptionally large files. Many PDFs are very small, and forcing a mandatory size description would be a lot of work for little result. — User:Scott Martin {{color|#900|•}} User talk:Scott Martin 12:36, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Very weak, watery keep. I am one of the longtime users of this template, which I understand was sort of a stopgap hack to begin with. Where the documents cited can fit comfortably into an existing {{tl|cite}} template, I have been using it instead. However, one aspect of its functionality that should be kept in some way regardless of the outcome of this discussion is the indicator of the size of the PDF linked to. Some large ones still crash some browsers, and it's nice to let readers have this info in advance. Daniel Case (talk) 16:36, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • My concern with a straight merge or an AWB run to remove it is that not in all places will this template be used with a compatible citation template. Additionally, I suspect this template is used in some citations which are hand-done, and per our citation guidelines, changing those to a template would be inappropriate. I do agree that the functionality should definitely be implemented as a standard parameter in the CS1 and Citation templates, minimally. --Izno (talk) 17:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Deprecate and merge per Scott. --BDD (talk) 19:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep for use in project space as needed, but implement an alternative solution for article space (citations). — This, that and the other (talk) 02:21, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment Maintainer of PDFbot. I don't have much time for the foreseeable two weeks, but I wanted to BRfA this last week. The PDF landscape has changed, Safari/Chrome/Firefox have fast built in PDF viewers plus Adobe has speed up AcrobatReader for Internet Explorer users, the average webpage with all tracking crap has ballooned the file size (~1 MB) beyond the typically PDF (~200 KB), and IE6 has dropped under 1% so the wrapper class isn't needed for most files. When I get I'll BRfA and systematically remove this template. — Dispenser 03:26, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • : It's now up at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PDFbot 4. — Dispenser 04:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment - The PDF link can just be made by copying and pasting the URL, then treating it as a normal reference. Epicgenius(talk to me • see my contributions) 10:49, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Delete. The previous discussion was closed because of arguments such as It is common courtesy on the web to alert users to "PDFHell". That may have been true then, but it's not true now; as Dispenser notes, the browsers that need warning are truly rare nowadays, and everyone who's now using it will have had years of knowing how their browsers handle PDFs. I wouldn't mind keeping it if TTATO or someone else found a way to use it purely in projectspace, however. Nyttend (talk) 19:47, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

::I must object to this deletion comment, which seems to suffer from WP:Systemic bias as it does not take into account internet users from developing countries or where internet is restricted by download size. For example, in many Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), as well as countries in Africa, fees for internet usage are based on download (and upload) size. Users from these places would think twice before trying to download a 19 MB .pdf file. Further, internet browsing is relatively new in some developing areas, where "PDFHell" is still a place to suffer. Please re-consider your comment with a larger world-view in mind. - tucoxn\talk 23:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

  • Delete. Hi. With MediaWiki putting a PDF icon in front of every PDF link that ends with ".pdf", I'd rather write "PDF" than "{{tlf|PDF}}". It is shorter. For the very little tweaks that my friends here suggest, well, an edit to citation template does it. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 14:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
  • : Not all files match /.pdf$|.PDF$|.pdf?|.PDF?|.pdf#|.PDF#/ some use download redirection (so .php). The template wraps <span class="PDFlink"> to add the icon. — Dispenser 04:05, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
  • Keep (speedy): Its useful, takes very few space and maintenance, read all above and can't see any reason to change or even delete it?

:Additionally: My many years of experience in Wikipedia have additionally shown that those who replace templates often did NOT done it carefully. Tagremover (talk) 09:06, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this section.