Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2016 October 6#Template:Red link

: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).

The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 22:36, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• {{Tfd links|Lobby Music}}

Record label rosters unsuitable for navbox inclusion per longstanding precedent. Rob Sinden (talk) 12:58, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• delete per precedent. Frietjes (talk) 18:16, 7 October 2016 (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).

: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).

The result of the discussion was soft delete. WP:REFUND applies. ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

• {{Tfd links|Anatolian themata}}

Unused template, essentially a content fork of {{tl|Byzantine themes in De Thematibus}}, no activity or change in status since last TfD in 2012. Constantine ✍ 09:46, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• When I created this in 2012, it was an essential tool in the History of Anatolia project. However that area appears to have been completely reworked. So it serves little purpose there, except that there is a request there for yet another rewrite. At the time the nominator for the deletion on each occasion, replaced it with the above template. So it is not really serving much purpose now. See talk page and previous discussion.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

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The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Primefac (talk) 22:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

• {{Tfd links|Alpha Records}}

Record label rosters unsuitable for navbox inclusion per precedent at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 September 28#Record label templates. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• delete per precedent. Frietjes (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2016 (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).

: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).

The result of the discussion was Delete (non-admin closure) Pppery 00:40, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

• {{Tfd links|Score}}

Unsurprisingly, this template is used only twice, and oddly enough not for its intended purpose. Typing {{tlc|score|2=1|3=2}} is ten characters more than just typing "1-2." A decent idea, but not practical. Primefac (talk) 04:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• It's equivalent to typing not {{code|1-2}}, but {{code|1{{ndash}}2}}. Uanfala (talk) 21:55, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
• Fair point, though it's technically also equivalent to 1–2, both of which are shorter than typing out the template. Primefac (talk) 00:43, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
• Delete per the nom. --Izno (talk) 11:42, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
• Delete as creator. I did have some vague idea of why I wanted this, at the time, I think mostly because of whether we should use en dashes or hyphens to make it consistent. However it patently never caught on and I had completely forgotten about it. It can safely be deleted (obviously the two uses can be substituted). But it shouldn't be just typing 1-2, it should be typing 1–2, I think, per MOS:DASH. I was trying I think to add some consistency to things but patently this never caught on even with myself, so let's get rid of it. If I remember correctly, the aim of the "home=" and "away=" parameters is that sometimes in text people don't make it clear they will write "Arsenal beat Spurs 3-0 at White Hart Lane" and things like that, which is clear enough that's an away win in that context but then out of context it can easily be taken as a home win. However my anal attempt at consistency was doomed from the start. Si Trew (talk) 08:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
• Speedy delete WP:G7. - Champion (talk) (contribs) (Formerly TheChampionMan1234) 08:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
• delete per author approval. Frietjes (talk) 18:14, 7 October 2016 (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).

: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).

The result of the discussion was delete. Consensus is that the potential to confuse outweighs the potential usefulness in discussion. (I'd also like to note that the idea of emphasizing a certain thing by using this template is defeated unless one looks at the source code to see a template is in use.) ~ Rob₁₃^Talk 16:52, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

• {{Tfd links|Red link}}

I can understand the intentions behind this template's creation, but somehow it seems... too much of a SURPRISE for usage in articles. Of the 8 articles transcluding this template, four actually have redlinks, one should be using {{t|ill}}, and the other three seem to be hiding disambig pages. What's equally awkward is that some of the talk-space usage actually point to existing articles that the original "redlink" was supposed to point to. Genuinely looking for input on this one, but at the moment I feel it should be deleted. Primefac (talk) 04:15, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

• Delete per the nom. --Izno (talk) 11:41, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:33, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
• Keep for better archive-friendliness of discussions. If I'd known about this template I'd have used it. Oftentimes during discussions (particularly at RfD or talk pages having to do with disambiguation) it happens that a redlink is referenced and the fact that it is a redlink is implied (as obvious) and used in the argument. Not infrequently, during the course of the discussion an article (or redirect) would be created at the redlinked title and the fact that it was a redlink, together with this fact's relevance for the discussion, would get obscured. As for article space, I imagine it can be used to encourage article creation, for example when the text mentions two related concepts, one of which is a redirect to the other. Uanfala (talk) 21:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
• delete per nom. As for ‘archive-friendliness of discussions' that is a hopeless goal. Stale discussions are stale discussions and they often go wrong in unanticipated ways: templates are changed or deleted, images are deleted, articles are created and deleted. A normal red link encourages article creation. Hiding a proper link behind a red link is just confusing.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 08:51, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
• delete per WP:EGG. Frietjes (talk) 18:15, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
• delete I have no idea what useful thing this template is doing, beyond a simple red link. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:03, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
• delete Rtrust (talk) 01:26, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
• Strong keep. I have used this in the past. I thought its use would be pretty obvious, it's where one deliberately wants to create a red link and wants to show that one does not want it turned into a blue link. For example, at RfD we have currently A Cat up for discussion but regular User:CoffeeWithMarkets ("CWM") rightly points out that we don't have a cat (discussion here: Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2016_October_11#A_Cat). Now, the temptation by some good-faith editors is then to create a redirect for a cat, and the link goes blue, defeating CWM's point. Wheareas had CWM put {{tlc|red link|2=a cat}} that would still look red and not work, even if someone created a cat, and they couldn't just instantly created by clicking the redlink and putting in "not a dog" or whatever, clicking through it might give pause to why it was deliberately created to look like a red link, with the template. It has its shortcomings (red links don't actually have to be red (colour), depending on your style sheets and browser settings etc, whereas I think the template does hard-code them to be red), and yes it has limited use, but where it is used it tends to be for a very good reason. It's not for use in articles, it's for use in discussions. That's exactly why it's used in talk-space, so that even if the link is subsequently created, it doesn't make a complete nonsense of the discussion when someone says "I notice that blue link is red."

:It would be better, however, if the displayed link was piped back to the documentation for {{tlx|red link}} to explain to the unsuspecting editor why it was linked that way, rather than the raw red link bringing up the creation page without further ado. I thought it used to do that and that was the whole point of it. i.e. it should pipe to Template:red link/doc.

::As for the archive-friendly discussions, that's really a secondary concern, it's more really just to prevent someone saying "oh yes it does" in the middle of a current discussion when one says "but this doesn't exist" and they assume you mean "I wish it would" when you mean "I'm glad it doesn't" (if I wished it would, I could have just created it myself.)

::I have proposed several times what we really need is a transitive closure of the historical version of the page. That is, when one looks at a particular version of the page, the links in that page should be also to the historical versions of those pages (and template transclusions etc) at that time. Processor-intensive maybe but possible just to find the version of each link that is just before the timestamp of the historical version of the page you are viewing. After all, that's what most software configuration systems would let you do with changesets and things like that. Where even that would fail is pages that were subsequently deleted (unless you had admin privileges), but it would work pretty well most of the time, a kinda WikiWikiWayback machine. I could do this as an external tool probably, as I say it would fail on digging past deleted pages, though, unless it had admin privileges to do that. Si Trew (talk) 11:09, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

::: I can see the value of the use case you give. But why do we need this template for that purpose, rather than a simple red link to red link example - a page protected against creation? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:48, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• 'Hmmmm'. This is just broken, now. The whole point of it is not to take you to creation page for the redlink, but to caution you why it was deliberately added as a redlink. Perhaps it has always been like that, looking at its history I can't see any changes beyond cosmetic ones, but perhaps the change to add "&redlink=1" broke it, because that is usually the thing that stops the creation page being a bit hesitant. But that was years ago. Si Trew (talk) 11:22, 12 October 2016 (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).