Forum:Expansion templates
In a short space of time, and indeed time of space, three maintenance templates and associated categories have sprung up:
- Template:NoIdea and Category:NoIdeas.
- Template:Random Twatdar and Category:Twatdar alert.
- Template:Forever lousy and Category:Doomed to mediocrity.
Lenoxus has added a recommendation to Category:Articles to be expanded that the category be split into other, smaller categories.
What do you think? Do these new categories help or just complicate things? 
Alksub - VFH CM WA RV {talk} 10:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- To be brutal:
- NoIdeas - If the only thing good about an article is its title, it needs a-huffing.
- Twatdar - Applies to parts of pretty much any non-featured page. Also what constitutes a twat? You could use Template:Whining, Template:Serious, Template:Number of Maimings etc to be more specific. If it's actually important to say something on the page.
- Is just pessimistic. And generally unnecessary. And just likely to lead to edit wars and hurt feelings over whether an article is mediocre or good, when we should be worrying about the difference between bad and good instead. (Also the template is ugly.)
- As far as I'm concerned, a small inobtrusive stub template is much better than any of this stuff (and you can always customise one if something particular needs to be said). And I'd rather not put people off reading articles which they might then step in and save.
- To be British:
- Umm, sorry 'bout that.
- -- Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 13:50, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
- "a small inobtrusive stub" is what me mum used to call me before the constable came an took her away. *sniff*. --Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 16:34, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I've put a link to this forum on "Forever lousy". Quick responses to points being raised: I acknowledge the pessimism and potentially insulting qualities of the template, and have tried to mitigate tham as best as possible. The point isn't so much to say that an article sucks altogether but that it has a couple merits here and there, but so far, no one has thought of anything to say about it besides "Oprah Tom Cruise Chuck Norris Norris l337 God." This is also how I would define a "twat" (not my original word choice) -- but when the twats start getting banned, the Twatdar switches to {{Number of Maimings}}. And to be honest, I don't really picture the "mediocrity" articles ever getting huffed, because they tend to be really long and people (including myself) will just vote to "keep" just because of their potential.
An alternate template I made which is a little nicer is {{Shiningstub}}, which I hope to one day become, not a stub template, but a gentler alternative to the current "fix this crap" {{Rewrite}}.
I realize I may be digging myself (and others) into a hole with these templates and categories, and I'm perfectly happy to see any of them go away if that's what the community wants. -- Lenoxus 18:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC) (PS: To be American: I can do whatever the hell I want, got it?— Lenoxus
- The thing about Category:Articles to be expanded is that it's timestamped - that is, articles in it that go 30 days without editing can be considered for deletion (see here). Category:Ideas, by contrast, is not timestamped, and acts as a place to put articles that are too good for deletion but not long enough to survive as a full article - basically what would have been in Category:Articles to be expanded had the timestamp not run out. I know this isn't specifically mentioned in this forum post (or if it was, my brain is too sleep-deprived to notice) but I saw the notice on Template:Idea and thought I'd explain before I removed it.
The problem with all these new templates and categories is that we do already have a huge amount of spare/unused templates hanging around the place that just aren't getting used, and often the ones we're creating serve the same purpose as these old ones used to. A look in Uncyclopedia:Templates is generally a good idea before creating any new ones, as there's probably an old one waiting in the wings already. --
21:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
I definitely agree with anyone who feels that the templates are a big disorganized mess and Uncyclopedia:Templates needs to match better with the organization of Category:Templates. I started some very tentative models (on my computer) of what might be done, but yeah, that should be a huge project in itself. Maybe there should be a formal template proposal system, and a note warning about this to all who would go and make templates... plenty to chew on. — Lenoxus 01:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
- I wouldn't worry about it too much. Certainly don't bother doing huge amounts of work on anything before getting the community's opinion - that way just lies the possibility of wasted time and feelings of bitterness. -- Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 10:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)