Template talk:Article history: Difference between revisions

[1] was pointed out on my talk page. That implementation has bugs - the obvious one being what happens when a FL with a mainpage appearance becomes FFL. Please also note some other changes to make at User_talk:Gimmetoo#Query_on_AFD_statistics. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:54, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have examples of these bugs? As I see it, if an FL becomes FFL, the worst thing that happens is that it will turn "list" into "article". This can easily be fixed by including FFL in the checks. — Edokter (talk) — 15:28, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia_talk:Today's_featured_list#What_should_I_do.3F. Just switching from list to article is a bit of a problem since it involves a link which I think would end up a redlink. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please explain. What link would end up in a redlink? — Edokter (talk) — 16:04, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If "list" were to become "article" in displayed text, it would probably also switch the "today's featured list/date" link. Gimmetoo (talk) 16:13, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is the intended effect. Anyway, the template now has split code for pre- and post 2011-06-13 featured articles/lists. — Edokter (talk) — 18:26, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed there was a flag for the Four Award, however when it is set to | four=yes on St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao, I don't see anything in the template that actually indicates it received one. Why is there a flag for it if there's no corresponding "This article received a Four Award" type notice? ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 06:46, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It just generates a category [2]. AH mostly incorporated text from pre-existing template notices (FA, GA, DYK, PR). There isn't any "four" template notice, and I would say there's a reasonable argument that since "four" is a collection of other processes, there probably shouldn't be a separate template notice for it. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:18, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. When I first proposed adding |four= I mentioned that it would be possible to add something like "This article has received a Four Award", but it's probably not desirable to do so for the reasons Gimme mentions above and because FOUR is a minor project which I don't think has gotten widespread attention from the community yet. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:20, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info! ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 15:03, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any easy way to use this template to identify (e.g., put into a category) featured articles which were previously good articles? What I have in mind is something that adds articles to a category if their currentstatus is FA, they have been on DYK (i.e., if |dykdate= has content), and they were once GAs. The last part is the hard part; as far as I can tell, I only see two ways to do this, and both look pretty tedious:

1. Create a new |currentstatus=, something like |currentstatus=FA/FGA, and then have to go and update the status for thousands of articles
2. Check every single actionN up to action18 with

   {{#ifeq:{{uc:{{{actionN|}}}}} | GAN | {{#ifeq:{{uc:{{{actionNresult|}}}}} | listed | do something}} }}

   to see if the article passed any GANs in the past

I'm asking about this in relation to the WP:Four award stuff (see User talk:Rjanag#Four parameter), which is a task not important enough to warrant going through the massive trouble that would be needed to do solution #1. Solution #2 wouldn't be a lot of work, but it would make a horrible mess of the code. Is there any simpler, less verbose way to do this? rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would try to avoid changing the currenstatus coding. There are a couple instances of the method #2 in the template coding, but it seems best to avoid that, too, when possible. FAs that are former GAs can be handled in {{ArticleHistory/output}}, which formats each line in the collapsible table but also has currentstatus as a passed-in parameter. This approach is already in-use to generate categories for former FAs that were re-promoted, and similar. If the dykdate parameter were passed to /output as well, it could generate the DYK/FA/formerGA category you mention. What's worse - another parameter passed to /output and 4-6 more lines of nested switches there, or a block of nested ifeqs in AH? Gimmetoo (talk) 21:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at it a bit but I'm still not sure I understand how to do what you are suggesting; I might need an example to figure it out. So, if I'm going to be the one to implement this, I would do the nested ifeqs; it's messy but I could always put that block off by itself so it doesn't confuse any other areas of the code. If someone else wants to do the other method (or point me in the right direction to figure out how to do it), I don't mind that either. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:41, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's how I think it would work. Code in /output that looks like

 |GAN|gan|GAC|gac={{#switch:{{{4}}}
   |Fail|fail|Failed|failed|Not Listed|not listed={{#switch:{{{6}}}
     |FA|fa|GA|ga|FFA|ffa|ffa/ga|FFA/GA=
     |[[Category:Former good article nominees|{{PAGENAME}}]]
    }}
  }}

would become something like

 |GAN|gan|GAC|gac={{#switch:{{{4}}}
   |Fail|fail|Failed|failed|Not Listed|not listed={{#switch:{{{6}}}
     |FA|fa|GA|ga|FFA|ffa|ffa/ga|FFA/GA=
     |[[Category:Former good article nominees|{{PAGENAME}}]]
    }}
   |Pass|pass|Passed|passed|Promoted|promoted|Listed|listed={{#switch:{{{6}}}
     |FA|fa={{#if:{{{7}}}|[[Category:DYK articles that were once GA and now FA|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}
    }}
  }}

and the code using /output would add the dykdate parameter to place 7

 |{{ArticleHistory/output|{{{action1}}}|{{{action1date|}}}|{{{action1link|}}}|{{{action1result|}}}|{{{action1oldid|}}}|{{{currentstatus|}}}|{{{dykdate|}}}}}

This would need some testing, naturally. Gimmetoo (talk) 00:52, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to let an admin know that the recent edit to the above template is causing an extra whitespace to appear after the template, in headers on article talk pages. I think it is related to the spaces involving the "include" and "noinclude" tags on the template. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:24, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

problem now fixed. --Funandtrvl (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Marking a nomination as withdrawn (and still linking to the review) would be useful. —Designate (talk) 05:02, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For what process? At FAC, nominations are archived and linked in artilehistory if there are any significant comments, even if the nomination is withdrawn. Do you have an example for what you're requesting? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:16, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that the article history mostly deals with the status of articles, but given the presence of the AFD and related categories, it seems like there may be a place for listing other milestones like mediation and arbitration. Does this make sense? aprock (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now that DYK provides a separate page for discussion on each nomination, would it be possible to give ArticleHistory the ability to list DYK under the other article milestones, rather than as a unique event? I've put together a rough idea of how this would work, logically. I think this would benefit the template by:

1. Most critically, preserving a link to the DYK nom page, something the template isn't set up to do.
2. Allowing the preservation of the oldid of an article when it was showcased at DYK.
3. Listing whether an article had a failed DYK.
4. Preventing text (the DYK hook) from being collapsed within a template that is already collapsed. The hooks wouldn't need to be recorded anymore, because the relevant data would be on the nom page.

--Gyrobo (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Added to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

{{edit protected}} Hello, the format of Wikipedia logo is PNG. The same logo exists in SVG format. Please change Wikipedia-logo.png to Wikipedia-logo-v2.svg. Nodulation (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 11:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A missing result case from AfD (probably any XfD) is |actionXresult=withdrawn with the "Result" column output: Withdrawn (kept). Example case: WP:Articles for deletion/The golden cue. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article has had two AfDs and a redirect for discussion . . . is there any way to include the discussion in the template as well?--~TPW 18:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The instance of this template in Talk:Prolog, near the top of the article, has 2011 as the year, despite the year being 2006 in the talk page's source. Calcdude84se (talk) 02:27, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

#time has a bug with dates formatted as 10 October, 2011, with a comma between the month and year. See Template_talk:ArticleHistory/Archive_4#date_error_in_action1date_param. Gimmetoo (talk) 02:39, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am rather confused. The template documentation instructs using the dates that a particular process had ended, whereas the Fermi paradox example seems to use the dates on which the various processes were initiated. On a similar note, are the oldids meant to be of the article at the start or at the end of the process? Please can someone clarify this? It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 13:11, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Should be end-dates and end-version oldids. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In this discussion, we decided to split Category:Wikipedia good articles on historical figures into Category:Wikipedia good articles on politicians (McCarthy and Washington) and Category:Wikipedia good articles on royalty (the rest). I can't figure out how to adjust this template so that this split is possible. Does anyone here know how to do that?--Mike Selinker (talk) 19:28, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done by Od Mishehu. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:29, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Nick Drake article was the featured article on 18 and 19 January. Currently, a workround has to be done to show this in the {{ArticleHistory}}. Is there any way that the template can be tweaked to allow the use of |main2= to allow this? (I tried it but it don't work atm) Mjroots (talk) 08:46, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No reason to add a parameter for this unusual situation. See Talk:Barack Obama. Gimmetoo (talk) 09:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest that the fact that more than one FA has been on the main page more than once would mean that there is a need for such a parameter. Mjroots (talk)

The intention and practice is one appearance per article. Two exceptions do not make a need. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:49, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No need- it can be handled the same as Obama. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a minor point here, but it appears when you delist a good article the link in the template heading "Such and such was one of the ????? good articles, but it has been removed from the list" points to WP:Good Articles. When an article is listed the link in "Such and such has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria" links to the WP:GA subpage. Like I said a minor point but if it is easy or warranted it would be nice to link to the subpage in delisted articles. From my end it would simply make it easier to remove said delisted article from the page after a reassessment. Cheers AIRcorn (talk) 08:43, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For example see Talk:Elephant (delisted) and Talk: Spider (listed). AIRcorn (talk) 08:46, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Added request to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:42, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The A class note says "This article has passed an A-Class review." where "A-class review" links to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Review#A-Class_review. This is obselete; it should now link to Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/A-Class review. If someone could change this, it would be much appreciated. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:42, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That note is actually in Template:WPMILHIST. I applied the change there. Ucucha (talk) 12:10, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What's causing the error evident at "Talk:Wednesbury unreasonableness in Singapore law"? — SMUconlaw (talk) 23:41, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template is inconsistent as to whether a blank |actionn= is to be treated in the same way as one that is omitted or not. If |action1=...|action3= are present but blank, an error is thrown: by contrast, if |action4=...|action20= are present but blank this is the same as being omitted entirely. The inconsistency seems to have come in with this edit where a pipe seems to have gone missing from three entries, but not the other 17. I've checked the logic, and despite the different spacing and position of line breaks, this is the only inconsistency between the two groups. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, so it can't be fixed easily? I removed the unused parameters to suppress the error. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:05, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like User:WOSlinker has been coding a fix in the /sandbox. I'll ask him to attend to this request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:12, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The change I made in the sandbox as suggested above didn't make any difference as far as I could see, so I didn't copy it over to live. I've copied those changes over now just to make all the params consistent but the issue still seems to be the same. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:07, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess we could change the

{{#ifeq:{{{action1|}}}|{{{action1|u}}}

to just simply

{{#if:{{{action1|}}}

so that blank inputs are treated the same as no inputs? I'm not sure why Redrose says that |action4=...|action20= behave differently because my test does not reflect that — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:08, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The template should not have blank action= "placeholder" fields. This template was designed to record events after they occur. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps not. But the template should not be displaying like this in case of blank inputs. I'll look at implementing my suggested solution above. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using blank fields throws an error which puts the talk page in an error category. These sort of errors are uncommon and they get fixed when they happen. If you want to make it look better while in an error state, fine, but it seems unnecessary. Gimmetoo (talk) 11:43, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

[3] As a result of this edit, the template no longer throws an error. That's not making it look better while in an error state, that's making it no longer an error. Undo, please. Gimmetoo (talk) 10:49, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What "error" are you talking about exactly? The template will still detect if actionn is blank but any of the actionndate/actionnlink/actionnresult/actionnoldid are not. Apart from that I am not sure what error you could be referring to. In order to help me understand perhaps you could point me toward a specific example of an error which is not being detected properly. I suspect you have misunderstood the effect of the edit I made. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:19, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta love it when people say "you must have misunderstood". As far as I recall, {{ArticleHistory|action1=}} threw an error before. Now it does not. To the best of my knowledge, your edit changed that behaviour. Gimmetoo (talk) 12:28, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I recall, it did "throw an error", by which I mean populate the error category. (Above: "throws an error which puts the talk page in an error category".) That's what started this thread [4]. Articles that appear in the error category get changed. This template was designed to discourage "placeholders", ie, blank fields. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:13, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Disabling request for now as it's not obvious that we even know how this should be fixed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:04, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, too bad. Strange that we can't figure out what's causing the error. You might want to note in the documentation that blank parameters should be omitted to avoid the error. — SMUconlaw (talk) 10:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed. Blank parameters are now treated the same as if they are omitted, so no error will be thrown up. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great! Thanks. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:46, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am bothered that on Talk:Seamus (dog), the first milestone listed is "deletion review -- overturned" with no indication of what was overturned, because there's apparently no way for this template (or any other template, as far as I could tell) to show that the article was speedy-deleted before the deletion review. Yes, you can obviously click on the deletion review discussion to figure that out, but isn't the whole point of the template to allow you to review the article's history at a glance? (I thought that maybe it could at least say, next to the deletion review, "overturned speedy deletion", but nope -- all you can say is "overturned" but you can't show what the hell was being overturned.) Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:09, 4 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This template originally developed to collect the various content reviews into one place (FA/FAR, FL/FLR, GA, Peer review). Deletion discussions were soon added, but since there is no discussion associated with a speedy delete, it was difficult to see how it could be incorporated. Gimmetoo (talk) 06:42, 6 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why the lack of discussion would make it "difficult to see how [the speedy delete] could be incorporated." Can't it just be listed in the same way as the other deletions, but without a link? Theoldsparkle (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Added request to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:39, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can "Overturned to no consensus" be one of the options for DRV? In the cases where that has happened - while rare - what you see on article milestojnes is basically

• AfD - kept
• DRV - overturned

...which isn't exactly obvious as to why the article is still there. 86.** IP (talk) 10:29, 7 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The official answer to the request is: please put the code you require in Template:ArticleHistory/sandbox and re-activate the request. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:15, 14 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Added request to to do list — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merged thread with similiar issue. — Martin (MSGJ · talk)

If a Deletion review results in the original AfD being overturned, shouldn't the template list the new result? i.e. Overturned to Delete|Keep|No consensus. --Merlinme (talk) 11:45, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The ArticleHistory template has nine milestones on Talk:Dungeons & Dragons, but only the first eight are showing. Is this because there is a cap on the number of milestones it can show? Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:00, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It should support up to 20, but I'll come and check. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:38, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Was a bug in the template code. Thanks for reporting it. Now fixed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:41, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:09, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know this is rather a niche request, but could the function of having more than one "| maindate =" to display "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 7, 2005 and June 5, 2012" be somehow implemented. The anomalies are Barack Obama and Transit of Venus. --Inops (talk) 14:19, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Named parameters cannot be used more than once; if used two or more times, all except the last instance will be ignored. Therefore, this would require a different parameter such as |maindate2= But I was under the impression (WP:TFA/R) that an article could only be TFA once? --Redrose64 (talk) 17:09, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, usually, but Barack Obama and Transit of Venus are articles featured more than once. --Inops (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If it were a common occurrence we might need such a mechanism. But with only two instances, I don't think that any change to this template is needed. After all, the template does not complain if there are two different |actionn= parameters set to WPR, so both dates can be (and in fact are) shown.

Extract from Talk:Barack Obama:

{{ArticleHistory
|action2=WPR
|action2date=18 August 2004
|action2link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 18, 2004
|action2result=Maindate
|action2oldid=5294576

|action7=WPR
|action7date=4 November 2008
|action7link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 4, 2008
|action7result=Maindate
|action7oldid=249529065

|maindate=November 4, 2008
}}

Extract from Talk:Transit of Venus:

{{ArticleHistory
|action2=WPR
|action2date=7 May 2005
|action2link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 7, 2005
|action2result=Maindate
|action2oldid=13363422

|action4=WPR
|action4date=5 June 2012
|action4link=Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 5, 2012
|action4result=Maindate
|action4oldid=496011002

|maindate=7 May 2005
}}

We do have an inconsistency in that the |maindate= is set to the later of the two dates on Talk:Barack Obama, but to the earlier of the two dates on Talk:Transit of Venus; that can be resolved easily by adjusting one to harmonise with the other. Personally, I choose the later of the two dates, for two reasons: (a) it shows the most up-to-date situation at the top of the banner; (b) that's what was done the first time that this happened. Thus, on Talk:Transit of Venus we just need to amend |maindate=7 May 2005 to |maindate=5 June 2012. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:43, 15 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know that the AFD supports a "merge" result, but one think I noticed this template is missing is merges. When one article is merged into another, usually a notice is placed on both pages denoting that one was merged into the other. Shouldn't that be included in ArticleHistory? Maybe I'm wrong, but I figured I'd suggest it. — Parent5446 ☯ ^{(msg email)} 15:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There is a version in the sandbox that would change "article" to "portal", when used in the portal namespace. For an example of how it is now, see: Portal talk:Louisiana. Please update this template. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 19:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. — Edokter (talk) — 22:26, 30 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if this is an error or if it is intentional. I was browsing the source code for this template and noticed that the switch commands match action18 with action19result, where every other pair has consistent numbering. For example:

-->{{#switch: {{uc:{{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action20|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action20result}}} |
{{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action18|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action19result}}} |
{{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action18|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action18result}}} |
{{#ifeq: {{uc:{{{action17|}}}}} | FAR | {{{action17result}}} |

I can't think of any practical reason why this would be intentional but I have not fully dissected the template yet. (Besides which, I couldn't make an edit myself even if I was sure). Can someone with more familiarity with the template have a look at this? - AdamBMorgan (talk) 13:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure that's a mistake, well spotted. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. We have had some confusion with the wording of passed good articles. Currently it says

"Article has been listed as one of the Category good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment."

This has lead an editor to beleive that they can instantly delist a Good article, whereas they should go through the reassessment process. Can we change the last sentence to say If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it."

Discussion is at WT:GAN. AIRcorn (talk) 12:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See Talk:Lucille Ball for an example of what the template currently looks like.

AIRcorn (talk) 12:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Note, to make it easier to find the discussion please use section links. Anomie⚔ 14:22, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The article history on this talk page is putting it into Category:Wikipedia featured article review candidates (closed) when it's not been to FARC. Can anyone spot what's causing this? Bencherlite^Talk 10:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For some reason is was populating this category not only for FAR candidates but also FLR, FTR, GTR and FPOR candidates as well.  Fixed — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:30, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I tried but failed to see where the bug was. Now I shall check your contribs to see what you did! Bencherlite^Talk 12:41, 19 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For the "copyedited" section of designation action WPR, can this please be changed or add an option for Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors instead of "League", as "League" is now a redirect to Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors?

Thank you for your time, — Cirt (talk) 05:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:50, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, what a quick response, thank you so much! — Cirt (talk) 15:41, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Please add |collapsed= parameter, to allow short histories to be seen by default (|collapsed=no), rather than obscured. --Lexein (talk) 18:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Sorry, but could you get this working in the template sandbox first? It's pretty hard to know what to change without some code to go by. You can test the sandbox code using the test cases page. Once you have the code working, please reactivate the edit protected request. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 15:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a very good idea, but would require rather a large investment in time and quite possibly a complete overhaul of the code for this template. I will add it to the to do list for this template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We need some sort of process for validating the data. More specifically, it seems that anybody could set |maindate= to any date they liked, and there is no check that the article really was the WP:TFA on that date. This is in relation to this thread and this thread, where the general impression that I got was "it's not our problem - if you care about this, fix it yourself". How many other talk pages are showing a misleading note like "This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 24, 2012." and appear in Category:Featured articles that have appeared on the main page when they should in fact show no such message, and instead appear in Category:Featured articles that have not appeared on the main page? Note that if |maindate= is future, it's not (yet) a problem - my gripe is where |maindate= is past and inaccurate. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking for myself, If I reschedule a TFA, I reset the |maindate=; I've done that already a couple of times since becoming a TFA delegate a few weeks ago. If I were to spot an error while going through WP:FANMP (which is a list of FAs awaiting main page exposure that works independently of this template), I would fix it, but I have yet to find an error. Otherwise, I think the "process" for validating the data is human-based, with all the strengths and weaknesses that implies - if a regular editor of a page spots a |maindate= being added for no apparent reason, or left uncorrected after a rescheduling, or clicks on the link to find a completely different article, then the parameter can be removed or altered. Meanwhile, I'll leave a suggestion at WP:Today's featured article/Delegates that others update |maindate= if they do end up rescheduling a TFA. Thanks, Bencherlite^Talk 17:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) I understand your concern. This isn't really an Article history problem, though, but more specifically a population-control issue with the category (anyone could simply add an article directly to the category, or add one of the old mainpage date templates, or as you suggested edit the Article history, all with the same result). I can certainly sympathize: I've had the same concerns about the validity of the contents of the Featured article categories, and have audited them myself on several occasions over the years.

I will take a look at the TFA categories myself. I suppose it might be worth approaching a bot operator to propose a new periodic audit, but will withhold judgement on that until I see how they look. Maralia (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these replies. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:52, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No problem. A useful exercise: by using AWB to compare the contents of WP:FANMP and Category:Featured articles that have not appeared on the main page I found that four articles at WP:FA had not been marked as appearing when they had, one that had been marked when it hadn't (two films with similar names, and the wrong one had been marked) and one article history from 2010 (!) that said that an article had appeared when it had been scheduled and changed without the |maindate= being fixed. After the bot runs, just after 00:00 UTC, the only differences between the pages listed at WP:FANMP and in the category should be the 20 or so scheduled TFAs for the rest of December and 1st Jan. Bencherlite^Talk 22:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I just did nearly the same thing—you were fixing things at WP:FA, and I was cleaning up at WP:FANMP. How did you find the one mistakenly marked as having been mainpaged? Maralia (talk) 23:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If WP:FA is fixed, the bot will fix FANMP when it next runs (because it creates the FANMP page from WP:FA), so I left it alone on purpose! The one that was wrongly marked as mainpaged was not in the "not TFA category" (because it was in the "has been TFA category" but it was on FANMP, so it stuck out like a sore thumb when using the list comparing function of AWB (which is a very useful tool). Bencherlite^Talk 23:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that I considered - and I don't use AWB so I don't know how feasible it would be - is to start at the talk page and follow the "Today's featured article" link to see if the first boldfaced bluelink on the blurb page pointed back to the article that we started from. For example, at this old version of Talk:London Necropolis Company, the linked blurb is Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 24, 2012 which, ignoring the image, begins with "RAF Northolt is a ..." - not the same thing at all. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:50, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The version you link to (above) of Talk:London Necropolis Company, when it was made on 22:19, 16 November 2012, linked to this version of TFA from 04:59, 16 November 2012, which happened to lead with "The London Necropolis Company...' - is that not the same thing? Gimmetoo (talk) 06:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it was the same thing; but it was later altered; and the alteration without associated cleanup is what has caused this mess. In my first post on this page, I gave a link to this thread, in which I gave a link to the alteration concerned. Why the alteration was made, I don't know (and don't really care); what bothers me is that it left an invalid |maindate= which wasn't fixed for almost four weeks. A day after the alteration to the TFA blurb, Bencherlite set the |maindate= on Talk:RAF Northolt - they could have blanked out that on Talk:London Necropolis Company at the same time, but might not have been aware of the change. Ideally, the person who altered the TFA blurb page would have amended the |maindate= on both talk pages as part of the reschedule process. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we need to check it that way - I don't know how it could be done using AWB, but the only thing left for it to catch is where an article has been TFA but the wrong maindate is in the article history. I suspect the chances of this are rare; it would most likely happen with rescheduling article A and then Article A later becoming a TFA, which doesn't happen often, but as I understand it the bot would reset the maindate for Article A when it was scheduled the second time. Maralia and I have both found the same few problems where the article history wrongly showed a |maindate= and where WP:FA/FANMP didn't have the correct TFA markings, so I think we're OK now. Bencherlite^Talk 23:58, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a followup to Template_talk:Article_history#Requested_move to rectify errors. User:Thumperward presented a "move request" as non-conttrovsial after user:Thmperward had unilaterally moved the template despite prior move requests. In the process of the "discussion", user:Thmperward said "it [the move] will not break one single script nor bot of any sort". It has. User:Thmperward promised "In the extremely unlikely event of this causing any technical fallout, I will be more than happy to fix it myself." Persuant to User_talk:Thumperward#AH_problems, User:Thmperward refuses to fix the issue in the only way feasible to him - by restoring the template to the name it had for years. The "reasons" given for the move included "Discoverability, consistency, elimination of undesirable legacy naming (which might encourage new template authors to erroneously think CamelCase is a good idea): this is, at present, the only high-profile template that I know of which has not been moved in this way." The move has resulted in creating inconsistency in the user of this template. To the extent the CamelCase style is involved, moving this template made it no longer consistent with other CamCase styled templates, including especially a talk page template strongly connected with this one. For these reasons and others, the template should be restored to the form it had for years. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

please see Village pump (technical)#user:GimmeBot and template:article history. I am not a bot person, my understanding is that the bot has not properly handled the name "article history" during the years that is was a valid redirect, that should be fixed in the bot, help has been offered, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, burt user:Thumperward said "it will not break one single script nor bot of any sort". As such, there can be no problem. Or are you affirming that user:Thumperward was lying? If so, I will remind you of WP:CIV. Gimmetoo (talk) 13:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry but we are talking about the time before the move. The bot should have handled the name of the redirect, no? - I am not saying anything about the other user and about you, only about the bot function. I hope the bot will understand. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:14, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

As I recall, in October 2012, the redirect had a total of 21 transclusions (out of about 30,000 transclusions) and these were attributed to two editors: Thumperward who installed a couple in October, and another editor who had done the rest in February-April 2012. None of the 21 uses were installed before 2012. Gimmetoo (talk) 14:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Could a |display_title= parameter please be added to this template, the same way it has been to {{talk header}}? I envisage that it would be used when the article's title has been altered somehow (e.g. with a {{lowercase}} template), so that its talk page's templates refer to it in the same way. Thanks in advance. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 19:17, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done: Could you update the template sandbox with your proposed changes, and set up some test cases per WP:TESTCASES? If everything looks to be working correctly I can update the template for you. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 20:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Article history → Template:ArticleHistory – This was moved to "article history" at the end of October 2012 (see above). That discussion should have ended in, at best, a "no consensus" and no move, and indeed, the "move" result was surprising, as some of the reasons for the move were factually incorrect. There are other templates using CamelCase, including the talk page template strongly associated with this one, as anyone who works with talk page templates would know. Furthermore, prior to the move, the template had been at ArticleHistory for about 5 years. I am the main editor affected by this move, as I run a bot that processes the ArticleHistory template. Haivng it at a consistent name is helpful to scripting, and indeed, prior to the October move, only about 21 out of 31,700 transclusions of the template used "article history". Even now, 32856 transclusions out of 32904 use "ArticleHistory", which is currently a redirect. The reasons given for the October move included "Discoverability, consistency, elimination of undesirable legacy naming (which might encourage new template authors to erroneously think CamelCase is a good idea): this is, at present, the only high-profile template that I know of which has not been moved in this way." Again, to the extent the CamelCase style is involved, moving this template made it no longer consistent with other CamCase styled templates. Therefore, for simplicity, consistency, and other reasons, I propose restoring the template to its original name. Gimmetoo (talk) 15:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose The bot coding can be tweaked and if there are other templates named with CamelCase, they can be renamed too. Redirects can easily be addressed by tasking a bot to fix them. The reasons for the current page name were well discussed in the last page move discussion, which came to a conclusion you didn't agree with. --Dweller (talk) 15:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose - see former discussion. (If this should be moved again I would like to see "article milestones", as the talk pages say, replaced in all instances, a bot should be able to do that.) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:07, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Support Article milestones, oppose reintroduction of CamelCase. I can only wonder why this issue bothers you so much. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:40, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose While animal cruelty laws do not apply to acts against deceased equines, they ought to.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose per Wehwalt and in my capacity as a member of WPEQ, I must vehemently oppose the continued mutilation of this particular now-skeletal equine corpse. Montanabw^(talk) 19:49, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Hell no, CamelCase is just so square, it shouldn't be used anymore and all templates still using it should be moved as well. I still believe "Page milestones", as proposed a while ago would be the best title for this template, but at least it shouldn't be in CamelCase. --The Evil IP address (talk) 11:05, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Any additional comments:

• Pardon my ignorance, but why is CamelCase deprecated? —Torchiest ^talk_edits 17:55, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• The ussage of this template is 99.85% consistent as "ArticleHiistory", and no genuine argument has been presented supporting chanigng that practice which has a history of some five years. If such a long-term practice which is 99.85% consistentcy can be disregraded by IDONTLIKEIT, with no basis in policy, by a small number of people who are not affected, and that can disrupt editors who are affected, and who have done the work for years, then there is a problem. The original move was improoper as it was based on incorrect statements, and no policy was cited at any point. The users were wrong who claimed nothing would break with the change. The users who claimed they would fix any problem have, to date, done absolutely nothing to fix the problems; they have not contacted me in any way. Nor, of note, to my knowledge have they attempted to change the other main templates that are in the allegedly disallowed naming, which rather suggests that they are mainly interested in changing this template's name. Gimmetoo (talk) 17:12, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]