Revamp the usage of Template:Talk

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Shoko

Shoko

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I believe that Template:Talk is currently not living up to the potential it is capable of. It may have been put to good use years back, but nowadays Category:Unresolved talk pages seems to get overlooked. This results in greatly delayed responses, and it is even reaching the point where talk page questions are so old and outdated that it just doesn't seem right to respond to them, which has caused the category to build up over time. Our Help:Communication page has a section that describes {{Talk}}, where it states "If you have asked a question about a specific article or content and require an answer, you can place {{talk}} above your question. The talk page itself will then appear in Category:Unresolved talk pages, and other users will be able to reach it from there." This outdated section is no longer of "any" help to users, as even fairly new and recent questions get thrown in amongst the ridiculously old ones and is not noticed by other users. So, I ask what can be done with this template and category? Shall it just remain as it is, with the category slowly growing and the near-useless template still being encouraged as reliable by the help page, or should we consider an alternative? Ideas anyone?

:yoshi: YoshiKong :dk:
 
You're right. I remember seeing users post questions on talkpages and thinking to myself "shouldn't that have that stupid template-wait, it's useless, who fucking cares lol".

Perhaps we could clean the really old/worthless usages of the template and have a sitenotice among the lines of "Remember to check Category:Unresolved talk pages if you want to have the warm wuzzy feeling of helping a fellow user." to bring attention to it. Or barring that, just get rid of the useless thing entirely.
 
Even if the questions have been asked a few years ago, it's still better to keep the template there so that the question can be answered and that the question won't be asked again in the future.
 
We could delete the template, but I suppose that would be the easy way out. It may make sense to clear the category of any message that are, say...older than six months, but that may take a while.

:yoshi: YoshiKong :dk:
 
If the backlog is erased, the template won't be so useless: the problem is that few/no one checks for questions - which may be because the backlog is so dauntingly long.

A lot of the time, the template's probably been left on even after an answer has been given, and at other times, the problem was fixed on the article and no response was given, yet the matter is settled; going around and removing the template from these would be good. Others might still require an answer or solution, however, and I think it would be better to leave the templates there, or answer the Qs (if they're legit, and not wastes of time) and then remove the template.

Once the cleanup's done, then a SiteNotice could be posted, so that the stuff that's still left unanswered might finally get resolved.
 
If we were to go to the list of questions with the template and answer the legitimate ones, perhaps we could use this thread to address certain questions that we can't answer on our own?
 
That's a good idea.

So good, infact, that I'm going to do exactly just that and repost what I wrote here:

While cleaning the page, I came across the following bit of information:

A status element called Sick was going to appear, but was deleted midway through development. All that is known about it is its effect, preventing those effected from using items. It should be noted that a status element called Sick would later be featured in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, with a different effect.
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There's no source or even any context to see where that info is taken from (for what it's worth, that entry was placed next to the part about the official website, but said website is dead, so I can't verify it), so I had no idea where to place it and just deleted it. If anybody can find a source for that, it would be appreciated.
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[quote author=GreenDisaster]I'll point out that the information that the info is also on the Sick article. It was added at the end of 2009, for future reference. I can't actually find any sources that talk about the Sick status in Paper Mario, though.[/quote]
 
I'm impressed. I remember there used to be more than 125 unanswered questions. As of this post, we seem to have been able to trim that number by about 50. Of course, there could still be questions lurking around that don't have the "Talk" template, but that's another problem for another time.
 
Thanks! I've been browsing through the category lately, and resolving and discussing problems no matter how old they are. Hopefully it can be cleared sometime in the near future, because the category seems quite useless as of now. Once done so, I'll make sure to watch the category so it doesn't get to this point again.
 
Question to discuss:

Category:Clothing is a subcategory of Objects, which is defined as "stationary or part of the environment, such as springs, blocks and switches". At Category talk:Clothing, the user vellidragon has made a point where objects are technically not part of the environment, and are usually worn through gameplay as a powerup. Should it be made a sub of Category:Items instead? I'm not sure what is the best thing to do here. Clothing is stationary in most cases, but in a way can be referred an item.
 
I generally think of it as Items are collectible (i.e. the stuff classified as "Items" in the RPGs and Kart games, things like power-ups in platformers, and stuff you gather up or use in MP minigmes and whatnot), whereas Objects are everything else (large things you interact with but don't take with you; small things that are there and may or may not be interacted with, but either way are not put into inventories or act as a powerups; and other misc. things (like the stuff here (Category:Super_Paper_Mario_Objects))). "Object" is definitely one of the fuzzier terms we have around here, and stuff that's an item in one game could even be an object in another, making things even more muddled, and that's not even getting into non-game-media-only stuff...

Most of the clothes are items, but a couple seem to be plain objects, some act as items in one or two appearances but are otherwise objects, and then there's ambiguous pages like Clothing or Accessories. Objects is more general grouping (items are a specific type of object), so I think leaving the clothes where they are would be best for now.
 
That sounds logical. Thanks Walkazo. Also, Category:Unresolved talk pages has almost been cleared. I went and included more usage detail at Template:Talk, but do most people here agree with the following guideline;

"If a question gains no reply within six months time, it is recommended that the template be removed so as to only categorize recent questions."
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I wish to get approval on this guideline so we have some sort of rule that could prevent the category getting to the point where it becomes excessively long. This guideline will also mean that during the clearing of the category, questions under six months old will remain within the category. Opinions?
 
Well, the category has been cleared. I left the template on fairly recent questions (that is, questions under six months old), so as to keep the category for only new questions. Would it be an idea to consider that sitenotice now? Hopefully, it will prompt users to monitor the category (I certainly will), so it doesn't grow to this point again and keeps at a manageable level.

Thanks all for your collaborative discussion :D
 
Yo this thread can be archived now.
 
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