Template talk:Subarticle

To Do

• Find an image icon.
• Edit code to allow more than five links. Is ten enough?

Merge

I feel this should have been dealt with before the deletion discussion was over, but it wasn't. These templates are virtually identical and are used in much the same way. As a middle ground we seem to have ended up making it a talk page template, so it will end up being used in almost exactly the same way as template:summary in. Let's just merge them into one and have a field that allows us, if we want, to specify that it is a 'subarticle' of the other. I personally don't feel this is that important, as almost all articles summarized in another article are a daughter article (or, if not, often a misuse of template:main, see my discussion there), and it's fairly obvious whether they are or not anyway. Richard001 (talk) 05:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree, and my reasons were presented pretty clearly at the RfD. I'd appreciate it if you didn't dismiss those with edit comments like "this should be merged, and nobody has presented any arguments why we shouldn't". That you personally don't feel it's important is kind of irrelevant; this template was modified because far too many people did think it was important and were nominating valid subarticles for deletion. This too was explained in the RfD. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 09:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You never addressed why we shouldn't just add a field to summary in, though now you've converted it back to a non-talk page template so we're basically back to square one. There wasn't enough consensus to delete, though I feel the reasons on the 'keep' side were pretty bad ones. Let's just leave it as a merge discussion, TFD is hasty and based on voting as much as good reasoning. The only problem is that merge discussions attract less attention and often go nowhere... Richard001 (talk) 10:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I did in the very first reply: "That's not the purpose of the template, and Template:Summary in isn't the same thing. The purpose of this template is to reinforce the idea that the subarticle is part of the main article." At least one other editor understood the differentiation. It's fine with me if the merger proposal goes nowhere. I don't know why you're not proposing merging summary in to this template. FWIW we are at square one because we should be at square one. The RfD resulted in 2 keeps, 2 deletes, and 2 keep on talk page. Even if you broke down the talk page vote, one of those voted keep, then agreed with talk page, and the other voted delete, then added "or talk page". So this really is a dead evenly split as possible. That means no change. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 10:44, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that Wikipedia works by voting (well, it does sort of, but in principle the quality of the argument overrides that). Anyway, there are two issues here, in order:

• Should this be made into a talk page only template?
• If so, should it be merged with template:summary in.

Let me outline my argument very briefly:

• This template is only useful for editors, not readers.
• It is permanent, not temporary like cleanup templates.
• Therefore, we should not use this on the content page.

And for merging:

• If we should not use this on the content page, it should go on the talk page.
• But we already have a template on the talk page that is very similar.
• Subarticles are already included in those that use 'summary in'.
• If we want to show something is a subarticle, we can just add a field "|subarticle=yes" to the 'summary in' template (though almost all articles that use 'summary in' are subarticles anyway).
• Therefore, this template is redundant.

Richard001 (talk) 21:04, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

I do not feel Wikipedia is run by voting, which is why I'm not the one ignoring the "no consensus" outcome and continually trying to change what there was no consensus to change. Of course you feel like your arguments were stronger or else you probably wouldn't have made them. As for your arguments:

• This template is only useful for editors, not readers. This isn't remotely for editors only; it's also to let readers know that the article is part of a larger article. "Summary in" seems more like editor-specific information; readers don't care if this same information is presented elsewhere in Wiki, they might care about where they can find the larger topic that generated this subarticle. In any case, many (much more obnoxious) templates are for editors only. {{notability}}, {{unreferenced}}, etc.
  • We don't do this. Read template:main: "It should not be used at the top of an article to link to its parent topic; use a wikilink in the lead instead, and add {{SubArticle}} at the top of the subarticle's talk page if desired." (bold in original), which could be used for a similar purpose. Readers can work this out for themselves by internal links in the lead. Example: Positive feedback: Positive feedback is the feedback loop system in which... The reader doesn't need to be told that feedback is the parent article - it is obvious. Note that it also has cleanup tags at the bottom, but these will be gone when (hopefully not never) the issues are fixed. They are also of interest to the reader, who may benefit from it being made clear that the article may not be reliable (they may want to look for a better article, for example).

• • As I have said, the other 'obnoxious' templates are cleanup and temporary, this one won't be going away when things are fixed. And again, you say 'generated from', but I have pointed out that subarticles need not be generated from parent articles (though as you define them, they should probably be deleted if they don't have one).
• It is permanent, not temporary like cleanup templates. So are hatnotes for DABs. This is formatted like a hatnote, not like a cleanup warning.
  • It doesn't matter, hatnotes are useful to readers, these are not.
• Therefore, we should not use this on the content page. Where does it even state editor-oriented information must be relegated to the talk page anyway?
  • Okay, let's add WikiProject banners, shall we?
• But we already have a template on the talk page that is very similar. No, they are clearly different in their use, description, and scope.
• Subarticles are already included in those that use 'summary in'. Not if you understand its use correctly. They might overlap, but are sufficiently distinct. Where, for example, is the Politics in Futurama summarized in Futurama?
  • Okay, but that's really a matter of article structure. Some subarticles are not important enough to have their own section, others are not summarized just because of article structure (they could be rewritten so that they would)
• If we want to show something is a subarticle, we can just add a field...Which wouldn't inform readers of the parent article and is therefore essentially useless. "Summarized in" is also often an inaccurate description as demonstrated above.
  • It certainly would inform readers of the parent article; what are you talking about?
• Therefore, this template is redundant. Clearly, no, it isn't.

—Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:01, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Can we at least agree on making this a talk page template? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 22:48, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

This should not be relegated to talk pages. I plan on moving the notices back to the article; they shouldn't have been moved in the first place when there was clearly no consensus to do so. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It is a purely editorial template and 5 out of the 7 who commented on the TFD discussion favored either deleting the template outright or making it into a talk page template. Either way, the template would not be in the article space. Also, there is a precedent with featured articles such as History of biology to not include a hatnote stating that the article is a subpage. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 23:10, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It is not purely editorial, and I counting the delete votes as votes to move to talk space is disingenuous at best. If you don't like my answers, call an RfC. Otherwise the result of the TfD was "no consensus", which I would hope you would respect as meaning "no consensus". —Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:29, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think History of Biology does not use this template? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 23:40, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Where is the discussion when it was ever considered? —Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:41, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

For that matter, what makes you think it's a subarticle? Clearly it's a distinct topic that does not rely on biology for any notability support or context, as the Politics in Futurama example given above does. It would, however, be a good candidate for the "summary in" template, so it's a good example of the distinction there. Thanks. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:51, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you saying that subarticles do not need to establish context? —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:01, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm saying subarticles will have a greater reliance on context from a parent article than a regular article. I think my example demonstrates that: History of Biology stands on its own just fine, and does not require the user to read Biology to understand it. A reader will need a basic understanding of Futurama for Politics in Futurama to have any real meaning. History of Biology is distinct; Politics in Futurama is really part of the Futurama article on a different page. Now that I've answered your question: Where is that discussion where the subarticle tag was considered in History of Biology and its use was rejected? —Torc. ^(Talk.) 00:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

←I don't think that anyone has thought that {{SubArticle}} is necessary on the article History of Biology, thus there is probably no discussion about it. Nor is {{SubArticle}} necessary in Politics in Futurama: Futurama is linked in the lead section, so those unfamiliar with it can easily get to more information about it. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:29, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

So it was never actually rejected from History of biology? So...why'd you bring it up? That seems kind of misleading to imply that an article reached FA because it rejected use of the tag when in fact the tag was never even considered. The fact that Futurama is linked the intro is kind of irrelevant. Animation and science fiction are linked too, but a broad knowledge of both of those isn't necessary to understand put politics in Futurama in proper perspective. The tag more firmly establishes the relationship, and lets readers know that some of the important sources pertaining to this article are in a different article. The tag is perfect for articles that heavily rely on another article, especially fictional topics that are largely in-universe, where the separate subarticles are really all part of one large topic, but logically and stylistically make better sense on different pages. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 00:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so now we have another issue that we need to clarify: What is a subarticle? What you mean by subarticle is 'daughter article that is not notable by itself'. This is different to what I have been meaning, so we need to be clear on that to have an intelligible conversation. Additionally, I would question whether 'subarticles' can rely on their 'parent' for notability. If that was the case, you could make the case that almost any article shouldn't be deleted, because so many have something that could be considered a 'parent' article. I disagree that this should be the case, and ask you to point me to a policy that says that it is. By your reasoning, we should allow every sort of non-notable fancruft and nonsense. See also my replies after your argument points above.

The fact that Futurama is linked the intro is kind of irrelevant. Animation and science fiction are linked too, but a broad knowledge of both of those isn't necessary to understand put politics in Futurama in proper perspective. It is highly relevant - the link to Futurama establishes the connection with the parent article, and everyone should be able to see that it is a parent article. Richard001 (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

First answer: WP:FICT (though they hyphenate "sub-article"). Second answer: No, there's no reason for a reader to assume Futurama is the parent article out of all the links in the introduction (aside from the name, but that's just this example - I probably should have used Raccoon City). For that matter, even if the reader understands they're related, they may not grasp the relationship between the articles and understand that the parent article is going to have a lot more sources and external links that are applicable to the subarticle that aren't actually in the subarticle. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 01:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Even in Raccoon City, the article's relationship to its parent, Resident Evil, is quite clear. If there are sources in Resident Evil that back up unsourced statements in Raccoon City, then those sources need to be copied into the child article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 01:08, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Really? The main article isn't Resident Evil 2? And no, if there is nothing factually stated in the subarticle that requires a citation, the citation remains only in the parent article. The template helps establish a structure and hierarchy, which is not (and cannot) be established solely through links. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 02:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

It could be considered a subarticle of either one. Both Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 are linked to in the lead, so the reader should probably read both if they want in-depth context and background. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Exactly... Provide an example where the relationship is unclear and I will be more convinced. But you seem to be arguing that for the reader alone such templates are worthwhile, in which case we should be putting them on almost all articles (e.g. "This article is a daughter of Futurama, (and is also conceptually related to politics)."

Raccoon City, Planet Express Ship, I could come up with a lot more, but it's Friday. Why do I have to convince you? The RfD on this was already decided. I don't even know what you're arguing for anymore.—Torc. ^(Talk.) 02:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

To quote WP:FICT, For fictional works, these sub-articles are typically lists of characters or other elements that usually rely on the notability of the work instead of their own. Sub-articles on one character or element should be created only when appropriate; if they do not demonstrate independent notability, then they may be merged back into the main article or to a more expansive sub-article on multiple elements. There we have it in a nutshell. Richard001 (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

First, may, second, the very next line: "A sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, judged as if it was still a section of that article, and identified in the lead section as an article covering elements within a fictional work." The template is just an easy way to do exactly this. It can't be considered obtrusive if it's something that has to be there. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 02:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The template does not have to be there at all. As long as the relationship is clear in the prose (and it is always possible to make it so), there is no need for the template at all. Notability is in no way guaranteed by being a subarticle either; imagine the parent article was extremely long instead of having daughter articles - people would demand the article be reduced in length if the details were not notable, just as they would if it was broken off into a separate, less notable article. I don't see any way in which this template affects notability judgments. Richard001 (talk) 06:37, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

This template does more than just identify the main article, it also talks about "size or style considerations", which we should not be bothering the reader with. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Merge issue: arbitrary section break

Comments were requested at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Template:SubArticle regarding this discussion. My first reservation about this template is a technical one: it contains a link to the Wikipedia namespace that shouldn't be used in article space per Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid. Links to WP policies and guidelines from article space are fine in certain cases (e.g., the {{selfref}} tag, temporary maintenance templates like {{notability}}), but not really useful for navigational hatnotes like this: the link to the article size guideline is potentially useful for editors, but is of no real interest or value to readers. An additional consideration is that self-references of this sort can create problems for content forking and print versions. I am inclined to agree with opinions expressed up-thread that if an article has a well-written lead section, the sub-article information this template provides will be unnecessary. So my opinion, for what it's worth: either rework the template to remove the self-reference, or (my preference) use this template only on talk pages, optionally merging if there's redundancy with other talk page templates. --Muchness (talk) 02:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I removed the self-ref; M makes a valid point about it. The presence or absence of a self ref should not be a factor in determining whether it is an article or talk page template. UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:15, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Even without the link, it's still a self-reference. There's no need to talk about the size and style guidelines at all. Let the reader get on with reading the article. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:19, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I checked out the template before coming to this discussion, and my immediate reaction was "that's a self-ref, it shouldn't be used in articles". Furthermore, the premise behind this template is wrong: Wikipedia does not have subarticles, and {{main}} and the proposed WP:FICT should not be talking about them. Every single page in the article namespace is an article in its own right which must satisfy WP:N. "History of biology" is an article on the history of biology, which is a notable topic and deserves a self-contained article. It is not a subarticle of "Biology". Of course, articles can and should wikilink other articles to direct the reader to further or related information. In particular, the fact that there is a separate article on the history of biology, allows editors of the biology article, if they wish, to write the history section of the biology article in summary style and wikilink History of biology. Editors of History of science can do the same. Because this kind of wikilinking is particularly common, we have {{main}}. It exists to help the reader find more information, not to make one article part of another. It also does not exist to organize articles in a hierarchy: categories do that. Geometry guy 15:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish it were that simple, but I can't tell you how many times I've seen an article split off and then immediately put up on AfD due to "non-notability" - this is particularly true of list articles (where {{Summary in}} does not work). While the result is usually "keep", I think this template can help avoid this wasted AfD time and effort. Also, WP:FICT (which is no-longer "proposed") is not the only guideline that refers to sub-articles, they are mentioned in WP:SIZE and many other guidelines as well, so if you want to cleanse WP of the subarticle concept, you have a lot of work to do. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:54, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

We can keep the template, and you can reference it in deletion discussions, but put it on the talk page where it won't bother the regular reader. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:09, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

No, let's not. Navigational tools do not "bother" the regular reader. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 05:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It's quite a bit more bothersome than a simple wikilink in the lead, as in done in both History of Biology and Politics in Futurama. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, again, you need to say what you mean when you say 'subarticle'. Are you using it in the Torcian sense of '"child" article which does not need to meet the notability requirements because its parent does'? Is that even a fair characterization of what you mean, Torc2? (And if not, what is?) I really don't like the idea that an article can somehow depend on another for notability, and as I've pointed out above, it would be no different if the article was merged with the parent. I don't think there's anyone here that would suggest an article can somehow 'point to a bigger article' as an excuse for not being notable. I think if we could get over the notability stuff, then we could move closer to deciding if it would ever be a good idea to put it on the content page, and if not, if we should merge it with the other template. Richard001 (talk) 03:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC

A sub-article is part of a main article. When determining if it is appropriate for inclusion, or even during general reading, it should not be understood to be part of a larger topic, not something to be viewed in total isolation. It's not correct to say it doesn't have to have any notability; just that the notability of the parent article can be considered when determining notability. Maybe the tag can be optional for topics that are clearly linked or that have a navbox that covers the entire topic, but it shouldn't be deleted and shouldn't be relegated to the talk page. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 05:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

(Reply to Geometry guy) Furthermore, the premise behind this template is wrong: Wikipedia does not have subarticles, and {{main}} and the proposed WP:FICT should not be talking about them. Every single page in the article namespace is an article in its own right which must satisfy WP:N. WP:FICT should not be mentioning sub-articles, because every article has to meet WP:N, of which WP:FICT is part? That makes no sense. Sub-articles exist in practice and in some guidelines, including per consensus WP:FICT. Where are you getting the idea that there cannot be sub-articles? What policy are you quoting? —Torc. ^(Talk.) 05:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

A disputed proposal and an edit that is barely a month old does not make consensus, and isn't terribly convincing in the face of long-standing guidelines such as WP:N. WP:SIZE only mentions subarticles by linking to this template, and there's a pretty long-standing and clear statement that Wikipedia does not have subarticles here: Wikipedia:Subpages#Articles do not have sub-pages (main namespace).

I honestly don't understand why WP:FICT sees the need to talk about subarticles. Characters in a fictional work are a perfectly notable subject without having to depend on the article on the fictional work for their notability. Do reliable secondary sources refer to the characters? If yes, what's the problem? If no, then you have a problem and inventing a new mechanism of relative notability isn't going to solve it. What policy am I quoting when I say this? WP:V. Geometry guy 09:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The guideline is in a proposal phase since the stricter guideline lost consensus because sub-articles have become fairly common fodder for AfDs. Notability isn't the only issue here. Articles were nominated for being mostly in-universe and primary-source based, which is kind of pointless if they're one in-universe aspect of a larger work, such as a "List of Characters" or an article on a place or idea within a fictional universe. They're articles that will stand up to WP:N when viewed as part of a whole topic, but won't when judged by the absolute strictest requirements in total contextual isolation. Anyway, your link to WP:Subpages is totally off the mark and talking about something completely different. WP:V is not an issue anywhere in here; every sub-article still has reliable sources that prove what the article say, though they're often dominated by primary sources. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 11:16, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

←I've made this back into a talk page template (again) because that's how it's actually used, and it looks like Torc2 is alone in saying that it has to go on the article page. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 17:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, you can see the importance of talking about the same thing. You seem to be talking about the same thing I am, but Geometry guy was talking about 'subpages' (i.e. page/subpage), not child articles. We really need an official word for such pages. I normally call them 'daughter articles'. Almost every page on Wikipedia is a daughter article of something. That's just the way things are. If pages were conceptually separate from each other, the whole idea of categories would be useless, as every page would be in a category of its own isolated from all other categories.

If you insist on using this template, we will end up with it at the top of every page, stating the often obvious relationship between the article and others, which the lead section and category system does perfectly well. I also dispute your suggestion that a subarticle is part of its parent - if this is so than a sub-sub-sub article is also part of the original parent. That would entail highly specific articles being part of extremely general articles. They are conceptually connected, but it is unclear how they are 'part of' the more general article, or what 'part of' is supposed to mean. Richard001 (talk) 04:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't care strongly whether we use this template or not. I just want it kept out of the article space. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 05:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Moved it back. You're the only one pushing this to the talk page. talk voted to either keep the self-reference or move it; we removed the self-reference (and just saying "size or style" isn't a self-reference). Please do not move this again. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 09:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the link to User talk:Muchness. Anyway, for what it is worth, I also would be happier if this were a talk page template (see below). Geometry guy 22:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)\\

I also agree with making it a talk page template if we have to have it at all, and not linking to size/style doesn't make it any less a self reference, it just obscures the matter and makes it harder for anyone who wants to know what that actually means find the policy. Richard001 (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the substance of of Richard001's argument. I wasn't referring to subpages (which are extremely useful in WP,Talk, and other namespaces), I was referring to subarticles: the feature they have, which does not work well as a method of organisation, is having only one parent, and the subpage format is one way to indicate such a relationship. Calling them daughter articles is not much better in this respect.

I supported my claim that the subarticle structure is bad by referring to the fact that subpages in the main article namespace were disabled in 2004, and have not, as far as I am aware, been enabled since. Now why was this done? Well, one can check the discussion at WT:Do not use subpages, taken from here. The category system was introduced at around the same time, as a more flexible way of connecting related articles, in addition to wikilinks. The long-standing consensus is that viewing mainspace articles as subarticles of other articles is a bad idea.

The subarticle concept is also bad because it encourages the idea that an article can derive its notability from a parent article, as recent edits to WP:FICT suggest. This is bad because the notability of an article is determined by the notability of the topic, as reported by reliable secondary sources. Of course, it is obvious that Politics in Futurama would not be notable if Futurama (the show) didn't exist or it was not political satire, but then there would be no reliable secondary sources discussing Futurama politics or Futurama as a satire. The notability of the politics of Futurama has absolutely nothing to do with whether an article on Futurama exists on Wikipedia. It has to do with the fact that there are reliable secondary sources which discuss the politics and satire in Futurama.

If an article is almost entirely written in universe and from primary sources, then it does need to be take to AfD, not necessarily to delete it, but to determine consensus as to whether it is notable, and, preferably, fix it. WT:FICT needs to find other ways to address this issue rather than suggesting new concepts of relative notability, and I encourage others to comment there. Geometry guy 22:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the number of articles that are primarily in-universe that have been taken to AfD and survived, that consensus seems have changed. The practice has changed, and the WP:FICT guideline is just being updated to reflect that. Maybe I should just write a hatnote template that deals with primarily in-universe subtopics whose main topics might not be absolutely clear or to reinforce the idea that not every applicable reference is going to be on every associated topic page. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 22:22, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

(Reply to Geometry guy) It still not very clear what you mean by a subarticle, at least to me. I think Wikipedia does have subarticles. I call them daughter articles for a reason: a girl wouldn't say her mother was her only parent, would she? Some articles may only really have parentage by one article, some may have two or more. The link between articles is often vague and sometimes distant. That's why I think we should probably reserve making the link between 'descendant' articles only when a summary of one appears in the other, using template:summary in. This makes connections clear to editors and allows them to make sure that the article is summarized well. There are situations however when there is no explicit summary, for example Noam Chomsky does not specifically summarize criticism of Noam Chomsky, but rather spreads such material through its existing sections. Would there be any utility marking that article with a summary in type template? It's debatable. Some might think such a template would still be useful - we might want to know that the parent doesn't include a summary and think about whether it should (perhaps the parent article is not giving enough attention to criticism?). On the other hand, some might think making such a link explicit is stating the obvious. For this reason some might feel 'summary in' is itself useless. We could potentially merge these two and have something like {{summary in|subarticle=yes|summary=no}} (we could call it SubArticle too, or something else altogether). Some articles include summaries of articles that are not 'daughters' (e.g. Batesian mimicry has a summary of aposematism to provide some conceptual background, but the latter is clearly not a daughter), while others do not summarize all daughter articles (e.g. Chomsky). I would tentatively suggest merging this into summary in by adding a field 'subarticle=yes/no', though if others feel there is utility in identifying articles that are not summarized, we could do something different. We don't want to end up reproducing the whole category system, though. Richard001 (talk) 22:47, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The "daughter" terminology suggests at most two parents, but I understand where you are coming from, and the ideas you raise are very important and deserve further thought in my view Geometry guy 23:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd just like to safeword out of this whole debate. It's taking up too much time and its intent is kind of meaningless while the ArbCom injunction on deleting character and episode articles is in place. —Torc. ^(Talk.) 23:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I wish I had known about this discussion and TfD. I have some further input on the matter, but instead I think Torc2 makes a good point. Any discussion on what to do here is purely speculative until the completion of the arbcom and the stabilization of [[WP:FICT]. Until then, I'll keep my thoughts to myself :) -Verdatum (talk) 18:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem of this discussion is the focus on articles about fiction. This template is supposed to be more general than that. I agree with Richard001's comments that it is useful to have an editorial template (hence placed on talk pages) which alerts editors to related articles so that they are encouraged to reflect any changes they make to the article in articles which rely on it. I agree that {{summary in}} is inadequate because it only refers to one such relationship. I suggest merging this template and {{summary in}} to a talk page template of the form {{related to}}, with a parameter "relation=" to descrive the relation, which could be something like "summary", "context", "used by" or whatever. Geometry guy 22:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I don't like all the fuss about some fiction guideline - that's really a fiction issue and this is a general Wikipedia issue which shouldn't be waiting around for arbcoms on more specific matters. What relationships then do you suggest we include in the template? The only two I have suggested are subarticle and summary in, which are at times overlapping and at times not. We could also have another 'subarticle' type relationship specified, e.g. 'background' (where the article summarized is not so much a daughter but often a more general article used, often at the beginning, to provide a framework or background for the rest of the article. It might be a 'parent' article itself, but need not be. Is that what you meant by 'context'? I don't think we should overdo it though - we do have 'what links here', so it should only be sections that are featured prominently. We should also look at articles that are not summarized using template:main but one of the others - template:details and template:further (which seem to be to be the same thing). Should we include these as well under 'summaries'? Here they are not summarizing the whole article, but only parts of it. Main is often used erroneously in this fashion. Here, if we include them, we could also use a parameter different from 'summary in' to identify the relationship. If we are going to have something like 'relationship=' we should remember there can be more than one relationship, e.g. summarized and a subarticle, or summarized but not a subarticle. Richard001 (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Entering the fray

Arbcom is concluded, and contention at WP:FICT is beggining to reside, so sounds like a good time to present my thoughts on this idea.

It has been put forward that the term "Sub-Article" is a bit ambiguous and confusing. WP:FICT has since been edited to use the term "Spinout article", named after WP:SPINOUT. Perhaps it would be appropriate to move the intention of this template over there.

I think a construct such as this is important for a number of reasons. Chief of which is the issue of WP:N and the AfD process. There seems to be a misconception that WP:N applies to articles when it in fact applies to topics. WP:N is one of the more common guidelines invoked as the justification of an AfD for a particular article. As is, it is difficult for editors to determine which articles are topics that should be subject to WP:N, and which articles are not topics, but instead are spinout articles which deserve to be protected by WP:NNC.

The fact that this is primarily an issue in fictional topics is merely circumstantial. It is a side effect of the fact that often the only reference used in a spinout article is the primary reference of the original work of fiction (which concensus has already established as an exceptable practice for the main article at least). Further, it happens that many editors specifically patrol for articles they believe to be "Plotcruft" and thus it seems to be more likely that fictional spinout articles come up for AfD than any other. The fact is the WP:NNC should apply to all spinout articles.

I propose the existence of a template that explicitly declares that an article does not claim to be a notable topic in it's own right; that it's signifigance is only appropriate when examined in terms of a parent topic. I believe this template should have a required parameter that names the parent topic. I believe this template should serve as a counterpart to Template:main, in that the parent article must introduce the spinout article with a summary that invokes Template:main. I believe the use of this proposed template should only be nessisary (and possibly only be used) for articles that do not establish independant real-world notability. I believe that this template should be invoked at the begining of the article so that a note explicitly declaring the relationship is prominently displayed. I believe the manefestation of this template should appear in a similar style to Template:Otheruses, that is, just a quick blurb in italics at the begining of the article (though I'm flexible on this, a full infobox that explains the general concept and points to the appropriate guidelines has its benefits too). I believe inclusion of the template in an article should place the article in a category, along the lines of Category:Spinout articles. I believe it is important that this template be in the main article, as opposed to the talk page, so that it may further serve as the counterpart to Template:Main, and so that it is prominently displayed to editors in hopes of avoiding an unnessisary AfDs. I believe this template should be reccomended to editors in the body of guidelines like WP:SPINOUT, WP:SUMMARY, and WP:FICT.

Again, whether this proposed template ends up being Template:SubArticle, or ends up being a template of some other name is of little concern to me. I merely wish for such a template to exist, and to come into common use where appropriate.

So yeah, what do you guys think about that? -Verdatum (talk) 18:24, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with all of the above: I was the one who moved it from talk page to hatnote initially, and I had also reommended this template to editors at WP:SPLIT (though not at the other places - all good ideas). As a first step to implement your suggestions (I particularly like the new category idea), I have kicked off the process to move this template to {{Spinout}} (thus reversing a redirect), since I think a big obsticle to its usage is the name. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:22, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

What? Nobody uses the term "spinout" other than on a slippery road. What on earth is going on here? This is really a bad idea. SayCheeeeeese (talk) 06:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:SPINOUT does. The term "Spinout Article" was discussed on the talkpage for WP:FICT and was met with concensus there. The reason why the term was chosen was to clear any ambiguation. A "sub-article" could mean an article within a parent article's namespace (for example, Template:Subarticle/doc), or it could mean any article that is a subtopic of some parent topic, in which case, if one were so inclined, the entire encyclopedia could be said to be organized in this hierarchical manner. A so-called spinout article is an article that was created using the prodcedure defined by WP:SPINOUT. Could you please give a stronger justification than the fact that the term shares meaning with loosing control on a slippery road? Lots of terms have multiple meanings, I don't see how that is a bad thing. -Verdatum (talk)

We have been using WP:Subpage, not subarticle for article/doc etc. Subarticle has been universally used for a long time and no reason to change now. SayCheeeeeese (talk) 06:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"universally"? Not so. WP:COMMONNAME refers to them as "Subsidiary articles", and this is validated by WP:SUMMARY linking to it. But no matter, thank you for the link. Because "subpage" is a blessed term in this manner (and I had forgotten this), I'm a bit less concerned. I don't feel too strongly about nitpicking over nomenclature, so "subarticle" is perfectly fine by me. Your point does suggest that we set things back over at WP:FICT. I'll consider bringing it up over there. -Verdatum (talk) 16:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

UnitedStatesian, Perhaps this template should return to it's prior functionality, and instead of moving the page, have Template:Spinout be created as a new template? It was, after all, sort of hijacked for our purposes. On the other hand, I seem to recall the template's author admitting the original intention of the template turned out to be unessisary, but I'm not entirely up to speed on that situation. -Verdatum (talk) 15:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I think if you look how this template is used, in almost every case it tags the talk page of what we would now call a spinout article. If you look back at the TfD discussion, several editors had a big problem with the SubArticle terminology, because they thought that name could be interpreted as referring to the old "/" subarticle concept, which is now deprecated in the main namespace. It was in response to this confusion that another editor wisely came up with the "spinout" concept. I think that term is what should be used, and to keep this as a separate, non redirected template creates a fork that we want to avoid. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what you guys at FICT have been up to, but this sounds like a really stupid idea to me. You seem to be saying that anything is notable provided its 'topic' is notable. So one could write an article about a certain scene in a video game provided the video game is notable? Or should we just admit that articles have to be notable themselves and drop all this nonsense? [break]

That's one reading of the FICT guidelines, and that's why the current guidelines are still proposed rather than accepted. Spinout articles have spinout topics, and spinout topics do not inherit notability; so, if considered as articles, spinouts should have to demonstrate notability through real-world coverage. However, another reading is that spinout articles take the place of sections which have become too long, and should be judged as if they were still sections in their parent article. Sections don't have to demonstrate notability, just verifiability. The reason that we're seeking a template is to identify such spinout sections, so that we don't give an exemption from notability to fictional topics, but neither do we limit the content of articles on fictional topics. I'm not 100% convinced myself, but this seems to be the compromise that we're headed for. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

In any case, keep the template out of articles. It's clearly for editors and there is no benefit for readers, as has exhaustively been explained above. A category for 'spin out' articles would be useless, as almost all articles are 'spinout' articles, and it's irrelevant whether they were created before or after their "parent" article. This, also, has been outlined above. Richard001 (talk) 22:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

So how would you propose addressing the issue of ariticle size, which is where this came from in the first place? Just forbid adding material to an article once it reaches 32k, since any material that would be split out into a spinout article (in order to keep the "parent" article under 32k) would immediately be deleted as non-notable? You've cursed the darkness, how about lighting a candle? UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The "32 k" thing is very dated. Many articles are now over 100k. If a subtopic of an article is notable in itself, give it its own article. If not, just cover it in the main article and leave it at that. Giving article freedom from notability requirements is a very bad idea. Anyone could then basically say 'but its a subtopic of X, and X is notable!'. It's basically a free license allowing people to create as much fancruft as they wish to. I assume you wouldn't go to the extreme of saying even "spinoffs" of "spinoffs" can derive their notability from their "grandparent"? Richard001 (talk) 05:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Articles over 100 k are clearly a problem. There have been multiple complaints reported at wp:SIZE about users having trouble with large files. While 32k may no longer be a limiting factor for many users, it seems that cell phones may still have that limitation. A better limit today might be 64k instead of 32k, but I'm not sure how to handle the cell phone issue. SayCheeeeeese (talk) 08:29, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

We're talking about a very small minority here. Even if there have been multiple complaints, there are millions of people accessing Wikipedia so we shouldn't infer much from the occasional complaint. What it comes down to is that we're basically saying "if an article you want to write isn't notable, just find another article that is and include a summary of your article in it and you're good". Richard001 (talk) 23:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Richard001, you seem to be arguing policies and guidelines here that are better argued elsewhere. Specifically, WP:NNC, WP:SIZE, WP:SPINOUT, WP:SUMMARY, and WP:FICT. If you'd like to discuss those policies, you may wish to contribute to those pages. The purpose of this discussion is, assuming these policies and guidelines are the way they are, is it worthwhile to tag articles that are not supposed to be considered as notable topics in and of themselves.

Concerning the template being in the article vs. the discussion page, I believe the tag is indeed beneficial to the reader. It clarifies to the reader that jumps directly to this page that the article does not claim to be independently notable, and as such may or may not be worth the reader's time. I realize that this is the intended purpose of a well-written lead section, but as a reader, I will occassionally read onwards into an article that doesn't establish it's notability in the lead section in hope that it was simply an oversite. It can also be seen as a bit of a parallel between Britannica's concept of the micropaedia and the macropaedia, clarifying that this article may go into greater detail than is desired for the casual reader. Further, many AfD nominators believe that justification for fulfilling inclusion criteria should be self evident from the article. They shouldn't need to go to review the talk page to determine that an article is nonnotable crap that doesn't belong on WP. I personally believe it's important to examine both the article history and the talk page before nominating for deletion, but it's never stated as a requirement. Once an article is nominated for AfD, it is going to be reviewed and discussed. Even if the nominator's only argument is "nonnotable cruft", a vote of keep that argues "no, no, if you look in the talk page, there's a box saying it's a subarticle, so WP:N isn't a good enough argument!!" is not going to result in an automatic speedy or snowball keep. Other people will still need to take the time to review the article and weigh in on the nomination. It's a waste of time that I hope can be somewhat alleviated by such a template. -Verdatum (talk) 16:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you show me which policy or even guideline, besides a very recent decision at a fiction project, is supposed to apply here? Or is this template only intended for fiction articles? I don't find any of your arguments that we should keep and use the template convincing. Richard001 (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I think Verdatum listed four guidelines in addition to WP:FICT, did he not? UnitedStatesian (talk) 00:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

He did, but none of those guidelines say that spinouts shouldn't have to meet WP:N. Only WP:FICT says that. WP:NNC comes closest, but in isolation all it says is that once an article has met WP:N, there are no restraints on its content; it only concerns spinouts if you consider them still to be part of the original article, which is in WP:FICT. WP:SIZE places restraints on content of notable articles; it doesn't say we should have non-notable ones. WP:SPINOUT and WP:SUMMARY describe how to make a spinout, but don't say how to judge the notability of the remaining article. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that this was just a new thing brought about at the fiction project recently. Is this reflected in any of the other policies? Richard001 (talk) 00:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm not sure how to explain it better. WP:NNC says that notability is not a criteria for inclusion on content. WP:N says that notability specifically applies to topics as opposed to articles. WP:SPINOUT, WP:SIZE, and WP:SUMMARY all say that if an article grows too large, it may be split into subarticles. None of the afformentioned guidelines say that the sub-articles must establish real-world notability in themselves. So no, this is not at all a new thing. WP:FICT is merely the first guideline to explicitly clarify this. It was only done there because as I said before, most cases of AfDs of subarticles with the soul argument of "non-notable" have involved fictional topics. -Verdatum (talk) 03:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

This becomes a very slippery slopish situation then. Basically anything you care to summarize in a notable article becomes fair game. If we put this to the test, I'm sure that if I go out and write a detailed plot summary or something similar for some barely notable video game or movie and add a summary of it to the main article, it would stand absolutely no chance of surviving an AfD. So you can see why I find it hard to believe that this is really what our guidelines/policies say (if they do, they aren't reflecting reality). What it would end up coming down to would be that the plot summary just wouldn't be notable enough by itself, which seems to contradict the whole 'articles don't need to be notable by themselves' thing. But even they didn't have to be, the summary in template (or some modification thereof) would do the job this one is supposed to do perfectly well. Richard001 (talk) 05:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Again, this is not the appropriate place to be discussing this. This same argument has been raised and resolved (at least in my opinion) many times on WP:FICT because of the proposed changes, and is also potentially fair game on most any of the afforementioned guideline pages. -Verdatum (talk) 14:21, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, this discussion still doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Perhaps someone could provide me with an excellent example of this template in use that would change my mind on the matter? Or we could try to get further input somehow, although that generally seems to fail from my experience. Richard001 (talk) 21:35, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Let's give it a go anyway. I've started a discussion at WT:FICT#Guidelines and consensus, which I hope you'll contribute to. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

21st Century Text Structure

NOTE: Readers may also want to look at a parallel discussion on this topic here[1]. Low Sea (talk) 11:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

In the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan there is a scene where Kirk is able to gain victory simply because his adversary's experience was limited to 20th century 2-dimensional strategies. In short, Khan failed because he did not think in three dimensions.

I notice that most WP editors are like Khan, looking at Wikipedia articles and spinouts from an even older and archaic pre-20th century perspective dating back to before the printing press, where content structure is viewed as being two-dimensional. Under the current WP mentality, a topic is seen as having only two possible structures: (1) topic is to be a stand alone article on it's own page OR (2) topic is to be a section within a larger page. There seems to be no other real choices. Hyperlinks are seen as nothing more than "click-n-go" cross-references.

What is being overlooked is that the core technology that allows Wikipedia to exist is hypertext and even though WP:PAPER is the first section under WP:What Wikipedia Is Not it amazes me that nobody as far as I can tell has mentioned that hypertext is a multi-dimensional text structure. Respectfully, WP editors need to make the adjustment from antique 2-dimensional thinking into 21st century multi-dimensional thinking.

If sections were visually displayed as "zoomable" then they would clearly represent the 3rd (and beyond) dimensional structure that lies at the heart of the hypertext concept -- articles-within-articles, sections-within-sections, and even articles-within-sections. Size of sections would be a non-issue. Of course I am not advocating fancy animated zooming software displays but I am advocating a change in mentality to recognize that hypertext allows for 3-dimensional text structure and Wikipedia is built with hypertext. WP does not seem to recognize this concept and one is left to wonder why not?

My thoughts on the whole article/spinout issue is that if WP editors would stop using a 2-dimensional perspective it would become more than clear that article-sized sections within main articles are perfectly valid and definitely subject to the same notability guidelines of section-sized sections within articles. The fact that they happen to be represented as a stand-alone webpage is irrelevant to this issue. Low Sea (talk) 08:37, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That's fine, but the degree to which editors can "zoom" into a topic should be determined by the real-world influence of the topic. The subarticles should stop when the coverage stops; subarticles should still be bound by WP:N. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:29, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't see any analogy there with three dimensions - zooming in and out is a clearly two dimensional process. Your whole entry here is somewhat vague and you seem to be advocating abandoning notability guidelines and filling Wikipedia with non-notable material. Richard001 (talk) 20:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Two-dimensional text is columns and rows of letters. Three-dimensional text has layers that must be "drilled down" to via links. I am advocating that we should not see a subsection as only being able to exist in two-dimensional terms (ie: a collection of sentences on the same page as its main topic), but rather that we see sections as being capable of being logically within the main topic without regard to the physical form or location. WP:SIZE is a good guideline, and when correctly applied for the purpose it was intended for should not affect the notability status of content that was valid prior to improving readability and navigation. Low Sea (talk) 22:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, that certainly helps with the analogy. But it doesn't seem to me to provide any reason to have articles that aren't notable in themselves, or for not merging this template. Even if it is agreed on that an article doesn't have to be notable in itself, which there doesn't seem to be that much support for, that can still be incorporated into the summary in template, which is easily visible on the talk page where editors can see it. Richard001 (talk) 05:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Again, respectfully, you are using out-of-date thinking. You are presuming the definition of "article" that WP currently uses (ie: a single physical page = a single logical article) which is very 2-dimensional. Hypertext multi-dimensional conceptualization provides that a single logical article may be spread over any number of physical data structures and/or locations and are dynamically linked together to form a coherent whole. In other words a single article may have dozens of sub-pages that when properly linked represent the full topic of discussion. What is the difference then between a sub-page and a section except for the data-structure which is meaningless to content. Low Sea (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Surely it makes sense to have navigational aids in the actual article? We don't put dablinks on the talk page. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:42, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

This template is not a dablink. People don't come to an article like (hits random article button) Pour de vrai (Lapinot) looking for The spiffy adventures of McConey, do they? The idea of a hatnote is to help the reader find the article they are looking for, not tell them something that is obvious from the lead. Richard001 (talk) 00:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

It seems to me that this whole discussion is sort of drifting away from the original topic: Merge {{Subarticle}} & {{Summary In}}...or not. Personally, I think the best idea is two fold: a) reformat Subarticle into a hatnote/italic format (akin to main), instead of the box it's currently in, and reword it. I am coming at this from a completely different perspective: Traditional Chinese social structure and Culture of China#Structure. b) Reword the template. I've used {{main}} in the Culture of China article, and on Traditional Chinese social structure, I manually added a hatnote:

For a more complete discussion of Chinese culture, see Culture of China

I think this wording would be a reader-friendly alternative that could be placed on the article itself without being a)intrusive or b)allowing the so-called "sub-article" to escape the notability criteria. With that there, I don't think Summary In would be necessary.--Aervanath's signature is boring 02:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

As I have said before, I think such messages are useless. We could just use the 'main' template for the same effect, and that specifically says not to use it in this way. Just link to Chinese culture in the lead and anyone with a working neural network will be able to see the relationship.

This template doesn't have anything I think is worth keeping in a merge, so it would basically just be a redirect to {{summary in}}, perhaps with a modification of that template to allow a 'subarticle' subfield if it would be any use. Maybe I should just propose it for deletion again to get some input - merges and deletions are often basically the same thing (though when people don't understand the finer differences it can be annoying). Richard001 (talk) 05:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)