Template talk:New page

Expanded template
I've suggested a new version of the page, to help newbies. Eloquence disputes its benefits, calling it "instruction creep". But I don't think newbies would feel the same, being, by definition, new. I think the instructions would greatly aid the mysterious and for some people daunting task of learning how to write an article. This was inspired by a relative newbie's comments on irc.

Anycase, here is what I suggest:

July 5, 2005

Deprecate Template:Date?
Template:Date puts the date and the category for that date on a page. It does nothing else. We could avoid this bit of curly braced syntax if we put something like

July 8, 2005

in the template. This looks cleaner and might be easier to understand for newbies; at the same time, it shows an example of a category in use. Thoughts?--Eloquence 8 July 2005 09:55 (UTC)

Hmmm... when i saw the title, my first impression was, "You've got to be kidding!", but you reasoning is pursuasive. Then, on second thought, as a programmer, I find redundancy to be "dirty" rather than "clean", and this probably has to do with the extra effort involved in changing said thing: When you only have to change it in one, easy-to-find place, and it's obvious where that is, what it will do, and that it will take care of all "hooks", everything is great! On the other hand, when you have to search for multiple instances and replace them every time you make a change, that's a lot more hassle (it adds up), and you run a constant risk of inconsistency. (such as an article being titled june 9, and categorized as june 8). - and this does happen, some articles take over a day to get published, and the date has to be updated accordingly. Though I got nothing against the point that it gives newbies an example of a cat in use. Kevin Baastalk 8 July 2005 23:31 (UTC)

Date issues
Having the date in the source template alread filled in is beginning to cause some problems - all sources are not created on the day we are writing an article, and if someone doesn't think to change the date, it can be wrong for a long period of time. Now, I don't know if the fix to this is a simple matter of deleting the date in the source template here, or if it's an issue with having the X tag on the top. Lyellin 18:08, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Using variables
Using variables in this template does not work. Please don't attempt it. Variables are not expanded when the new article text is generated, and articles end up using July 29, 2024 directly, resulting in ever-changing datelines. Uncle G 05:04:10, 2005-08-02 (UTC)
 * Ahhh, yes. User:Davodd suggested it in channel and I knew there was a reason we couldn't use variables -- I just couldn't remember why. Thanks for clarifying. --Chiacomo (talk) 05:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)


 * well thats just silly. 72.174.2.252 10:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Well actually that is not true anymore. we found a way around it. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Add the haveyoursay template
I propose we add the haveyoursay template to this right above the sources section - it is a useful little template, and provides a link to things that a lot of readers might be interested in but not know how to use. The template looks like this:

Thanks! TheFearow 10:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Why " "?
Why not " "? Q0k (talk) 23:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
 * We don't want the template page in developing, only the new articles Bawolff ☺☻ 23:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)