Template talk:Topic cat

Latest stories
Nice template. However, the latest stories are too small, in my opinion: they are the easiest and most newsworthy way of navigating a category. I like to see them in the main body of the page, at the size of body text or larger, such as in Countrycategory. --InfantGorilla (talk) 10:13, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Two thoughts
Moved here in detail from the water cooler thread, leaving a summary there: --Pi zero (talk) 14:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lose the encyclopedic overview. One sentence to identify the topic should suffice; leave the detail to Wikipedia, where they specialize in that.  In fact, a relatively fixed-form sentence provides stability and will probably suffice for a wide swath of categories.  (In Areacategory, which offers a lot of flexibility, I'm still learning about how to provide most flexibility with fewest parameters.)
 * You'll want flexibility to pick and choose which sister projects to provide links for, and what to link to at each. Hopefully, it'll only take one optional parameter per sister, default being Wikipedia and Commons using.


 * I agree on both counts. WP often does sister links simply to search pages, which is unacceptable. As for the overview; much like WP:NOTNEWS, we're WN:NOT an encyclopedia. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 14:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Note the overview section is optional; and its goal is to provide some context to the readers without letting them go to the other place. I know we aren't an encyclopedia, but just for the context. As for the sister projects, what if I change the sisterprojects variable to produce what you want, and make the other projects (Wikibooks, Wikiversty, etc.) optional?. @InfantGorilla – Will fix that. --Diego Grez return fire 14:56, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * An overview is a distraction from what should be the most prominent feature of the category page: recent news.
 * I doubt the need for a separate parameter ; just use commons=category: and the like.  Have ,  ,  ,  ,  .  --Pi zero (talk) 18:20, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The only real context that's needed is a sentence or two, usually. Any kind of depth is the job of The Other Place and - much as we resent parts of their community attempting pseudonews - we should not start to do pseudoenclyclopia(ism?). The WMF projects compliment each other well. Blood Red Sandman  (Talk)   (Contribs) 18:23, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Apparently I have fixed the issues. See Category:Pichilemu. 'Overview' was shortened to two sentences, and the latest stories were moved to the main part of the category. --Diego Grez return fire 18:54, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I think there's just one key element missing, and then anything else will be fine tuning. What's missing is an articulated summary sentence. That's why you're still stuck on the idea of an "overview". With a properly articulated summary sentence, there's no reason for any overview because the summary sentence already tells the reader all they need to know to get oriented.

Your leading sentence is now just "This is the &mdash; category." Uninformative. That might be good enough for a topic category, by which I mean not a geocat and not a person-cat; but your example is a geocat. I really think a good summary sentence is needed for any geocat smaller than a country. That's why I put a great deal of careful thought into how Areacategory generates its summary sentence. I've been carefully planning for some time to add one more parameter to it, and I anticipate that that will be the last additional parameter ever needed for Areacategory; one could then generate a summary sentence such as
 * This is the category for the Chilean city of Pichilemu, the capital of Cardenal Caro Province in the O'Higgins Region of Chile.

Or some subset of those embellishments.

In fact, Areacategory's summary sentences are flexible enough that the template might just about work for people and topics, as well as for smaller geocats. Technically, there's just one stray word further down that might need an additional parameter, though I'm worried about the burden of unwieldy parameter names in an overly generic template. --Pi zero (talk) 20:16, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Check the category again :-) --Diego Grez return fire 21:43, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Seems we're down to smaller details. All the smaller things I can think of, at the moment:
 * Geocats often have two images &mdash; above the sister links, either a locator image or a scenic image; and below the sister links, optionally a flag, seal, emblem, or the like. E.g., Category:Karnataka.
 * I think the sister links should go above the external links, rather than below.
 * The documentation is lagging behind the template.
 * This is now such a general template that I wonder whether the name "topic cat" does it justice. I'm not sure what else to suggest, though.
 * --Pi zero (talk) 22:49, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've fixed it ;) --Diego Grez return fire 13:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I've fixed it ;) --Diego Grez return fire 13:19, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Two other changes
Three changes I'd like to make, but thought I should ask about first: --Pi zero (talk) 19:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Eliminate ; instead, the code can just check for any of the associated image parameters.  (It isn't possible to do this with , because wikipedia and commons have defaults, so that sisterprojects is the only way to suppress them).
 * Eliminate .  Categories can simply use , and to link to a category, just say so.  (The default for  would then be Category: .)
 * Make independent of  .  Right now, there can't any external links unless there are sister-project links.


 * On second thought, I see that the defaults for wikipedia and commons aren't actually in place. Which makes the second change easier.  So now I'm tempted to just do some of it.  --Pi zero (talk) 00:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I gave into temptation and did all three. --Pi zero (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Good job. --Diego Grez return fire 03:49, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Handling of commons parameter
It's really confusing that removing the  parameter doesn't eliminate the sister link. I suggest a multi-step process to fix it: This would be yet another big task that can't be done all at once; we've got an awful lot of those already, and I've thought for some time we need a better way to keep track of them all. Obligatory xkcd link:   --Pi zero (talk) 12:48, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) jimmy the template to automatically populate a hidden category when the   parameter is omitted.
 * 2) add explicit   parameter to all of those, so the hidden category is empty.
 * 3) change the default for the parameter.
 * Why can't we just hit #3 straight away and be done with it? BRS  (Talk)   (Contribs) 13:00, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * We could do #1 and #3 simultaneously, and pick up #2 later. That'd be a time-saver.  --Pi zero (talk) 13:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 28 September 2016
sudo Please change:

TO:



This is to clear members from Category:Pages using invalid self-closed HTML tags. Thank you, Xaosflux (talk) 03:46, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Changed  to  .  --Pi zero (talk) 11:05, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That works too :D, thank you. Xaosflux (talk) 13:22, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Alt
sudo

Add support for alt text. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm uncomfortable with calling it "alt", because there are multiple images supported by this template and this would apply specifically to just one of them. Following the same pattern as parameter , how about  ? --Pi zero (talk) 23:27, 6 September 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps  --SVTCobra 23:32, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean exactly but I'm fine with whatever. Do you mean the little icons next to our sister projects? Those can be  or omitted entirely as they are purely decorative. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:55, 6 September 2019 (UTC)


 * In addition to parameter, the template also has parameters  ,  ,  ,  ,  ,  , each of which when used specifies a  . --Pi zero (talk) 00:04, 7 September 2019 (UTC)


 * I like  because then all the fields adjunct to parameter   are prefixed by the name of what they're adjunct to, providing a general convention that could be followed if we ever wanted to provide an adjunct to some other field. --Pi zero (talk) 00:07, 7 September 2019 (UTC)


 * In the end, I went for, which is in keeping with recently added . (Most parameters to this template use spaces to separate words.) --Pi zero (talk) 01:06, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

Edit request - galleries
editprotected

Please add, somewhere,

to allow suppression of gallery display of images. See, eg, - File:Trump 2016 TIME POTY.jpg is allowed for fair use in an article, but isn't allowed to be shown in the category page itself.

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 00:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I follow what your concern is. Are you suggesting a fair-use image cannot legally be shown at the bottom of a category it belongs to &mdash; as the wiki software automatically does &mdash; because fair-use images can only be used on articles? --Pi zero (talk) 02:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * exactly - Fair use says "The use of non-free media outside of the main article namespace does not constitute fair use, and is not permitted.", meaning that it should not be shown. On enwiki, w:Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria specifies a similar restriction, and notes in the policy that the nogallery tag can be used to hide the display on category pages. --DannyS712 (talk) 02:09, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I see the Wikipedia page suggesting that galleries on categories have to be suppressed in order to avoid having a fair-use image appear on a page that isn't an article. That however sounds ludicrous to me.  By that logic, it should be a violation of fair-use policy for the image to appear on its own page in   space. The more central matter of fair-use images not being allowed anywhere on the site other than articles, I would feel a need to investigate in-depth.  (I suspect this restriction has been knowingly deviated from by some folks whose knowledge of such legal niceties I would generally expect to be quite solid; the implication of which is simply that the investigation ought to be in-depth.) If the needed restriction were really as dire as you're suggesting, I'm not sure why you're proposing to add markup whose default state is to allow galleries. --Pi zero (talk) 02:41, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Because not all categories have images that are nonfree, but you're right that it would probably be better to always include it --DannyS712 (talk) 02:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That's the third of my three points. The first and second remain.  The second point definitely wants investigating (though where the time to do that is to be found, idk). --Pi zero (talk) 02:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't know what lawyer recommended that policy to the WMF, but it is not grounded in any case law about thumbnails. Indexing has been considered to be transformative enough for fair use. See: https://garson-law.com/thumbnail-images-infringement-or-fair-use/ --SVTCobra 03:14, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I don't see any credible grounds for suppressing galleries on categories due to some of the images being fair-use. --Pi zero (talk) 03:13, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Add parameter
Please change the wiki specified in the #if of the Wikisource parameter from Wiktionary to Wikispecies &mdash; since Wikispecies would be following Wikisource instead &mdash; add, below the Wikisource parameter, * Wikispecies-logo.svg Wikispecies}}{{#if:{{{wiktionary|}}}| (at least, I think that'll work), and add the Wikispecies parameter to the documentation. Heavy Water (talk) 02:00, 31 July 2023 (UTC)