On 1/23/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Do you see the
need? I don't. All I see is people wanting to use one
template in all situations, where they could easily use multiple
templates.
This is known as "template forking" and is regarded as evil.
Are taxoboxes evil? No, I think not. Yet they are a good instance of
multiple templates cleanly giving an effect that could be achieved by
ugly single templates (I have seen attempts, with {{taxobox}} to
destroy this good work). I have also seen templates that seek to use
one template for programmes, characters and various other pages
relating to the same manga series.
Take for example the classic {{book reference}}. The
simplest possible
instance is just the title of the book. This can later be embellished with
the name of the author, possibly with a link to an appropriate article.
Later additions can include the publisher and ISBN, to distinguish between
different editions and to enable a reader to find an actual copy.
If you fork this template (and this was actually done before the advent of
condition "tricksiness"), you have to use a different template every time
you incrementally improve the accuracy of your citation. Your choice can
even be affected by the order in which your embellishments are added!
Since accurate citation of sources is a key requirement for a good Wikipedia
article, making this any harder than necessary is not good.
This is one template that could *really* do with something built into
the software. If it was even slightly possible that I could work this
myself, I would attempt to do so.
--
Sam