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Contents
Documentation - Discussion

Contents 1 Documentation 1.1 Usage 1.2 Example 1.3 See also 2 Discussion 2.1 Log 2.2 Show/Hide 2.3 Tnavbar-mini 2.4 Cosmetics & links 2.5 One-column makeover 2.6 Automatic discussion listing 2.7 Removal of Discussions 2.8 Question 2.9 "Removing WMF logos from userspace"

[edit] Documentation

{{cent}} maintains a compact index to ongoing policy discussion.

[edit] Usage

{{cent|width=width|float=float}}

Place this template near the top of on any talk page to which it refers. This template should always be transcluded.

There are two optional named parameters, width and float. These take standard CSS values and control the size and placement of the bounding box. If both are omitted, width will default to auto and float will default to right.

Width may be set to a narrow value such as 200px to save space on a crowded page. Large values will not increase the size of the table itself, only of its bounding box. Useful values for float are left, right, and none.

[edit] Example

[edit] See also

• Template:Cent (edit talk links history)

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Log

Added link to log page. John Reid 18:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Added in-comment reminder to log changes. John Reid 12:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Show/Hide

Added show/hide button per request by Alphax at the Village Pump (technical), 17 May 2006. J. Finkelstein 04:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

This feature does not actually work for all users. Please don't use it. Thank you. John Reid 13:03, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tnavbar-mini

Netscott (talk · contribs) added {{tnavbar-mini}} on 2006 May 28. My personal feeling is that it's a step in the right direction but this general solution might be better customized for our special purposes here. John Reid 16:56, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cosmetics & links

I've done quite a bit of cosmetic cleanup on the template, added a number of useful links, and rm a great deal of dead code. I've modeled the link section on the popular {{ln}}/{{lt}} series of templates and the box model on the equally popular {{divbox}}. Thus the overall appearance and function should be much more standard than before. There are no instances of double transclusion. John Reid 19:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

It is forced centered now instead of floating to the left if needed now (see AFD today or User_talk:SPUI). Also, the tags are unbalanced (2 <center> and 1 </center>). What were you trying to change? Kotepho 23:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I threw out a great amount of dead code; perhaps I tossed out a bit too much. I wasn't really interested in changing anything substantial. The old behavior was to center in available space; if put with a floating item it did not jam up against it but nicely centered itself in whatever width was left. I'd very much appreciate it if you can restore this behavior without adding in too much boilerplate. John Reid 04:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Screwed around with a little, but I don't know how to make it work the same without going back to nested tables. Kotepho 05:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

• I don't know if other people agree with me, but I find the centering of every item within the columns to look somewhat messy. I realize that at least one other person presumably disagrees since they formatted it this way, but I can't figure out how to put it back so being bold isn't even a possibility here. If multiple people agree with me, could the columns be re-formatted to be left-aligned? --Metropolitan90 04:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In my browser, the contents of each column are left-aligned. The only items that are centered are the top and bottom single-column (colspan=9) cells. Also, the entire template is centered when transcluded.

Centering is a known trouble area, even today. What works on your browser may break on mine. I just did a minor cosmetic facelift; tell me if you see any difference. John Reid 11:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• The centering problem in this template was fixed a while ago, so it's not a concern for me. However, the blue text on black backgrounds at the top and bottom of the box was too hard to read; I decided to try removing the black backgrounds. --Metropolitan90 02:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• What is the impact of the cosmetic changes on different skins, and for accessibility (e.g. visually impaired users who prefer green on grey or one of the other compbinations)? I note the colour is now more subdued than it was, but I am stiull concerned about the use of hard-coded colours in such a widely-used template. Should we not be referencing a defined class so that people can tweak it? John's rather aggressive comment on my Talk page notwithstanding, I think this is an issue worth considering, and judging fromt he edit logs I am not the only one. It's all well and good to make a change and then challenge anyone reverting it to justify it on talk, but that violates WP:OWN. It's reasonable to ask the person advocating or making a change to provide a proper rationale, and the onus is clearly on them to support it. Blue on blue is terrible for visually impaired users. Just zis Guy you know? 12:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• John, your comments on my Talk page are grossly unfair. You accuse me of failing to recognise your experience; how about recognising mine? I did the usability testing for B&Q's online recruitment website (as well as a fair chunk of the coding), and I am friendly with the webmaster of my local talking newspaper. I am not making this up: there are users out there for whom hard-coded colours are a real problem; css is great because they can simply customise their monobook or override the stylesheet, but hard-coding in the text can break that. Colour combinations like black on cream, green on grey, yellow on black, are all in common use by the visually impaired. So rather than giving me an earful about how arrogant I am for daring to question your judgment, how about a civil answer to the question above? This is not your project alone, you know. Just zis Guy you know? 09:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

You were rude to use the phrase "caused me physical pain in my eyes". Either you understand this or you don't. Another user showed me a screenshot that indicated he had trouble viewing the template when bgcolor was used to control; but CSS was fine. I reacted to that criticism alertly, promptly, and courteously by converting to all CSS.

Color is a unifying element; it doesn't matter much what it is so long as it's consistent. I have no problem with black on cream; if you like, you can go around to all the cent-related pages and make the change. Just don't whinge into my ear about it, please. John Reid 13:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, John, I was factually accurate, it did cause me physical pain, and I was astonished by that. Maybe I was having a bad eye day (I get migraines, sometimes the eyes are on the brink of the abyss). You are rather missing the point here, which is that some people use unusual colour combinations in order to be able to use web pages more easily, something I learned a bit about while I was doing work on sites for major retailers (and in helping a friend who runs the local talking newspaper website). We handled this by offering different css options through the accessibility links. It's not about what colour I like, it's about giving due consideration to accessibility issues when making changes to widely-used elements (I think the meta guys are careful when changing the framework elements as well). I'm sorry you feel the need to personalise the whole thing, and I'm very sorry you feel unable to make a civil response to this point, but it's not outrageous to point out that blue-on-blue, for example, is problematic. Guy 14:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

No, you are missing the point. Your comment was extremely rude. m:Don't be a dick. Either you undertand this or you don't. If not, talk it over with a friend. You do not say such things to people, even if they are exactly, factually, literally true. There is nothing at all permissible in polite society past "I don't like those colors". If I did you real harm, then go hire a lawyer and sue me for damages. Otherwise, no matter how much you suffer, expressing your pain is just plain rude. "That hurts my eyes" is already a bit too much; "physical pain in my eyes" is just gratuitous whinging. It's entirely sufficient to say "You might want to reconsider that color" and very effective to suggest an alternative.

Besides, I think you're exaggerating -- quite a lot. If anything your monitor can display causes you pain, you need to get a new monitor. There is nothing "unusual" about black on aqua on white. These are all standard CSS colors. Get over it.

And for all the gods' sakes, drop it. Your concerns have been addressed, even though you were insufferable when presenting them. You can always offer an alternate color combination. Your constant self-justification makes you ten times the dick of your original comment. It takes a great deal of offense to make me come out and say someone is a dick to his face but you have gone way over the line, buddy. Drop it and move on. John Reid 08:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Other users have expressed dissatisfaction with the current color so I've changed it again. Please, let's have a little civil discussion here. If you don't like #dee, tell me what you do want. No need to scream in agony, just suggest a different tint. John Reid 09:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One-column makeover

♦ copied from Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Template log:

• Moved Ref reform to old discussions from the straw poll section. Radiant has added the historical tag to the poll, so I figure it's not a current poll. I wasn't sure whether old straw polls go in the old discussions section, but someone can always fix that if it's wrong. Hiding Talk 18:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I've been putting all old stuff in old before rm entirely; Radiant has indirectly suggested that may not be needed. I'd be up for a two-column format and no old section at all. For that matter, I'd be up for a one-column format; I'm not sure breaking out polls is useful. John Reid 15:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I can get behind that. Any poll could just mark itself as such in the name, for example Ref reform - polling. Certainly a way to go forward. Might actually make this log a lot more useful in my eyes, to be honest. Be a better archive of stuff. Hiding Talk 16:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm learning to avoid drastic changes. This truly is a monstrous template; needs to be cut down to something manageable that doesn't hog the entire page. Let me think about it and maybe throw up some demos. John Reid 15:39, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, point me to them when you have something. You're certainly right about the way it's bloated. I seem to remember it smaller, but I suppose that's the burden of popularity. Hiding Talk 15:59, 20 October 2006 (UTC)    ♦

Well, take a look at Template:Cent/work. Rfrisbie has got a version there and I just added another. I think the right solution will draw from both. Comment? John Reid 17:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Well, for me, I think you're right that the answer lies in the middle of the two. Personally I like the clarity of the lower one, with less info on it and the stark background, but I like the banded headers of the top one, the fuller name and the fewer template related links under the name, so definitely a mix and match. Not really fussed either way on the logo, it's a nice touch, does draw the eye, but adds bulk. Hiding Talk 13:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd rather see more links but they could be more compact. We could saw off the last two sections of the first demo; they do seem to be unnecessary. I've formatted the link to /Conclusions so that it can be used as a section header if something really warrants advertisement.

I don't care for the official Wikipedia logo in the template; I think it's inappropriate. How about this? John Reid 21:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's a nice image, the only worry I have with it is it's a bit square, and would that unbalance the template, which is rectangular? I guess it's hard to know without seeing it in situ. I like what you've done with the size progression up there though. Hiding Talk 22:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Er, that's just a selection of different sizes; pick one. Smaller is probably better, right up to the point it's a muddle. John Reid ° 04:52, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• Okay. I worked up a third attempt then that merges what I think are the best aspects of the two at Template:Cent/work. Probably more mud in the water, but that looks nice and compact. Links to other meta-data I'm not over bothered on, I like the white background, I like the striping, although looking at it I think the headings maybe aligned right like on yours would work better. Definitely a white background works best for me, it's stark and draws the eye. The image at that size is clear on my screen and is perfect, I have to say, although I had to pad the cell it is in to get it on a complete white background, but the colour on it is just right, you ask me. So that's my attempt, now how to marry it all up into one? Hiding Talk 13:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent improvement. I'd still prefer /Conclusions as a heading at the bottom; should look okay when empty, too. All the internal/meta links up top. Prefer no link to this talk page, it's almost certainly not where people want to go. I don't know if some sort of formatting might be preferred that puts text next to the icon, rather than centered icon with white on both sides. But in general, I think it's great. John Reid ° 10:37, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I've piddled around with it a little. Changed my mind about the link to this talk; kept. My ambivalence revolves around the fact that I see this page and the log as being two sides of the same coin. This is the usage/appearance/format talk page; the log is the social/political/discussion talk page. Most templates cram both into one talk page but I always thought Cent needed more. I've resolved this by pipelinking this page as use. (I like the watch link.)

Check out the demo transclusions. I'm very pleased with the forced width demos. I gave up trying to offer a centered option when I realized that the whole point of the makeover was to eliminate the page-width hog.

Template:Cent/work2a (suitably updated) is my preference to replace the current content. You'll see there's a blank table row under /Conclusions. This doesn't seem to blow up, at least not on my browser. If we have something that really deserves to go there, we can put it in. I'm happy to move away from the habit of shuffling stuff from one pocket to another; if it didn't go anywhere, just drop it. But I think a suitable reward for a successful conclusion is a short stay there. Make sense? And no heading for polls; don't like 'em anyway. John Reid ° 11:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

• Looks great my end on firefox, and I even viewed it in IE just to check and it all works there too. Yeah, I reckon if something concluded well then it should get a mention, it's compact and it makes sense to keep the metadata together. Nice piddling. What do you reckon next, a bold move or a consensus building exercise? Hiding Talk 19:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind talking first and I love working with other people but I think it's absurd to demand prior consensus for everything. If we had fewer dicks around here, we'd have more bold action and a better project. It's time to do maintenance anyway. John Reid ° 02:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Much better cent template I like the new change. Whispering 14:28, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic discussion listing

It would be nice if this template featured an automatic discussion listing via {{watt list}}. Any objections? MessedRocker (talk) 05:37, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

No objections. We would, however, need to add the tag to articles on this template and not on Template:Watt_list, and we would need to provide documentation on this template as to procedure. --Iamunknown 05:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, this template would work as always what with the manual listing, and {{watt list}} would just be supplementary. MessedRocker (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

My understanding was that the watt list was for discussions that needed more participation to reach a consensus - not as a general noticeboard. :: maelgwntalk 02:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of Discussions

Can we remove the "Discussion on anon page creation" (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Anonymous page creation)? There's been like 10 comments in a month.--CastAStone/^/(talk) 17:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

What is the purpose of this template? Just to gather a few discussions at one centralized point for admins to look at? Just curious. thanks Enigma ^msg! 00:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, the top of the page says "maintains a compact index to ongoing policy discussion." Enigma ^msg! 00:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Removing WMF logos from userspace"

Can someone fix this link to go to the correct locatin? I couldn't find it. Chris M. (talk) 04:56, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

That section's been archived to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive142#WMF Logos. Is there an ongoing discussion about it somewhere? WODUP 08:08, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well. I removed that item from the template. Of course, if there is an ongoing discussion, a link can be added again. WODUP 08:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)