Tɛmplet:Orphan/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Tɛmplet:Orphan.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original tɛmplet page.

This template is used on many pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

If you plan to make breaking changes to this template, move it, or nominate it for deletion, please notify Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle as a courtesy, as the standard installation of Twinkle adds and removes this template. Thank you!

This template is used by the standard installation of AutoWikiBrowser (AWB). If you are planning to make changes to this template, how it should be used, or nominate it for deletion, please notify AWB's user base and maintainers beforehand at Wikipedia talk:AWB as a courtesy.

Template:Orphan is used on pages with no incoming links from other articles or lists. The template is responsible for populating sub-categories of Category:Orphaned articles. There are currently 5 orphaned articles.

How to use[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

The simplest way to add this template to an article is to copy and paste either {{Orphan|date=Silimin gɔli April 2024}} or {{Orphan|{{subst:DATE}}}} at the top of the article.

Please do not subst: this template.

When to use[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

This template should only be put on articles which meet the orphan criteria. Use your judgment about whether to add this template. Do not add this template to articles that you honestly believe will be impossible to de-orphan. Instead of using this template, please make an effort to de-orphan the article yourself.

Visibility[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

The template message is visible on all pages where the date parameter is set to either the current month or the previous month (currently Tɛmplet:Monthyear or Tɛmplet:Monthyear-1). It is also visible on all pages where it is used inside the {{multiple issues}} template. Older-dated orphan templates used outside of the {{multiple issues}} template are invisible by default, but are still categorized. To override the default and make the message visible on all pages where it's placed, put the following line in your common.css file (create the file if you don't have one yet):

.ambox-Orphan{display: table !important;}

This may not work in some older browsers - if it doesn't work, use

.ambox-Orphan{display: block !important;}

instead.

Alternatively, to never see this tag, you could instead add to your common.css:

.ambox-Orphan{ display: none !important; }

The orphan message box is invisible on this page by default. If you have correctly installed the above common.css the orphan message box is visible here.

Rationale[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

With over 100,000 orphaned articles in the project, WikiProject Orphanage has an extreme backlog. The tags on newly created articles are visible for a month or two, in hopes that the article's creators or reviewers will tend to the issue. After a couple of months it's assumed that the WikiProject will need to take on the task, and project members use their common.css files to keep the templates visible. The community consensus is that this issue is insufficiently critical to merit notifying general readers of the issue for more than a couple of months, unless the article has {{multiple issues}}. Please review the discussions related to this on Template talk:Orphan and its archives.

Automated placement and adjustment[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

Several semi-automated tools and bots facilitate orphan-tagging. Some notes on tool implementation:

Per Another tweak for orphans, as of March 9, 2010Tɛmplet:Needs update AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) restricts orphan tag addition to linkless pages as a default option.
Per Move orphan (and some more) tags on the top, AWB moves incorrectly positioned orphan tags to the correct location for orphan tags, at or near the top of the article.

Parameters[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

date[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

You may use a date parameter with this template, for example {{Orphan|date=Silimin gɔli April 2024}} to help with the categorisation of articles requiring links. If you leave it out, a bot will fill it in (but this will result in more edits and watchlist alerts, so adding the date right away is preferred).

att[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

If you have made an unsuccessful attempt to de-orphan the article, then please add the month/year of the attempt to the template, like so, {{orphan|date=Month Year|att=Silimin gɔli April 2024}}, where the |date= parameter is the date the template was originally placed on the page, and the |att= parameter is set to equal the current month and year. This places it in Category:Attempted de-orphan for that date and also hides the article message box. The "att" is an abbreviation for "attempt", as in "I attempted to de-orphan this article but failed".

incat[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

If the article has no link and probably never will, but is well categorised the incat option can be used. For example, {{Orphan|date=Silimin gɔli April 2024|incat=Silimin gɔli April 2024}}

Per the discussion at template talk:Orphan/Archive 2#"Few links" template?, this parameter was, but is not currently, used in the template itself.

TemplateData[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

About

Why are the developers building this?
- User Test Data
Documentation:
Development:

Help out

Research

Main research page

Other

Customization
Known problems
Requests for Comments (RfCs): Jul 2013 a, Jul 2013 b, Jul 2015, Sep 2015

Shortcuts

What is template data?[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

Template data is the standardized description of a template, used by the default VisualEditor, the optional 2017 wikitext editor and other tools to improve the template-editing experience for the user. Both VisualEditor and the 2017 wikitext editor include a wizard to edit templates, but for the wizard to be most useful, it needs to present specific information to the user about each template, such as a short description of the template's purpose and its parameters. This information is codified formally (by any wiki editor) using template data.

Editing without template data[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

Without template data, each parameter needs to be added manually when inserting a new template.

No information is provided about what the value of the parameter should be.

Editing with template data[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

With template data, a list of supported parameters (and their description) is provided for the template.

Template data provides context for each parameter, and makes it much easier for users to modify templates.

Adding template data[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

Anyone can help by adding template data to templates (particularly high-profile ones, such as infoboxes) so that they are easier to edit in VisualEditor. The following is a minimal example, placed on a template's documentation page:

<templatedata>{
  "description": "insert description here",
  "params": {
    "first parameter": {
      "label": "x",
      "description": "x",
      "type": "string",
      "suggested": true,
      "autovalue": "derived automatic value",
      "default": "default value",
      "required": false
    }
  }
}</templatedata>

You can also add or edit template data using a GUI, by pressing the following button which appears at the top of the edit page: Edit template data

The template data tutorial explains in detail how to add template data information to a template.

Adding suggested values for parameters[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

The parameter property suggestedvalues lets you define a list of parameter values to be shown to VisualEditor users in a dropdown for easy selection. This can be done either directly in JSON or using the TemplateData editor with no coding required. Both methods are explained in detail below.

Once the values have been added to template data, the VisualEditor will display them in a combo box (a dropdown into which users can also enter a custom value). The user selects the desired value by clicking on it. If the list of values is long - for example, a list of a country’s states - the user can begin typing in the field, whereupon the list will be filtered to show only values containing the typed text. To change an entered value, the user must simply clear the field, and the full dropdown list will appear again. If the user needs a value not included in the list (for example, "message in a bottle") they can type it in manually.

For suggested values to be displayed in the VisualEditor, the parameter’s type must be set to one of the following options:

content
line
string
number
unknown
unbalanced wikitext.

Other types (file, page, template, user, date, boolean, URL) are not currently supported because they have special functionalities in the VisualEditor already (such as autocomplete) which would interfere with the dropdown menu for suggested values in the VisualEditor.

Adding suggested values for parameters in wikitext[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

To add suggested values to any parameter type, add the new property “suggestedvalues” to the parameter in JSON. The “suggestedvalues” attribute must be a list of strings.

An example might look like this:

"media_type": {
	"label": "Type of media",
	"example": "Newspaper",
	"type": "string",
	"description": "In what medium was the article published?",
	"suggestedvalues": [
    	"Journal",
    	"Book",
    	"Newspaper",
    	"Magazine"
	]
}

Adding suggested values for parameters with the template data editor[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

For the parameter types listed above, you can add suggested values using the template data editor.

Step 1. Click on "Manage TemplateData".
Step 2. Click on the name of the parameter you want to add suggested values to.
Step 3. If it’s not already, set the type of the parameter to one of the following: content, line, string, number, unknown or unbalanced wikitext. A new input field "Suggested values" will appear. If the parameter is already set to one of these types, the input field should already be visible.
Step 4. Type in the suggested value(s), including any spaces and special characters, and press enter to add it to the list.

Here you can see an example of how to add suggested values in the TemplateData editor.

Used templates[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

Categories[mali mi di yibu sheena n-niŋ]

This template places the article into "Category:All orphaned articles" as well as "Category:Orphaned articles from {{{date}}}". If the "att" parameter is set, the article will still be in Category:All orphaned articles, but instead of placing the article into "Category:Orphaned articles from {{{date}}}" (e.g. Category:Orphaned articles from Silimin gɔli April 2024), it places it into "Category:Attempted de-orphan from {{{att}}} (e.g. Category:Attempted de-orphan from Silimin gɔli April 2024).

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Date	`date`	The date this template was added to the page. (Input: Monthname Year) Auto value `{{SUBST:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{SUBST:CURRENTYEAR}}`	String	required
De-orphan attempt	`att`	If you have made an unsuccessful attempt to de-orphan the article, please fill in this field to record the attempt. (Input: Monthname Year)	String	optional
In Category	`incat`	If the article has no link and probably never will, but is well categorised this option can be used.(Input: Monthname Year)	String	optional