Template talk:Constellation navbox

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Constellation navbox template.

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Design[edit]

This discussion continues upon Template talk:Andromeda (constellation)#Navbox design. I've acted upon Praemonitus's rather genius idea of a "higher level Constellation [Navbox] template to standardize the layout", and this template is the result. You can read up on how this navbox has been designed and its intended usage at {{Constellation navbox/doc}}, and check out some use cases at {{Constellation navbox/testcases}} – I've added six examples on the page so far. A sandbox to test edits with the test cases can also be found at {{Constellation navbox/sandbox}}. If anybody has any opinions or suggestions of changes to this template, feel free to voice them! Also pinging Lithopsian and Loooke as earlier participants in this discussion; Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects has also been notified of this discussion. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:25, 7 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi PhilipTerryGraham, this looks great! I am wondering how the navboxes would be linked in the Wikipedia articles; would it look like {{Constellation navbox/Andromeda}} or something? Loooke (talk) 03:02, 8 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Loooke: Nope, we just simply replace the syntax of {{Andromeda (constellation)}} with the example at Template:Constellation navbox/testcases#Andromeda. The 88 constellation templates, such as {{Andromeda (constellation)}}, will still be used, just in this new manner. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 06:12, 8 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I see no difference between the original and the remapped version, so that's good. I think this will make it easier to maintain the lot in a consistent manner, since all the formatting is in one place. Good job. Praemonitus (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding names for Bayer designations[edit]

For the longest time the standard for the constellation navboxes was to truncate the wikilinks for bayer designations to their character. i.e. "Alpha Andromedae" → "α". However, the problem with this in a navigational context is that the vast majority of readers on the English Wikipedia would probably not know the Greek and/or Latin alphabets, and thus their corresponding names. I'm proposing that we change this regime to spell out the words, i.e. "Alpha Andromedae" → "Alpha" instead. It would make the names of the stars more clear for those unfamiliar with the Greek and/or Latin alphabets – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 06:23, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Star maps almost always use the Greek letter. Praemonitus (talk) 14:49, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Praemonitus: But article titles do not, and article prose almost never does either. Therefore, it is much more likely they'll be familiar with the words more than the Greek/Latin characters. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 10:27, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@PhilipTerryGraham: that's not true; the Greek letter is almost always stated in the first few sentences. If it isn't, it should be. Praemonitus (talk) 11:32, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Praemonitus: Stressing "almost never", thus is true. It's usually the exclusive place that it appears in an article. This still doesn't change the fact that a) people navigating through navboxes usually have never seen the article before and b) not everybody knows the Greek/Latin alphabet. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 11:41, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@PhilipTerryGraham: I only say "almost" because I've only checked about 90% of the Bayer designation articles; it should be "always". "Alpha Phoenicis" is going to be no more meaningful than "α Phoenicis" for somebody who doesn't already know what they are looking for. Praemonitus (talk) 11:45, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Praemonitus: It would be when somebody is looking for "Alpha Phoenicis", looks at the navbox and can't find it because there's no "Alpha", just letters they don't know. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 11:46, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@PhilipTerryGraham: I only say "almost" because I've only checked about 90% of the Bayer designation articles; it should be "always", and we'll fix that when we find it. Ergo, your "almost never" statement is false; "almost always" is correct. The Greek letter does get used more than once in some of the said articles; I've used it myself when expanding articles, if only for variety.

"Alpha Phoenicis" is going to be no more meaningful than "α Phoenicis" for somebody who doesn't already know what they are looking for. Who, for example, searches for HD 2039 in a Nav box unless they already know what they mean to find? The Greek letter works fine for me. I have no interesting pursuing this argument further, so suggest you look elsewhere for support. Thanks. Praemonitus (talk) 11:45, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Stressing that "almost never" in this context means that the use of words vastly outnumber the use of the letters, which is true. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 12:04, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Don't like it. The Latinised versions are becoming more and more common, for good reasons or bad depending on your viewpoint, but the original Bayer designations are still Greek letters. Wikipedia has Latinised article titles for both policy (English Wikipedia) and practical (titles starting with Greek letters don't really work properly) reasons, but we shouldn't use that as an excuse for pretending the Greek letter Bayer designations don't exist. Lithopsian (talk) 20:13, 22 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Title link[edit]

There is an ifexists in the template for detecting the actual constellation article name, being disambiguated or not. For example Cygnus (constellation) or Corona Australis. This test always (nearly always?) succeeds because there are redirects, for example Corona Australis (constellation). Links to such redirects do not correctly highlight (in bold) when the template is included on a page. I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. Removing the redirects is highly undesirable, and they would quite possibly just get created again anyway. I have implemented a possible approach in the sandbox, by testing in the template namespace. For example {{Corona Australis (constellation)}} does not exist and is unlikely (fingers crossed) to be created, whereas the template for a disambiguated constellation is at {{Cygnus (constellation)}} corresponding to the disambiguated constellation article. This always seems to be true, although in this case there is no conflicting {{Cygnus}}. Alternative solutions might require an explicit selection by the user of the template, for example filling the article title in a separate field. Lithopsian (talk) 14:47, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support, I don’t want to do all that hassle to edit everything. 117daveawesome (talk) 07:42, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removing of stars_named[edit]

Stars_named never gets used. In the Stars of Andromeda template, I tried it out, but it got removed. So I suggest it should be removed. (Removing it is outside what I can do. 117daveawesome (talk) 09:18, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]