When I was patrolling inuse tags, I noticed something that has been bugging me for some time that I think should be changed. The issue is that the talk page message for the inuse template has some problematic instructions in it in the second part. To explain this better, I’ll include that part of the template here (I’ve bolded the problematic part):
I’ve left it alone for now, but please remove the template if you are done editing the article, or refresh the date by following the instructions on the tag itselfif you plan to continue editing the article in the near future.
As you can see, the template clearly says that you can refresh the date on the inuse tag “by following the instructions on the tag itself”. This would be correct, except for the fact that the {{ inuse
}} tag itself does not actually have any instructions on refreshing the date.
I checked the history of the template, and it appears that it used to have instructions on how to refresh the date, but those instructions were removed in 2008 here
. The edit summary says that contributors supported the change of wording on the template, but I could not find the forum thread that is referenced, so I have no way to tell what the reasoning behind it was (or if there even was an intention to remove those instructions). It’s possible that the instructions on refreshing the date were accidentally removed.
I think that having instructions on refreshing the date in the inuse tag would be a good idea, and it would help new editors and students. Because of this, I think that adding these instructions on how to refresh the date back to that template would be a good idea, since it would help new editors and college students who often use those tags.
I think that the best way to do this would be to add the following sentence: “If you are the editor who added this tag, then you can refresh this date by removing this tag, saving the page, and then adding it back again.” at the end of the tag, so that the new inuse tag text would say:
As a courtesy, please do not edit this article
while this message is displayed. This notice was placed on {{{date}}}. If this was over two weeks ago, please contact the editor who added this notice to see if they are finished with the article before removing the tag. The editor will be listed in the article’s edit history. If there is no response from them within 5-7 days, anyone may remove the tag. If you are the editor who added this tag, then you can refresh this date by removing this tag, saving the page, and then adding it back again.
I think that these instructions are easy to understand and follow, and take up very little space. While this would create an extra edit that would have to be patrolled, the edit would be really easy to review, and overall, I don’t think that it would significantly increase the work that patrollers would have to do. I’m not entirely set on the placement of the new sentence though, so if anybody has any different suggestions, then please elaborate on them bellow.
What do you think of this idea?
