Template talk:Infobox source reliability

More than four domains

There are some RSP sources that have more than four domains mentioned. For example, the 'uses' column for WP:DAILYMAIL has a show/hide toggle in the last column that hides links for eleven different domains. Currently, the ISR template has space to list four domains (from which it generates three links each). Given that an Infobox is a kind of summary, I'm not sure it should have 11 domains in the box (thus 11 headers, and 11 × 3 links); that seems counter to the spirt of what an Infobox is for. (Then again, I've seen some military infoboxes with very long lists of combatants, but I've never been a fan of those; I think it should be more of a summary.) So, it would be my preference to limit the number of domains that are covered in the Infobox, with perhaps some way of signaling that more domains can be found in the body of the page. One way to do that would be a number-of-domains field, just before the first one, so if that number was '11' but the user could only see four in the Infobox, they would know to look elsewhere for the others. And we could link the '11' number in the box to the place on the page where they could be found. Other ideas? Mathglot (talk) 09:11, 24 September 2025 (UTC)

I think we should just process all unnamed parameters like WP:RSPUSES does. In fact I think we should display it like how RSPUSES displays. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 20:32, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Does 'shortcut' belong?

Does 'shortcut' belong in the Infobox? I think it doesn't. Shortcuts are related to Wikipedia navigation, and have nothing to do with a particular source, and that argues for perhaps keeping it on the page (if appropriate) but excluding it from the Infobox. Page shortcuts generally float top right on a page; sometimes lower when attached to individual sections. In addition, some rows have more than one shortcut. Mathglot (talk) 19:27, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

I think it's fine since it is the top right of the page and just putting it there compacts the layout a lot. In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 20:26, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Title vs. name

Probably need to add a 'title' param, so we can have unlinked titles; such as at Bloomberg, in the bottom section, and some others that do not correspond to an article. 'Name' should not be used for this, as it is in a couple of pages. Mathglot (talk) 19:48, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

Enhancement idea for partners

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T424586

See WT:RSP#Facilitating parsing for partners for an enhancement idea by SuperGrey (diff) involving some additional params to facilitate parsing of status per domain for WikiSignals when there are multiple domains for a source. But see also § More than four domains above, for additional thoughts. Mathglot (talk) 01:56, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Maybe ISR could have a large number of domains, but only visualize the first N in the Infobox (maybe N = 4) sort of like param |display-authors= in {{citation}} templates. That way they are there and parseable, but won't lengthen the Infobox unduly. Mathglot (talk) 01:58, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Capitals

Is there a reason we shouldn't use capitals for the labels? In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 20:27, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

I think we should. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes doesn't happen to mention it, but I clicked on Special:RandomInCategory/Infobox templates a few times, and all them used capital letters for the labels. I'll go make that change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:51, 24 July 2026 (UTC)

RFC section

Do we need this heading and the things under it? They weren't separately listed in the table rows, and this doesn't seem like an infoboxy thing to display. It would also require updating four places whenever we have a new RfC and four when it ends as opposed to the current two (inprogress, RfC subsection; + RfC link, RfC date) and three (inprogress, RfC subsection inactive, recency; + RfC link inactive). In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 20:36, 17 July 2026 (UTC)

Aaron, I think we should keep the Rfc section in the Infobox. What's more, we can generate it programmatically; no need to update it manually.

To the extent that an Infobox is there to summarize key points of a page, an Rfc is kind of the gold standard of a "key point" about something. So, I think we should keep them. I also don't know if it's necessarily true that we would have to update the box all that much, but even if that is the case, while the conversion effort from table to landing pages is happening within a small team, "we" wouldn't be involved in updating the 500 pages, that would be up to people interested in whatever source has an Rfc. And how often does any given source get a new Rfc? Every few years? So divide that, by all the people interested in the source, and if there are ten such, then that should get us keeping it up to date through 2075, with each interested editor editing it just once in the next 50 years. Looking at it that way, I don't think the effort required is either great, or burdensome.

Even better, we can automate the Infobox Rfc section, by having it pick out the Rfcs on the page, and just summarize/link them; then no one would have to add them manually. I hadn't considered this possibility before, but what occurs to me is to just have an RSP-Rfc template that would be used in the Discussion section to link Rfcs. As an example, consdider the Rfcs section at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/all/Daily Mail#Rfcs. Instead of the current content, we might instead have this:

# {{RSP-Rfc|2017|Archive 220#Daily Mail RfC}}
# {{RSP-Rfc|2019|Archive 255#2nd RfC: The Daily Mail}}
# {{RSP-Rfc|2020|Archive 299#(Infomercial voice) But Wait! There's still more!! (News about The Daily Mail)}}

I'm pretty sure this could be easily generated by the conversion program, as it is already generating the un-templated version with essentially the same content (checking with Audiodude on this point).

This would have a double advantage: it would provide a kind of suggested output format for how an Rfc listing should look in the discussion section (as well as make it trivial to change in all 500 pages, if consensus down the road was for a different Rfc link format), but more importantly, it would make it trivial to include Rfc links in the Infobox programmatically using template {{tmpv}} to pull out the first four (or however many) Rfc templates from the Discussion section for display in the Infobox. When anyone added a new Rfc, or dropped one, from section #Rfcs, the Infobox would just pick up the changes automatically. (If users didn't use the new template, then they'd have to update the Infobox manually, but I think after the first couple of times they'd get wind of the fact that it was just easier to do it with the template. Plus, the Infobox doc could be amended to recommend doing it that way because it would save them the update requirement.) A partial q&d implementation in the sandbox (diff) will give you an idea, but (easy) template {{RSP-Rfc}} remains to be written.

If this isn't persuasive, maybe pull in the team for additional feedback. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:51, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, it would be easy to change the RfC list to use the proposed template. My recommendation would before you to write the template and make the infobox changes @Mathglot and then I can quickly update the demo. audiodude (talk) 03:21, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

You could say it's key information, but discussion links are key information as much as citations in articles are. We don't consider references in articles the kind of thing we need data rows in infoboxes to display, and just per semantic meaning I don't think RSP's infoboxes should display any discussion links either. I especially oppose listing every RfC a source has as eventually it'll accumulate and overload what's supposed to just list the most important info. It isn't hard to scroll down/click on relevant ToC section headings on the really short RSP subpages anyways.

If we only display the last RfC, which I'm more amenable to with automatic updates, I think we should display this as a centered  2026 at the bottom of the infobox or right above "Domain [...]", instead of its oddly-important span over three rows. My sentiments apply regardless of how easy it is to update this.

I think templating would be also good in case we ever decide to change how listed RfCs are displayed in the body section.

(P.S.: as usual, a nitpick :) : I like using spaces instead of hyphens in template names.) In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 18:33, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

Rfc logo sidebar

I'm fine with just displaying just the last RfC (the most important point of that section) in the Infobox, although I really dislike that icon, which doesn't say "Rfc" to me at all, but more like "neutron star collapsing". (I bet you won't be able to stop hearing that in your head, now, every time you see it .) I think it got picked just because the tight confines of the table row mandated some icon, and everything else was taken?

I don't know what the perfect Rfc icon would look like, but that's not it. But since we are putting the Rfcs into a template, we also don't have to make a final decision about that now, because it will be trivial to change it in all 500 pages at any time. But if someone has a good one now, so much the better; it will start us off on the right foot. This round one looks somewhat lame, but was the only one I found in a quick search, and at least it's clear what it means. I'm sure the WP:GL/I folks can easily create an Rfc icon to our specs. Any ideas? Mathglot (talk) 03:15, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

The round one is much worse I think because I can't read that text at the Norro size. Treffpunkt.svg, for all its faults, is a single symbol, not three compressed. We could consider something from c:Category:Diagrams of assembly point signs. (Why in particular a neutron star? 🕵️) In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 19:31, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

We could also consider something inspired by https://parliamentdiagram.toolforge.org/ . But anyways, I think we should start with Treffpunkt.svg since it costs nothing to change a single image name in a single template (or two). In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 19:34, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

P.S. I'm good with no hyphens; consider it done. Mathglot (talk) 03:17, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

I'd rather have no template than Treffpunkt, as it just doesn't imply 'Rfc' when you look at it, and to my knowledge, has never been used anywhere else as the symbol of an Rfc, for good reason. It's unhelpful, to the point where having no image is an improvement over having it. I looked around some more on Commons and found some near misses (I've appended the previous ones for comparison) :

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  1
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  2
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  3
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  4
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  5
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  6
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  7
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  8
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  9
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  10
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  11
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  12
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  13
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  14

I am not advocating for any of these because I don't think any of them nail the idea of an Rfc, and I think we can do better. I still think WP:GL/I is our best bet, and it is my hope that some of the images above might stimulate further ideas and discussion about what a really good Rfc logo would look like. For example, I think a mashup of #1 (or #3) and #10 might be interesting.

However, if we are serious about having an Rfc icon, I don't think this page is the right venue for it as it would be merely a local consensus, and we should start the discussion afresh at WT:RFC, and go with whatever icon is decided upon there, or none at all, if that is the consensus. Shall we try that? Mathglot (talk) 20:23, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

has never been used anywhere else

It's at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion (which is basically everywhere) and has always been the RfC symbol AFAIK. We could RfC the RfC talk (though I have no personal interest in drafting the questions), but the status quo is still to use Treffpunkt.svg. "RfC the RfC talk" is an expression invented for purely humorous purposes and does not imply any endorsement of skipping RfCBefore :) In solidarity, Aaron Liu (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Like I said, "has never been used anywhere else as the symbol of an Rfc". Not used at Rfcs. Not used in Rfc feedback requests on WikiProjects. Not used by the feedback request bot. Not used as the symbol of an Rfc (except at the RSP big table, which we are are replacing). There is zero status quo for using that symbol anywhere but Centralized discussion. But really, this is the wrong place for this discussion. Mathglot (talk) 20:36, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

This icon issue is an unimportant detail that can be changed anytime, and a distraction from the main thread, so I am going to let this subthread go for now, so I can pay attention to the main thread which is about dealing with the new template and needs to get done. Mathglot (talk) 20:49, 25 July 2026 (UTC)