Tsp screenshot1.jpg

User talk:Max34

From Valve Developer Community
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Contents

Thanks alot!

I have received your advice and I will correct them right away! Thank you very much indeed!

However, there are too many pages with the same problem ({{Lang}}), most of which are syntactically incorrect from the original English version (use / instead |), so that other translations have such errors. The same problem exists with the path of the page. I have tried to fix some of my own and other people’s pages as much as possible, but this is too many, all kinds of language is wrong D:
— Hl2awpp (talk)

Unfortunately, this is the only way to switch to proper usage. The most important thing is that after changing the {{Lang}} template, such things did not break.
A similar situation was with the {{Otherlang2}} template when it was used on all pages, but when {{Lang}} became the template that was supposed to replace it, a very long way began to replace this template. I have been sitting on this site for a long time and sometimes noticed that there were people who set themselves the goal of replacing {{Otherlang2}} with {{Lang}} completely (even I have sometimes worked on replacing this template). Most of them have given up at some point, but more recently another person has appeared who was able to complete the remaining task. I think it will be the same in this situation. Sooner or later, all pages will be fixed!
— Max34 (talk)


Moderator elections

Hi: You have been denied moderator in elections; there is clear consensus against making you a moderator.
— PabloS Icon-valve.png (talk)

Well, that was expected. I’m even glad about this, because those who were against my candidacy can breathe a sigh of relief. It makes me happy to know that it will make someone happier. In fact, I was going to withdraw my candidacy, but I didn’t have time, you were faster)
— Max34 (talk)


Capitalizing all-lowercase template names

From {{cow}} history:

it's designed to be lowercase; there's zero reason to capitalize it besides wasting keystrokes

I'm afraid I have to disagree. The template name can be written in either way, but the best and most accurate way is to start with a capital letter; it's less likely to cause confusion and looks much cleaner. There is no strict requirement to always write with a capital letter, this can always be corrected later, but intentionally changing the final form to a format that is quick to write is bad. If you're ready to continue the discussion, let's head over to my talk page.

First off, I strongly disagree that it looks cleaner; I think it looks messier. It's an abbreviation of Combine OverWiki, so why would only the C be capitalized? The only reason it's allowed to is because of MediaWiki limitations.
Additionally, until a few years ago, it was the de facto standard on this wiki for most templates to be all lowercase; that's why it's {{cow}} and not {{COW}}. Template names with multiple words used spaces, not PascalCase.
— SirYodaJedi (talk)

The best approach would be to convert all templates to their full readable names (the site has already partially begun to transition to this format; take the "Software" game templates as an example), and all abbreviations and simplified names would remain as redirects. If you don't want to bother with writing out the full name, you can use these simplified names without capitalizing them. Others will then replace the short versions with the full ones to make text cleaner and more readable.
It is also important to understand that MediaWiki code is not a programming language (We don't even have strict limits on article size and strings), it is text and it should be easy to read for everyone, at least on regular articles. Personally, I always capitalize names because it's convenient for me. If I had my way, I'd already start renaming templates to their full names, but I'm afraid many people won't appreciate such drastic changes.
— Max34 (talk)
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the latter. Is it really worth renaming templates to their full names and leaving the abbreviations as redirects? This would be a big plus for self-documentation and full readability of the cleaned-up articles.
— Max34 (talk)
Depends on which templates as it would be useless for many. I am against making pointless abbreviations. If template is to be used through abbreviation all the time there is no need for the template to have full name. Templates used often and meant for formatting like for example KV, O, I, Ent, Cmd, L etc. have no need to have full name. You get easily used to what they mean as they are used often. The icons like l4d, l4d2, hl2 etc. already have both and I guess it's good to have them written out whole when they are part of the text in a paragraph, but have them as abbreviated when listing just icons in the parameter {{{only}}} of some templates for example. Example where I changed a name to be descriptive is 'Template:intent' -> 'Internal entity note' which is far more understandable to read in wikitext.
— Nescius (talk)
I agree that some templates should be kept shortened when used, but it's much better if the actual template itself has a full name. For example, someone visiting the template's page will immediately see its full name, making it much easier to understand. It's like "self-documenting code". I'm not saying to write, say, the "HTML" template in full, it's a well-established term, but "cow" should definitely be called in full, and if desired, use the abbreviation in articles/documentation.
If we want to clean up the site, we need to adhere to at least some rules. The point is, the current format is too vague; there are no clear boundaries, so this is more of a complication: I'll create a template with a full name, and then someone will create a redirect to it with a simplified name, and it'll start being used en masse. Does this mean I need to move the entire template code to its redirect? But if not, then this template will be out of this format. I understand this is a rather radical idea, but it won't harm the site in any way; we're not getting rid of the abbreviated names after all.
Instead, I'd suggest introducing labels for templates. The MediaWiki documentation has a small line before the parameters table, something like "This template prefers inline formatting of parameters". We could add something similar just for template name writing, like "This template prefers the shorthand <insert shorthand>".
— Max34 (talk)
I disagree that there is need for all templates to have full name. Documentation is right there and the meaning of the template should be in first sentence. The icon templates all have a good reason to be full name + having alias too. The full name is utilized by 'Template:This is a' and because the name of the template may be part of the content it's helpful for wikitext to write it out fully in those cases as if you were writing a regular link. Like if the content has sentence saying "such as those in the Half-Life series" it makes sense for wikitext to be written fully as "such as those in the {{Half-Life|1}} series". But there should be no aliases that exist just because someone felt like writing the name differently and now there are 5 different ways to write it. For most readable wikitext it's best to have consistent single name for templates unless there are some specific good reasons why not. For example currently Template:KeyValue has 2 alias that are KV and kv. kv is used for GoldSrc keyvalues while KV is for Source 1 and the reason Template:KeyValue is full name page was that there was an issue with how language is determined and kv was a language shortcut (not sure if currently the issue is still there).
As a general rule of thumb I would start with
1. if the template includes content it should have no abbreviation and have full easily understandable name (internal entity note, AABBwarning, KV Targetname)
2. if the template takes parameter into which you put content (that means this is most likely a formatting template) then:
  • if used only once per page then it might be good idea to use full name
  • if to be used multiple times per page go with short name and no abbreviation (I, O, cmd, L, ent)
  • if the template name is part of the content then it's good idea to go with full name even if used many times (Warning, Bug, Note, PlacementTip)
— Nescius (talk)

talk pages

Don’t put pointless templates on talk pages. What is timestamp and signature for ? Just leave it default. Haven’t you learnt from the message template ? —-Nescius (talk) 16:34, 19 February 2026 (PST)

The {{Signature}} and {{Timestamp}} templates bring signatures into a unified format (while leaving room for customization), they are automatically translated (the word talk and the date), including the date format for different languages, and also use the standard format with UTC (which, by the way, is literally included by default in the #time function; this is not "I think it's better this way"). Imagine, but the site is used all over the world and not everyone understands what PDT and PST are, especially when they find out that there are two of them.
The UTC format I used in the timestamp is clearly specified, i.e., YYYY-MM-DD HH-MM, and is not affected by any external factors. This also makes it much easier to restore the time of message writing, as you can enable the full date display mode in the settings (the last option), as well as set the time zone without an offset (because, believe it or not, it's based on UTC), and then simply copy this time directly from the change history and use it (just omit the seconds, they're not needed).
You literally flagged the template for deletion without even waiting for a response, without even understanding the issue. This idea isn't a new Message template; it doesn't add any unnecessary visual garbage and doesn't even violate message standards. I didn't even encourage its use, and no one has used it yet. I was simply testing how the idea worked on pages, using only discussion pages of friends who don't mind, and a couple of regular pages (those under Category talk).
Again, this site is used worldwide because otherwise it wouldn't have any translations at all. However, they do exist. I'm only trying to fix what I can. Arguments like "It's not broken" and "They don't violate English articles and that's the main thing" won't work: Either we make the site fully translatable (as far as technically possible without harming editing), or we remove all translations and leave the site English-only.
I specifically created the {{SIG}} template so that it could be used as a custom signature, so the user can simply enter this template into their signature in the settings and it will do everything itself, you will only need to sign messages with just three tildes ~~~, without a dash and a fourth tilde.
I'm not proud of my past accomplishments, and I admit that the Message template, MultiPage, and other junk made the site more complex because I was trying to create technical "masterpieces" without regard for editing ease. But time has passed, and I've changed. I've realized my mistakes and own them. Now I'm trying to create something that fits the site's needs, without compromising editing or the final result, and without trying to achieve anything the site is technically incapable of.
I don't like conflicts and always try to avoid them, but what follows might sound like escalating a conflict, and it's not, but your actions are quite concerning (Especially considering that you are a moderator) – Just rushing into things like this without even looking into them first. I believe such changes deserve a brief technical discussion before being discarded. I would understand if I had started mass-changing all the pages without replying to your message and you stopped me, but you simply marked the template 15 minutes later, without even offering any reasoning, simply writing, "just don't".
I'd love to hear your real arguments for why this idea is a failure and should be removed. Oh, and "pointless templates" aren't an argument either. Again, don't think this is some kind of passive aggression; I genuinely want to hear your arguments. Maybe I missed something and this format needs to be improved so it's not embarrassing to use (for example, incorrectly entered date formats for different languages). (By the way, for example, I just used three tildes to sign this message.)
— Max34 (talk)
Anyone can put up deletion notice not just moderator so stop feigning outrage there. You would maybe have point if I just deleted it right away.
"Either we make the site fully translatable (as far as technically possible without harming editing), or we remove all translations and leave the site English-only." false dichotomy. There are not only two options. And this harms usability anyway more than it helps.
The benefit is negligible. It's absolutely not worth it editing all the talk pages to start using templates like this instead of following the wiki standard for talk pages. Let's imagine someone writes something to talk page, they use the default signature. Then you here are supposed to come in with an edit everytime and change it for them to enforce consistency or what is the idea ? It is pointless notification/watchlist entry for the person waiting for answer and would just add bunch of pointless edits to the history, make the dates more inconsistent when one answer uses it and another doesn't. Right now there are probably still many talk pages still broken after message template removal... The default way talk pages work is fine and doesn't need to have translated date and one word talk. --Nescius (talk) 08:12, 21 February 2026 (PST)
I didn't say, or even try to encourage anyone to use the template everywhere; I created it as a voluntary option, as an option that can be used by those who find it convenient, even if it's purely on their discussion pages and nowhere else.
No one feigned outrage (at least I didn't, considering THE OWL decided to intervene; I didn't ask them to). I'm ready for a constructive conversation, and all my "feigned outrage" is just how you see this situation. Everything I wrote was written entirely seriously.
I made the argument about whether we should either build a proper translation system or remove translations completely for a reason, because I see the state of this system. You might not understand this because you built it yourself and are clinging to it to the bitter end. I hate to say it, but I'm afraid I understand the inner workings of the MediaWiki engine better than you do—not to a professional level, of course, but enough to see how terrible this format is: Replacing basic functionality (links) with templates; forcing new users to execute incomprehensible regexp instructions just to translate a page; and using a full database query to determine the language instead of a simple and easy #switch. And these are just a few of the shortcomings. Well, the most important thing is that the English articles aren't suffering, that's the most important thing, right? No, this is pure Anglocentrism.
"You would maybe have point if I just deleted it right away" and you didn't do that and I appreciate that, but I'm afraid your fellow moderator just came and deleted everything related to this without even writing anything. I'm sure you still hold a grudge against me and several other users, and others have for a long time too, and I can understand that, but time has passed and it's time to bury the hatchet and start looking at things soberly.
If I can't get through to you even now, I'm afraid that's the end. I see no point in trying to improve the wiki if you're willing to tear down everything new as soon as it appears.
I already know you probably won't take my words seriously, so I won't even try. Consider it a win; I won't be making any more "improvements" to the site. For me, this stage is over.
— Max34 (talk)
"I didn't say, or even try to encourage anyone to use the template everywhere;" I don't know your intentions and you already edited those few talk pages and changed signatures of other users. If message template thing already didn't happen benefit of doubt could be here. But we won't be making same mistake twice. There are still talk pages left in broken state because of message template with either broken links or indents (some examples)
"Replacing basic functionality (links) with templates; " what is even your point here ? The L templates exist to make it faster writing the link. Otherwise you are just writing the language shortcut there and page name twice.
"forcing new users to execute incomprehensible regexp instructions just to translate a page" They can do it by hand for all I care. And it's only translators so don't be acting like I am forcing "new users" to do anything. Very easy to just pop two lines into the replace window and replace all links at once. (You literally forced all the users even those that don't make translations into using your multipage system's edit icon to merely edit english page...)
"and using a full database query to determine the language instead of a simple and easy #switch" don't even know what you are saying here. But I do now it's all way faster than what multipage/uselang/autolang templates were doing ...
"English articles aren't suffering, that's the most important thing, right?" yes that is the most important thing end of story. It's unfortunate we don't have separation between languages like it is on other wikis. multipage and other shenanigans discouraged lot users from editing this wiki.
--Nescius (talk) 11:52, 21 February 2026 (PST)
1. I wrote in my first message that I edited some pages for testing and the pages of those users who were not against it (I communicate with them):

I was simply testing how the idea worked on pages, using only discussion pages of friends who don't mind, and a couple of regular pages.

In addition to inserting new templates, I also tidied up all these pages, you could at least just replace my templates with plain text, and not roll everything back.
2. The L template is convenient only in the current version of the system. Long ago, I began creating a new format for working with languages ​​that would finally put an end to all this abuse of the translation system without affecting editing. In this format, I achieved the desired effect—converting all pages with a prefix to language pages (unchanged, in their current form), and the final page (i.e., the English one) to also remain unchanged (in its current form). Nothing needs to be moved anywhere; just create a simple wrapper around the page content (literally just two tags). Ultimately, this doesn't disrupt editing of English articles, and it doesn't add any additional editing buttons. However, it does make the page as main, unified page, meaning I can link to SDK Docs from an English article and also link to SDK Docs from a Spanish article without any templates and prefixes in the link. This will also clean up the categories, because only the main articles will be categorized, eliminating the clutter of pages in other languages. My format also eliminates one expensive function per language, making the language list predictable, without canceling the visibility of whether there is a translation for this page or not. And yes, a list: I found a way to make a full-fledged drop-down menu, and I'm not talking about collapsible elements; this menu appears when you hover over it (on mobile devices, tapping to open works, so there are no problems with that). The whole point is that the new buttons (except for the language button, which is always displayed) appear only for non-English users, and they clearly say "create translation" or "edit translation" instead of a second copy of the "Edit" button, so as not to confuse anyone (again, the same thing exists on MediaWiki, although it's native there). I never decided to tell or promote this idea because I know that you will not accept it at all, despite any advantages it has over the current one. I am telling you about this now only because it fits directly into the topic of conversation.
3. Once again, you're showing that you don't care about translations, but I do; I'm trying to get them in order. Yes, previous attempts were a failure, but when will you finally understand that I didn't distribute this damn MultiPage, I only created it, and, as far as I remember, I personally haven't transferred a single article to this template. I could be wrong; perhaps I converted a few pages to this format, but I didn't make any mass changes to it, and this wasn't my initiative. Just because I created the template doesn't mean I distributed it; I just created it.
4. You're literally confirming that you don't know how MediaWiki works and are drawing conclusions solely from your own personal observations. Just because it works fine for you doesn't mean it works equally well for others. Uselang was a heavy template, that's true, but then I created Intlang, if you haven't forgotten about it. And it was much lighter than uselang. Now about the technical part: the current version, called Language/interface, uses {{PROTECTIONEXPIRY:edit}}, which creates a database query to get the page status (that's why it's an expensive function), and then tries to inherit the sub-template to determine the language (For all users with a non-English interface, this adds this sub-template to the list of used templates when editing, not a complete disaster, but it would be much better without it). I can assure you that I can recreate this intlang in my userspace (only with the same number of languages ​​currently supported to level the playing field), and it will work significantly more efficiently.
5. It upsets me that this site is essentially dead. Even the valve bot stopped working long ago. Now everything depends solely on users who at least try to contribute. Believe me, this site is capable of more than it is now. It just needs to at least try to change something, not just stick around because it works. I'm not a fan of mass edits and will never do that unless everyone else agrees. I never tried to harm the site, but unfortunately, that's all that ended up happening. I'm not promoting revolution; I'm proposing evolution, even if it's extremely slow. I'm prepared to play the long game and work everything out thoroughly, if I'm confident it won't ultimately be undone at the snap of a finger.
— Max34 (talk)
1. "and a couple of regular pages" meaning you did edit more than just your friends' signatures giving off signals you plan doing more
2. Sounds like multipage just with english content on the base page and div tags with display=none applied when other language is chosen. That is a terrible system. Some people would be using non-english user interface and be forced into translated page even if they don't want that. With no translated category you are also losing ability to view pages in some category that were translated (like entities that were translated to some language for example) Current system works good and you didn't even list anything other than weird nitpicks which don't in any way make the current system "terrible". And if you want to call the current system terrible then what word would even describe the previous systems? Using L template for links is like bare minimum effort.
3. I care about both translations and english page and spent lot of time fixing stuff your multipage system broke. You cannot just distance yourself from it and act like you didn't want it used site wide. You seem to only care about translations without caring how it affects english page.
4. I am judging the efficiency based on what is shown in the "Parser profiling data" on the bottom of the page when clicking 'show preview' button (some results I got after changing autolang template into a simple #switch language. For current intlang I kinda experimented creating page for each shortcut that is then transcluded instead of switch and the parser profiling data didn't show anything wrong. It won't significantly increase efficiency to go back to #switch because the result of {{intlang}} is cached when the page is being rendered and any future calls to that during page rendering use the cache instead of running it again. You are making this seem like big issue while it's just inner working of intlang template and doesn't affect anything beyond that.
--Nescius (talk) 05:25, 22 February 2026 (PST)
1. Editing two pages for testing, and even small ones at that, doesn't mean I'll soon destroy everything with mass edits. Stop being paranoid, you're starting to make things up.
2. And again, this is a perfect example of how you didn't even bother to ask me how exactly this was planned, and instead started inventing some "div" and "display=none" and imagining how this would further damage the site. The interface and the article language shouldn't be separated. If someone set their language preferences to Chinese, they probably did so because they want to view the site in their own language. Switching to another language does not disappear, it can still be done. And if there's no translation, the English documentation will still be displayed. Obviously, with the new format the categories would change, but there would be no need to know which articles in category were translated.
3. I noticed. It's especially funny to read this after the things you said earlier. However, I am not trying to devalue your contribution. But what upsets me more is that I have to explain some basic things to answer your arguments: supposed intentions ≠ direct actions. I don't deny that I am partly to blame for this, but I am not the main culprit of everything that happened. I try to take care of all translations. Whether you see me as corrupting English articles in particular is your personal opinion. I try to build a system thoroughly, not haphazardly. And thorough systems usually try to avoid exceptions and make everything uniform, because that's how scalable and maintainable systems are made. English is, in most cases, outlier, because all languages ​​are forced into some format, while English lives by its own rules, meaning it's essentially a "privileged outcast".
4. My fears were confirmed. You truly don't understand how MediaWiki works. The fact that you rely solely on "Parser profiling data" speaks for itself. PROTECTIONEXPIRY makes a query to the SQL database, which is not displayed in the local parser profiler, but creates micro-delays and load on the entire server cloud when scaling. Using this function makes the page dependent on the database state. If you use them in templates that are inserted into thousands of articles (Hello, LanguageBar), any security change will invalidate the parser cache for all of these pages. The #switch is cached and doesn't cause such problems. "Doesn't affect anything beyond that" This is literally ignoring the butterfly effect. If a template is used on 10,000 pages, then any mass cache reset (for example, updating widely used template) will result in the server receiving an avalanche of 10,000 * 23 (the current number of expensive functions in the template) requests to security metadata. However, that's not all: changing the protection of one page doesn't always automatically reset the cache of all pages where it's referenced via PROTECTIONEXPIRY (MediaWiki doesn't always track such dependencies in "templatelinks" perfectly). And herein lies another problem: users will see outdated data until the cache expires naturally or is manually reset. This shows that basing the entire translation on this is a bad idea, as it makes the system less predictable. In programmatic terms: comparing 50 strings in a #switch is a CPU-bound task that takes nanoseconds (O(n) in memory). Checking 23 pages in a database is an I/O-bound task involving network latency and disk access. We are talking about a million-fold difference in execution overhead. And after that, my complaints about the template (in particular, its insides) are just "weird nitpicks." Okay, I get it.
My advice to you: first, learn to understand the issue before attempting to respond. And don't try to frame this as some kind of insult or hate speech, because I'm completely serious. I believe people can change, it just sometimes takes a lot of effort, which is what I'm putting in to respond to you. The following text is my personal opinion: right now, I see an offended person who is afraid and unwilling to change anything. For me, this site is completely lost until people, including you, start changing.
You can do whatever you want with my templates and works, I don't care anymore.
— Max34 (talk)
Retrieved from "https://developer.valvesoftware.com/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Max34&oldid=505041"