Forum:Why are my templates malfunctioning out of the blue?

I have two templates,   and  , that should be evaluating to "|}". This is meant to close a table. (The two are interchangable, but both exist for consistant naming reasons.)

The problem is that they are doing odd things. Just last week, both were working fine. Now, they create links rather than closing the tables. Take a look at w:c:ChristianMusic:Help:Tools (starting at this section) for a sample of the result. Will (talk -- contribs) 05:54, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * This is probably because of subpages being enabled, making the slash a formatting character. You can temporarily get them to work via using their full name, eg ). I'll ask the higher ups what to do about this. --Splarka (talk) 06:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

This is working, but would take me a while to implement this everywhere. I should note the problem is only with templates that do not have anything before the slash. Templates like , which I just created, work just fine. Will (talk -- contribs) 06:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The html connection was apparent. This problem seems to be a bug in mediawiki (and not very common, since Template: namespace subpages aren't used much).

BTW: The name was chosen so calls would resemble stuff like &lt;/table>. I had no intentions of working with sub pages. As for the new parent page links, those are great, but in my Wiki, if the current page is Keith Green/For Him Who Has Ears to Hear, the correct parent is Keith Green (Artist). Keith Green is a redirection page. This is done to allow templates to predict the name correctly. With some artists, like Aaron Jeoffrey, "Aaron Jeoffrey" (by itself rather than with "(Artist)" tacked on) is a disambiguation page. It would help if I could make the parent page links go to the right place. Will (talk -- contribs) 06:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Templates can't predict the page correctly unless subpages are enabled (in which case, they can use the magic word ). However, if you are using subpages, you just have to have the subpage accurately be placed as a child of the correct basepage, eg: "Keith Green (Artist)/For Him Who Has Ears to Hear". So it is a conundrum, you'll have to choose between aesthetics and lazy usability. --Splarka (talk) 06:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, having consulted with some MediaWiki people and experimenting on enwp, I've determined it is basically just a bad idea to start a page name with a slash. Templates on wikipedia that start with a slash can no longer be transcluded (example), so whether it was by enabling subpages or by upgrading, this was bound to break (see also bug 98). So what you'll have to do is rename the templates (either without a slash, or with something before the slash). --Splarka (talk)

My last post appears to have been lost during your edit.

The prediction I was talking about had nothing to do with subpages. In fact, the templates did not assume they were called for a subpage at all. Take a look at w:c:ChristianMusic:1990. originally needed to know whether to appended "(Artist)" to the end of the artist name or not. This was because some artists, like Aaron Jeoffrey, had a disambiguation page at the artist's name. Other artists originally did not. I could not implement the artist template until I gave in and required all artist pages to end in "(Artist)". Artists like w:c:ChristianMusic:Keith Green have a redirection page from the straight name to the actual page. Will (talk -- contribs) 07:20, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * All, well that isn't predicting so much as it is assuming (or requiring)? And the history doesn't show any lost information, was there an edit conflict? --Splarka (talk) 07:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

You pass only the artist name not "Artist Name (Artist)" to the artist template. And it was an edit conflict. You were making corrections apperantly. Will (talk -- contribs) 19:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)