Template talk:Cold War

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Cold WarWikipedia:WikiProject Cold WarTemplate:Cold WarWikiProjectCold War articles	WikiProject Cold War	(Rated NA-Class)
	Cold War portal v • d • e This template is within the scope of WikiProject Cold War, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the Cold War on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.  NA  This template does not require a rating on the project's quality scale.

This template was considered for deletion on 2006 November 15. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 Absolutely terrible template 2 Sputnik Crisis 3 New Template 4 Image 5 Participants

/archive

[edit] Absolutely terrible template

It's been said before, but this template is just terrible: ugly, useless, biased, and way too big. Its sections should be arranged in rows rather than columns, and should be hidden by default. --jacobolus (t) 01:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

{{World War II}} has been condensed to a more tolerable size through consensus (used to be huge as well). The same thing can happen here if it is agreed which articles should not be linked. First I will try to keep the column format because it is easier to read. –Pomte 01:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent job. Skeezix1000 16:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I converted this template to use {{Navbox generic}} which accomplished converting the columns to rows and also made it default to a collapsed (hidden) state. -- Zyxw 07:05, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sputnik Crisis

Is this something that should go on the template? It had a dramatic affect on people's perceptions of the Soviet Union in the United States. Hires an editor 16:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New Template

For anyone who is following this template, a new one has been created for notable figures in the Cold War, in case you are interested. It's here. Hires an editor (talk) 18:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this new template is that it doesn't solve any of the problems that existed back in the day when this existing template contained lists of Cold War personalities. The list of persons was subject to constant edit-warring back and forth over the figures that ought to be included. How do we avoid that with the new template? I'm not sure what is meant by "notable" (the new template is titled "Notable figures of the Cold War"), but at it's most basic it means anything who has their own Wikipedia article and had any involvement in the Cold War. How do we keep this template manageable? Past attempts at developing some sort of inclusion criteria resulted in draft rules that were somewhat arbitrary and subjective, and would have been open to differing interpretations. I can assure you that even I find the current list of personalities on the new template lacking -- as a Canadian, I'd add two more names (Trudeau, Gouzenko). Others may scoff at those additions, but I have to tell you many editors will have strong opinions as to who needs to be added, and many editors (coming from all parts of the globe) will have different views as to who was "notable". I am not sure that improving the category would not be a better manner to proceed, unless some solution can be devised.

I also wonder if the new template is even necessary. The events, ideologies, doctrines, etc. in which these figures were involved are all listed here. Listing the individuals again separately strikes me as overkill.

My biggest concern, however, is that people used to constantly complain that this template was too big (and questioned whether the template was even necessary). The list of Cold War personalities was a problematic portion of the template that was removed, in part, to address that concern. Now that this template is collapsible as its default setting, size is perhaps less of a concern. However, adding a new template just restores more Cold War-related clutter to the bottom of the article pages. Many of the articles on these figures already contain a good number of templates -- does the article on Winston Churchill, for example, really need yet another template? Does it need two Cold War templates? Is this not template creep? Again, it begs the question as to whether the category for Cold War figures, perhaps improved and appropriately subcategorized, is not a better route to take, rather than maintaining a second template.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to the idea of a template for Cold War figures. I just think there needs to some thought and discussion that goes into this.Skeezix1000 (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image

I think templates work much better with an image and wonder if the Berlin Wall might be a good one for this template? Can anyone produce a thumbnail which looks good? --BozMo talk 11:39, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Participants

Interesting that the Participants section at the top doesn't list the US/Soviet Union, etc...Of course, in some ways, "Participants" is too many nations to list, and then there's the organizations. What got me thinking of this is that "People's Republic of China" got removed, and then I realized that NATO and Warsaw Pact are listed, but SEATO was a relatively minor organization in comparison to the other two, and it's listed. Any thoughts on how "Participants" should be listed? Hires an editor (talk) 00:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)