Editing Template talk:Update needed

==Moratorium==
Could we add back the mention of the moratorium period, please? --[[User:Neufeld|Neufeld]] 18:19, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
: To go into more detail it seems that there are weekly edits needing reverts on pages flagged Update Needed while under moratorium. I'm afraid that these reverts are driving away potential new editors. There was even one who left an angry note on a page some days ago. Adding mention on moratorium back into this template would probably result in less people getting pissed off at us. --[[User:Neufeld|Neufeld]] 18:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
::Mbear is in work with this problem.--[[User:Doneve|Doneve]] 18:42, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
:::Moratorium message has been added to template.--[[User:Mbear|Mbear]] 19:11, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
::::Thanks! Hopefully we will see less need for reverts now. --[[User:Neufeld|Neufeld]] 19:49, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

==Do we need this?==
Seriously. The template description itself mentions that it should not be used with regards to a given source during that source's moratorium period, but that seems to be its major use regardless. That aside, if someone can be bothered to put up the tag, is it asking too much to edit in the actual information and reference instead?<br />I feel this template is essentially only generating unneeded edits and serves no productive purpose, so I suggest its removal. [[User:Frabby|Frabby]] 10:06, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
: Frabby - I understand your concern. For me, its a reminder. Most of the UN tags I put up come when I'm working on a specific project. (Usually, a new article.) When looking at the articles I'm linking too it, I'll check to see if valuable info is included from whatever source I'm looking at. If its not there, I use the UN tag as a way of reminding me that I need to go back later and add it. (I don't want to interrupt my project.) For the Lindony's article, I saw a lot of info that could be added, that's all. Now - do I have a great record of going back and adding the info for those Update Needed tags? Not so much. I acknowledge I need to get better at that. But yes, to me, its a valuable tool. That's my take. [[User:ClanWolverine101|ClanWolverine101]] 07:57, 2 March 2012 (PST)

== Update Needed From ==

For a while now, I've been hampered in my efforts to provide updates to the articles tagged as <nowiki>{{Update Needed}}</nowiki> because I can't easily tell what source is needed. The only way I've found is to click through to each article, where I usually find out that it needs an update from a book I don't have. It's an inefficient process.

To address that problem, I've introduced a [[Property:Update Needed From|new Property]], configured the template to report on what source the update is needed from, and put the results into a new table in [[:Category:Sources_needing_updates|Category:Sources_needing_updates]]. The table can be sorted according to what source is required, so now I can look for the updates required from the books I actually own.

Well, mostly. The table currently doesn't work if the <nowiki>{{Update Needed}}</nowiki> tag specifies more than one source. In the future perhaps we can introduce parameters to the template to solve that issue. [[User:Tosta Dojen|Tosta Dojen]] ([[User talk:Tosta Dojen|talk]]) 16:49, 17 December 2020 (EST)
:I like it! My only concern is hopfully a minor one. Your wikicode skills obviously outstrip mine, and very possibly those of anybody active on Sarna at the moment. Is the system going to look after itself or will it need looking after?--[[User:Dmon|Dmon]] ([[User talk:Dmon|talk]]) 18:08, 17 December 2020 (EST)
::At the moment the only future issue I can see is that the template is limited to 15 parameters. If somebody tries to pipe in 16 or more sources, the 16th and those following will be cut off. In principle, the template would need to be updated for that to work. But maybe we're okay with a limit of 15 sources. If an article really needs to be updated from 16 sources, the current method of putting all the links into a single parameter still works. [[User:Tosta Dojen|Tosta Dojen]] ([[User talk:Tosta Dojen|talk]]) 12:04, 18 December 2020 (EST)

Thanks to [[User:Ebakunin|Ebakunin]] for pointing out an unsightly error message that came up after this change. I've switched the [[Property:Update Needed From|Update Needed From Property]] to 'Text' from 'Page' so that it doesn't necessarily expect the input to be an article. That cleared up the error messages and also got rid of the blank table entries. [[User:Tosta Dojen|Tosta Dojen]] ([[User talk:Tosta Dojen|talk]]) 11:49, 18 December 2020 (EST)

== Parameters ==

The template now supports multiple parameters. Up to 15 sources can be specified, separated by the pipe ('|') character. The template still works with multiple sources put into a single parameter, which many current articles are doing. [[User:Tosta Dojen|Tosta Dojen]] ([[User talk:Tosta Dojen|talk]]) 11:43, 18 December 2020 (EST)