Template talk:RaceIcon

Boy/Girl
None of the boy/girl parameters work for any race, as seen here it defaults to the Male icon:


 * NightElf:
 * NightElf:
 * Human:
 * Human:
 * Orc:
 * Orc:

-- 19:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It's not designed to, you have to use Orc Boy: -- 19:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, in that case, it should probably be changed on WoWPedia:List of race icons. 20:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * They do work now :).--Lon-ami (talk) 13:10, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Image links
Should the images perhaps link to the main race topics? We have the ability to use link= now, seems like an appropriate place. Far more useful than linking to the image pages at least. (Also applies to Template talk:RaceIconExt) 14:56, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

Remake and merge with RaceIconExt
I'm planning on giving RaceIcon a small remake, changing all its code but keeping the functionality and syntax. The way I'm planning to do it, RaceIconExt would become obsolete and redundant, since the new RaceIcon would cover gender-less icons, too. I would like to hear some opinion before starting to write the new code. Some planned additions aside from the remake: Waiting for green light :).--Lon-ami (talk) 08:25, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Link to race (like ClassIcon).
 * Ability to use "boy" and "girl" in gender.


 * Work completed! This: Template:RaceIcon/link needs a bit of help, but all the other options are working fine.
 * However, this: Wowpedia talk:List of creature icons requires attention for some of the new functions to work as they are supposed to :).--Lon-ami (talk) 13:07, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would like to point out that now the ancien form generates an error
 * 16:29, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You broke a bunch of things already Lon-ami. You'd have to fix them first before pushing this live. -- 16:33, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * For example: Seek the Farstriders/Quest chain, and other pages using questclass . -- 16:35, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * My bad, I though no one used "|small" anymore, considering it's the default value and it's just useless to write it. I'm going to check how many pages are wrong, and if they're too many, use a bot to fix that.
 * Still, besides that minor nuisance, how do you find the new template?--Lon-ami (talk) 16:36, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Default yes, but used in manyyyyyyy spots
 * 16:39, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Lon-ami I suggest you a bot request to remove all the |Small
 * 16:52, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Conflicted edition, I was going to post this:
 * Well, time to correct them then. Any bot could easily do a "&#123;{RaceIconExt|" to "&#123;{RaceIcon|" and then a "&#123;{RaceIcon|"~"Small}}" to "&#123;{RaceIcon|"~"}}". I already fixed the "|Small" issue on all the templates, and asked mods to do it in those I couldn't. Icons using "Large" need a fix, too, but only after the template has been implemented. Those are present n just some pages, so it's not problematic. If not, call the bot again for a "&#123;{RaceIcon|"~"|Large}}" to "&#123;{RaceIcon|"~"|size=Large}}".--Lon-ami (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Where shall I request the bots to make it as fast as possible, anyway?--Lon-ami (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, all the "MountIcon" should be changed to "RaceIcon", too.--Lon-ami (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Wowpedia:Bot requests
 * 17:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Merging them is a great idea, it can get a little confusing for new users and it just makes things easier. 04:28, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Redlinked icons
One problem I'm noticing is redlinks instead of icons when the parameters are all lowercase and/or have spaces (e.g., night elf yields ). I've fixed a few pages, but this seems like something a template edit or a bot edit could fix. (I'd fix the template myself, but I'm not sure how.) -- Aaron of Mpls (talk) 05:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Yea... seems to be happening now since the latest changes took place. 05:24, 24 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think we should encourage people writing well, so these kind of shortcuts shouldn't work in the future.
 * By the way, is there any effective way to detect these shortcuts without breaking them? I want to fix them but I can't see them if they aren't broken first. If there's no way, then I'll need to break them again to fix everything...--Lon-ami (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
 * See Category:Pages affected by RaceIcon syntax correction for a list of pages that the changes would currently break; some of those are caused by other templates converting a human-readable race name to an icon (so you'd really only be moving this switch further out). Personally, I don't subscribe to the "encourage writing well" motivation here -- it's template syntax, not prose, and what makes "BloodElf" better than "Blood Elf" or "blood elf" or "bloodelf" in this context anyway? &mdash; foxlit (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yeah, just saw the new category. This will work with the ones we know that break, although there may still be more out there. Should be fine for now.
 * Regarding the syntax, BloodElf is the most used already, and follows a TermTermTerm pattern, removing prepositions. Personally, I think it's the best because it lets you distinguish the terms without wasting page memory by adding spaces.
 * And yes, I think template syntax must be respected, mostly to avoid what's happening right now: we want to change something but we can't properly because people use the syntax they want. Naming conventions are something good that helps identify things easier and faster.--Lon-ami (talk) 23:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Why aren't you fixing what's wrong then if you're so eager to push the change through? -- 21:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't blame him, it's one big list and a lot of them are user pages.--Ashbear160 (talk) 21:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ... Can you do bot that removes the "|Small" part, it's just that i tried going over the Icecrown NPCs list and the number of things because of that simple word makes it a horrifyingly huge work to do manually (trust me i tried).--Ashbear160 (talk) 21:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't blame him, it's one big list and a lot of them are user pages.
 * I do blame Lon-ami for not checking that it would go smooth in the first place. User pages aren't an excuse.
 * Can you do bot that removes the "|Small" part
 * It's possible. -- 21:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I was being courteous on saying that i don't blame him for not doing that, he probably tried(or not) but the job was just too big, for a single user or even multiple users to do it manually.
 * I would be very thankfull, and it would make changing the rest much, MUCH easier(i can't express how easier this would be).--Ashbear160 (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the category does not take into account |Small at all, so botting that not reduce the number of pages in it at all.
 * Fundamentally, this change still strikes me as a bad idea -- forced CamelCase capitalization is bizarre and the "page memory" considerations are nonsense. The "template syntax must be respected" line of reasoning does nothing here -- the old (and documented) syntax was intentionally liberal in what it accepts; making it more restrictive is bound to cause problems for no good reason.
 * Lower-casing all the icon names and inserting spaces liberally seems like the only way to keep things sane (we already do this with for instance item icons); it is then debatable whether to keep things like ne->night elf conversions. Then again, perhaps not altering the template at all is easier? &mdash; foxlit (talk) 22:37, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I thought "|small" was nuked before applying the changes, so my fault there. The template needs this remake because it's a goddamn mess, and we need to use 3 different versions (RaceIcon, RaceIconExt and MountIcon) to get the same result. Hell, I would even make this "LinkIcon", merging ClassIcon with the other 3.
 * I would fix everything with a bot asap if I knew the syntax, but I don't. I'm pretty convinced it's a goddamn piece of cake (detect "&#123;{RaceIcon|"+"|small}}", remove "|small" but still no one answered to the request on Wowpedia:Bot requests.
 * I prefer the RaceRaceRace model because 90% of the icons are already called that way, and it's pretty easy to understand, spaces removed and each word emphasized with a capital letter at its beginning.
 * I can edit some (I already did) when I'm bored and have free time, but the work is too much, when a bot could do it pretty fast.--Lon-ami (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Future plans
I would eventually like us to transition away from using this template to display every IconSmall icon, and instead use a much simpler template, like  (possibly calling it SmallIcon), wherever this template is currently used directly in an article's wikitext. Along the way, I'd like to change the iconsmall/iconlarge naming convention to be a bit more template-friendly: the race/subtype/gender fragments should all be entirely in lowercase, with spaces separating words (so  and   instead of the current   and  ).

This template wouldn't be going away entirely, as questbox, userboxes, and perhaps also other templates still need something to translate proper race names (like night elf or blood elf) to an icon path. — foxlit (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

IconLarge
Since the IconSmall icons are being upsized to 64x (see Forum:Icon sizes), there is no need for the IconLarge icons. These should be phased out. 07:07, 18 January 2020 (UTC)