Module talk:Vital article

This module does not require a rating on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Vital Articles This module is within the scope of WikiProject Vital Articles, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of vital articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and work together to increase the quality of Wikipedia's essential articles.Vital ArticlesWikipedia:WikiProject Vital ArticlesTemplate:WikiProject Vital ArticlesVital Articles

The template currently does not properly work on numbers. {{VA link|0}} produces only 0 ◎ 3 even though 0 is a level-3 article. Similarly, there are problems with 1 ◎ 4 and 2 . @MSGJ: I guess a similar problem might arise in {{WPBS}} as well. I don't have time to work on it right now, but I am guessing this might be caused by JSON to Lua-array conversions. --Kammerer55 (talk) 07:27, 8 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

I didn't reply but I notice this is working now — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:24, 13 June 2024 (UTC)Reply

This template appears to function as documented in article space. Is there any reason that should be the case? I recommend adjusting it with {{main other}} or other namespace detection so that it generates a plain wikilink in article space. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

It was never supposed to be used in article space. I've just added a few warnings and explanations to the documentation to address this concern. I do not want to overcomplicate the template with extra-checks for now, but probably such checks could be added to the Lua-code in the future if the need arises. Kammerer55 (talk) 22:06, 10 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

Hi there, especially since VA link is more of a programmatic template, I thought I should discuss things instead of just trying changes. I had an idea though for the edit-summary issue; it involves a few steps (listed in order of requirement, not implementation), but I don't think they're especially complex.

Step 1: it looks like people are pretty fond of using the VA link template in headers on Talk page discussions. So we don't want to just discourage that. If we could add WP:SAFESUBST to the template here, then indicate that the template should be substituted when used in headers or anchors, the anchors will be stable with working links.

Step 2: in its current form, substituting the template would inject the file-link to the VA target icon into everything. AFAICT, providing alt text for the icon link doesn't change that either. Setting aside the icon for the moment, what if the Lua module instead injected a very simple, relatively unambiguous, plaintext marker? I'm thinking something like "VA §"

Step 3: we move the link for the VA target icon into a user JS file, where it will substitute for the plaintext "VA §" marker on the browser. We can even add a couple checks, like disabling the substitution on pages in article namespace.

The main downside I see is the inconvenience of custom JS for those that like the icon. The non-substituted template also does serve as a small check for proposals on the VA project (if the number changes, you know you updated the list). But if someone likes that, they can always put the transcluded template in the discussion body.

The positives OTOH are not only that we fix the anchor issue, but we also give those that don't like the icon an option. I'm not sure it would make much difference as long as the icon has alt text, but the plaintext marker could also help out with things that aren't as visual (screen-readers, bots, text-based browsers, etc.) -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 16:08, 27 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I just realized I could spin up a second template that invokes the Lua module in a substitution-friendly way. I'll work on this idea in parallel, and down the road, we can consider deprecating one template, then merging them. -- Zar2gar1 (talk) 18:30, 29 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

Please make the template say N/A or such when used to link a non-VA article. That would be useful for folks to quickly see if an article is not VA (since the template is great for reporting that sth is VA, but not the other way around - and that's useful for catching dupe noms etc.). @MSGJ _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:06, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

How about an icon like to indicate a non-vital article? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:10, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sure, that would work too. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:50, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Yes. Currently { { VA link|amphitheatre } } is same as [ [ amphitheatre ] ], red light is something much better than calling level 6. Red link usually means omnissions, in this case it is jon vital article. Dawid2009 (talk) 09:37, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Done Amphitheatre ◎ 5 — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:14, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Is there any way that we could get simple redirects to an article such as alternate capitalization to also show the VA link? It can get kind of confusing when I link something like California Gold Rush  and it looks like it's not there, but it's actually listed as California gold rush ◎ 5. Dess Dedalus (talk) 22:37, 1 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Selina Dedalus Temporary partial fix is to enable coloring or redirects (and disambigs). I have them colored as green and orange, respectively. IIRC the latter is done through preferences (gadget), and the former through a script, check my javascript settings for the latter. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:13, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, how do I do that? I'm new and only figured out how to get the archive & close ones. Dess Dedalus (talk) 01:16, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Selina Dedalus For orange disambigs, go to preferences-gadgets and search for option "Display links to disambiguation pages in orange".

For redirects, see what I did here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/global.css

and copy it to your meta page. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:36, 2 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Redirects should not work as non-vital articles but as article considered vital on the same level as article where they are redirected. That procedure is more comfotable to discussing. I can elaborate and show examples when this do not works IMHO, if you want Dawid2009 (talk) 23:04, 8 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

Could this be done? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:23, 6 February 2026 (UTC)Reply

• Not neccesary IMHO. Perhaps needed just for the level 1-3 only which were more stable but for the level 4 perhaps only 2016-2026 time and NOT for the level 5 at all IMHO. Dawid2009 (talk) 23:07, 8 February 2026 (UTC)Reply