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Help users pick a template when editing by showing transclusion count
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Description

What + Why

When a user is editing a page it's not obvious which templates are appropriate for use on the page. Right now a user has to guess what a template might be called and start typing in a search box, and when they see matches for their search it's not clear which results are "good"

In this task, we want to add metadata about templates as social proof - if a template is widely used then it's more likely to be useful

Details

  • As a contributor I should be able to see the most transcluded templates in my wiki, so that I can quickly see and use the most popular templates
  • As a contributor, when I search for a template, I should see transclusion count so that I have more confidence in the template I am using.

Goals

  • Improve the rate of articles with templates
  • Increase the number of editors adding a template

Research findings / data

Designs

  • TBD

Out of scope

  • Creating a community configuration for suggested templates
  • Changing search terms or search algorithm
  • Changing the UX once a user has selected a template.

Event Timeline

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JWheeler-WMF renamed this task from Templates M1: Show metadata about templates to EPIC: Templates M1: Show metadata about templates.Jun 13 2024, 3:09 PM
JWheeler-WMF added a project: Epic.
JWheeler-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
JWheeler-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
JWheeler-WMF updated the task description. (Show Details)
JWheeler-WMF renamed this task from EPIC: Templates M1: Show metadata about templates to Templates M1: Show metadata about templates.Jun 13 2024, 3:17 PM
JWheeler-WMF renamed this task from Templates M1: Show metadata about templates to Templates M1: Show template transclusion data.
Samwilson renamed this task from Templates M1: Show template transclusion data to Show template transclusion count .Apr 25 2025, 6:01 AM
Samwilson added a project: TemplateData.
Samwilson updated the task description. (Show Details)

I've updated the description to change from the ambiguous "transclusion data" to "transclusion count" as it doesn't sound like there's any other data that we want to show.

The most-transcluded aspect of this is now tracked in T392661, so I think this task is just about showing the transclusion count in search results (e.g. near the description and 'redirected from' message). Before we worry about where it'll get shown, we talked about the challenge with retrieving this data in a performant way — I think someone mentioned that this might involve a schema change in order to store a cached link count.

it doesn't sound like there's any other data that we want to show.

I can think of some options.

  • Something like "transclusions per namespace" or "mostly used in/outside of the main namespace" can be quite interesting.
  • There are heavily used templates that are never directly transcluded, only indirectly via other templates. See T58516. Unfortunately I don't think we have access to this information.

Just for inspiration. I'm sure you have considered this already.

Cparle renamed this task from Show template transclusion count to Help users pick a template when editing by showing transclusion count.May 2 2025, 9:57 AM
Cparle updated the task description. (Show Details)