Talk:511A

Just happened across this page. Seems like it should redirect to 511, as everything that might go on a 511A page is already on the 511 page. I see that Peter has gone back and forth on this, but I'll vote for the simple redirect, if only for simplicity and consistency. Jim Adney, Madison, WI (talk) 18:15, 16 March 2024 (PDT)

The instrument macro on this page is needed because otherwise we have no reference to the 511A.

Please leave this in place (you will find the same situation for a number of other instruments).

In some cases the previous redirect page later becomes a page in its own right, e.g. AM503A.

Actually, earlier versions of MediaWiki silently redirected you to the 511 but since the last upgrade it seems that on pages with a redirect plus some content, like here, it no longer does that.

--Peter (talk) 05:47, 20 March 2024 (PDT)

Sorry, but I don't see your point. The only content on this (511A) page is a photo of a 511, which is also shown on the 511 page. So everything here is redundant, plus if someone searched for 511A and came to this page, they would miss all the 511A info that's already, and appropriately, on the 511 page. If someone comes up with lots of 511A info that they want to add to this page later on, there's nothing to prevent that. --Jim Adney 30 Apr 2024

"Everything here is redundant" – not it's not, the data collected in the template is specific to the 511A and creates the database entry for the 511A. Every page can have only one sidebar template which is needed to link the database to the page, ergo each variant needs to have its own page with its own sidebar. If there is sufficient information for the other model and/or the specs are different enough, the second page will be a full article as in the case of the AM503A (and why would we want to prevent that?), otherwise we just reference the base model.

I have extended the 511A page to a basic description plus a link, so there's no confusion. (And fixed the wrong image, thanks for noticing this.)

We can replace the -A, -B etc. page redirects with similar stub pages where relevant. As I said this wasn't necessary before the software upgrade as you would have been redirected silently. --Peter (talk) 04:49, 4 May 2024 (PDT)

Ah - thanks Peter - that might explain something I spotted a few weeks ago. The 564 page includes info for the 564B but there's a separate page... I was wondering when I saw it if things were just in flux and the some other edit might come along...

If I understand correctly, we want the separate pages to help populate the references... Which references, exactly?

I'll search my edits as I seem to remember that I tried to demonstrate how useful the wiki is to someone and the model I searched for didn't show up in the search! I remember fixing that scenario for that model, but don't remember which it was :-)

... I think that the sort of thing we're trying to work around might be the Oscilloscope Sidebar info - for instance:

|introduced=1984 
|discontinued=(?)

Where we're often tempted to overload and mess it up:

|introduced=1984 (other model 1988)
|discontinued=(?) (other model 1999)

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Qfissler (talk) 10:06, 30 April 2024 (PDT)

I have clarified the explanation in Template:Oscilloscope Sidebar - these fields should have only the year or (?) in them, no other information. Each model has its own page with the template even if it otherwise redirects to the base page e.g. 564B to 564. The introduction/discontinuation field contents go into the database (Cargo tables) under the entry defined by the page name, therefore adding other information here messes up the database table. Extra information such as in your example should go in the article text. --Peter (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2024 (PDT)