WikiQueer:Navigation templates

A navigation template, navbox or topicbox is a grouping of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles. Editing of a navigation template is done in a central place, the template page.

Navboxes are categorized under Category:Navbox (navigational) templates. Some WikiProjects maintain a list of their navigation templates.

Properties
The style of any navigation template depends on its articles, how they are most intuitively presented, and previously established convention.


 * Navigation templates provide navigation within WikiQueer
 * The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space. Ask yourself, does this help the reader in reading up on related topics? Take any two articles in the template. Would a reader really want to go from A to B?
 * They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value. For navigating among many articles, consider:
 * Split them into multiple, smaller templates on each sub-topic. For example, EMD diesels lists all models of diesel locomotives built by one manufacturer, but is too large to be transcluded on each of their articles. Instead, the individual sections of EMD diesels were split out into their own templates: EMD GPs, EMD SDs, etc.
 * Do the above with only one template using ParserFunctions.
 * Link only the immediately related articles while hiding the rest, like in the case of Johnny Cash.
 * Avoid repeating links to the same article within a template.
 * They should not be too small. A navigation template with fewer than a handful of links can easily be replaced by "See also" sections, or relevant main and see also links within the articles' sections.
 * Navigation templates do not provide WQ:External links to other websites.


 * Navigation templates provide navigation between existing articles
 * Red links should be avoided unless they are very likely to be developed into articles, and even if they do, editors are encouraged to write the article first.
 * Unlinked text should be avoided. For example, Axis of Justice lists non-articles under "Notable guests", but this content seems more appropriate in an article.
 * External links should be included in appropriate articles, rather than a navigation template.


 * Navigation templates provide navigation between related articles
 * If the articles are not established as related by reliable sources in the actual articles, then it is probably not a good idea to interlink them.
 * For complex topics in science, technology, history, etc., a navigation box can provide a comprehensive introduction to a topic. For example, Wind power links to subsidiary and supporting topics that provide background and context necessary for understanding the main Wind power article. While the main Wind power article already contains inline links to the subsidiary articles, the subsidiary articles themselves are smaller and their prose may not place them into the overall context with each other. Editors who work on the subsidiary articles in isolation may be unaware of this context. The navigation template provides an easy way for the subsidiary articles, even when they begin as stubs, to instantly inherit the conceptual structure of the main article.


 * Navigation templates are not arbitrarily decorative


 * There should be justification for a template to deviate from standard colors and styles
 * There are two basic layouts:
 * On the right side of page—for example History of China.
 * For meta-template, see sidebar
 * Footer boxes—for example Health in the People's Republic of China, designed to appear at the bottom of each article, stacked with other similar templates. See also: WikiQueer:Footers for information on placement
 * For footer boxes, Navbox is the standard.
 * Existing hard-coded collapsible tables or NavFrames should be converted to Navbox if possible. This standardizes the look and eases future maintenance.
 * The width of footer boxes should be 100% unless the convention for that type of article is otherwise. It looks inconsistent if multiple boxes in the same article have varying widths.


 * Avoid redirects
 * The link to the page on which a particular instance of a navbox appears should be displayed in black, bold type, not as a link. This will happen automatically, provided all links go directly to their target pages, avoiding redirects. (Piped links are perfectly all right.)
 * In the rare event that a navbox contains a link to a disambiguation page that doesn't have "(disambiguation)" in its title, use the D' template to resolve the conflict between this requirement and the requirements concerning intentional links to disambiguation pages.

Advantages
Advantages of using navigation templates rather than listing all the links under "See also" sections include:
 * reduction of clutter in that area of the article before "References" and "External links",
 * compactness of the template compared to a standard list or table, in the case of many links,
 * if the most immediately related links are kept under "See also", the reader has a better idea of scope,
 * less directly related links are out of the way or in some cases hidden by default,
 * ease of maintenance in updating the template as articles get created or deleted,
 * aesthetically pleasing appearance to many users,
 * new articles in a subject area immediately gain the basic link structure of existing related articles, eliminating the need for many editors to individually build up their own links and rewrite background material.
 * when a new article or an older article that was orphaned is placed in a navbox, the page instantly has a large number of links to it

Alternatives
In certain cases, there are alternatives preferable over the creation of a new navigation template.


 * If the group of articles overlaps significantly with an existing category, consider using otherarticles instead. Of course, since the category is already linked within those articles, otherarticles may not even provide extra navigational value.
 * For a series of articles whose only shared characteristic is that they hold the same position or title, such as peerage or world champion sporting titles, consider using succession box. Variant templates for persons who have held several notable offices are discussed at Template talk:Succession box.
 * For relating articles across different categories in a logical sequence, use a succession template.