Forum:Do we really want to subst Biography?

Forums: Index > Watercooler > Do we really want to subst Biography?

I understand why some may feel that subst'ing a template like {{biography}} is a good idea, but we may want to think this through a little more carefully. Here are three major problems with this idea.

1. The code below makes an article much more difficult to upgrade. I personally don't want to waste time writing code to support articles with this level of complexity.
2. Do we really want contributors to see this kind of gobbledeegook when they open an article for editing? Seems to me that it a sure recipe to scare off new contributors.
3. Wikipedia was founded on the principle that contibuting to articles is simple enough that everyone can be an editor. Substing code like this moves Familypedia in entirely the opposite direction. Most of us may be comfortable reading nested conditionals, but there are very few instances of the following wikitext in a Wikipedia encyclopedic article. For very good reason.

{{get|key=Short name}} was born {{get birth}} {{#if:{{get|key=Father}}| to {{get|key=Father}} {{#if:{{get|key=Mother}}|
and {{get|key=Mother}}}}}} {{#if:{{get|key=Death year}}|and died {{get death}} at the age of {{age (smw)}} years| 
and is now {{age (smw)}} years of age}}. {{#if:{{get|key=Spouse}}|{{#ifeq: {{get|key=Sex}} | Male | He 
| {{#ifeq: {{get|key=Sex}} | M | He | She}}}} married {{get|key=Spouse}} 
{{#if:{{get|key=Spouse2}}| and later {{get|key=Spouse2}}}}.}} 

~ Phlox 08:58, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think, Familypedia cannot be easy enough for new contributors. I heared in my surrounding people who I promoted Familypedia that they preferred Rodovid because of the easy formulars and not the irritant save, resave and purge system. Bergsmit 09:33, 29 June 2009 (UTC)