Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Article message boxes

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

There is a standard and consistent design for article message boxes — templates which are inserted into articles/sections, and identify problems or issues with the article. The design was standardized and implemented in September 2007.

Scope

The scope of this effort is the design of article message boxes ("amboxes"). Article message boxes are template messages, in a rectangular frame (box), which are placed in articles, and are also about articles. They identify issues or important information about the article, but are not part of the article content itself.

The following are presently outside the scope of this effort:

Terminology

Design

What amboxes looked like before they were standardized...
...and after.

The ambox tags that we use to notify people of problems within an article are on thousands of our pages. Our readers see them and judgements are made not only about the article at hand, but about the project itself. In the past, we had a myriad of templates that often shared some level of consistency, but still looked very mismatched.

This effort aims to address these issues. Design principles include:

  • Colour-coding is good, but avoid excess
  • Consistent widths make multiple adjacent amboxes easier to read
  • This is a deliberate design effort, while the old templates evolved organically over time
  • Easily implemented
  • The use of CSS allows appearance customization/override on a per-user or per-skin basis

Categories and colours

Amboxes are divided into various categories. Each category has a corresponding colour code. The colour-coding helps to inform of the severity of the issues at a glance.

  Code Name Description Example Templates
  #b22222 Speedy
Immediate deletion
{{db-meta}}
  #b22222 Deletion
proposed deletion
{{
prod
}}
  #f28500 Content Problems with the content of an article, i.e., what the article actually says {{POV}}, {{globalize}}
  #f4c430 Style Problems not with the content, but how it is
formatted/presented
{{cleanup}}, {{underlinked}}
  #1e90ff Notice Information readers/editors should be aware of {{current}}, {{recent death}}
  #9932cc Move
split and transwiki
proposals
{{
copy to commons
}}
  #bba Protection Page is
locked
against edits
{{
pp-protected
}}

The choice of colour is partly inspired by the ANSI standard safety "Signal Words" and their corresponding colors: Danger (Red), Warning (Orange), Caution (Yellow), and Notice (Blue).

Most amboxes have a background colour of #fbfbfb (slightly off white), which is intended to contrast slightly with the full white (#ffffff) used for articles, while still being easy to read. The exception is the Speedy category, which uses a pink background (#fee) to highlight the immediate nature of the problem.

Implementation

Most

article message boxes
use this design.

The design of these article message boxes is controlled by the

Ambox classes, which are styled by MediaWiki:Common.css
.

The meta template {{ambox}} makes it easy to create article message boxes in the new design. It has usage documentation and examples. Note that {{ambox}} is just a thin wrapper for the classes.

The classes can also be used directly within a

Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes
describes how.

Alternate skins

It is possible to customize the appearance of ambox templates on a per-user basis. To do this, you need a

Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes/Skins
.

Examples

Please note:

  • The wording (text) of these message boxes is outside the scope of this effort. The wording in the examples below is for illustration purposes only.
  • The following box has a white background to mimic article pages.

Speedy deletion

Deletion

This template is being used in the wrong namespace. To nominate this project page for deletion, go to Miscellany for deletion.

Content


Style


Notice

Move

Stacking demo

See also