Template:ACE Question/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:ACE Question.
It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used to lay out questions and answers for Arbitration Committee Elections candidate questions pages (e.g. "Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2022/Candidates/CandidateUserNameHere/Questions")

Usage

One instance of the template is used for each Q&A (usually a maximum of two): If more than one, they must be back-to-back, without a blank line between them, or incorrect numbering will result:

#{{ACE Question
 |Q=What is your name?
 |A=
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=What is your quest?
 |A=
}}

The candidate, when responding, adds their answer in the |A= parameter.

Parameters

|Q= – Mandatory, and with content in it. This is where to write your question for the candidate.
|A= – Mandatory, and blank when the template is inserted by the question-asker. This is where the candidate will write their answer to your question.
|Sub= – Optional. This is for asking sub-questions, to respond to previous answers. Possible values are |Sub=2 or |Sub=3

When |Sub= is used, the results look like the following:

#{{ACE Question
 |Q=A first question.
 |A=An answer.
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=Another question, in response to the first answer.
 |A=A response, elaborating further.
 |Sub=2
}}
#{{ACE Question
 |Q=Another question, in response to the elaboration.
 |A=Another response.
 |Sub=3
}}

A first question.
An answer.
Another question, in response to the first answer.
A response, elaborating further.
Another question, in response to the elaboration.
Another response.

Troubleshooting

Because this uses a bunch of nested wikicode for list layout, it is fairly easy to break, e.g. by including wikimarkup-coded tables in a question or answer, etc. One example might be attempting to use {{Collapse}} (a table-based template) in an answer, which will just fail dramatically. The variant {{Collapse/HTML}} exists, which should work better.

However, something like that can still mess up the list code, for subsequent Q&As:

Mis-numbering:

If you find that the second (and any subsequent) questions are not numbered properly, try the variant template {{ACE Question/HTML}}, which uses raw-HTML ordered-list markup instead of wikicode ordered-list markup. It defaults to list item no. 2, since that's going to be the most common case needed. However, you can customize the numbered with |start=. To get the display to work properly, you will need to remove the leading # from {{ACE Question/HTML}} instances. This is most often needed when the previous question or answer to it contained complex markup, or when someone added a "Thanks for your detailed reply" sort of comment between the questions.

#{{ACE Question 
 |Q=What is your name?
 |A=Arthur, King of the Britons.  I have also used these usernames: [table or list inserted here]
}} <!-- Markup in that answer broke auto-numbering, so switched to "ACE Questions/HTML": -->
{{ACE Question/HTML
 |Q=What is your quest?
 |A=I seek the Holy Grail.
}}
{{ACE Question/HTML |start=3
 |Q=What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
 |A=...
}}

If it still doesn't work properly, try inserting a </ol> immediately after the }} that closes the previous Q&A template.

Mis-indentation:

If you find that the second or later Q&A is indenting too far for some reason, this probably means that some markup in the first Q or A content confused the parsing of the list code. Try inserting a </ol> immediately after the }} that closes the first Q&A template (or the second one if there are three Q&As and only the third is indenting too far.

Mis-listing:

If you are a trying to use a list inside your question or answer, and it's messing up the whole Q&A appearance, try replacing your embedded list wikimarkup with raw HTML equivalents: <ul><li>...</li><li>...</li></ul> for an unordered (bulleted) list; or <ol><li>...</li><li>...</li></ol> for an ordered (numbered) list.

Template Data

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:ACE Question in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for ACE Question

Template for Arbitration Committee Elections Q&A

Template parameters
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Question	`Q`	Your question for the candidate.	String	required
Answer	`A`	The answer from the candidate. Default Leave blank for candidates to fill in.	String	required
Sub-Question	`Sub`	Respond to previous answer.	String	optional