In light of the recent TC that attempted to do away with WIP, it is time to re-open the discussion about how templates such as Inuse are used. There exists a sentiment that the parameters around Inuse currently allow for users to leave the template up for quite a long time, which is not ideal. There have been examples of such templates for existing upwards of six months, which I personally don't think is/should be the intended use of this template. At the time of the TC, four articles used Inuse and had all been up for over 3 weeks. To address this, I would love to see discussion on the following items:

• The removal of the nomination parameter. Inuse currently has a |nom=y field for pending status article nominations that some feel encourages lengthy applications of Inuse. Removing it may be a good idea.

• Imposing time limits. It might be nice to have an agreed-upon time limit for using Inuse. Several time limits for Inuse have been suggested. Many seem to agree that Inuse should not be left up for more than ~3 days, if not fewer.

• How to impose time limits. Currently, admin precedent is to remove Inuse templates after one month. However, there could be a more codified practice for this. If a time limit was agreed upon, Inuse could be bot removed by checking the last edited date, similar to how SHs are closed. I also suggested that maybe the template could have a date field that displays how long the Inuse will last so any user would be able to judge this easily.

Although the WIP TC did not pass, it did shed light on how many feel the practices around Inuse should be changed. Let's see where this goes! — Wok142 (talk) 18:58, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Discuss[]

• I'm partial to having a bot sense when something's been idle for X amount of time and it being auto-removed (like SHs); the date parameter can work well, but if someone forgets to add it, then things can slip through the cracks. And, the only way to add the date parameter if someone else forgets is then to break the Inuse to add it, which kinda defeats the point if someone might be mid-edit. Definite agree on removing the nomination parameter—Inuse should not be encouraging lengthy or indefinite usages actively, and if someone is bringing a long article to status, workbenches are a great thing.—spookywilloww^talk 21:23, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• I have a bad habit of adding the template to articles I'm working on and then not removing it when I forget to keep editing them, so I definitely agree that some kind of policy or something to prevent it from staying up without (somewhat substantial) edits should be implemented (not that its an excuse to just keep forgetting to take the template off lol). Plus, it'd be good to prevent the template from being abused. To clarify what I meant with the parenthetical "somewhat substantial," a user should probably not be able to keep the template valid through solely copy-edits. - Thannus (DFaceG) (he/him) (talk) 15:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• I do use the inuse tag a fair bit, though very rarely for longer than a few hours on a page at most. I agree that if an inuse has been there for over a few days or so without activity then it should be removed either via bot or maybe by an admin, and maybe then a talk page message to the user could be left to inform them of that incase the user wants to get back to the page? I do also agree on removing the nom parameter as pointed out above there are workbenches where if you wanted to work on a page you can do it there Lewisr (talk) 01:47, 19 July 2024 (UTC)