Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 19

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Video Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 19

Alma Mater

User:Xenophrenic is interpreting the alma mater field as strictly school and a degree cannot be entered into this field. See Example 1 Example 2 Example 3. Was this the intention of this field? If so, should we add a degree field, as it would be useful to have a degree associated with a school, especially when more than one school is listed. How hot is the sun? (talk) 16:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Adding a "|degree" field to the "Officeholder" infobox is an excellent suggestion. Or, we could use the field which already exists in your 2nd and 3rd example: "|education". Xenophrenic (talk) 16:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

This template does not have an education field. How hot is the sun? (talk) 15:40, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

By "This template", do you mean "Infobox officeholder"? If so, that is why I said: Adding a "|degree" field to the "Officeholder" infobox is an excellent suggestion. Adding an "|education" field would serve the same purpose, as it already does in the "Infobox person" templates in your 2nd and 3rd examples. Either could be used, but since the "|education" field is already used in other templates, perhaps we should stay with that. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:39, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Listing "naked degrees" sans the school which gave them is silly. Change the field name to "Alma Mater and Degrees". In fact, manuals of style deal with this - when mentioning a specific degree, the school is invariably mentioned in conjunction with the degree. Having a separate list of degrees without then including the school would serve no rational purpose. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I fully agree. I think it should even be encouraged to have the degree next to the school in cases where multiple schools are listed and/or when the individual has received multiple degrees from the same school. If the individual received only one degree from one school, then I would say the degree information is not critical, but not necessarily superfluous. How hot is the sun? (talk) 04:05, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Listing degrees without the fields of study in which they were earned would serve no purpose. I'll reiterate my support for the above proposal to add a "|degree" field (note that such a field would not preclude also mentioning institution names). However, I still feel the superior solution would be to conform to the existing standard as it exists in other templates, such as: Template:Infobox_person. Note that it has an "|alma mater" field and an "|education" field, and the use of these parameters is explained. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:06, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Alma mater. This parameter is a more concise alternative to |education=, and will most often simply consist of the linked name of the last-attended higher education institution. It is usually not relevant to included either parameter for non-graduates, but article talk page consensus may conclude otherwise, as at Bill Gates.. It is not a "distinct field" and it posits that if "education" is used, that "alma mater" is duplicative. I.e. using both is deprecated. Thus if one wishes to pick nits, rename the "alma mater field" in all those articles to "education" and the problem, which id not exist in the first place, is solved. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Ought the "alma mater field" be renamed "education" in order to allow dates of specific degrees to be included along with institution names? or ought we simply allow degrees and dates of degrees in the "alma mater" field? 11:29, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

discussion

This appears to be a minor issue, but one where edits have been made specifically to remove dates of degrees and similar information from political biographies. Collect (talk) 11:29, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be a minor issue where edits have been made to revert the misplacement of "|education" data (specifically degrees earned) in incorrect fields (i.e.; "|alma mater"), while preserving that information in the body of apolitical biographies. The use of the "|education" field is defined as:

Education, e.g. degree, institution and graduation year, if relevant. If very little information is available or relevant, the |alma_mater= parameter may be more appropriate.

These fields should be standardized across all biographical infoboxes. Xenophrenic (talk) 14:35, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

In which case, you should clearly support the use of the more general field rather than stand on cavils that "alma mater" should say nothing about when the person studied, what they studied, and what degrees were conferred. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

When I read the documentation in Template:Infobox person, it seems that the "Alma Mater" is intended to be "a more concise alternative to" the "Education" field "and will most often simply consist of the linked name of the last-attended higher education institution". Given that this template doesn't have an "Education" field, it appears to me that by insisting on removing degrees in this infobox user:Xenophrenic is WP:POINT, rather than WP:IMPROVE. Quoting WP:IMPROVE, "Improve pages wherever you can, and do not worry about leaving them imperfect. Preserve the value that others add, even if they "did it wrong" (try to fix it rather than delete it)". Note that WP:IMPROVE is an official policy, not merely an essay. How hot is the sun? (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Please do not contaminate infobox usage by adding perhaps-nice-to-have info to another field. The correct procedure is to ask at Template talk:Infobox person if there is a way to include the info, or to have it added. What WP:IMPERFECT says is not relevant for a situation where someone is adding stuff to an infobox in multiple articles. Collaboration requires effort but it is best in the long run. Johnuniq (talk) 04:11, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The issue is the name we use in this infobox. The term "most often" is not the same as "always" in any event, meaning the use of "alma mater" for the full information is actually proper AFAICT. The "education" parameter already exists in the infobox person template. HHITS is actually on solid ground here. Asking on the other talk page to do this would make no sense (sigh). Collect (talk) 11:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ The issue is what education-related fields we should have in biographical infoboxes, not just this infobox, as evidenced by the three examples of the issue given in the first paragraph of this discussion -- note that two of the three examples are of "Infobox person". Which talk page we use to produce a standardized solution should not be the focus of our efforts; this page is convenient enough. The above RfC, however, is malformed as it is worded to suggest only two solutions, while ignoring the obvious third solution which is already in wide use: have both fields available ("|alma mater" and the much less specific "|education"). Overlapping and redundant fields in infoboxes are not new (having both "spouse" and "partner" comes to mind), and allow more flexibility and accuracy in the presentation of information. The "Infobox officeholder" template isn't used even half as much as "Infobox person", and since the latter has all the fields necessary to accomodate the information we're discussing, it would be the logical defacto standard. ("Alma mater" is an institution, by the way. "Education" is a much broader expression, and can even include institution data if more specific fields are not available. Phrases like "I have an Oxford education" are not unusual, while I doubt anyone has ever responded to "What's your alma mater?" with: "PhD!".) Xenophrenic (talk) 18:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree w/ everything you wrote here. The only question is, until an |education field can be added to the template (since the template is protected only an administrator can edit it), why not let the degree be included in the Alma Mater field? Editing Wikipedia should not be about perfection, it should be about presenting the best possible articles to the reader. How hot is the sun? (talk) 21:18, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I would not because degrees are not an alma mater (or a profession, or a place of birth...), so such a misplaced insertion would not be an improvement to the article. A valid argument might be made for adding alma mater information to the much-less-specific, broader "|education" field - but not the reverse. Likewise, as one might argue that a spouse's name could be added to the "partner" field, one would not add a partner's name to the more strictly defined "spouse" field unless they were also married. Note that none of this data is being "added" or "removed" from these articles; the infobox fields contain information already in the article body. The desire to duplicate certain information in a brief sidebar format does not trump the requirement to do so with accurate field descriptions. Adding an "|education" field to biographical templates which lack it seems the best and most practical solution, but I don't know how to accomplish that. Is there a notification template we could use to request an Admin's assistance? No longer needed; see below. Xenophrenic (talk) 22:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I have added |education=, mirroring the parameter in other infoboxes which also have |alma_mater=. If there are concerns about their respective use, a widely-publicised, centralised, discussion, not on any one template's talk page (perhaps, instead, on an MOS page) should be held. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Xenophrenic (talk) 22:03, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you very much. Would it be possible to do the same for Template:Infobox scientist to bring an end to the edit war at Carl Sagan? How hot is the sun? (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

@How hot is the sun?: {{Infobox scientist}} may now be used as a module of {{Infobox person}}; that should enable you to resolve that issue (at least, at a technical level). Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Maps Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 19

Coding problem

There's a coding problem with this template which needs to be fixed. I've asked for this to be solved before, but it apparently never happened -- so I guess I have to ask again.

The example that I'm going to raise is Jay Obernolte, who was elected on Tuesday night to the California House of Representatives. For a state representative or representative-elect, the office in question is supposed to be coded in the infobox in the following manner:

    |state_assembly  = California      |district        = 33rd  

However, because he's not the incumbent representative yet, but only the representative-elect, the "predecessor =" field for that office is supposed to be changed to "succeeding =" until he's actually sworn in, so that the "incumbent" flag isn't prematurely turned on. But if I do that, what happens is that the infobox automatically overrides the state_assembly field, listing him as a representative-elect to the United States House of Representatives instead of the state house.

For the time being, I've used the

    |office       = Member-elect of the California House of Representatives for the 33rd district  

format instead, so that the infobox actually denotes the correct body that he'll be serving in. However, this issue needs to be fixed so that the infobox can be properly recoded in the expected format instead. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 07:01, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Bearcat, can you check to see if I just fixed it, and if not, I can add a testcase and try again. Frietjes (talk) 21:26, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Yep, it works correctly now. Thanks! Bearcat (talk) 21:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

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Prior term

The |prior_term = field does not work when used with |state_assembly =. Please see Wesley Chesbro for an example. --Kurykh (talk) 19:25, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Kurykh, can you check to see if I fixed it. if not, there may be a few more places that require repair. Frietjes (talk) 21:32, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Frietjes, it works now. Thanks! --Kurykh (talk) 22:59, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

src: upload.wikimedia.org

"Assumed office" if no {{{termend}}}

Currently the template inserts the text "Assumed office" if no {{{termend}}} is assigned; that's normally fine, but if the term of office begins at a future date (e.g. Jim Karygiannis who assumes office Dec 1^st) then the text should be a future-tense "Assumes office" or something similar.  In the same vein, the "Preceded by" should probably be "Will replace", or something similar, until the term of office begins.

Also, it would probably make sense, where the {{{termend}}} is a future date, if "Succeeded by" read "Successor" or something similar until that date arrived and the term in office officially ended. -- Who R you? Talk 17:45, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

@Who R you?: Please see the testcases for some tests. One thing that is not clear from your request is what it should display if the current date is given. The template sandbox currently assumes past tense in case of the current date ("3 November 2014"), month-year ("November 2014") or even year only ("2014"). Due to how the {{#time}} function works, "2014" is evaluated as the current date while "November 2014" assumes the first day of the month, so letting all of these forms use future rather than past tense requires more complicated coding.

As a non-technical idea, could the time-neutral terms "predecessor" and "successor" not replace "preceded by"/"succeeded by" in case of past as well as future dates? SiBr₄ (talk) 14:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not WP:CRYSTAL. The candidate may fail a recount, be deemed ineligible by a court or reviewing body, die, decide not to take office. Many things can happen. For hes/her first office, the article should wait until the electee is actually sworn in. For someone with an article, the same for a new box. Wait for it. The article can mention that that s/he was elected with a media cite. But the media may turn out wrong for the reasons given above. We don't need new code for future events, for sure. Student7 (talk) 21:40, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

{{edit template-protected}} disabled, to allow consensus to be reached. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:51, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, what the original poster was requesting is already possible in the infobox; they just weren't looking in the right place to make it happen. What you need to do, if a person has not yet assumed the office that they've been elected to, is to change the "predecessor =" field for that office to "succeeding =" -- if that's done, then the infobox is already coded to change the wording from "assumed office" to "taking office". So the requested change is indeed unnecessary here -- but it's unnecessary because the functionality already exists, not because it's fundamentally inappropriate. Bearcat (talk) 07:11, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

The suggestion was simply to have it so that the Wikipedia InfoBoxes made sense (in terms of tense) at all stages, without doubling the work.  Obviously someone can go through and redo all the changes again once everyone is sworn in, but that doubles the amount of work required to maintain WP.  Looking at, for example, Mike Del Grande, you'll note that that InfoBox will need 3 changes on Dec 1, Jim Karygiannis will need 1 change, and, if John Del Grande had an article, that would need to be updated (all for one council seat); I simply believe in having computers doing the dumb, meaningless, repetitive tasks, particularly ones that are scheduled for some point in the future, if at all possible.  If someone wants to remember to review and update the 45+ articles that will change Dec 1 as a result of the Toronto municipal election (not to mention the thousands of other changes that happened in Ontario municipal elections at the same time) then hopefully someone will remember to do all that at the appropriate time and will catch all the affected articles; it simply won't be me since I don't edit that consistently.

As for handling of the current date, or where only a month or year, with no day or month, is specified (as SiBr4 raises), I expect those are extremely rare (likely erroneous) situations which would have to be dealt with by either providing a more specific date or by accepting that the InfoBox tenses are incorrect for that brief portion of a month/year.

And as for Student7's WP:CRYSTAL argument (not that officially announced preliminary winners of an election are the type of speculation covered by that concept), if there ever were a recount or some other event that caused a previously officially unofficial elected person not to take office, there would definitely be a current events news story that would hopefully trigger some WP editor to update article(s) appropriately; but realistically that probably only happens once a decade.

Either way, if the consensus is that leaving everything to manual edits and/or temporarily incorrect tenses is preferable then that's fine with me, my default stance is simply to get computers/code to do as much work as possible.  I leave the issue to others to consider and decide.  Cheers -- Who R you? Talk 19:56, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It is a major problem after most elections to stop energetic newbies from insisting the electee actually holds the position s/he was elected to. Prematurely. There is usually a "lame duck" interval, sometimes quite short for local offices. Sometimes, seemingly lengthy for federal offices. That is, the person leaving office is still the incumbent, getting paid, and even making decisions in some cases. I wouldn't want to do anything to encourage the newbies in their attempt to thwart reality. Student7 (talk) 23:22, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Order of offices held

Would it not make sense for committee chairmanships and party leadership positions (etc) to be placed above the office of senator? In order to hold these positions of leadership or seniority they must by definition be a senator, and the very fact that they are leadership positions elevates the holder above simply being a senator. An interesting comparison would be British Members of Parliament, whose leadership and cabinet posts are placed above their constituency details. JamKaftan (talk) 04:04, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

My first thought was that a quick look at several articles (John Glenn, Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, Jim Inhofe, and Harry Reid) suggests that the office is generally placed first when the politician is just a committee chairman and last if the politician is also a floor leader or officer of the body. Harry Reid did not quite fit this pattern, as his status as Senator came after "Senate Majority Leader", but before "Senate Minority Leader". Oddly, Jim Inhofe places the committee chairmanship below all other offices.

A second look through them revealed another pattern of most recent (or current) offices being listed first, regardless of which office it was. John Glenn, Tom Harkin, Chuck Grassley, Dianne Feinstein, Thad Cochran, fit this pattern. John Boehner and Nancy Pelosi do not fit this pattern. Again, Jim Inhofe is an outlier.

Based on these, I think that if we standardized this with the order of "officer of chamber", "floor leader", "member of chamber", "committee chairmanship", (assuming for argument that all are current positions), that would make the most sense. I would think that later positions should come before prior positions such that "member of chamber" would be before "officer of chamber" if the individual served as a member of the chamber after he concluded his service as an officer of the chamber. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Template when politician leaves political office

Should the template be used for a position for a retired politician who has left politics, such as CEO of a Chamber of Commerce Trey Grayson or President of a think tank Jim DeMint? I'm not asking about keeping it for the political positions, just asking about the non-politics position. Kaltenmeyer (talk) 21:16, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

IMHO - no. Mention of offices held is not precluded by using the general infobox, but this particular infobox is best suited for current officeholders. I do not know if others agree with me on this. Collect (talk) 21:52, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

It certainly shouldn't be necessary to swap a template just because someone leaves/ retires from a position (or dies); we spend a lot of time merging "Infobox X" and "Infobox former X" pairs, for that reason. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:10, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree with Andy's comment. If the template works for those other positions, there's no need to change templates. If the template is completely different, such as {{Infobox NFL player}}, it may be appropriate to have both in the article or try to include the major information from both in the generic {{Infobox person}}. Note, however, that while having both {{Infobox officeholder}} and {{Infobox astronaut}} works for John Glenn, it may not be practical to do this with shorter articles. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Infobox attachments

Actually, this gave me an interesting idea. If the infoboxes were designed to be modular such that the generic information went into {{Infobox person}} and the more specific infoboxes only dealt with the specific information, it would be possible to easily patch two infoboxes together (saving space over using two infoboxes). Thus, a person who was a politician and an NFL player could just patch one infobox module below another without having the duplicate "born in", etc. personal information. Does anyone know if this has been proposed or tried before? - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:25, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is done in a number of cases; for example {{Infobox musical artist}} as a module of Infobox person. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Nowrap birth/death fields

Can we get nowrap tags around the birth_date and death_date fields of the personal info section of the infobox? Recently I've found the birth/death date and age templates to be introducing linebreaks for the (age xx)/(aged xx) parts of the template when used for longer months, which I find makes the infobox look more cluttered in appearance. Thanks. Connormah (talk) 00:25, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Religion, denomination, affiliation

I again want to lift the issue brougt up here: Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 2#Religion and here: Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 18. The problem is that the word religion is used to denote denomination. "Surely, someone who is a Methodist is first and foremost an adherent of the Christian religion." The suggested solutions so far are:

• Change "religion" to "religious affiliation".
• Keep "religion", add "denomination".

Any more alternatives? Which is better? Who can fix this? --St.nerol (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Combination of different types of infoboxes possible?

Is there any way to combine the Infobox officeholder with that of Christian leader? An example where this could be appropriate are the bishops of Urgell, who are ex officio Co-Princes of Andorra. Gugganij (talk) 14:29, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

One infobox can be embedded within another, provided both are configured for this, See above for a request for such changes to this template. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:17, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Occupation vs profession

What is meant to be the distinction between these two parameters? Is there a point to having both? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Not really -- though "profession" implies some skill level other than just holding a hourly job. "Ditch digging" is an "occupation" but not a "profession" I surmise. But heck - the distinction between "alma mater" specifically excluding degrees and "education" including degrees was discussed! <g> Personally, I would cut the laundry list down substantially. Collect (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Italics with native_name

seems after this change we will need to add instructions about how to turn off the italics for languages where italics are not appropriate. Frietjes (talk) 17:53, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Frietjes. @Pigsonthewing: Could you please undo this undiscussed change? It's making a mess on hundreds, if not thousands of articles with Chinese, Japanese, and other non-Latin names which should not be italicized. What's the point of italicizing native personal names anyway? The field is only needed for names that are not written in the Latin alphabet, for which the value of italicizing is dubious at best. -Zanhe (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

You contradict yourself. Frietjes is discussing a change to the documentation, which anyone (including you or they) can make. The point of italicising the name is that without such, names and native names run on with no delineation. Your claim that "the field is only needed for names that are not written in the Latin alphabet" is false. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't doubt that italicizing native names for languages based on Latin script is preferable, but I am not sure about the wisdom of such a change for non-Latin script based articles. Like Zanhe has already pointed out the change has led to a massive problem at Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Persian, and perhaps Cyrillic articles whose scripts display very poorly in italic form, or whose scripts were never meant to be italicized at all in daily native usage. I think this is a big red flag that requires for the change to be undone completely or a bot to be programmed to fix all the resulting problems that it has caused. Thanks. Colipon+(Talk) 20:13, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

You're right that Frietjes was only talking about documentation, but that does not change the fact that the edit was made without discussion and without consideration to the numerous articles it affects. I only have a few dozen affected articles on my watch list, but I already noticed that Colipon, LlywelynII, and myself have been scrambling to fix the problem caused. The native name field has been fine without automatic italicization for years, what made you think it necessary to change it all of a sudden? -Zanhe (talk) 21:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

actually, I was referring to the fact that the change made it basically impossible to turn off the italics. note that {{infobox airport}} deals with this issue by having more than one |nativename= (none of which are currently italicised by default, but that was the original intent). luckily, this change was reverted so there is no longer an issue. Frietjes (talk) 16:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Nope. I'm sure your intentions were honorable but, if this is something recent and affecting many foreign-language pages, you guys need to undo the change pending your creation of a bot to repair the damage you're causing, rather than expecting WP:CHINA and the rest to clean up for you. Alternatively, leave the functionality but make it an opt-in feature. -- LlywelynII 03:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 17 January 2015

Please revert this edit, which was made without discussion and has forced the italicization of non-Latin names that should not be italicized per MOS, affecting countless pages. It should to be reverted per this discussion above. Zanhe (talk) 20:21, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

As can be seen above, there is already an ongoing discussion, with a variety of solutions offered. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:49, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Please don't remove a request to undo your edit, as you're not an uninvolved party. I've reinstated the edit request. As can be seen above, there is consensus that your undiscussed edit needs to be reverted, until other proposed solutions (none of which is trivial) are actually implemented. -Zanhe (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Done I have been party to discussions elsewhere where it was agreed that italicisation by default was a Bad Thing when non-Latin/Greek/Cyrillic scripts might be used. --Redrose64 (talk) 00:18, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Then what is your proposed solution for the problem I describe above? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

It's perfectly legitimate for an "involved party" to remove such a request, in such circumstances. That template is only for use when consensus has already been reached, as its documentation explains. No such consensus has been reached. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Everyone who has expressed an opinion so far, except yourself, agrees that your edit should be reverted. If that's not consensus, I don't know what is. Besides, as the person who made the recent change without discussion which causes widespread problems, the onus is on you to show there is consensus not to revert it. -Zanhe (talk) 07:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

No, they did not; as you yourself noted. In fact, the only person unambiguously to do so was yourself. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 07:30, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Please stop playing word games, that's just childish. Basically Colipon, LlywelynII, Redrose64, and myself all agreed your edit should be reverted. You're the only one who disagrees. -Zanhe (talk) 07:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Redrose64 only posted after your edit request. Colipon offered the alternative "or a bot to be programmed". LlywelynII said "Alternatively, leave the functionality but make it an opt-in feature". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:10, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that we should italicize the |native_name unless |native_name_lang gives a non latin-script language. That is easily doable without bots or workarounds. --PanchoS (talk) 17:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I mentioned discussions above at 00:18, 18 January 2015; these include Template talk:Infobox book/Archive 7#Request for modification and Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 11#non-italic titles but there were others. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

So you did - and the request to which I referred was psosted before that; at 20:21, 17 January 2015 Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Still an issue

We still have the issue that names and native names are not delineated. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

known_for

I have added |known_for=, for people who are better known for an activity other than their occupation or profession, for example Native American leaders, since I have made {{Infobox Native American leader}} a wrapper for this template, and the parameter is used there. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:42, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Mother tongue

I have added |mother_tongue= to {{infobox Native American leader}}, which is a wrapper for this template (it uses |blank1=/|data1=). It may be worth adding it to this, the parent template, for people whose mother tongue is not immediately discernible from their nationality. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:41, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Embeddable

How do we make this template embeddable within another? I can do that for templates based on {{Infobox}}, but this one isn't. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:54, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Sadly, I have no idea. Perhaps WP:VPT should be pinged re: this request? - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:29, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Done: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 134#Embedding Infobox officeholder. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:10, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

No suggestions except rewriting the template.  :( - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:17, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

native_name placement and size

I really think that native_name should (a) be positioned before, rather than after, the honorary suffix, and (b) be smaller than the English name by default (i.e. mirroring the use of <br /><small>...</small> in the name parameter, which still seems preferred in actual usage to native_name). (a) seems preferable both aesthetically, since it avoids the two larger chunks of text being awkwardly broken up by the smaller titles, and because it positions the native name next to the English name, allowing for easier comparison; (b) is admittedly a purely aesthetic choice. I've looked through the discussion page archives and the choice to put it where it is now doesn't seem to have been properly discussed, so some input on this would be good. --Nizolan (talk) 04:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The parameter should not be before the honorary suffix. You wouldn't (I hope!) put anything before "OBE" in "Sir Jim Brown OBE", nor before "PhD" in "Jane Smith, PhD". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:46, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I definitely agree with Andy here. Inserting the native name before the suffix would be quite odd. I'm not sure that making the text quite as small as suggested would be a good idea, though I wouldn't object to it being a little bit smaller than the English name. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure it's as odd as it might sound at first--if Vlad had a doctorate I would think Vladimir Putin (???????? ?????), PhD makes more sense than Vladimir Putin, PhD (???????? ?????). To me it's the current position that looks odd: see Giorgos Stathakis for an example. I'll defer to consensus though in any case, it might well just be me who finds it annoying. I still think having it be a bit smaller is a good idea; compare the Stathakis article and Vladimir Putin. --Nizolan ^(talk) 07:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

misleading heading

As used, for example, on Charmaine White Face, the |awards= parameter appears below a "Military service" heading. Can we change this, or add a "non military award" parameter? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:08, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

That would be nice - it's also pretty weird o see Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize listed under the "Military service" heading. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:08, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, I've moved it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:45, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Conventional wisdom would be to move |awards= and create a new parameter for military awards, as that seems to be more specific, but, by far, the greatest use of it is for military awards because of where it was previously placed. (See Douglas Wilder, John McCain, William K. Suter, just to name a few.) Seeing that it would affect potentially thousands of biographical articles, I propose reverting the change and creating a new parameter for non-military awards. ("Honors," maybe?) Rockhead126 (talk) 20:19, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: @Rockhead126: I agree that military awards should remain under the appropriate section. I don't know which is more common, but suspect that Rockhead126 is correct about it being the military awards. If that is the case, the change should probably (sadly) be reverted until the awards can be split. Ultimately, I'd like to see |awards= and |civilian_awards= as the parameter aliases for non-military awards and |mawards= and |military_awards= as the parameter aliases for military awards. Before any of this is done, though, would anyone be opposed to creating a tracking category to see how often the current |awards= is used? Splitting these could be a smallish-manageable job or it could be a very big one. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 00:27, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. I'm just going off of what I've seen. Happy to help split either way. Rockhead126 (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

In that case, if there are no objections, but I'll be adding a tracking category to that parameter soon (but not today - time constraints). I'm not sure how long it takes for those to populate, so I'll probably let it sit for a few days. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 23:19, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I've created the tracking category at Category:Wikipedia pages using the awards parameter of Infobox officeholder. Waiting for it to populate... - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It has 1,106 entries. WHat now? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:09, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Pigsonthewing, Rockhead126: Sorry, I've been busy. I believe that ~1,100 is a quite manageable number, so we should proceed. I would therefore like to create the parameters/aliases (and document them) as I proposed above. I may or may not do that tonight. Once that is done, we can update/adjust the articles accordingly. The articles from the category (as it stands now) are listed at Template:Infobox officeholder/Awards. Just strike them if/as you check and update them. I'll plan to do at least a handful every time I get on Wikipedia, so they'll be gone before too long. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 02:14, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm not sure we need aliases for newly-created parameters. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:38, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Update: I haven't forgotten about this, but probably won't get this coded for a few more days. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 05:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Done No aliases created, just |awards= and |mawards=. I've also updated the list at Template:Infobox officeholder/Awards and started the replacement. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:06, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Code variation

In Template:Infobox officeholder/Personal data, I noticed an odd discrepancy. To take two examples, we have some parameters that are formatted like this:

{{#if:{{{religion|}}}|  ! style="text-align:left;" {{!}} Religion  {{!}} {{{religion}}}  }}  |-    

While others are formatted like this:

  {{#if:{{{commands|}}}|  ! style="text-align:left;" {{!}} Commands  {{!}} {{#if:1| {{{commands}}} }}  }}  |-    

The latter one has {{#if:1| {{{parameter}}} }} while the former just has {{{parameter}}}. Both appear to work the same way. Is the extra code around the latter example necessary for some purpose or is it redundant? - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 22:15, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

it is necessary for bullet lists to be used with the parameter. this will go away once we switch to the infobox version. Frietjes (talk) 23:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. - Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 01:04, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

example of a shorter infobox

To indicate what appears to be a valid system. Collect (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, that took a long time to be hatched. I agree with this layout, and think it looks good and has correct information in a succinct manner, as required for infoboxes. I also think that, although it is slightly different from what I proposed in the RfC, it is well within the meaning of what the supporters of my proposal expected to be implemented. Let's agree on this, as the new format to be used in any congress bio where it is applicable. Thank you. If you agree that the succession boxes at the bottom remain as they are, I'm willing to drop all related discussions and withdraw the request for review, as moot. Let's go back to content, will we? Kraxler (talk) 14:05, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I do not agree that the succession boxes are useful as is - but the aim here is to find a result which works for the primary infobox. If we now agree on one, then that aspect is fully settled. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:26, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the succession boxes at the bottom have a limited use for the general reader. The interested reader could click always on the next name to navigate directly through the whole list, reading one bio after the other, just getting the link, without trying to get any info out of the box itself. I think that was the main reason why succession boxes at the bottom were introduced some time ago. All I can say now is that they are essential to keep track of the succession of the seats of a legislature, while writing new articles, on the Legislatures and on the members. I have written articles on so far 184 New York State Legislatures (1777 to 1982). Up to 1922 (before copyright) there are lists available, on-line (e-books, google books, archive.com), with minor mistakes, but very well usable. For the time between 1923 and 1981, while the New York Times articles are hidden behind a paywall, and the legislative journals are not available on-line, it is extremely difficult to keep track, aggravated by the redistricting, or not (yes, not having been redistricted when you expect that it should have been, like in 1964 in New York, is as confusing as redistricting itself), at uncertain intervals. You are active in a slightly different field, mostly BLPs I presume. Also, for Congress there's ample documentation (there's no copyright on works by the U.S. government) and all congressmen have their bios already, their history is well established, so that the congress succession boxes are less important. So I accept your opinion, and we'll have to agree that we disagree to a certain extent about the succession boxes. But I don't think that I need any more drama this year. Cheers. Kraxler (talk) 15:00, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Works for me too. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:14, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

• I don't think the "assumed office" date should be the most recent one (2013); instead it should be the earliest date in an unbroken series of offices. Binksternet (talk) 15:08, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I confess to blinking somewhat when I saw the example for a moment, since I knew how senior Rangel is. Especially since it is mentioned he succeeded Adam Clayton Powell Jr.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:23, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

That part was not changed at all - it s how the infobox always has looked for congressmen. See Nancy Pelosi for her term in Congress in that infobox. Collect (talk) 15:29, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Proposal for viewing Showing first in office date - does this help? Collect (talk) 15:36, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

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RfC Congressmen's tenures in infobox

It has been requested to review the following closure, see the pertaining thread at AN. Please comment there, not here anymore. Kraxler (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2015 (UTC) Withdrawn. Kraxler (talk) 14:01, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 28 February 2015 - move appointer above deputy

Currently when both the appointer= and deputy= functions are used deputy appears higher than appointer, this gives infoboxes where both are used an odd layout for example: Donald Verrilli Jr.. If you compares this to for example: David Cameron where the monarch, who is the appointer of the Prime Minister, appears above deputy (I am aware a different function is used to produce that result) you will see how this visually makes more sense. Therefore could the template please be changed to display appointer above deputy. Thank you. Ebonelm (talk) 22:53, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. -- {{U|Technical 13}} (e o t o c) 00:19, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

If I knew what the problem was I would... Ebonelm (talk) 11:13, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Ebonelm, fixed? I may have moved it up further than necessary, so we can try to more fine-tuned placement if there is a problem. Frietjes (talk) 16:03, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

That seems to have done the trick - thank you. Ebonelm (talk) 21:16, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Source of the article : Wikipedia