Template:Infobox dam/Stausee/doc

Purpose
This infobox automatically translates and displays dam and reservoir information transferred from German Wikipedia as part of de:Vorlage:Infobox Stausee and, in doing so, greatly simplifies and speeds up the transfer of knowledge and translation of articles between the two Wikipedias.

The alternative is to laboriously copy the source text from either one or both of two separate en.wiki infoboxes (one for dams and one for lakes/reservoirs), then transfer the data from the de.wiki infobox, line-by-line, into the en.wiki ones. As well as being time-consuming, the end result is messy and incomplete because there is no one-to-one mapping of fields in many cases and no equivalent field at all for others.

Use
The infobox does not distinguish between type and purpose and may be used for all dams dammed lakes and reservoirs. In doing so, not all fields will always be relevant and may be simply left blank.

Please note that the infobox becomes more and more unwieldy, the longer the table is, so try to differentiate between important and unimportant information! Consider what the uninformed ready can glean from facts and figures alone and what needs to be explained in detail in the text!

It is not the intent that the dimensions given for a dam can be used to produce a technical drawing but that they can give an impression of its size. Choose a reference dimension and then describe the design or construction principles of the dam in the text. The data for volume and surface area of the reservoir are exclusively based on the Stauziel (Vollstau) or maximum capacity. Explain the dam regime in the text. The construction time is exactly that. Give timescales for planning or refurbishment periods in the text.

The infobox is not suitable for describing hydropower stations.

Note: use the Convert template in the respective fields for converting meters to feet, m3 to acre feet, etc. Otherwise, just add the abbreviated metric unit (m3, Mm3) in the infobox field.

General source text
Most German dam and reservoir articles will already have the source text below at the start of the article. Please note that the BREITENGRAD and LÄNGENGRAD fields used for display coordinates in German Wikipedia will not display as they have been removed from the template. This is because the de.wiki 'Coord' template is not compatible with the en.wiki version. The method for displaying coordinates is covered below.

Source text for dams in sparsely populated areas
Some articles may have the following cut-down source text.

Explanation of the parameters
Important: Empty fields will be omitted from the infobox, i. e. leave out missing or irrelevant data and the field will not be displayed. The units under Type do not have to be entered, but it will not harm if they are.

Example
In this example all the parameters are completed in order to be able to show the functionality of the infobox.