Template talk:Infobox NRHP/Archive 3

managing future code updates
From now on, please no more creation or use of nrhp2, nrhp3, etc. It has gotten very costly dealing with these forks of the main template, and confusing for users who have learned they are different. Template infobox nrhp2 is now redirected to template infobox nrhp and should not be changed. About 1600 articles out there seem destined to call infobox nrhp2 forever. It has also proven impossible, probably, to get bot programmers help in cleaning up messes we make by allowing forks to develop. In the main, I happen to think that allowing nrhp2 to be a fork for about a year was helpful, but, never again!

Please use Template:Infobox nrhp/sandbox and put testcases on Template:Infobox nrhp/testcases to develop and support arguments for a change to the main infobox nrhp. Changes to main infobox to be discussed here. doncram (talk) 05:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

contributing property presentation change needed
The infobox needs to be adjusted to allow for contributing properties, such as St. Agatha's Episcopal Church, to show the name and refnum of the NRHP-listed historic district to which they contribute. Practice in CP articles is all over the place. Giving the refnum of the HD as the CP's refnum is incorrect and misleading, as done now in some cases. Perhaps code so the existing refnum field is used, but understood and presented as the refnum for the HD, if the type=CP is selected. And a new field is needed for the parent HD's name to be displayed. Or could code as two new fields. doncram (talk) 23:27, 8 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll begin working on this soon. I've been busy working on the List of Mississippi Landmarks lately, adding the USMS designation to each property that is also on the NRHP. After I finish all these, I plan to try to implement these changes.
 * Right now, though, I added some code to the "designated=" field to put all articles using this defunct parameter into Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup. Can someone copy this code over, so the category will begin to become populated, and we can fix any remaining instances of this field? I've found several while going through the MS Landmarks list, so I think there will be many more. The code is found at Infobox nrhp/sandbox and is ready for updating! Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I support that cleanup-related change, which was previously discussed and should be entirely non-controversial. Thanks in advance to whichever administrator might implement this for us. :) doncram (talk) 18:30, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I just added the CP code as well (which can be viewed on Infobox nrhp/testcases), so it can be included in the update as well. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:39, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I see that it is now better, in the testcases you have added display of "NRHP Reference# of Parent District: 92001048" for that example. That is then accurate, rather than misleadingly presenting the refnum as if it is a refnum for the place itself (as if it were separately listed).


 * I'm not sure about the wording, to call it "Parent District" is not bad but perhaps we'd want to get other input, could want to revise in the future. I might prefer "parent NRHP", to avoid seeming to create a neologism and to cover cases when the NRHP to which a given one contributes, is not in fact a historic district (or does not have "Historic District" in its name).  Also, it would be most helpful to allow for the name of the parent NRHP (to be wikilinked to its article). doncram (talk) 21:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "Parent NRHP" makes NRHP a noun... and if you remember the long, detailed conversation a while ago, NRHP is not a noun. That's why we had to change all the NRHP lists to "National Register of Historic Places listings in ___" instead of just "National Register of Historic Places in ___." This is the same thing.
 * About cases other than a contributing property to a historic district, can a contributing property contribute to anything but a historic district?? Haha I thought that was the way a CP was defined - contributing to a larger district. All CP's are smaller sections of HD's I thought. Also, if you take a look, the parent district is linked in the cp's infobox. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I commented out the editprotected request above, for now. Let's get other input, and get to consensus on the CP change, which is now going to be part of this update.  It shouldn't be too hard.  I agree with your comment, i don't want to get into the same arguement about NRHP being a noun or not again.  But, what i meant was that leading capitals "Parent District" sounds like some official title.  Is there such a thing, a Parent District?  It could be a term, people might expect that it means something.  So I suggest some other phrasing and/or using lowercase only.


 * I am not sure whether or not the NRHP rules allow for a contributing property to be part of anything other than a historic district. However, I know that many NRHP's which are technically historic districts have names not including the words "Historic District".  Many plantation ones, for example, are named simply "Smith Plantation" or whatever, although they are in fact listed as historic districts.  And I bet that even if NRHP guidelines disallow it, that there are many cases where what is really supposed to be a historic district is just listed as a regular property.  It is often not black and white which to use, an HD or regular property.  I recall one of the NHL antebellum mansion property in Natchez, Mississippi, was listed first as a an NHL / NRHP, and then later a stable or other secondary structure on the property was also NRHP-listed.  Did they then go back and change the mansion property to term it a historic district?  Maybe they would or maybe they wouldn't.  And there could be other cases where we want to allow a separate wikipedia article about a secondary structure on a NRHP property, and it would probably be useful / fair / adequately descriptive to call them contributing structures.  Hmm, i am not clear on the possibly different requirements/needs for allowing contributing structures vs. contributing properties.  What about all those contributing structures (not properties) on the NPS-owned national battlefields / historical parks, etc?  These were discussed a while back.  There are a bunch of examples to retrieve and consider what is proper treatment for them.  Hmm, should consider article Contributing property and whether it is accurate or not, in its mixing of contributing property and contributing structure terms.  Let's ask for more input here, or ask for a separate discussion at wt:NRHP. doncram (talk) 22:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I actually did not notice in the testcase St. Agatha's Episcopal Church example that you had set up a link to the parent NRHP, DeFuniak Springs Historic District. There are three fields about the parent:  the wikilinked name, the NRHP listing date, and the refnum.  I think these should be together, perhaps in a shaded color or indented or separated by a solid or dotted line from the rest of the info in the infobox which is about the contributing property.  Currently the NRHP listing date is not clearly associated with the parent, and the parent name is far away from the refnum with non-HD fields inbetween. doncram (talk) 23:13, 14 May 2009 (UTC)


 * ...So we can make the D lowercase.. Parent district. Problem solved. For properties whose names don't include "Historic District," so what? "The United States of America" doesn't include the word "country," but we don't worry when we say "Mississippi is in the country of USA." For districts that are listed as normal properties but are actually supposed to be districts, that's what wp:NRIS info issues is for. "Parent district" accurately describes what we're trying to say. The contributing property is part of a parent district.
 * About the combining of the parameters, the listing date of the parent district is the same date as the contributing property. When a district is listed, all members of that district are also listed. That's something intrinsic to being a contributing property. I can move down the name of the parent district if you'd like; I just thought information higher up in the infobox would be more prominent. You're treating the contributing property as if it's a completely different entity from the historic district when it's not - it's part of the district. Certain information (like the listing date) is common to both the cp and the hd. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)


 * I do think that grouping together the parent name, listing date, and refnum is important. I think the CP option will be desirable to apply in cases where there is not an obvious error to report / get changed at the National Register.  Another test case example to consider is Petersen House (Washington, D.C.), a house that is part of a National Historic Site.  The Elkman infobox report for Ford's Theatre National Historic Site suggests it is not listed as an HD, and I wouldn't judge that is wrong.  I just edited its article.  Not sure how a contributing property within a NHS, which is not listed as an HD, should be handled in the infobox.  I'm going to ask for more input at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places now, too. doncram (talk) 21:33, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

[outdent] I appreciate the care that has gone into avoiding inaccurate terminology here, but I fear that the locution "parent district" is erroneous. Historic districts and contributing properties don't have a parent-child relationship. The term "parent" implies that the existence of the historic district somehow bestowed status on the contributing property, which is not the case (if anything, the contributing properties bestow status on the district).

Can't these just be called "contributing property in the Podunk Historic District" or "contributing property to the Podunk Historic District"? It seems to me that this would fully convey the story without creating another Wikipedia neologism.

As for National Historic Sites, if the NHS is not specifically listed on the National Register, Wikipedia shouldn't label it as a National Register listing. If the Petersen House is part of the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, say it is "part of" that NHS. Not only is that accurate, but that's a more prestigious status than being a "contributing property" to a National Register historic district. (Is Petersen House even actually listed on the National Register?) --Orlady (talk) 05:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean. What if the parameter was just ? The infobox would display "Part of: Podunk Historic District". In my opinion, refnums shouldn't be included in CP infoboxes since the CP's themselves don't have a refnum.. that's just superfluous information. Along the same lines, the listing date shouldn't be included in my opinion. Since the district will be linked, the reader can just click the link to read more about the district itself. Does this sound like a good solution to you? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Any responses? If no one objects in the next day or so, I'll edit the sandbox accordingly.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:34, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I guess i agree that the reference number of the "host" (parent, whatever) in some fundamental way doesn't need to be in the CP's infobox, at least if there is a wikilink in the infobox to the article with the host infobox. But it has been put into them before, so I think there is some attraction for editors to putting it in.  However, perhaps a stern note in the documentation, that a CP's infobox is not to include a refnum, could help stop the practice of putting it in.  But the refnums are in hundreds(?) of existing CP articles which do not have infobox links to the corresponding host articles, and you can't stop editors from putting "refnum = ########" into the infobox in the future, u can only choose to overrule editors' discretion by refusing to display it.  I think it is better to allow editors to add it if they really want to, and to display it, although you can recommend it not be included when there is a host link in the infobox.


 * Including the listing date of the host district is important and relevant as the NRHP-listing date of the CP property itself. Note sometimes different CPs in one HD will get different dates, some corresponding to a later boundary increase.


 * About Peterson House, it is part of a National Historic Site, and is notable enough on its own to have an article. There are a bunch of articles about contributing structures on some other National Park Service areas, currently using CP type in infoboxes.  I don't know if that is exactly right or not, or whether calling them "Part of" the NPS area is the best description.  Actually i think not, I think they are literally labelled contributing structures in the NPS database of such (different than the NRIS database), and they do each have individual id numbers in that system.  So NPS contributing structure is something different than the usual contributing properties in NRHP HDs, which is the higher priority to deal with here.  Maybe those cases should be addressed in a separate update.  There are only a handful of such articles so far, maybe 10, i think.


 * For the many more contributing property ones not in NPS areas, they should be called contributing properties "to" or "of" or "in" a given named HD. Not sure what preposition is best, just pick one.  Orlady's suggestion i guess allows us to avoid coining a phrase "parent" or "host" or whatever.  Just avoid coining anything like that.  You can use "partof=" or "parent=" or whatever you like in the infobox input coding, and it will not be displayed.  Actually in that context I think "parent=" is most apt. doncram (talk) 06:15, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, my guess why editors include the refnum is because many just copy the district's infobox to the CP's article and change information accordingly. A note can be included in the documentation, but I think we should go to all the CP articles and remove the refnums.. if anyone complains, we can direct them to the note in the documentation and we'll get more discussion about it. If too many people disagree with the removal, we can drop the note from the documentation.
 * I'll add the "part_of" designation to the sandbox shortly, but I'll hold off on the documentation until I get a reply or two here. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:58, 13 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok I think I may have come up with a solution for all our problems. I just added the "part_of" parameter to the sandbox, and it can be seen in action on the test cases page. I came up with a new way of letting the reader know that the refnum/listing date are for the district as a whole and not just this select property using references. This will allow the editor to include both parameters (removing the need for a documentation note), and the reader will know by checking the reference that the information is not property-specific. I also moved the "part_of" display down to just above the listing date, which I felt was the most appropriate place for it. Do you guys like this method? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:58, 14 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for persisting with this and putting forward a test case as you have. I think it is getting better, the "Part of:" now looks good to me and the basic placement of the info together also looks good.  At first I sort of like the footnotes you added, which are built-in and which editors cannot remove unless they blank the field, but then I am concerned that they are too long and not always applicable.  For the test case, the footnotes read "This date may or may not be the same as the listing date of DeFuniak Springs Historic District. Any differences are probably due to later boundary increases of the district, which are given new listing dates and reference numbers." and "This reference number does not pertain to the contributing property itself; rather, it is the reference number for DeFuniak Springs Historic District as a whole."  I am expecting the editor to get the correct date for the property, and not to need a general disclaimer about whether or not the date is the same as the original date of the historic district or not.  If there is a difference that the editor wants to cover, i'd let them add their own footnote.  In the majority of HD cases, there have been no later boundary changes.


 * How about if you changed the order of fields to Date, As part of, and Refnum order, and combined the refnum into the "Part of" field, so that it was approximately:

Added to NRHP: August 28, 1992 As part of: 	DeFuniak Springs Historic District (NRHP reference #92001048)
 * With either "Part of:" or with "As part of:", i think that this would be shorter and clear. doncram (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Also I notice that in this DeFuniak test case example, the "Governing body" field is given as a certain diocese, when it should just show as "Private", in my view. This is unrelated to what we are trying to address now, but it is a bit distracting to show an incorrectly filled out example as a model.  Obviously some editors do put in a diocese or another private owner name sometimes in that field, but I believe the NRIS database holds only Private, State, Local, or sometimes a specific Federal agency in that field.  I don't think we want to encourage editors treating it as an "Owner" field and moving towards putting in individual owner names on these properties. doncram (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean about the listing date thing; I can remove that footnote I guess. I thought boundary increases were more common. I think moving "Part of" below added will be helpful as well, but I don't think "As" should be added to the front. If the date is not known (for whatever reason), saying "As part of" without a preceding date will not make sense, so I think leaving it as just "Part of" would better suit all cases. I'll see what I can do about moving the refnum up by the district name; I hadn't thought of that before.. good idea.
 * About the governing body thing, I fully disagree with you. I think the infobox should be as specific as possible and not rely only on or be limited by the NRIS database. If the private organization is known, we should encourage editors to include it. Regardless, though, this has no relevance to this discussion, so we should discuss it elsewhere (if it even warrants discussion).
 * I'll look into making the changes you proposed above shortly, so hopefully we can have a final version ready for update. Remember that also a new category will be added in this update that will help us remove the old "designated=" parameter from articles; we still haven't done that yet. It's been so long since we discussed that, though, that I thought it should be brought to light again just as a reminder. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 11:04, 15 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ok I implemented the changes. The refnum is now shown beside the district name in parentheses. Both footnotes have also been removed. Check out the testcases page to see it. I think this may be the end of discussion, no? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:44, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Contributing properties, continued, late June on
(arbitrary break)

Actually, I've come across a problem. With a CP that also has its individual listing (such as Melrose (Natchez, Mississippi), which is an NHL), there are actually two refnums – one for the district and one for the individual building. Currently the only refnum field will show up beside the district (in this case Natchez National Historical Park) in the infobox if nrhp_type=cp. An editor therefore couldn't include the refnum of the building itself. Since incidents like this may happen, I don't think it's going to be possible to handle with one parameter. I think we're going to have to add a "district_refnum" to the code so that editors can include it if they wish. We would have to go around to all the CP articles and change them, which probably could be handled by AWB if I put in code to install a category on all CPs that use the refnum parameter. Does this sound good to you? You never responded to my earlier comment either haha. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry i didn't get back here sooner. The "St. Agatha's Episcopal Church" testcases example looks very good.  Yes, the problem you raise is important.  There are lots and lots of cases where a NRHP district (sometimes itself a NHL district) includes separately NRHP-listed properties (sometimes individually designated NHLs).  There could be cases where an NHL district is included in a larger NRHP district, too.  And cases where a plantation or other property that is itself technically a NRHP historic district, is part of a larger NRHP historic district.  So I agree another parameter is needed.  Rather than naming the refnum parameter "district_refnum" though, could we use "parent_refnum", which would be less ambiguous.  I am very comfortable with using the "parent" and "child" wording in the naming of fields within the infobox code, where they should be understood as being computer programming type terms.  Yes the cleanup drive as you suggest would be necessary and good, and could be done by AWB. doncram (talk) 20:18, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Meh.. the more time goes by, the less I like the "parent" idea. What if we used "partof_refnum"? That way, the two parameters ("partof" and "partof_refnum") would be somewhat connected. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:46, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I added "partof_refnum" (Sorry I didn't wait, but I figured you'd go along with it) and added code to put all articles that are CPs that use the refnum tag in Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup. This situation, along with infoboxes using the old "designated" field will be in the category, so we can kill two birds with one stone. I also added some code to shorten the template size a bit by using the Autolink template in the "partof" field and also in the other1, other2, etc. designations. This template links to the specified page if it exists, but leaves it as plain text if it doesn't. I also changed the example on the testcases page to show a CP that is also individually listed, so all the new updates can be seen there. I think we're pretty much ready to install the new code, so after you read this, you can uncomment the editprotected request (that is, if you don't object). --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Good, yes, the partof_refnum term seems better. I see the testcase for the Melrose, more complicated case, also works well now.  Yes I agree it all looks good, and I did restoration of the editprotected request near top of this discussion section.  Thanks for all you've done with this!  Hopefully an administrator should notice and let this considerably well-studied update go through now. :) doncram (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

editprotected (edit-protected request was here, has been completed by Acroterion. doncram (talk) 03:51, 30 June 2009 (UTC))

Please follow instructions in the header of Template:Infobox nrhp/sandbox: "To the ADMINSTRATOR, when releasing new edition, please copy from after this comment to the end of page, to Template:infobox nrhp." This improved version is the work of User:Dudemanfellabra in response to discussion here and at wt:NRHP. doncram (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2009 (UTC))


 * I guess that would be me. Done. Let me know if the wiki explodes.   Acroterion  (talk)  02:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it seems to work fine! doncram (talk) 03:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Problem embedding in Template:Infobox Observatory
I can't get it to work...displays lots of wikiformatting for the table:


 * !colspan=2 class="fn org" style="font-size:100%; text-align:center; background:#A8EDEF"|Ladd Observatory |-style="text-align:center" |colspan=2 style="background-color:PaleTurquoise; line-height:1.2"|U.S. National Register of Historic Places |- |- |- |- |- |- |- |-
 * - |colspan=2 align=center|
 * - |colspan=2 align=center|

after the value of the last displayed field in the parent infobox. One problem might be that the Infobox Observatory has a subinfobox at its end. I tried (at Template:Infobox Observatory/sandbox) to add a new field that comes after it (back in the parent infobox display level). But putting the embedded NRHP infobox there didn't resolve the problem. DMacks (talk) 07:07, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yea we know of this problem. The reason the nrhp infobox shows up like this is because Infobox Observatory is based on the meta-template Infobox. For some reason, the embed feature is not compatible with these infoboxes in its generic form. The only way to fix the problem (or at least currently) is to add a parameter to infobox observatory that will allow infobox nrhp to be transcluded inside it. Sorry about that! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:29, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * How would I go about doing that? DMacks (talk) 19:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Do this. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:54, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Coord name parameter
editprotected Please add code to allow the Coord template's name paramter to be set in this infobox. Suggest using coord_name as the new parameter name here. This is needed where the NRHP entity is part of a wider article, such as in Schuylkill Canal, where only one of the canal's reaches is on the NRHP. Thanks, --J Clear (talk) 20:19, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Since I want to avoid breaking this, would you mind going to User talk:Master of Puppets/Sandbox, copying the template there, and then making the changes? Then we can test it out without tearing a hole in a server somewhere. m.o.p  01:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea.. but instead of doing it in MOP's sandbox, why not try the official sandbox of the template? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 09:38, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You mean that locked sandbox? Is that a recursive lock from the main template, or can it be removed/downgraded on the sand box?  --J Clear (talk) 15:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Sandboxed template with changes here User:J Clear/Infobox nrhp, test usage here User:J Clear/Infobox nrhp test. I not only added coord_name, but made also checked to see if the Infobox's name parameter was set and used that as a second choice in the Coord calls. Could someone else review and then restore the above editprotected? I'll edit the doc page once the template is updated.  Thanks. --J Clear (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I just made a quick edit to your code to save a few bytes and make it default to no name if one isn't given. Also, the sandbox, though it has the protection symbol, isn't actually protected haha.. Idk why that's there. You can edit it at will. I'll let someone else review my changes before restoring the editprotected request though. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:41, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think you actually changed the end effect as far as I can tell. Also, any particular reason you only modified one of the two similar sections that I made edits to?  As far as I can tell the only reason for the includeonlies is to try to polish the turd of displaying the raw template.  As I hinted at below, they should probably all be moved to one pair around the whole of the template code, so this isn't necessary.  But that should be a separate change.  --J Clear (talk) 22:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Yea I didn't change the end effect, but I saved 27 bytes. I forgot there were 2 coord display sections haha, so that's why I didn't modify the other one. Yes they are there for displaying the raw template.. I think it's beneficial to have the template shown in full on the template page, so you know where everything will show up and how it will show up. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup
I'd also be willing to try to move all the embedded s to just one pair to be more in line with other templates using the external document page. --J Clear (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Problem with autocategorization to Category:Historic districts in the United States
The current template (actually NRHPconv) forces district articles into Category:Historic districts in the United States. Most, if not all, of them belong in one of the "Category:Historic districts in " sub-categories. Many already have the pertinent sub-category added manually to the article, but there is no way to remove the parent category. This goes against WP:DUPCAT. I haven't looked, but I suspect the same issue applies to other types, not just districts.

My first thought at a solution is use to the locmapin parameter to create the category name, and if not supplied default to US. However I'm not sure how to deal with a district that spans multiple states (can these even exist?), or if the editor doesn't want the locmap, or uses a non-state locmap. Perhaps adding a state parameter (which locmapin could default to if not specified).

Hmm, it gets worse, there are some sub categories below the state level. Perhaps what the template needs is a switch to turn off the template's auto category. An editor would set catsorted=yes to suppress the template's auto cat, once they have added the manual category. Probably the template should place the article into a hidden category of unsorted articles until a value is set.

Comments? Alternatives? --J Clear (talk) 17:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I was just going to start a discussion about this same thing. I agree, this template should not automatically categorize because it leads to articles being in both the top category and its child categories. In addition, it doesn't seem to be very useful navigation wise for that category to have 3500 articles. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 18:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not against automatically categorizing by default, even a large category is better than none at all and it will help us catch the ones that need further adjustment. But it does need some mechanism to adjust or suppress it.  --J Clear (talk) 19:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The U.S.-level historic districts category is much too big, so there was an initiative to add HDs to a state-level categories, then remove the auto-categorizing feature from the infobox. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 29 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Archive 29 for discussion of this. Unfortunately, it appears to me that some HDs never made it into state categories (some of the state HD categories have only a few entries, and -- sure enough -- I found that there are HDs in those states that aren't in the state HD category), so we still may not be ready to remove the auto-categorization feature from the infobox. --Orlady (talk) 20:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * More information: User:The Auto-categorizing Robot started the task of putting HDs into state categories, but stopped after getting only a little bit of the way into the job. I've left a note on the talk page of the bot's creator to see if help is needed to get it running again. --Orlady (talk) 21:27, 5 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Must be something in the air -- I just came here expecting to start a discussion about this and find that ClearJ started it two days ago.


 * Anyway, how about doing as suggested above -- using the locmapin= parameter to pick a state.  Have available a new parameter, state=, for cases where the editor doesn't want to use locmapin=.  In cases where neither locmapin= nor state= appears, put it in Category:Historic Districts needing a state (or whatever name we choose), which should be easy to keep empty if a few of us watch it. Using locmapin= as the starting point should knock off 95% of them, I'd guess. . . . . Jim . . . . Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  14:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[reset] Is the NRHP process such that a district would not span multiple states? I know multi-county HDs exist as I live next to one, but have no clue about state level. I suppose setting "state=in the United States" would take care of this if such districts exist. --J Clear (talk) 23:30, 7 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are multiple-state historic districts (and even some individual properties that span state lines, such as dams and bridges that cross rivers that form a boundary). HDs that span a state line probably would be added to two state HD categories, as is done for national parks and other features that span state lines.
 * As noted earlier, there was a plan to eliminate the HD autocategorizing feature from the infobox, after making sure that all HDs were added to state categories. The bot that was handling that project is supposed to be starting up soon (see this note if it hasn't done so already. --Orlady (talk) 14:58, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed this problem today. It's especially problematic since Category:Historic districts in the United States is clearly marked with catdiffuse. I insist on following WP:DUPCAT and it's frustrating that I can't. But it appears that the problem will be fixed soon? I did notice that Category:Historic districts in Oregon was surprisingly underpopulated considering the amount of coverage we have in that area, so I'm making sure all the articles (or redirects) are in the state-level category. I hope that will help speed up the process. Katr67 (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * We're still waiting for Auto-categorizing Robot to complete the promised runs. Once that's done, the automatic categorization into Category:Historic districts in the United States can be removed from the nrhp infobox template. --Orlady (talk) 17:29, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Places that are NRHP-listed both individually and as CPs
Nyttend asks at wt:NRHP about how to use the infobox to show a place being individually listed and also being a CP in a historic district. Currently there is no way, I think, to do anything other than including the CP option. This was previously noted as a glitch, that a mere CP's infobox looks just like an individually-listed NRHP that is also a CP in a different NRHP HD.

Nyttend stated:"I'm working on an article about the William B. Dunlap Mansion, which is a contributing property to the Bridgewater Historic District that was listed in 1996, sixteen years after the house itself was listed individually. Is there a way to configure Infobox nrhp to say that it's both listed by itself and a CP to an HD? If not, would it be possible to change the infobox so that it had an option for 'property individually listed on the Register'? I think it would be best to set it so that if we left the 'nrhp_type' line blank, it would act as if we'd selected this option (therefore, the thousands of articles on individually-listed properties wouldn't be affected by this change), even if we had an 'nrhp_type2' line that was different — for example, if the infobox were as I'm suggesting, I'd leave the 'type' line blank and put 'cp' in the 'type2' line. Nyttend (talk) 02:12, 20 December 2009 (UTC)"

I like that. Continue to use "nrhp_type=cp" or "nrhp_type1=cp" for infoboxes of properties that are CPs only. There are a few hundred existing articles like that. But when "nrhp_type2=cp" or nrhp_type3=cp or nrhp_type4=cp is used, add a NRHP display bar stating "Individually listed". Hopefully that phrase will fit on one line of text. What's needed is for someone to create a sandbox version of the nrhp_template and use the linked testcases to verify the code works. doncram (talk) 14:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm aware of this inconsistency with the infobox. I had a plan originally that I set into motion before I took some months off for the fall semester, but I have about two more weeks left on break right now (and hopefully will be able to continue editing throughout some of the semester), so I was hoping to pick back up where I left off. My original plan had to do with reference numbers. Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup currently contains all of the articles about CP's that are also individually listed (or at least it should.. I haven't checked it in a while since I've been gone). These articles are flagged by checking to see if any of the nrhp_types are set to cp and then checking to see if refnum is also set. If a property is a CP, there is now a parameter "partof_refnum" wherein the editor types the HD's refnum. If the CP is also individually listed, "refnum" should contain that property's individual refnum; if it is not individually listed, refnum is left blank. I was going to make code to suppress display of the NRHP bar (the light blue one) if nrhp_typen was set to "cp" and refnum was blank. The benefit of this would be that there would be no order or anything that the nrhp_type designations would have to go in (i.e. leaving the first blank and second, third, or fourth set to CP). It would work for any order, making the infobox more editor-friendly.


 * I also like Nyttend's solution, though. Instead of checking for 2 things (nrhp_typen=cp AND refnum=blank), the infobox would only have to check for 1 (nrhp_type!=cp) to suppress display of the NRHP bar, so it would be more space efficient. I think forcing the editor to have an order to the nrhp_types takes away from the flexibility of this infobox. Either way, really, is fine though. I think I'm about to go look through the articles in that category and make sure they're all individually listed. I can quickly code either of these solutions to the problem, so whichever you guys think is best will work. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, after more thought, what if we just let the "refnum" parameter control whether or not the blue NRHP bar is displayed? Any property listed on the NRHP has a unique refnum, right? With the new syntax ("partof" and "partof_refnum") in place, the only articles without something in the "refnum" parameter should be CPs that aren't individually listed. If the infobox only displayed the NRHP bar if something was in the "refnum" parameter, that would combine the positives of both methods mentioned above. The suppression of the NRHP bar would work for any order of nrhp_types AND the infobox would only have to check for one thing. In order to make sure no articles are harmed by this addition, any article with a blank refnum and nrhp_typen not set to cp could be temporarily placed into Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup. Those articles' reference numbers could be looked up using Elkman's tool, so we'd really be killing two birds with one stone! Those articles would get a valid reference number, and the NRHP bar would be suppressed on the articles it needs to be suppressed on. No one seems to be following this thread any more, so I'll go ahead and write up the code and put it in a new section. If no one has commented within 24 hours, I'll put an editprotected request in. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:19, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me; since CPs aren't individually listed unless otherwise noted, it's somewhat confusing to include the light blue bar. You're correct about the unique refnum.  Nyttend (talk) 15:26, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry for not getting back to comment here more quickly. I am confused.  The decision taken seems to be to have the absence of refnum in infobox being the sole indication that a place is a contributing property.  And, the principal difference in infobox display between CP-only places vs. an individually-listed-and-also-CP places is that the latter get the "National Register of Historic Places" color-bar.  Is that right?


 * About the difference in infobox display, I think that difference is subtle and will not be noticed by most wikipedia readers, which is fine by me. On this I mostly appreciate that there is some difference detected and displayed, so that in future if someone has a great idea for what should be shown differently, that can be implemented in the infobox coding.


 * About the absence of refnum being the sole indicator of CP-only-ness, I think that will be confusing for future editors and/or confusing to explain to them. In general I would prefer a positive indicator to be available, meaning a way for an editor to specifically indicate that a place is CP-only.  And likewise for an editor to be able to specifically indicate that a place is individually-listed-and-also-a-CP.  Suppose those were to be indicated by nrhptypeN=CPonly and nrhptypen=INDandCP.  I believe that would be easy to program, at least as an addition/alternative to the just-implemented approach.  This would allow a future editor who lacks a refnum, to be able to override the default for an infobox lacking refnum.  It seems better to me to accomodate the many editors who get started in NRHP articles, who are at first unaware of the Elkman system or other ways to get refnums, or who just want to keep things simple and do an infobox from scratch or by cutting-and-pasting from another article.  Also this would allow proper treatments for new places where you might know a place is NRHP-listed by just a news article report with no refnum, or where you know a stated refnum is incorrect (like possibly for one or more of the Davis depot / Big Four House cases under discussion elsewhere).  Giving editors control to get something right, if they make a specific indication, seems good for editors.  Since this would have utility, and should be easy to add in, I would like for this to be added, at least.


 * About whether absence of refnum should be allowed to be the indicator of CP-only-ness, or whether a positive indication should be required, I am not sure, will have to think about further.


 * I do appreciate very much your addressing all the current articles where there is a missing refnum, to make sure that current presentation is accurate. Thanks! doncram (talk) 19:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I recall that nrhptype= "nrhp", alone, was a while back programmed in response to my request, for similar reasoning at the time that an editor should be allowed to positively indicate NRHP-only status. That serves editors who want to put something into the field, perhaps an editor who copied a NHL place's infobox and is changing it for a non-NHL place.  In general i am interested in the use of the infobox being "dummyproof" and giving control to the editor, as much as possible.  Anyhow, perhaps the entry of "CP" as one type and "NRHP" as another should be allowed to positively indicate individually-listed-and-also-a-CP status, in addition to or instead of coining a new "INDandCP" type indicator. doncram (talk) 20:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

(outdent) You are correct that the absence of a refnum is the sole indicator of whether or not the property is a non-listed CP. If the property is not listed individually, it will not have a refnum; if it is listed individually, it will. Any infobox that does not contain an nrhp_typen set to cp or nhldcp and also does not have a refnum is in error and should be fixed. You point out that sometimes the reference number is not known to editors that don't know about the Elkman system or if the property has been added so recently that it doesn't appear yet in the system. In both of these cases, the article in question will be placed into Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup, and an experienced editor can inform the person that didn't know about the Elkman system and add the correct refnum to the article (in the 1st situation) or look at the new listings, which appear every week, and find the refnum for the article (in the 2nd situation). For the random NRIS error or other problem such as the Big Four House, the article will still be placed into the category and special attention can be paid to it. Unless there is some kind of error, there is always a way to find the refnum of a property, even if it has been listed very recently.

Though I believe the refnum system is completely sufficient for this cause and even helps to clean up the (currently 100+) articles with missing refnums that aren't CPs, I do like the idea of a nrhp_type specifically for individually listed CPs. Maybe "indcp"? This would override the system and keep the display of the blue NRHP bar (and possibly put the article into Category:Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register?), but the article would still need a refnum, so if it didn't have one, it would still be placed in the cleanup category. I think maybe leaving the refnum system in place (so as to catch the non-CP errors like it's doing now) and adding the option to have the "indcp" nrhp_type would be a good compromise. How does that sound? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:48, 8 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. Actually i was not understanding that cp had to be indicated, for a refnum-less infobox to be assumed to be in cp-only status.  I thot regular NRHPs that lacked refnums were going to get swept into that.  And, using the cleanup category to garner attention like that sounds great.  Thanks! doncram (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem embedding in Template:Infobox Theater
I'm working in my sandbox on an article on a theater on the NRHP. I'm using the embed function of this template to embed it within Template:Infobox theater, and the NRHP section is showing up twice. Any suggestions? &mdash; Music  Maker  5376  03:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've figured out the "why" -- the last thing in the infobox is the website, which is used twice, once for the link and once for the text. &mdash; Music  Maker  5376  03:30, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Suppress coordinates?
Perhaps there should be a way to suppress the coordinates in the infobox, so that when it is embedded within an infobox that already has coordinates, they don't appear twice. (Anticipating objection:) While you could simply leave them out of the other infobox, for infoboxes that place them in the title position, this would make the articles un-uniform. &mdash; Music  Maker  5376  18:25, 27 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If the parent infobox only places them in the title position, you could add the same coordinates to NHRP and use coord_display=inline. If the parent infobox puts them in-line, you could omit them in NHRP or use coord_display = title.  Just make sure to use the same values.  See also the coord_format parameter.  --J Clear (talk) 18:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Trouble embedding 40 Wall St.
I just noticed that, for a couple months now, the 40 Wall Street infobox does not display the NRHP box correctly embedded with the Skyscraper infobox. I've tried rebuilding it from scratch, using the fields on this page as a guide, but the output still doesn't seem to want to combine the two fields. Any ideas? Thanks.— DMCer ™  22:25, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The problem is that Infobox skyscraper uses infobox, which uses  rather than wikified table markup. One possible solution would be to switch this infobox to use , but that might break other uses.  There might be another workaround.  I don't think making large changes to Infobox skyscraper is the answer, since using infobox is in general a good idea, since it encourages a more uniform format for infoboxes. I have un-embedded it for now. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  22:33, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the attention. I thought it might be something like that, as opposed to just a random incorrect parameter in the nrhp box. I'm not a pro in this area, so the un-embedding looks good for now. Thanks.— DMCer ™  06:39, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, this problem is known. I was the one that put in the embedding code back before many of the infoboxes used the meta-template to display. Eventually I plan on converting this infobox to use the meta-template, but I'm focusing on some other things at the moment. For right now, the only way to fix the embedding problem on Infobox-based infoboxes is to add a bit of code like this diff to the infobox in question. While it's not perfect, it works as a temporary patch until something further can be done to this infobox. Sorry for the trouble. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That works. I will add it to the skyscraper infobox. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks great, guys. Thanks.— DMCer ™  00:16, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

New Sandbox Patch
editprotected I just edited the sandbox of this infobox to include two key updates:
 * 1) Suppress the light blue NRHP bar at the top of the infobox on any CP article that is not individually listed. This will create a visual difference between the two types of CP articles that is not currently present, thus curtailing confusion. The bar is suppressed if there is no "refnum" set, which will only occur in non-listed CP articles. They will use "partof_refnum" instead of "refnum". If a regular non-CP article doesn't have a refnum set, it will be placed in Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup temporarily and a valid refnum will be added to it.
 * 2) Tweak the "embed" feature of the infobox. Currently, if an editor wants to embed into an infobox that uses the meta-template Infobox, a special bit of code needs to be added to that infobox along with a new parameter, "nrhp=". This kind of defeats the purpose of the embed feature, which is supposed to let an editor embed the nrhp infobox into any other infobox with no effort. This new patch solves the meta-template problem and truly allows the nrhp infobox to be embedded into any other infobox with no strings attached. After the patch is installed, all the infoboxes that currently have the workaround "nrhp=" parameter can be edited to remove it since it is no longer necessary.

There is still a conversation above about the first of these updates, so I'm going to give it 24 hours to allow anyone to object, so until then, no one should copy the sandbox code over. Once the editprotected request is placed here (even if no one has commented above), an admin can feel free to install the patch. Thanks! -Dudemanfellabra (talk) 08:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Mmk I got a response above, and it's been close to 24 hours, so I'm placing the editprotected request now. To the admin that reads this, all you have to do is copy over the sandbox code to this code, and that should do it. Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 15:27, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Minor Updates
The sandbox code has been updated to include a few follow-up edits from the last patch. Included improvements are:


 * Add a new nrhp_type, indcp, for individually listed CPs. This nrhp_type will force display of the blue NRHP bar, even if the refnum is not provided. This will not, however, override the system that places articles without refnums into Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup. Setting an nrhp_type to "indcp" will automatically put the article into Category:Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register.
 * Removes support for the outdated designated parameter. It has now been fully replaced with designated_nrhp_type.
 * Fixes a bug where if coord_display was set to "title", the Coordinates: label would still be displayed in the infobox.
 * Changes the default value of coord_display to "inline,title" instead of just "inline".
 * Various edits with ParserFunctions that optimize the code necessary to display the "other1-other3" designations.

In order to implement these updates, first the sandbox code should be copied over to this template, but there are other edits that need to be made to Template:NRHPconv, also fully protected, to enable compatibility with the new "indcp" nrhp_type.

If there are any questions about these edits, please comment at my talk page, and I will assist you. Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:45, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think I have now accomplished all of your requests. In future, a sandbox copy would be far easier than four separate, rather complicated, instructions! Anyway, you certainly seem to know what you're doing. Oh, and I moved a few templates to more logical places. Let me know if you are not happy with any of those moves. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Unnecessary line break
The following syntax are the 1st 2 lines:

{| class="infobox vcard" style=""

This creates an extra space in articles:

Acting admin, please change the 1st 2 lines to:

{| class="infobox vcard" style=""

TIA174.3.123.220 (talk) 02:16, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Hold on, please. I think this would eliminate the blank  immediately above the NRHP name in an embedded infobox. If that's true, I'm inclined to keep it. I'm going to sandbox the old way and the proposal so we can see the difference. Please don't make the change until we have a chance to discuss it. Thanks, Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  10:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Further to my last... User:174.3.123.220, have you sandboxed this? I can't make it work.

Feel free to change User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox2 to test this. But, please, no changes to the template until Accordingly, I have commented out the editprotected above.
 * 1) I installed Infobox NRHP, unmodified, at User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox2.
 * 2) I installed a copy of Doubling Point Light that calls Sandbox2 instead of the real template at User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox3.
 * 3) That worked fine -- the result looked exactly like the real Doubling Point Light.
 * 4) Then, I made the proposed change to User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox2. That does not work fine as you can see now by going to User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox3.
 * 5) I'm not quite good enough at template syntax to understand the problem, but I think I've done the test correctly.
 * 1) We can make the change work in my sandboxes.
 * 2) We agree the change is for the better.

Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 11:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I appear to have blown away the following comment by Dudemanfellabra that came to the same conclusion before I did -- sorry Dude, it's early here. Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 11:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * If this edit is made, the infobox breaks. This line break is not causing the extra space in articles. Can you show me an example article? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:52, 9 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Here's an example. The current version is not the same, but many articles are in this state.174.3.123.220 (talk) 04:49, 10 April 2010 (UTC)


 * That line break is not the fault of the infobox.. the next revision to the page removed a line break on the page itself. If many articles have a line break in them, this template can't fix this. There should be no line break before the infobox in the article. if any articles have this line break, it should be removed, but there's no way to do that from this template. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:34, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, ofc that revision was done by me, by that was because I had to move remove that line separating the hatnote from the template. Is this not the result of the syntax in the template?174.3.123.220 (talk) 06:05, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any difference between the way the NRHP infobox and other infoboxes set. Using the standard skin, non-beta version of WP, it sets with one blank line between "From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and the top line of the article, with the top border of the infobox even with the top of the top line of the lead. If there's a hatnote, it sets one blank line below the hatnote, again, the same as other infoboxes. If you disagree, point us to an example, please -- not the Majestic Theatre (Dallas, Texas), which doesn't appear to be a problem in its current version. Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 12:03, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * No, of course not. I fixed it by deleting the line between the hatnote and the template.  This is a "temporary" solution.  The revision I pointed out is still a problem: it is preferable to have a line between the hatnote and the template.174.3.123.220 (talk) 22:46, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's another example (I changed the example for the time being (see the edit summary)). Here is the version with the big swath of white space.  And it still uses the template in question .174.3.123.220 (talk) 22:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The line may be "preferable", but it's wrong. There should be no line breaks. This template can't fix that line break because the line break is not in the template. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:58, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Then why is it there? Technical Village Pump says what I wrote in the new section will work.174.3.123.220 (talk) 23:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The line break is there because someone put an extra linebreak between the hatnote and the top of the infobox.

What someone says will work MUST be tested in a sandbox before a widely used template is changed. See which test your bad suggestion below for examples of how to do this. Note that I, at least, am losing patience with you. Below we have the second time you have put in a request for an edit to a widely used template that would break the template. You're wasting my time, Dude's time, and, potentially, the time of an admin who has better things to do. Please don't place any more editrequests until you have consensus that what you have requested is useful.. . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs) 00:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
 * User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox3
 * User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox2

Help with odd appearance in Thornden Park article
This infobox gives a pretty unsatisfactory appearance in the Thornden Park article when viewed in Internet Explorer (v. 8); it looks OK in Firefox. I can't find anything that looks incorrect in the usage of the infobox or in the article itself. Can someone more knowledgeable take a look? Cheers, Easchiff (talk) 10:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)


 * If you mean the fact that the centered Rose Garden image was forced to set below the infobox in IE, that's an IE problem, not the infobox's fault. I solved it by setting the image to the left, among other minor changes. Technically that's a violation of policy -- in order to avoid problems on small screens, text should not be sandwiched, in this case between an image and the infobox,  but it's a short article, so maybe we can get away with it.
 * I also removed the sizes given for the images. In all of this, remember that we are trying to make articles accessible on everything from PDAs through old VGA screens at 640x480 up to very large screens. By leaving the size off, thumbs will set at a size set by the user (in my preferences>appearance) or the default.  Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  10:44, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing this and for the suggestions. Policy or not, I can live with the sandwich effect. Easchiff (talk) 17:01, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Remedy For The Extra Space
editprotected

Please change

{| class="infobox vcard"

to

{{#ifeq:yes|yes|end_table {{{!}}|{{{!}} }} class="infobox vcard"

This should get rid of the white line that is plaguing articles with this template.174.3.123.220 (talk) 23:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)


 * There is no extra space. All of the articles you have given as examples had an extra space at the top between a hatnote and the infobox. Your proposed change breaks the embed function, see
 * User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox2 (the proposed change)
 * User:Jameslwoodward/Sandbox3 (an article that uses it -- the only change from the live article is the template call. Note that the embedded infobox does not set correctly)


 * Please stop posting requests to change a broadly used template in a way that will break it. This is beginning to feel like a deliberate waste of our time. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  00:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Infobox Question
How can I display a map like this in the infobox instead of the generic map of Iowa pointing to Davenport as seen on McClellan Heights Historic District? C T J F 8 3 chat 17:05, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If in general you wanted to show point locations on a Davenport map, you'd need to get the Davenport map accepted at a higher level than here (not sure where or how, myself). Like the "Los Angeles County" and "New York City" maps were recently incorporated and made available as arguments for the locmapin= field.
 * If you just want to show this one image you prepared in the NRHP infobox for this one article, why not just use the image= field for this image.  If you have other photos, put those outside the infobox.  I don't believe you can include 2 arbitrary images in the NRHP infobox.  It's just one photo and/or one map using the coordinates and locmapin field. --doncram (talk) 20:32, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * You know.. I could write up some code to add a "district_map" field to the infobox that would suppress the display of the location map. Coord would still show up, but if "district_map" was set to an image file, the location map would not display.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Before writing new code, please see whether it's possible to reuse code from an existing template; for consistency. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 22:01, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Clean up category
Could someone institute this change from the sandbox? Essentially, it's replacing  with   to suppress the infobox cleanup category when the infobox is not transcluded in the mainspace doesn't have a critical need to be cleaned-up. I tested the change out and it works as desired. Thanks, ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 19:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I used cat handler which is a slightly neater way of doing this - hope that's okay with you. By the way, please check that sandboxes are in sync before starting work on them! Cheers &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Tweaks proposed
Hi. I'd like to update the infobox with a map label, alignment with the photograph (250 px not 235px), a smaller locator marker and a building icon preferably like infobox building as demonstrated on the right. If you prefer the red pin marker then I propose it be reduced in size a little. Personally I prefer a building marker for landmarks and think the example on the right is fine, especially as the big red dot tends to smother whole cities on a state map. i have the parameters ready, just probably needs consensus. I am completely open minded to better suggestions of a locator marker, if somebody could suggest something better I'm all for it but I think that a label looks better on a map than without.. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 16:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me.  C T J F 8 3  chat 17:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not keen on the building marker (it blends into the map, somewhat). Also, I think a caption would work better than a map label. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 18:17, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a good point, but Blofeld also made a good point that the red dot is huge? Can we use a county map to further "zoom in" on the location of the NRHP?  C T J F 8 3  chat 18:41, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, how about the small black dot now? It looks better I think and more precise. If it is a little too small say so. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 19:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Is a county map doable?  C T J F 8 3  chat 20:15, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * A county map could be used if it exists. That will depend on the particular county, but is not an issue in this template.  I agree that more specific maps are usually good. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  22:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't particularly see any need to change - the red dot might be a little bit big, but the small black dot doesn't help locate the building any better. I don't like 2 maps in the infobox - for many NRHP articles the infobox is much bigger already than the text. Smallbones (talk) 01:14, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The reason the map is 235px is that when there is a caption, they line up.. when there is no caption, though, they don't. I try to include a map caption in every infobox, so I never really see the misalignment problem I guess. If you'd like to fix that, the simplest way to fix it is to make a map caption default (i.e. "Location of Alexandria City Hall in Virginia" where the NRHP name and state/location name would be filled in automatically). The default could be overridden if desirable and turned off also.
 * About the size of the dot, I don't really see the need for change either. It could possibly be beneficial on some city maps, but on state level maps it doesn't really matter. As Plastikspork noted above, the maps aren't actually controlled by this infobox.. they are controlled by Location map. Anyone can create any map, be it country, state, county, city, or neighbourhood level. I would rather use a caption than a label because I think the labels are just tacky. It looks more aesthetic and professional if the text is in the caption. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)
 * First, I tend to agree that the red dot is a little too big, but I prefer color to black as it is easier to see. Second, I don't like labels on maps -- we have some very long NRHP names and they would be terrible on the map. Given that we present a map with one marker (beit large, or small, red, black, or pink) -- I see no reason for either a label or a caption. Policy is to avoid captions where they say something obvious, so I never write map captions in NRHP infoboxes.


 * If I understand the first paragraph correctly, Dr. Blofeld is proposing that we change to a building icon of some sort -- if that's correct, let's remember that we have Historic Districts, houses, schools, lighthouses, bridges, locomotives, ships, and other assorted objects on the list. It would need many icons and would naturally reduce the precision of the location.


 * Finally, I like the by-state maps, rather than counties. If the reader wants to know where it is with more precision, the coords give a good Google map -- county maps would require a lot of effort (each one has to be drawn and calibrated) to gain something we already have. . . Jim - Jameslwoodward (talk • contribs)  11:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)


 * In that case I strongly recommend you reduce the size of the Comic Relief pin marker to something like 6px. It should look like Alexandria, Virginia. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 09:53, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * How do we switch the size of the dot? I think everybody agrees that the current dot is at least a bit too big.  At Alexandria, Virginia, I find the dot to be a bit small - perhaps we should go to 8px instead of 6. Smallbones (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The default marker size for the template is already 8px. I agree that 6 also looks too small. Possibly 7px would be a good compromise? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:30, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Try 7 then. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 20:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Autocategorization and boundary increase updates
I've just updated Template:Infobox NRHP/sandbox with some updates that will fix the dreaded autocategorization problems with Category:Historic districts in the United States. The new edits use the locmapin parameter (if it's set) to categorize district articles into state categories. Thus, if locmapin is set to "Ohio", the article will be autocategorized into Category:Historic districts in Ohio instead of the national category. Also, a new parameter, nocat allows the editor to turn off autocategorization all together. Setting any value (e.g. "yes") to this parameter will skip categorization so it can be handled manually. This will be useful for any error handling that could possibly arise if the location map used is that of a locality that doesn't have its own category. For example, Location map Boston exists, but Category:Historic districts in Boston does not. In this case, nocat=yes can be used to avoid the incorrect categorization, and Category:Historic districts in Massachusetts can be added manually.

There is one error, however, with this implementation that I can't quite figure out how to fix. If the locmapin parameter is added to the template but left blank (as opposed to just leaving it out of the code), the article is placed into Category Historic districts in, which doesn't exist. Although the category doesn't exist, if the infobox puts articles into it, we can still see them, so we could just manually categorize these articles if need be. Another option is a category redirect to Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup, though this is messy. A third option is to change the code further to remove the "in" from the category name and put locmapin blank articles into Category:Historic districts. While this method would avoid categories that don't exist, it would be impossible to distinguish NRHP articles from other articles in this category, so it is less than desirable IMO. I think the best option is to just monitor the "Historic districts in" category so we can see only articles that use the infobox that need manual categorization..... That is unless someone can think of a better way?

Other than the autocategorization edits, I've added in several other features including the ability to display a district map (e.g. this one) as opposed to a locator map when one is available. This is done by setting the file name (without "File:" as with the image parameter) to the new district_map parameter. map_caption and map_width can also be used with this map. If district_map is set to a file name, the location map is not displayed. (Too many maps will cause a lot of clutter in the infobox.)

I also added the ability for the infobox to handle boundary increases gracefully with new parameters increase/increase_refnum (and increase2/increase2_refnum if necessary).

I would normally add an editprotected request here, but since the categorization deal would affect thousands of articles, I'm looking for some comments, and possibly a solution to the "Historic districts in" error. Any thoughts? --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:46, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm confused (but what else is new?). This sounds like a great thing (three cheers for Dudemanfellabra!), but it looks to me like this new template is not currently being implemented. What gives? --Orlady (talk) 04:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I updated the sandbox, not the actual infobox. I was waiting on comments and possibly a solution to the problem I mentioned above before I asked an administrator to update the code of the actual infobox. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:21, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Is there any way to get the article to be placed into Category:Historic districts in the United States when "locmapin" isn't specified? Also, this has been bugging about the NRHP infobox: Can the default width be expanded a little (at least so that "Architectural style(s):" is on one line) or maybe just leave "Architectural style" as a singular? Good work, though, especially with allowing for boundary increases. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 20:23, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, if locmapin is all together left out of the template (not just blanked), the article is put into the nationwide category. If, however, the parameter is included but left blank, the error I described above occurs. I'm still trying to figure out how to stop this.
 * I just added an nbsp to "Architectural style(s)", so if this update goes through, the phrase shouldn't wrap to two lines.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Muahahaha!Face-grin.svg I figured out how to make it work! In this edit, I fixed the problem. Now if locmapin is blanked or eliminated, the page will go into Category:Historic districts in the United States. If locmapin is set to a state, the category will be changed accordingly. "nocat = yes" can still cancel autocategorization all together. I'll go ahead and add an editprotected request!

To the administrator
The following edits must be made  in this order  to make this update work properly and to assure no problems in the transition:


 * 1) Copy code from Template:Infobox NRHP/sandbox to Template:Infobox NRHP. Be sure when copying to change all instances of " " to " ", or else you will open up a highly visible infobox to potential vandalism. (Infobox NRHP/conv is editprotected while Infobox NRHP/conv/sandbox isn't.)
 * 2) Copy code from Template:Infobox NRHP/conv/sandbox to Template:Infobox NRHP/conv. The code can be directly copied; no worries about changing anything.

Thanks! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:52, 30 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Done!! --Orlady (talk) 23:59, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Upon seeing the edit, I see that I accidentally removed the "marksize=7" call used in conjunction with the location map. I also see that I made a typo in the last edit. I've modified the sandbox, so a simple copy/paste is all that's needed. Sorry for the mess up. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Done! I noticed that the sandbox template spelled the omitted call "marsize=7", but I hand-edited the target page to say "marksize=7". Please advise if I messed up. :-) --Orlady (talk) 03:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)


 * No, you were right haha. I typoed the typo-fix. Good job, me. Thanks for the update!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:59, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Third boundary increase
I updated the sandbox code to add support for a third boundary increase in districts. Can someone please copy/paste it over? Be sure when copying to change all instances of " " to " ", or else you will open up a highly visible infobox to potential vandalism. (Infobox NRHP/conv is editprotected while Infobox NRHP/conv/sandbox isn't.) Thanks!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 15:43, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Other designation text color
Can we add a simple parameter so that one can designate text color for the local "other designations"? This way colors schemes for local historic designations can stay consistent with other projects, such as those in the Historic Sites Wikiproject (e.g. New York City's local designation infobox bar color scheme has a red background with white text).

This would be easy to adding  in a couple of places, with obviously in this example, setting the parameter "designated_other1_textcolor =" to whatever color value you want in the infobox. CrazyPaco (talk) 03:16, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * A better option would be  to use a more standards compliant tag.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:28, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

fork alert
See Template talk:Infobox PAhistoric. --Stepheng3 (talk) 02:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I would think this would qualify for TFD. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  16:12, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Currently non-NRHP-listed, state and local designated historic designations do not fall under the scope of the NRHP infobox or wikiproject. The scope of the infobox and/or NRHP Wikiproject would have to be changed to incorporated state and local designations for these to be merged, and allow for the customization of the Pale Turquoise banner so as to not be confused with an NRHP designation. Previously, such designations were handled by the Historic Sites wikiproject, but Pennsylvania markers, with their broader scope of signification, have been deemed by some in that project to be outside of its scope as well. Therefore, unless the scopes of either project are redefined, a separate template infobox is necessary, and thus has been created to avoid further areas of contention in the definitions of the scopes of either project. The new infobox has been created to match the NRHP infobox both stylistically and in function, for ease of use, adoption, and maintenance, and includes customizable "other designations" that could allow it to be implemented for historic designations outside of Pennsylvania. CrazyPaco (talk) 23:32, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "Currently non-NRHP-listed … designations do not fall under the scope of the NRHP infobox" So use another, already available infobox. If none exists, any new box should be suitable for use nationally. if not internationally.
 * As I explained above, there are no others. The already existing infobox for international historic sites sees PA designations as out of its scope. From that perspective, apparently the PAhistoric designation infobox covers its own unique topic. The PAhistoric infobox also includes parameters for three fully color-customizable "other designations" that can be used for any designation, international or local. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
 * "The scope of the infobox and/or NRHP Wikiproject would have to be changed to incorporated state and local designations for these to be merged, and allow for the customization of the Pale Turquoise banner so as to not be confused with an NRHP designation." So propose such changes. Or have you done so already? The infobox does not belong to the projects. Andy Mabbett (User: Pigsonthewing ); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 09:07, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I absolutely agree that the ideal solution is to consolidate all of these infoboxes into a uniform style. IMO, that would be an improvement: consolidating the NRHP and international (historical site) infoboxes (I guess as well you'd be compelled to also consolidate historic events, historic area, historic subdivision, and whatever else as well) into one standard and then opening it up to customization for local designations. That is a large project. In the meantime, as I explained above, there is no alternative for non-nrhp PA historic designations, or to embed these or Pittsburgh designations into existing article infoboxes (like bridge infoboxes). I have no problem getting rid of the PAhistoric infobox when it is no longer needed. CrazyPaco (talk) 07:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Any state or local or other historic register is welcome to be included in the scope of WikiProject Historic sites, and its infobox. I think there are complexities with the NRHP-specific infobox, which is widely used already, that justify keeping it separate from the Historic sites infobox.  But certainly the historic sites infobox can include a Pennsylvania designation.  I think discussion of that should occur at wt:HSITES or that infobox. --doncram (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Please see the previously existing discussion there. The only downside to the historic sites infobox is its inability to be embedded into existing infoboxes (such as those for bridges, military structures, etc). CrazyPaco (talk) 18:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

possible glitch for Orange County vs. Los Angeles mapped places
The use of the Los Angeles map display option in Downtown Santa Ana Historic Districts article brings up a small glitch. It appears that use of the Los Angeles map puts a historic district into a category for Historic districts in Los Angeles. But, the Los Angeles map covers more than just Los Angeles County, California; it includes Orange County, California in the same pale color, and is appropriately used for Orange County listings like this Santa Ana district. I think it is the NRHP infobox that is doing this, based on my having changed the map display from "California" to "Los Angeles", for this historic district. Maybe there is a switch to turn off the generation of the historic district category; i haven't checked yet. --doncram (talk) 18:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, in fact this feature is noted in the documentation "nocat – Setting any value to this parameter will cancel all autocategorization and allow you to manually categorize the article." Hopefully this works as expected. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  18:15, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks, and yes! --doncram (talk) 18:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Please Add Engineer and Designer to the NRHP Infobox Template
Many places had an engineer and a designer in addition to an architect. Travelslow (talk) 07:17, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

nrhp_type case sensitivity
The "nrhp_type" fields appear to be unnecessarily case-sensitive. In other words, entering "nhl" provides the desired result, but entering "NHL" is not recognized by the template. Can't see a reason for this. It's probably low-pri, but it would be nice if this could be cleaned up. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 18:42, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me. This could be accomplished by substituting   at each occurrence of   and similarly for ,   and  .  I've implemented these changes in the sandbox.  Someone please test.  Because the template is full-protected, the live template edit would have to be performed by an administrator.--Stepheng3 (talk) 19:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

De-listing and re-listing
I know of 2 situations in Oregon alone where a place was listed, then de-listed, then reinstated (Ladd Carriage House and First Wasco County Courthouse). Does the NRHP infobox template as currently constructed have the capability to deal with all the specifics (2 listing dates, 1 delisting date, 2 NRIS numbers) of such a situation? If not, I doubt it's advantageous to add yet another level of intricacy to the template — probably better to just deal with the situation in footnotes. But I thought I'd ask just in case the functionality is already there. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 22:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I am pretty sure the capability is not explicitly built in, but how about using  and adding more info, as i have tried in this infobox inserted? --doncram (talk) 00:13, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Suppress map and retain GPS coordinates
How do I suppress the annoying map and retain the useful GPS coordinates. If I want to see where it is located on a map I can click on the text for the town or click on the GPS coordinates, but a huge map detracts from the article, especially when the articles are just a few sentences long. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC) --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Read the documentation.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:07, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh my God, why didn't I think of that. Except I did, and that is why I am here. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:13, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
 * From the section that I just linked to above:

locmapin — If you want a map to be displayed, set this parameter to the state in which the NRHP is located. Set to "USA" if you want a map of the entire USA displayed. If the parameter is left blank, no map will be displayed.
 * ...bolding added by me of course.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:33, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Perfect, thank you! --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Tweaks to infobox
Copying the code directly from the sandbox is all that is required. Changes to infobox include tweaks to fix problems that occur when the infobox is embedded in another and viewed in IE8. Another older change to the sandbox (and I see no reason to not include it) is to automatically lower-case the inputs to certain parameters. Thanks, ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 01:56, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * If I may jump on as well to save an administrator time, there is also an edit needed to change all four instances of "" to "" . This originates from recent updates to the usability of Template:ConvertAbbrev.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:13, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Never mind. I didn't think about updating in the sandbox myself. Now the administrator can just copy over the code with no worries.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Completed update; I don't have IE8, so I trust someone will check to make sure the tweaks work, and let me know if I need to undo.-- SPhilbrick  T  22:18, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me. Thanks! ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 23:16, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Category opt-out on /conv
The talk page of Template:Infobox NRHP/conv links here. This edit has nothing to do with the code of the infobox itself but to the code in that subtemplate. I've updated the sandbox of the subtemplate, and it should be copied to template page by an administrator as soon as possible. The edits make the nocat parameter work with all categories instead of the select few it worked with before. Thanks!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:11, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

I've also put some optimised code on Template:Infobox NRHP/conv/sandbox. Can you have a check and see if it looks okay? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:12, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I checked the code in the template sandbox. Looks all good to me. Feel free to copy it over.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:35, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've copied it. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Please add Engineer(s) and Designers(s) to Template Edit request from travelslow, 13 December 2010
Many Historic Places are significant because of significant engineering or interior designs that affected many future places. Examples include Scotty's Castle and the Sleeper-McMann house. There is already an architect's field in the template. Please add fields for engineer(s) and designers(s). I had put this in the talk section months ago, but nothing happened. Travelslow (talk) 13:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Please wait for comments from other editors. If there is no response within a week, feel free to reactivate the editprotected. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:51, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Wow, yea I remember you suggesting this a while back, but I was busy with school at the time, so I chose not to respond. I figured at least someone would have responded haha. That's crazy.
 * As to the request, though, I'm fine with adding new parameters for basic info, but I don't really see where designer is needed.. Is not an architect the designer of the structure, or am I missing something? I'm by no means an architectural person, so I could be way off. And I'm not sure exactly what you mean by an engineer.. could you show me an example article where an engineer was pivotal to the building/site's NRHP listing?
 * On the larger issue, I do think the infobox is quite limited on information about the building or site itself. I think this is probably because the NRIS doesn't give any of this data in its database; it's only in the forms. Maybe we should think about expanding the basic information section of this infobox to cover a little more? height, floors, demolished, rebuilt, restored, and restored_by (most of which are in use in Infobox Historic Site) all spring to mind pretty quickly.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would usually think the "designer" of a building is the architect, too.
 * By the way, the NRIS database field that usually populates the NRHP infobox "architect=" field (if you use the Elkman infobox generator) is actually a field for architects and/or builders. Usually it is just one architect or empty. But sometimes an entry in NRIS has 2 architects, sometimes it has an architect and a builder, sometimes it has just a builder.  You can't tell which, from just NRIS;  you have to see the NRHP nomination document or another source, or figure it out from knowing specifically about the individuals or firms involved.  I've wondered about a "builder=" field, to allow us to separate those manually. --doncram (talk) 16:54, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * A quite rare case of an engineer being identified in that field in NRIS, is Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, where an engineer responsible for the radically huge use of reinforced concrete is credited, along with the architect Cass Gilbert and the builder Turner Construction Co. Builders are much more commonly known, and should be added as a field first. --doncram (talk) 21:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with adding the builder parameter as well. Maybe it would show up as "Built by: " in the infobox? About the engineer, though, if that is the only incidence that we can come up with, I don't really see it as necessary. What about the other parameters I suggested above? There's currently (in the section below) a proposal for a major update to the infobox anyway, so if we want to add these parameters, we could attach them to that update.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I just added the builder parameter to the sandbox. Comment on it in the section below.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:53, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to add a function for local maps?
Im thinking specifically of New York City, where there are large numbers of historical landmarks and its difficult to get a feel for the location by simply using the state maps.
 * Try New York City.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:01, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Astuishin  (talk) 04:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Name size
I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that the size of the name parameter at the top of the infobox has been decreased somewhat recently. To my perception, it is now too small and is difficult to differentiate from the NHRP or other banners which fall just below it. It is certainly significantly smaller or less bold than most other infobox titles. Would it be possible to beef it up a little bit? It's really too subtle right now. Beyond My Ken (talk) 13:22, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There is currently a proposal to update the infobox to be compatible with the meta-template Infobox. In that update, the font-size of the title has been increased. If you'd like to comment in the section above related to the update, feel free.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:50, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Meta-template compatible
I've just edited the sandbox from the ground up to allow compatibility with the meta-template ((tl|Infobox}}. Though all of the parameters are the same, there will be some aesthetic differences between the old code and the new. One major difference is that of sectioned material. The new code adds section headers "Basic information", "National Register of Historic Places", "Local designations", and "Delistings", and parameters associated with those headers are grouped under each section. I think this gives the infobox more structure and makes it look more professional.

Other than the sections, there's not much different to a reader, but for editors the code is infinitely more understandable and streamlined. I've also left room for possible further expansion in each of the sections in case we want to add more parameters at a later date.

The only drawback that I have found to the new design is dealing with embedding (of course.. we just can't seem to catch a break with that haha). If this infobox is embedded into another infobox, the title of this one (i.e. the official NRHP name) is lost. I'm pretty sure I can find a workaround, but I'm slightly pressed for time right now. If, however, it is preferable to not display that name, we can leave it as is.

Examples of usage can be found on the test cases page. Any thoughts?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:27, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Sorry if it seems I'm difficult but, is it possible to:


 * 1) do away with   and use the meta-template's default size
 * 2) remove the border around the image, the map, and their respective captions
 * 3) remove "(s)" from "Architectural style(s):" (unnecessarily long, usually forced to a 2nd line, not to mention that other parameters like "Architect" use only the singular even though there is often more than one architect)
 * 4) increase the default map width to 250px to match the default width of the image
 * 5) make the image caption slightly smaller than the rest of the text in the infobox
 * 6) change or remove the:
 * 7) "Basic information" header (seems unnecessarily obvious)
 * 8) "National Register of Historic Places" header (redundant, is this not what the whole point of the infobox is?, a better phrasing of the header might be needed)
 * 9) remove "/Founded" (Are there any sites on the NRHP that are actually founded and not built?)


 * Also, an idea for embedding: What about using one of the data parameters (similar to ones used in the "nrhp_type" paremter) to replace the name parameter only when embedding the infobox? I don't know if that makes sense? ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 22:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Not difficult at all. I actually agree with a good portion of this, but I didn't want to stray too far from the original code for fear of criticism. I went ahead and implemented much of what you requested here. I don't agree with all of it though. Specifically about the headers. I actually kind of like the basic information header. The NRHP header, I agree, should be changed, but I don't really know what else to make it. Maybe "Listing information"?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:44, 13 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I've also now fixed the problem of losing the title when embedding. I had actually thought about doing the data thing earlier, but I didn't get the time to do it until now. Thanks for that suggestion. The test cases page shows the old and new code side by side for a comparison. Any more comments/suggestions?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks great, although I don't really like the headers :(. In particular, the colouring makes this template even more of a bag of Skittles.  Perhaps we can do this in stages?  First go with a basic version without the headers, which seems less controversial, then debate the headers?  Thanks for the hard work! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  03:07, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * What if we went with a more modular design, kind of like Infobox Historic Site uses now? (I actually plan to convert that to meta-compatible in a while, but that's beside the point) We could move the colored bars from the top of the template down to the information section. That's simply an idea, though. As you can see I haven't put this into practice in the sandbox, so I'm not sure how it would look. It was just a suggestion.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:27, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Intriguing concept...you would need to add an official name parameter, but then you could get rid of the jury-rigging needed to get the name to display when embedding. I'd also support getting rid of the colored bar and move the name from the "above" parameter to the "title" parameter of the meta-template (for some reason I like it when the name is outside the infobox), but that is a pretty substantial change, though. Evenutally, it might even be possible to do away with this infobox. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 21:25, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe this is not meta-related, but I notice there are now fields for "Boundary increases:", where i suppose u put in the dates. But there are also boundary decreases sometimes, and maybe more often than that there are changes which are both increases and decreases.  I wonder if u want to allow for those.  Am not reviewing all of this. --doncram (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There have been fields for boundary increases for a while now.. those actually aren't new haha. It's even documented. And when they were added, they had that wording because I'm pretty sure "boundary increase" is an official term. I've never heard "boundary decrease." I'm pretty sure they say "boundary increase" even if the overall area of the district is less afterwards. If, however, this is untrue, I'm sure the wording can be changed.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I see now, looking at the official list of NRHP codes, that in fact "boundary decrease" is an official term. How would we like to handle this, then? Should we change the wording to "Boundary alterations" or something of the like? Should we just add another section like we have for boundary increases to say "Boundary decreases"? Both options would necessitate the addition of 6 new parameters: decrease, decrease_refnum, decrease2, decrease2_refnum, decrease3, and decrease3_refnum.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:48, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I've just added these decrease parameters to the sandbox code. I added a label "Boundary decreases" under the increases and allowed for 3 dates. I also modified the refnum display to be able to show all of these. I would like some more comments as to consensus about the section headers and whether we should keep them, modify the text, or scrap them all together. Anyone?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:52, 21 December 2010 (UTC)


 * About the boundary decreases change to the template, okay i guess. For the record i did not ask for that to be added as a feature of this infobox, one that might never be used.  There always remains the work-around of using editing within long fields in the infobox.  Relevant for future discussions of this sort, I have newfound command over the NRIS database and could run reports to identify whether there have ever been, and how many occurrences, of 1, 2, or 3 boundary decreases for a listed property.  Lemme know if u want some report that would be helpful toward guiding development of this infobox template. --doncram (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, yes, that would be cool if you could answer some questions related to how many parameters are needed.
 * Is there really a need for 4 nrhp_types? I've never seen anything with all 4 filled out actually..
 * I remember (though not the specific example) you showing a listing that had been increased three times, so that's what led to having the increase3 parameter. It would be nice if you could see if there were a listing that had been decreased more than once as well... although I went with three just to make it even. Also, leaving it at a higher number would more likely head off future complications.
 * I still want some feedback about these headers, though.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:55, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Still waiting on those answers/that feedback. Also btw, I found a site with a boundary decrease: Munson Valley Historic District. That means at least one article would benefit from adding these...--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:45, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Anyone out there?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:51, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, I entirely forgot about this. Please do add the boundary decrease. For the headers, would "Site information" or just "Information" work better, also wouldn't the info under the "Delistings" header be more relevant under the "NRHP" header or whatever header for the designation it was formely designated as. Though, the more I think about, the more I believe a complete, from-the-ground-up, rebuild of the infobox (preferebly in conjunction with the HSITES infobox) is needed. I understand the coding somewhat, so I could help you out with that. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 23:24, 30 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, with an infobox that's already used on thousands of articles, it's kind of hard to do too much of a rebuild. It has to be backwards compatible at least, meaning all the old parameters should still work, even though they may be displayed in different ways. What would you suggest for this complete overhaul? Ideally, I would love to be able to show a timeline with the dates in order. For example, Added, designated NHL, removed from NHL list, removed from register – in that order or whatever order is applicable to the site at hand. For now, though, I'll remove all the headers and leave in the new boundary decrease fields.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * One approach is to install the rewrite that you have if it is acceptable as is for compatibility. Then once it is installed, other upgrades can be discussed and added. Trying to do too much in a compatibility rewrite can excessively delay the effort with little to be gained from the delay. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I've removed the "Basic Information" and "National Register of Historic Places" headers, but I left the "Local designations" and "Delistings" ones. I think it is necessary to split out local designations from NRHP/NPS-related ones... which the current infobox doesn't do. I also think delistings should be separated out from the rest of the dates if to do nothing more than eliminate confusion. With a sea of dates swarming around in one spot, it's easy to get lost.

I also added the ability to show when properties were delisted from local registers (a feature why I'm not quite sure wasn't included before) and demolished, restored, and restored_by parameters. Compromise?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Hmm...I sorta liked the "National Register of Historic Places" header, though I'd moved the turquoise bar from the under the title to use as the header instead. One thing I'd like to see is the infobox to support the use of Designation in the local designations. Ideally, I liked to move to a combined infobox with HSITES, although right now I'd like to see a complete redesign (considering that the infobox hasn't really changed since it was created 2006 and we just tacking more features onto it). ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 02:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You were the main one who opposed the NRHP header above haha... wtf? I'll look into adding support for the Designation template...--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Formatting problem
Take a look at Farallon Islands. This template is used with the  option in Infobox protected area. Notice that the name of the Governing body is misaligned. The parser wrapped United States Fish and Wildlife Service in tags. If this infobox is removed then the alignment problem goes away. I have no idea how to fix this but I think its a result of using nested tables. – droll  &#91;chat&#93;  22:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No idea why the &#60;p> tags were there. Guess that's some Wikipedia parser trying to make sense of the code. Anyway, I just removed a line break, and it looks ok now. I haven't seen this anywhere else (i.e. other embedded infoboxes), so it may be something with the protected areas infobox. I'll look into it.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:49, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That works. Thanks! – droll   &#91;chat&#93;  23:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

NRHP infobox template map
For the map in the infobox, could we please have the pin label parameter passed to the location map? Without the label, the red push pin seems incomplete.Maile66 (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added the ability to customize the label in the sandbox by adding the following parameters:
 * map_label – text displayed on the label
 * label_size – text size of the label in percentage
 * label_position – right, left, top, or bottom of the red pog.
 * label_baground – background color of the label text
 * Unfortunately, there is still some discussion above (though not very active recently) about a major update to the infobox which would allow meta-template compatibility, so the sandbox code cannot be directly copied in at this time until consensus is reached above. Perhaps you could comment up there?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:35, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You'll have to give me a little direction. I'm not that familiar with infoboxes, or programming.
 * I don't understand the purpose of the sandbox. Does this somehow give me the ability to take care of my own, on a page by page basis? If so, I'm not clear on that. If that's possible, perhaps you could help me out and just do it on one inforbox, and I could take it from there. Try this, perhaps Wrede School, Gillespie County, Texas
 * I don't see any place on the link you gave where I can comment
 * Maile66 (talk) 18:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the sandbox is to test the code, and for others to comment before a change is made to the main template. I don't see any major technical challenges implementing this in the way that Dudemanfellabra has described.  If there are no objections, I will go ahead and add this feature soon.  Or, you can drop an  at the top of this section and some admin will come along and make the change.  The meta-template compatibility issue shouldn't conflict with this, since it is a fairly minor change.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  19:33, 12 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I was requesting comment in this section above on this page. Plastikspork explained the sandbox well above; I assume he will implement the code soon. I didn't know he was an admin, so that's why I was bringing up the conflict. If an editprotected request is put in, many times, an admin simply wants to copy over sandbox code, but since Plastikspork knows this infobox, he can implement only the change you requested. Thanks, Plastikspork!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:48, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I will go ahead and add locmap_label and locmap_label_position, but will hold off on label_background and label_size. The first two are in infoboxes which call location map, e.g., infobox settlement and infobox building, but the second two are more rare.  We can always add those later if necessary.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  20:52, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Now done, and documentation partially updated. I used a slight variation on the parameter names, since the location map was being called "locmapin", but the basic functionality is there.  We can always modify the names later if necessary. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  21:01, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes! Thank you! Maile66 (talk) 21:13, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

default values for lat_minutes=, lat_seconds=, long_minutes=, and long_seconds=
I've put some edits in the sandbox to deal with issues that arise when and/or  is specified and the minutes or seconds are omitted. I've modified the Manzanar testcase to illustrate the issue. While one might argue that users who wish to omit these parameters would be foolish not to use and  instead, I'm always looking for ways to make templates more foolproof.

Unless there are objections, I'll update the live infobox in a day or two.—Stepheng3 (talk) 17:47, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * The only thing I saw wrong is that if you put the direction (i.e. negative sign) in the lat_degrees or long_degrees parameters, then you must exclude lat_direction and long_direction. Maybe we could alter the code so that this isn't true? I removed those two parameters from the /testcases page.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:48, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Good catch, dude. Anything else to discuss before the sandbox goes live? —Stepheng3 (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Built information
As currently written, the built field is not really sufficient. Going through some of the church complexes, the built date generally is for the major structure (the church building). There is no way to clearly identify this. Likewise there is no way to list the other structures in the complex and associate a built date with them. It would be nice is there was a way to address this. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It's called prose. One infobox does not an article make.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 13:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * So, is the consensus for something like a church complex the date in the box is church (or in general the main structure for other then church complexes)? For historic districts it should be blank unless the article support dates for the first and last structures? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * What's put into the infobox's "built=" field and into the category for year of architecture by Elkman's article infobox generator is in fact the first year-date of possibly several year-dates of significance. It might not be a built date at all.  For example, March Route of Rochambeau's Army: Scotland Road's built date is 1781, the first date that Rochambeau's army marched through, not the date of construction of that road.  Also, in many cases NRIS provides the beginning and ending year of a construction period range, e.g. for a building constructed during 1920-1923 the significance dates of 1920 and 1923 will be given.  Out of 30,000 infoboxes built using Elkman's system, there will be some hundreds of factual errors, due to the sometimes incorrect assumption that first date given is a built date.  Vegaswikian, i think you are one editor who goes around systematically removing the date from categories for the historic district articles, is that not right?  Someone, anyhow, has removed the category date and/or the infobox built= field from many/most of the articles on NRHP-listed historic districts.


 * I suggest the infobox should be revised to include a dates of significance field. The built= field can be kept in the infobox, to receive dates that are verified to be construction dates or date-ranges.  Elkman would need to be interested into updating his article/infobox generator to use the significance date field and to provide all the available dates in that (currently Elkman's system just provides the first date).  Then, although this is at least debatable, I think we should have a bot run to convert all NRHP articles to move possibly bad built= dates into the significance date field, with an edit summary and hidden comment calling for editors to restore the date to the built= field if/when it is verified.  This is a lot of work to do, but is doable on a slow path, as was recently done for making a correction/update to all NRHP articles for how the NRIS reference appears, now using the template:NRISref.


 * For historic districts, where dates of significance are provided in NRIS, the change from puzzling "built=" presentation, to more accurate presentation as dates of significance of the district, would be especially helpful in making the articles better. -- do ncr  am  18:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * For a church complex case that Vegaswikian describes, the construction dates of the multiple buildings could be given as a list in the dates of significance infobox field. It would probably be confusing to use the built= field in that case.  But multiple dates of significance can be briefly mentioned, appropriately in an infobox.  And then in the text the significance of those dates would naturally be explained.


 * What to name the field, and how should it be presented? Perhaps as "|signifyear=" field, to be expanded as Significant:, in what is displayed, parallel to Built: now displayed for the built= field value. -- do  ncr  am  18:44, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Dates of significance sounds fine to me since these are commonly listed with several date ranges. Also based on the sheer number of errors in the built field, I don't think this should be filled in by a script.  The creation of Category:yyyy architecture should be replaced with Category:Buildings and structures completed in yyyy since that is what the built represents.  In all of the articles I have looked at, I don't recall any where the article supports any architectural significance for the building and provides a date when the building was designed. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:00, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * About what bots (scripts) could do: 1) I am suggesting that a bot could visit every already-existing NRHP article, and shift what currently appears in the built= field to a new signifdate= field, because the date might not actually be a built date. 2) It would be hypothetically possible, but I don't see how a bot could actually take new info from NRIS database and add it to each article, and don't propose creating such a bot (and there would be no regular bot-writers who would take it on, if requested, I believe).  3) For new articles going forward, created from Elkman's infobox/article generator or created from my own /draft batch generator, we would use the signifdate= field for the NRIS significance dates.  So I am not suggesting anything which could possibly introduce any errors at all.  In many articles the bot run I suggest would convert what is correctly presented as a built date, instead presenting it less precisely but still accurately as a date of significance, and then a human editor could move it back to the built= field if they actually know it is a built date.  Hope this clarifies. -- do  ncr  am  19:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * About Category:yyyy architecture and/or Category:Buildings and structures completed in yyyy, I haven't previously really focused on those categories with any interest. Offhand I guess the latter should be included into articles only manually, by a human editor if they know the built date.  The category could be set up but hidden in a comment by Elkman's and my systems, to be removed from comment by a human editor if/when they have actual knowledge from the NRHP nom doc or other source. -- do  ncr  am  19:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * This is a useful discussion of the shortcomings of database entries and infoboxes. It would be helpful to add some additional date fields to the infobox -- the best choice might be to embed templates that create free-labeled date fields in which the user can specify the meaning of each date, whether it's "built", "started," "completed," "destroyed", or something else. As several other commenters here have noted, the human editors who create articles need to determine what content is relevant and appropriate, rather than depending on robotic processes. --Orlady (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Let's keep this discussion respectful, please, and let's focus on technical matters of the infobox and about bot proposals associated with an infobox change, please. -- do ncr  am  20:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * About Category:yyyy architecture and/or Category:Buildings and structures completed in yyyy, I'm not sure based on what I have been seeing that either should be automatically added. Also I'll note that bridges belong in category:Bridges completed in yyyy, churches go in  Category:Church buildings established in the ccth century, railway stations belong in Category:Railway stations opened in yyyy.  I'm not sure what the best solution is, but the current one is generating too many bad category entries. I'll point to Linlithgo Reformed Church of Livingston as an example of a bad date.  Nothing in the article referenced the church in 1814.  Yet that year was used in the infobox and a category. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Also cemeteries probably belong in Category:yyyy establishments and not in a built or architecture category. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The Linlithgo example is a useful one. The article does include the 1814 date, which is the founding date of the cemetery, earlier than the construction date of the building.  Based on the NRHP nomination document, NRIS database data entry staff would have properly recorded it in a list of dates of significance for the site;  Elkman's system assumes however that the first date is the built date.  The article text reflects a creating editor writing from the facts given in the NRHP nom doc, but creating editor did not override the authoritative-looking built-date in the infobox from Elkman's system.  Elkman's system output needs to have appropriate qualifications put into comments, or in some other way be adjusted, IMHO.  In my /draft batches done so far, I addressed the lack of clarity about these facts by including a complete series of the dates of significance into the draft text and into the built= field (i would prefer to put them into a signifdates= field, if one would be created). -- do  ncr  am  13:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One other consideration here should be to realize that the NRHP infobox should be about the NRHP information and that a lot of confusion can be eliminated by also including other infoboxes like infobox church or infobox building these can be repeated if there are multiple structures on the site or included in the article. They would also serve to clarity what facts are about each building and better support proper categorization of the articles.  In the end this should clarify the articles. See Saints John and Paul Catholic Church (Burlington, Iowa) for an example where this would clearly help. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That might be a good example to consider, if the article actually did include 2 infoboxes, for the cases where the NRHP nom is about 2 approximately equally important things grouped together. In that case it appears just one of the churches is NRHP listed, and there is only one infobox, the NRHP one. -- do  ncr  am  13:17, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been really busy since this thread started. I agree with the idea of a "significant dates" field, but I think it can go even further. Why not include the NRHP listing date here? Or NHL designation date? Other local designation dates? Delisting dates? We could turn this into a list of dates, perhaps in its own section of the infobox. I'll try to work up something in the sandbox later, although I probably won't have much time until mid-week or later. I'll also include that builder field you were requesting earlier, Doncram.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, the NRIS database provides a list of significant dates about the building, historic district, site or object that are more fundamental than NRHP listing which occurs on a random date 50+ years after a significant event. Significant dates are like the date-range of building or the date of a battle or other event at the site or date range of a future president living in the house, and not including the date of NRHP or NHL listing, which are less important or at least different.  We have fields for the NRHP listing date and the NHL designation date and customizable date field for state/local historic designation and NRHP delisting date in the infobox already that have been working fine, for when they apply.  Offhand I would not change those.  I currently just see advantage of having a signifdates field to include a list of significant dates about the property that are not otherwise covered (and that would provide an implicit prompt to editors to explain those dates somehow in the text).  You may be suggesting that the signifdates=  list could include other significant dates esp. ones that occur after the NRHP listing;  I agree that in usage editors could add additional significant dates there beyond those that might be supplied by NRIS database, consistently with the editors explaining all of the dates in the text somehow, hopefully.


 * Happy to see whatever you might draft. Thanks for planning to get the builder= field added, too. -- do  ncr  am  17:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Relatedly, a technical solution for one other problem would be to add an "architect and/or builder=" field. Elkman's generator and my batch /drafts system and any other system arguably should not put anything into an "architect=" field that is not verified to be an architect rather than a builder or a consulting engineer or other party.  The NRIS database just provides a list of significant names, and the first one is usually an architect.  It would be conservative and arguably good to have the systems place the names into an accurately-ambiguously-named field "architect and/or builder", implicitly suggesting to editors that they should find out the facts and then move those names to architect= or builder= fields.  There are only a scattered few engineer ones associated so I don't think an infobox field is needed for that (I recall one of the Cass Gilbert-designed warehouses in New York City has an engineer who worked with the architect, and was given in the NRIS that way).  This could be set up for future articles only.  Or, as for the signifdates= vs. built= case, we could likewise run a bot to move names given in an architect= field to the architect and/or builder= field, calling for editors to check all past work.  A decision to run a bot to address all existing articles does not need to be decided now, though;  we have to focus first on setting it up proper for going forward, and would need Elkman's agreement actually for fixing forward, before considering running a bot to go back to all past articles.  Testing a sample of past articles for accuracy would be relevant info for making the bot run decision.  Now, I guess I would like for an "architect and/or builder=" field to be set up. -- do  ncr  am  17:58, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * How much of infobox building, Infobox bridge and infobox church do you want to introduce? These templates, and several others, still should be added to the various articles.  Expanding the NRSP infobox will not prevent that.  So why duplicate excessive amounts of information in the various infoboxes?  There is a slow moving effort to convert as many of the building related infoboxes into one to both standardize the nomenclature and to eliminate duplication. I don't see this template being included at this point, but who knows in the long run. So maybe the question is what should be eliminated that is already better addressed in other templates or that really belongs in other templates?  In the case of a cemetery using Infobox cemetery in lieu of a built/completed/started/established date in the NRHP template would make sense since we would not have to decide what terms are important or different for a cemetery. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I just ran into Bald Head Light which is an example of how two infoboxes can be combined in case anyone needs to see an example. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, you seem not to have been aware that NRHP infoboxes are routinely combined ("embedded", following instructions at template:infobox NRHP) into several types of infoboxes, including Lighthouses, Ships, and Railroad stations infoboxes. This is highly appropriate as there would otherwise be a lot of overlapping information, and the NRHP info is secondary/followon to a place being first a lighthouse or a ship or a railroad station.  I am not sure how formally it is done, i.e. whether it is also done using the embedding or not, but also sometimes NRHP information is combined into church infoboxes (as I have noticed often this being done by editor Daniel Case) and buildings infoboxes.  I thought you were calling for multiple completely separate infoboxes to be added to articles about a historic district or a pair of buildings, which is different.  There are no doubt some articles out there where the NRHP infobox follows a Ship or other infobox, where combining/embedding would be an improvement to the article.  But in some cases it is helpful to keep them separate, so that the NRHP info can be in a much later "Preservation" section of an article, much past the original statement of facts about a ship.  And there's no further change needed to support embedding. -- do  ncr  am  19:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yea, it is kind of easy to miss in the list of examples and not widely used. As to the embedded example, I think that the explanation is overly complex. I believe that you can always add the template right before the closing '}}' in any infobox based template.  BTW, this will not work with infobox church since that is not coded in the standard infobox format. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not the case, Vegaswikian. Simply adding the NRHP infobox to the bottom of the infobox-compatible template will not make the infobox appear at the bottom of it. If you would like to test this, simply use the code given for that example and move the NRHP part down to the bottom.... it won't work.
 * Actually, the embedding feature works better with non-meta formats, simply because this infobox is itself not meta-compatible.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:25, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I did try a test case. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is your test case. As you can see, you added the infobox to the very bottom of the code. Doing this, caused the "References" header to show up in the old infobox, even though there were no references in the infobox. It showed up because you put the NRHP infobox code into the references parameter. Also, because you didn't use the yes parameter, the NRHP infobox is not formatted correctly; it still has a border around it, and the text is smaller than normal.
 * In my revision, as you can see, I moved the NRHP code up to below the Architect, which is the last thing displayed in the infobox that was there before. Doing so made the "References" header disappear. I also used yes to correct the formatting. Now do you see the difference?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 14:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. Is your method better or is including the template with the nrhp= field better? Vegaswikian (talk) 17:08, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * They accomplish the same thing. I think the nrhp field was added to the church infobox (and several others) a while back when we were still trying to get embedding to work properly, and it wasn't compatible with meta-style infoboxes. Now, though, the embedding is compatible with 99.9% of infoboxes (save those that have more than two columns, and they can be tweaked to work with it), so the nrhp field is no longer necessary.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:04, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Sandboxed version
I have finally found the time to update the sandbox. I restored the previous meta-compatible code and moved around a bunch of stuff. One small change added several basic information fields such as builder, demolished, restored, and restored_by... all of which should be self explanatory and were discussed in an earlier thread. The big change is the fact that I have moved all of the existing date fields (including NRHP listing, NHL/NPS/other nrhp_type designations, delisting date, and local listing/delisting dates) into a new "Significant dates" subheading of the infobox. I have also added three new fields–sigdate_label, sigdate2_label, and sigdate3_label–along with the corresponding sigdate, sigdate2, and sigdate3 fields, the _label fields allow a custom label (e.g. "Main building built", "Settlement began", etc.), and the sigdate fields hold the dates.

Ideally, I would like to sort these dates from earliest to latest, but I'm not quite sure how I would go about that. I'll keep looking into that, but what is in the sandbox now at least shows the basic form that I had in mind. Comments? Questions? Snide remarks? I'll try to answer as many as possible.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Also, I forgot to say that examples of the infobox in use can be seen here.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks fine. I noticed that the image caption is now was on a white background.  Makes it stand out a bit.  Also, why is built not considered a significant date?  Is it because it is intended to be paired with builder?  Can we add an established date for things like cemeteries? Also for compatibility should we match infobox building which uses complete and infobox church uses completed to describe when something was built.  Even with my questions, I don't see why the latest version could not go live.  This will make my updating easier, once I learn to spell the names of the new parameters. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually the image caption was on a white background before; now it is a regular caption, more in line with other infoboxes. That can be changed back if preferred.. As to the built situation, I think built should remain in the "basic information" section of the infobox–i.e. the top part–and paired with builder. If consensus asks it, though, it can be moved to the bottom as well. As far as establsihed, completed, etc., that's what the sigdate_label parameters are for.. you can basically set up your own infobox fields. If you set Established and 1776, the result will be a new line in the infobox saying Established: 1776.
 * I'm still looking into the idea of sorting the dates. I'll get back to you on that. I was hoping to have more comments here.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Here are some quick comments. I wouldn't go live immediately.  Thanks for setting up the builder= field etc.
 * About the dates section and date changes, I am not sure. Does it just change display, and not the entry of dates into the infobox, besides now allowing for additional custom fields?  Do the additional custom fields allow for display of the date of significance, when it is not described yet what is the meaning?  (I want that, to lay in the dates and to call implicitly for editors to identify and add meaning.)
 * The formatting grouping together a bunch of dates works well... in the test cases where it works well, i.e. where there a bunch of various listing dates that can be set off together, and where it looks nice. The greatest number of NRHP infoboxes, probably, have just one date, the NRHP listing date, then probably next are the two-date cases where a built date is given.  If only one date is given, the insertion of a new line "Significant dates" is not an improvement.  Not sure how the infobox is supposed to work with built date and with NRHP listing date.  Where many dates are present, the ordering of the dates, into priority possibly but probably into chronological order, once set off into a "significant dates" section, would be pretty important to get right.  Not sure how easy that would be to program, not sure it is worthwhile.  Is the topic "Significant dates in registration"?  Because, as the embedded Boyd Mill test case shows, the significant date of just NRHP listing, separated from other more obviously important dates of construction, doesn't look great IMO.  Maybe more comments later.  Hope this helps. -- do  ncr  am  20:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Doncram, you are correct that it just changes display. The update is entirely backwards-compatible, and no infoboxes will be broken because of it. The custom fields can be whatever you want them to be. If you set NRIS date(s) of significance and 1900,1910,1920, then the infobox will display NRIS date(s) of significance: 1900, 1910, 1920. If you set Purple elephants and are awesome, the infobox will display Purple elephants: are awesome. You can literally put anything in these fields.
 * As far as the label popping up when only one date is given, I can look into making that stop. I agree that it's a little out of place for only one date.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I have now updated the sandbox to suppress the display of the "Significant dates" header if only one date is provided. The examples at the test cases page look better now in my opinion.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 20:17, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Two weeks later
So no more comments. Are we ready to go live? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:08, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with that, though I think we should at least drop a note at WT:NRHP to alert anyone who may care. This infobox is transcluded on tens of thousands of pages, so any change will freak someone out haha. I'll start a section there that asks for opinion and gives a tentative 2 day deadline.. so if no one objects before Friday afternoon, I don't see why it wouldn't be ok to copy the template in.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:27, 25 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I would've liked to see compatibility with the "Designations" template (particulary when dealing with state/city level designations) and am not particular fond of the "Significant dates" header, though not overly opposed to it (could it be possible to make the header the same color as the NRHP bar). Also, could the map caption be beneath the map but not in the thumbnail, similiar to the image caption. Other than those, I am fine with the template; it's a step in the right direction. I did make some changes to the headers so they weren't as narrow. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 00:20, 26 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that compatibility with the Designation template would be ideal, but I think we should hold off until a future update to implement it. That would require new parameters and a complete rewrite of the bars at the top (as well as some possible backwards compatibility issues), so something that drastic may need to wait until it can be figured out.
 * I saw you changed the font size of the designation bars to 110% and the header to 115%; I reverted that change because as could be seen from the test cases page, the font was just too big. I left the header at 105% and 100% for the designation bars. The now smaller size of the bars is due to the meta-compatibility. If you can find some other way to fix it besides raising font size, by all means incorporate it.
 * I also moved the map caption outside of the map like the image caption. Look good to you?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:59, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I increased the "line-heights" a bit and shrank the map caption to match the image caption. Any chance of making the "Significant dates" header the NRHP color? Looks good otherwise ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 01:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The significant dates header now matches the NRHP bar at the top. I think before I had it that light grey because all the dates under the header are not necessarily related to the NRHP. Even with that fact, though, I think the uniformity makes the update look a lot better.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:38, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like no one else cares, I say we go live!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:13, 27 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Anyone still paying attention? Can an administrator copy over the code now?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Did not realize that was the reason for the delay. Copied over.  I did nothing with the documentation. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:57, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Infobox NRHP link useless
We have been linking to http://nrhp.focus.nps.gov/natreg/docs/All_Data.html or http://www.nps.gov/nr/ for the reference supporting the 'NRHP Reference#'. Well those links don't do that, the correct format is something like http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/79003711.pdf, however everything is not yet digitized so another option may be needed. These should all be converted to use a format that works. Since those links could change in the future, we should have a template to generate the link where the only parameter passed is the reference number. Then we have cases like for 98000688 where entering it into the search box produces no hits! Vegaswikian (talk) 18:25, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This is not really a problem of the infobox but of the reference used in it. No coding here will affect this issue. Maybe you should bring this up at WT:NRHP? I know we've had much discussion about the reliability and functionality of the NRIS citation. Currently the ref is controlled by the NRISref template, so half of what you want is done already. There are also templates NRHP Focus, NRHP nomination, and NRHP pictures. They point directly to the NPS Focus database, but as far as I know, no one has really liked them.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Contributing Properties in overlapping districts?
I have run into a curious issue: in a few places, the boundaries of two historic districts overlap (confirmed by both the maps and the descriptions), as such at least a few properties are contributing to two districts (and without regard to being individually listed), however, the current format appears to only make allowance for one. As it is, at least one article I've found is such a property. Might it be possible to have a "partof2" and "partof_refnum2" or the likes for these situations? Thanks. Morgan Riley (talk) 02:23, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would think because of the undoubtedly small number of notable properties to which this would apply, they could be handled by using line breaks in the partof parameter. Something like

| partof = Somewheretown Historic District (#12345678) Elsewhereville Historic District (#87654321)
 * An example of this is shown to the right.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:48, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you, I was unaware of that function! Morgan Riley (talk) 03:34, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I am having trouble at
Sighting the Enemy because the info box does not allow me to put the sculptor as the sculptor. When I got there the sculptor Edward Clark Potter, was listed as the Architect. It turns out that the architect was Hunt & Hunt, so I have all that info crammed into the Architect slot. This is not just an isolated thing, it likely will show up on all statues on the NRHP. The Statue of Liberty, for example lists Bertoldi as the architect, and he is not, the name that belongs there is What's His Name Hunt. Richard Morris Hunt that is. Can we get a Sculptor slot on the template? I'm off to mess with that Liberty Statue now. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 02:56, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a builder paramater that shows up as "Built by: ___". Will that suffice? This template is set up to handle the vast majority of NRHP listings, most of which are buildings or districts. To my knowledge, there aren't that many sculptures or statues on the register. I think moving Potter and Bertoldi to the builder parameter (and possibly leaving the "sculptor" parenthetical) would work fine for both of these articles.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 03:18, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Tough call, for me anyway. I think for now I will just keep sticking the sculptor in with the architect, since to my way of thinking, that's closer to being correct than Builder. Both architect and builder nean something else, but I can see why we might not want a category that is only used in 0.003% of the listings. However I do suspect that I have not stumbled onto the only two examples. There will be more. Lincoln Memorial, for example. Carptrash (talk) 04:01, 12 July 2011 (UTC) The Jefferson Memorial has two sculptors, neither listed in the box. Carptrash (talk) 04:10, 12 July 2011 (UTC) The United States Capitol has two or three sculptors who should (opinion) be included in the infobox Carptrash (talk) 04:34, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Gutzon Borglum in not even mentioned at the Mount Rushmore infobox. Carptrash (talk) 04:36, 12 July 2011 (UTC) Also in Washington DC one can find the National Archives and Records Administration building, the United States Supreme Court Building, the National Building Museum and more, All with sculptors whose work can be found on the exterior of the building. This sculptor thing is not as rare as one might suspect. I'm off to bed now, to think of many more NRHP buildings to add here at a later date. Carptrash (talk) 04:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A sculptor parameter has been added.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:44, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Life is good. Carptrash (talk) 04:48, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Contributing property to an NHL?
A new article on the Fort Pitt Blockhouse seems to have stumbled upon the rare occurrence of a contributing building to a National Historic Landmark (the Forks of the Ohio, which is apparently not a district nor a site). Are there any recommendations for how this should be handled and should a new designation for a landmark contributing property value be added to the template? CrazyPaco (talk) 05:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would leave a nhl on the blockhouse article. The puts a pretty high importance on the blockhouse. Usually when there are several articles about the same NHL, they all get an NHL infobox.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 15:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok. As of now, the original author had two infoboxes inserted in the article: the building infobox and another NRHP infobox. I was thinking about merging them into one by using the NHRP template, and will proceed by using the NHL designation parameter, but the title in the infobox will be "Fort Pitt blockhouse" to match the article, not the actual registered "Forks of the Ohio"? Just to check, does that makes sense and that has precedent in the project? Or should it be left as is with two infoboxes used in the article?  CrazyPaco (talk) 19:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Embedding the NRHP infobox into the building one should be fine. I think the title of the NRHP infobox (which is still displayed even if it's embedded) should still say "Forks of the Ohio", since that is the name of the NHL. It is in our style guide to always favor the official name.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:19, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks, I actually didn't think to embed it (I was thinking just using one NRHP infobox combining the info). That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for your answers! CrazyPaco (talk) 21:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Placename
What is the suggested course when the designated name is not the name by which the property is nowadays more commonly known? - Sitush (talk) 22:18, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think this is covered in wp:NRHPhelp. Briefly, NRHP editors including me acknowledge that common names do change over time and even that there are other competing official names (as for lighthouses where the US Coast Guard names differ from NRHP names).  However, NRHP editors usually would prefer for the NRHP listing name to be kept as title of the NRHP infobox, and for it to be mentioned in bold in the lede as an alternative name for the place.  Doing so clarifies that the article is indeed the place in wikipedia that covers the NRHP of that name.  Hope this helps.
 * Should this be mentioned in the documentation of this infobox? Please suggest what to say where, or just boldly revise the documentation. -- do  ncr  am
 * Thanks for that. I rather thought it would be the case & it makes sense to me, but I wanted to be sure before taking someone on (the someone has a COI, you see). I am not going to mess with the documentation here because I'll probably end up stepping on toes! - Sitush (talk) 23:05, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Good. And thanks Vegaswikian for editing the documentation along these lines. -- do  ncr  am  00:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Edit request
sudo Can an admin change all instances of "Washington (U.S. state)" to "Washington (state)" for proper categorization? E.g., Category:Historic districts in Washington (U.S. state) > Category:Historic districts in Washington (state) Thanks! <sup style="color:red;">Avic <sub style="color:blue;">ennasis  @ 12:53, 24 Tamuz 5771 / 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Done, I hope. Dudemanfellabra is the template expert for the NRHP wikiproject, so I've asked him to check to see whether or not I did what you wanted.  Nyttend (talk) 03:28, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Categorization
Please note that under Wikipedia's categorization policy (see WP:TEMPLATECAT for the specific info on this), it is strongly discouraged to use templates to artificially transclude content categories onto articles.

For a couple of examples of why this is generally a bad idea: Accordingly, I must request that the coding in this infobox which generates and transcludes category names be removed or disabled. Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 02:22, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Firstly, numerous articles are currently duplicate-categorized in both and  at the same time, which is entirely unnecessary;
 * 2) Secondly, if a person uses this infobox on a sandbox page then it becomes impossible to remove the sandbox page from the category (sandbox pages aren't supposed to be categorized as articles at all);
 * 3) Finally (and at the moment most importantly), because this template is artificially generating the category names based on the name of the map that's being used on any given article, it currently results in the automatic and uncorrectable generation of inappropriately named nonsense categories like, which should quite legitimately never exist in that form. Since the category is being transcluded by this infobox and can't be removed from the articles by normal means, as a temporary measure I've had to "create" it as a hidden soft redirect so that it isn't visible on the articles at all — but precisely because it can result in unwanted nonsense like this, templates are not normally allowed to artificially generate category names by themselves.
 * Adding the parameter yes disables the automatic categorisation.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 06:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe the default should be yes? - User:Vegaswikian
 * Thanks. That solved the Peoria category issue, so I've now been able to delete my temporary holding category — but I have to admit that in the longer term, given that issues like this can happen so easily if an individual use of the infobox doesn't line up perfectly with what the template is coded to expect, I still don't think templates should be allowed to autogenerate categories at all. Bearcat (talk) 03:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Designated_other_textcolor?
I'll send this up for a suggestion again, to see if gets any more feedback or interest this time around.

Can we add a simple parameter so that one can designate text color for the local "other designations"? This way colors schemes for local historic designations can stay consistent with other projects, such as those in the Historic Sites Wikiproject (e.g. New York City's local designation infobox bar color scheme has a red background with white text). This would be easy to adding <span style="color:> in a couple of places, with obviously in this example, setting the parameter "designated_other1_textcolor =" to whatever color value you want in the infobox. CrazyPaco (talk) 21:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I would support adding this parameter. On a related note, there have been several requests to add in full blown support for Template:Designation, which is what the HSITES project uses for its designations. In other words, an editor could simply type something like NYC Landmark, and the bar–background color, text color, link, and all–would show up with that single parameter. While I am in favor of adding support for the Designation template in theory, it is a little harder to accomplish than adding a few lines of code here. Sure, adding the template as is would combine the designated_other1_name, designated_other1_color, and designated_other1_link parameters, but in order for complete compatibility, we would need to include an entirely new section in Template:Designation for abbreviations (e.g. "Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument" = "LAHCM"), which in the NRHP infobox are supplied by designated_other1_abbr. While this wouldn't be too much of a change for that template, I think we would have to bring something up over at WT:HSITES before something like this was done.
 * Of course, adding support for Template:Designation would not necessarily eliminate these parameters (although if a full move to the Designation template was proposed, I would support it), so the designated_other1_textcolor parameter and its other2 and other3 counterparts would still need to be added now. My question is why stop there?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that adding the Template:Designation can go down the wrong road. First, it may result in the insertion of designation abbreviations for literally 100s, if not 1000s of possible state, county, and municipality historic designations. You're probably aware that in my area of interest alone, Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, there are Pennsylvania Historic Marker designations, City of Pittsburgh designations for districts, objects, sites and structures; and Pittsburgh History and Landmark Foundation Historic Landmark designations. I know many other towns and counties in Pennsylvania, both large and small, that have their own designations as well. For a template whose code is locked for administrative editing, that creates a unnecessary gateway to an editor wishing to display state and local designations, as well an unnecessary burden to administrators that would be needed to add each requested historic designation. Further, it can lead to unnecessary, and I believe for Wikipedia's sake, unconstructive semantical debates over the meaning of "historical designation". I don't oppose adding Template:Designation in theory, as it could simplify the process for the more widely used local designations although I believe it could prove unwieldy to fairly manage, but I do oppose any subsequent removal of customizable fields for the inclusion of local designations for the above reasons.
 * But I guess the first question really is, if you agree it is beneficial, should a request be submitted for the insertion of the textcolor code parameter? CrazyPaco (talk) 19:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)


 * As I said, adding support here for Template:Designation would not replace all the other previously established parameters but rather work alongside them. Custom designations/abbreviations/colors, etc. could still be added to the NRHP infobox, even without adding them to the Designation template. Any designation that doesn't meet the requirements to be in the Designation template would not be allowed in simply to be used here. I see it as more expanding the use of the Designation template than limiting the NRHP infobox; it in fact makes using the local designations in the NRHP infobox much more user friendly.
 * As far as administrator involvement is concerned, only a single editprotected request would be needed to add support for abbreviations of already supported designations there, and then later each individual designation would be added, just as is done now.
 * I do agree, for now, that adding support for the text color parameter would be beneficial. I do think, however, that we should bring up this proposal at WT:HSITES to see what they think about it.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I see what you are saying. Athough I don't particularly see a substantial need for it if customization is in place, I have no problem with it as long as it doesn't replace customization (and thus stall or block the ability to signify designations as with what happened to the PA Historic Sites previously). If you think it is a good idea to discuss textcolor over there first, I'll defer that to you, and thank you in advance for your help. CrazyPaco (talk) 00:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * There isn't really a need for the Designation template, per se, but incorporating it directly into this infobox will make it much easier for editors to add some of the more widely known designations like NYC landmarks. I've opened up a thread at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Historic sites asking for comments. If they're fine with it, We can get the text color parameter and designation support in one fell swoop instead of having two (or more) different editprotected requests here. Comment there if you feel it appropriate.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Dudemanfellabra knows I support the increased use of the Designation template in the infobox, but keep the customization of the infobox available in case a situation calls for it. Adding text color is also logical&mdash;you can custom the color of the bar and the abbreviation, why not the font color as well. ​​​​​​ ​​ Niagara ​​Don't give up the ship 00:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)


 * So it's been over a week, what do you think? CrazyPaco (talk) 05:32, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hello, I just stumbled across this thread while looking at Template:Designation for use with monument ID numbers in the WP:WLM preparations this year. Last year for the Netherlands we used Template:Rijksmonument, which is now on a bunch of pages, and I was thinking of starting something similar for all of the European countries that use the blue shield, when I saw the designation template, which looks better. I can't tell if this change will just affect the US and not be a problem internationally, but my main question is, does this mean you can add more than one designation to a site (so in the case that something is a National Heritage Site as well as a World Heritage Site)? . Jane (talk) 10:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * This infobox is only used for sites on the US National Register of Historic Places. If an NRHP-listed site is also listed on some other local or state register, this infobox allows custom designations to be added. Adding support for Designation here would not affect current uses of the Designation template at all.
 * As for non-US sites, the Designation template is used with Infobox historic site, where up to five separate designations can be added for any given site. The infobox allows many different parameters for each designation, including custom fields. You can check out the documentation of that infobox for examples.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:05, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, guys, I've been in the process of moving to a new apartment and forgot about calling Comcast until I got to the apartment, so there was a 2 week period where I only had internet on my phone. I'm now back in action, though. I have a few small things to get out of the way to get caught up, but I'll have something worked out in the sandbox in the next day or so. For starters I'll just add the text color parameter, but if I can get some feedback when I comment again at WT:HSITES to sort out abbreviations, I may be able to install the full Designation update pretty soon.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I've just put in an editprotected request at Template talk:Designation to update that template to include abbreviations. As soon as it is completed, I'll update the sandbox here and put in the request!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 18:41, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Template:Designation still hasn't been updated, but I've added code to the NRHP infobox sandbox that will allow for a "designated_other1_textcolor" (and other2/other3) parameter when installed. It also adds full compatibility for the Designation template. An example use can be found at Template:Infobox NRHP/testcases. The "sandbox version" uses CHISL, which eliminates the need for designated_other1_name, designated_other1_link, and designated_other1_abbr. Currently the abbreviations don't work as they should, but once the Designation template is updated, they will work perfectly. As soon as the other template is updated, I'll put in the editprotected request here.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 19:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Ok, the Designation template was updated yesterday, and now the test cases seem to be working fine. The sandbox can now be copied over.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Killiondude (talk) 18:28, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible to retrieve all wikipedia nrhp pages?
Is it possible to retrieve a table with a column "NRHP reference number" and a column "Wikipedia pagename (en)" for all wikipedia nrhp pages? --Arch2all (talk) 16:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh, well, not through this infobox. You could possibly compile that information with a bot, though. All articles on which the NRHP infobox is transcluded includes a XXXXXXXX parameter that could be read by the bot.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Rehabilitated date vs. restored date
As per the Dept. of Interior guidelines for modifications to a historic property, the phrase "restored" means something very specific. In many cases a property is instead "rehabilitated". A good example would be if a property has a room modified in a period appropriate manner, but original drawings/photos do not exist: it would be treated as a rehabilitation. Should we have such a parameter in the infobox, and the editor pick the best word based on research of any changes? Wjenning (talk) 06:37, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There are three customizable dates that can be added to the infobox. One of them can be used for rehabilitated properties. To use the parameters, set rehabilitated and DATE.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:05, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, have done this. thank you for the suggestion Wjenning (talk) 05:14, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Coord parameters generated when locmapin isn't the name of a state
The  parameter is doing triple duty. Not does the infobox use it to select a location map and categorize the article, it also generates region codes which are passed to the Coord template. This worked great when all the location maps were named after U.S. states. Unfortunately, this is no longer the case. Complicated logic ensures that correct categories are autogenerated for  and the like. Region codes, however, are generated by the ConvertAbbrev template, which results in passing syntactically incorrect parameters (specfically, ) to Coord. I've implemented a simple fix in the sandbox subpage and a new test case in the testcases subpage.

If you have any concerns about taking this fix live, please speak up promptly. Respectfully,—Stepheng3 (talk) 23:09, 26 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. There is also a coord_parameters field that can be used to override the default output of ConvertAbbrev, which is the most common fix in non-state locmapin articles. The original reasoning behind leaving the hyphen in place and not simply defaulting to region:US is that there were at one point too many calls to region:US, and it overloaded the geo server. The code you added appears to only use region:US (and not something more specific like US-CA) if locmapin is not a state name. Looks good to me!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:07, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please copy/paste the sandbox subpage to Template:Infobox NRHP.—Stepheng3 (talk) 19:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Anomie⚔ 20:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Anomie⚔ 20:30, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Colors
There is a proposal at Template talk:Designation about improving the appearance and accessibility of the infobox by using colored borders rather than colored backgrounds/text. Please comment in the discussion if you have an opinion. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:55, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This proposal has moved ahead, so I will be shortly adjusting this template so that borders are used instead of background colors. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:28, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Issue with area when embedded
If you embed this infobox in infobox building and this box uses convert for the area, you get a weird error message. I noticed this when I was editing Southern New England Telephone Company Administration Building and just removed the convert code. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:49, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Prompts suffixed with a colon
The infobox is still using the "Location:" style which has been passé for quite some time.

It should really be just "Location" as the prompt. Cleaner, simpler.

Varlaam (talk) 07:17, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

NRHP districts
is there a way to add multiple images for specifically in a historic districts? The example has only for historic district has only one image and I have been trying to make an infobox for an historic district that shows all the buildings in a mini format not just a map. Kinda like example korean american. The problem is when I add the images the words come up "[[file:" and so on. The example is on [[User:Pwojdacz/sandbox]]  I have tried multiple ways of listing the images but it does work. Has this been an issue that has been addressed in the past? If not I think this is worth noting for a possible improvement on the infobox. I guess from another perspective it would be nice to show multiple images of this historic district. Please note the sandbox page hasnt even been started because I'm still working on the sandbox. I tried looking at other historic districts but it looks like no other pages have attempted this.  Pwojdacz (talk) 19:53, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This could be possible, although it is not possible with the current code. What is possible is to combine several images into one image file (e.g. this one of St. Louis, Missouri). You might bring this up at the project talk page and ask for more input from other project members.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:24, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Edit request
Please move the markup in the sandbox to the template page. A testcase is here. The new markup adds a new parameter,. Currently, if an editor wishes to cite a source for the number of visitors in a given year, it can be appended after  or. The new parameter allows the ref to to appear after the year. For example: 81,344 (2007) [1] and not 81,344 [1] (2007) or 81,344 (2007 [1] ). I have tested the new markup and I am confident that the result will be transparent in existing articles. A parameter with the same name is used in Infobox protected area.&#32;– droll  &#91;chat&#93;  06:48, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Droll, your extra code is . I think that you've got one pipe too many in there, and it should be  . -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:14, 31 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting that. I cleanup the markup in the sandbox and it should be ready to be moved.&#32;– droll  &#91;chat&#93;  04:06, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Observatories
This is just an idea but embedding parameters for and  would be beneficial to better showcase NRHP buildings and observatories. Kind of similar tot he embedding that has occurred with combining with. An example of a building on the NRHP and also has a telescope is Allegheny Observatory and Sherzer Hall. There is also a ton more Pwojdacz (talk)
 * I would have added this idea on the Talk page of but the talk page is quiet Pwojdacz (talk) 00:59, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * You mean like this? If you'd like more information about embedding this infobox within others, click here.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:17, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Proposed change to the template's appearance when embedded +
The New markup is in the sandbox and the testcase are here.

Currently if is specified but empty the template generates an empty div block which appears as extra white space. This is because returns null if  is specified but null. If is unspecified, the page name is returned.

The new markup prevents the generation of the empty div block when the template is embedded and adds pages that transclude this template, with unspecified or specified but null, to a tracking category. This will allow me to cleanup those pages so that the markup can be further improved so that the results will be more predictable.

In summary the new markup eliminates the extra white space when the template is embedded and categorizes pages so that this template can be further improved.&#32;– droll  &#91;chat&#93;  21:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I also added some white space to the markup in the hope that it would marginally improved readability.&#32;– droll  &#91;chat&#93;  21:28, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that sounds OK. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:32, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I've made a few edits. Namely, I removed a duplicate line of code, and I used Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup rather than the new category that Droll was trying to use. I also made some minor optimizations. Everything should work the same, though.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 00:54, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry but I revised your markup, Dudemanfellabra. The current version includes you ideas. I did not know about the existing category. As I mentioned above the construct is not best practice because if  is null then it resolves to null. If you disagree with my version perhaps we can discuss it here.&#32;– droll   &#91;chat&#93;  01:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The reason that I changed it back to syntax is that the code   is only "false" if } is specified but left blank. There are three cases:
 * is specified -> if statement is true because of the " " part
 * is omitted entirely -> if statement is true because of the " " part
 * is specified but left blank -> if statement is false because both parts yield empty strings
 * Thus, there is no need for the ifempty template. If the code in question is being executed, either is set to some non-blank value (in which case that value will be displayed) or it is omitted entirely (in which case PAGENAME will be used).
 * As for the category, I also disagree with adding it at the bottom of the infobox as you've done. It should be added like all the other error-catching categories in the infobox, and in such a way that it minimizes the code necessary (your code requires two if statements while mine only needs one). Following from the argument above, the #if string you've created is only false if name is specified but blank, so adding an "else" pipe to the command and telling it to transclude the category there does exactly the same thing you want it to do while keeping the code nice and compact. I'm going to revert your compromise edit, but if you see a flaw in my reasoning above, feel free to discuss.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 02:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Your correct that in the context, in which you used it, it is not ambiguous. I had a knee jerk reaction on seeing your revision. I try to follow some rules I have set for myself that I think of a defensive coding. As for the category thing, I wanted to catch all pages where is either not specified or is null, even when the page is not embedded. I did not intend this version of the template be active very long and so I think that greater overhead is trivial in the long run.&#32;– droll   &#91;chat&#93;  03:22, 17 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, I didn't realize you wanted to catch both cases. Makes sense. I've just edited the infobox to accommodate that. I think it could be left in as a permanent error-catcher (like not having a reference number is always an error)... there should always be a name, and it should always match the official NRHP name. Edit looks good to go unless someone else has concerns.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 04:12, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what I was trying to accomplish. I am not going to edit war with you. I no longer wish to be involved in this discussion and I withdraw my request for the edit of a protected page.&#32;– droll  &#91;chat&#93;


 * Woh woh woh. What just happened? My goal is not obstruction but rather conciseness and understanding. Now I genuinely don't know what you want to accomplish. There's no need to throw in the towel and walk away... I think removing the whitespace is a good addition to the infobox, and so is the error-catching category. I didn't consider any edits to constitute an edit war or anything. Feel free to revert/change my revisions as many times as you wish, even if it's over 3RR. Maybe we should start over: What exactly is it that you plan on accomplishing with this edit?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 15:14, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Parameter "display" needed
Can the "display" parameter be added to this infobox template, similar to Template:Infobox park and others? That would allow the specification of "inline", "title", or "inline,title" for coordinates. On the Turkey Run State Park article, two infoboxes are present in the same article -- one for the park itself, and one for a registered historic place within the park. Right now the NRHP infobox always shows its coordinates in the title; if the park infobox does this too, then the two coordinates are displayed one on top of the other. Ideally in this case the park coordinates should show in the title, and the NRHP coordinates should be displayed inline but not in the title. Thanks! Omnedon (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Check here. There is a coord_display parameter used for exactly this.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 05:16, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Omnedon (talk) 12:22, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Missing elevation/altitude
This template is missing a parameter for elevation/altitude, as some other location templates have. It is relevant to such articles as Camp Hale. TGCP (talk) 21:17, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Edit glitch...
Been working on Pan-Pacific Auditorium, trying to switch it over to the NRHP infobox. It won't let me add the Los Angeles Historical bar to the top, when I add the designated_other1 option. I have left the code in the infobox commented out. Can someone check it for me and tell me what I missed? Thanks. 25or6to4 (talk) 14:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Use the parameter designated_other1 for designations like LAHCM, which are controlled in Template:Designation. You were using designated_other1_name, which is only supposed to be used when you're making a custom bar. For more information about local designations, see this part of the documentation. Thanks!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:44, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I must have read that almost a dozen times and still missed that! Thanks.  25or6to4 (talk) 16:53, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

State relief map
I want to use Texas relief map on NRHP infobox. I would like the locmap_label to show on the relief map when used. — Maile (talk) 18:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Could you provide the actual code that would be used in the template? It's very hard to know what updates to make if we don't know the actual code to be used. I recommend updating the template sandbox with the relevant code. Best — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 14:08, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, an average user like myself wouldn't know the codes. I have no idea how this is done - don't know anything about codes or how to explain it to you.  However it was done by  Plastikspork on the Template:Infobox settlement, so maybe that would help you. — Maile  (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Done, you can use y. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  05:01, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is done. It works now.  Thank you. — Maile  (talk) 11:28, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Manzanar test case exposes a possible bug in the template
I edited the first test case at Template:Infobox NRHP/testcases to avoid the double-negative error in the coordinates. The coordinates are now correct, but I notice that the dot disappeared from the locator map. The similar example at Template:Infobox NRHP/doc specifies "long_direction = W" and doesn't have this issue. Apparently "long_direction = W" is the default for Coord but not for the map. If so, a bug fix may be in order. —Stepheng3 (talk) 22:03, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * yes, this is a mess. I have a feeling it has something to do with how location map handles the parameters.  having the long_direction default to W is a bad idea.  what we should do is try to create a list of all the possible permutations that we can think of for the long_direction (i.e., specified, specified but blank, and omitted) and then see how the template behaves.  Frietjes (talk) 16:37, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I did as you suggested. Omitting the parameter give the inconsistent behavior I described, leaving the parameter blank gives an error, and specifying the value "W" seems to work fine.  I'll investigate further and try to identify the best fix for this issue. —Stepheng3 (talk) 22:51, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I've coded fixes for both issues in the sandbox. I'd appreciate if someone would review them.  If there's no feedback, I'll ask for a protected edit in a few days. —Stepheng3 (talk) 23:22, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The test cases look good, and I added an additional test, which also looks fine. I went ahead and changed the live template, so this bug is hopefully fixed.  We may want to still add some sort of tracking to find potential problems, like DMS style input without the direction specified.  Although, the changes to #coordinates will probably expose any oddities (like negative degrees with DMS input).  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  05:33, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Plastikspork! —Stepheng3 (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Public transit
template:Infobox museum has a field, publictransit, which could be useful for NRHP, since many historical places are also museums or other destinations. Would it be possible to add an optional publictransit field to the NRHP Infobox? Tjmather (talk) 15:25, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Embedding problem
I attempted to embed the NRHP infobox into Geobox at article Geode State Park, but I was unable to make the embedding work properly. Perhaps someone with more technical savvy than me could take a look at it? &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 02:51, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If you switch that article to use Infobox park, it would probably go better. The park template has explicit parameters in it for embedding. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  03:20, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Colons following each element
Why are there colons after the bolded element names? This seems very non-standard for an infobox. (Unfortunately, the template is not editable.) – 2001:db8:: (rfc &#124; diff) 03:47, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 15 February 2013
Could you please add an image to this listing? Images can be found with the NR listing at http://www.oprhp.state.ny.us/hpimaging/hp_view.asp?GroupView=10340 If possible, I would prefer the top image from page 2. (As the author of the application, I have originals of the photos and can email one to you.) Thanks Ronald Gross Senator Street Historic District 335 Senator Street Brooklyn, NY 11220 718-491-6201 Ronrite (talk) 17:30, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Ronrite (talk) 17:30, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the template . Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:05, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * That response was supremely unhelpful!, in terms of responding to a would-be contributor to Wikipedia, who would like to improve the Senator Street Historic District article and who apparently has copyright for photos that could be added. Yes, this is technically not the right way to request the photos be added.  I'll respond at User talk:Ronrite now. -- do  ncr  am  19:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

microformatting / start date template
Editor Pigsonawing recently revised the documentation to add "start date" information which is frankly confusing to me, giving guidance about a "founded" date and so on. See this version with Pigsonawing's changes included. The topic of a bot run to add "start date" information to NRHP articles is under discussion at an ongoing RFC, Requests for comment/Start date in NRHP articles, please comment there. I reverted Pigsonawing's additions to this documentation page for now. -- do ncr  am  19:54, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Stop forum shopping, and canvassing. The changes you reverted - and which you earlier today claimed did not exist; though they were made over a quarter of a year ago, not "recently" - are standard for all infoboxes (unless some minor examples have been missed) about buildings. structures and other such entities. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:16, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

undesirable embed interaction
If you embed the template with another that uses coordinates, then the settings from this template, since it is embed, replaces the setting from the first as it relates to title display. If you use 'inline, title' or 'both' as the display option in the first template and don't use 'title' or 'both' in this template the display in the title area appears to be blank. The simplest fix would be to not mess with the title display parameter if there are no coordinates. Coordinates only need to be specified once. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:22, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually this may only occur if the first template uses the coord template to do the display. In which case, I'm not sure that there is a fix other then not using coord in the first template. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:56, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * example? is this a recent change in functionality?  the  template was recently updates, and there have been some quirks. Frietjes (talk) 21:21, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think this is just a different version of why you can't use coord with pushpin maps. This is based on what I have seen looking at more of these articles.  So while the observation is true, the bottom line is that we should not be using coordinates on both templates.  That avoids the problems.  Not to mention the fact that in some cases the coordinates are slightly different.  At this point I'm not sure that this is a template bug and that if it is, that it could be fixed.  I'll try and find an example later. Vegaswikian (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * is it that you can't use coord within pushpin maps, or that you can't use the 'title' option more than once? Frietjes (talk) 21:42, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem seems to be using coord on the first use and then NRHP on the second with the 8 parameters for passing the coord details. The simple fix is to only use the first template to display to coordinates.  There is no reason I can think of to display coordinates in both templates. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd like to second Frietjes's first comment - could you concoct an example in a sandbox somewhere? It's hard to work out exactly where the bug is with just this description. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 01:26, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Look at the current version of St. Simons Island Light. If you move the display coord on the first template into the coord template it seems to work OK.  So this may well be a problem with having too many ways to specify the parameters.  Vegaswikian (talk) 01:56, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I worked out what the problem is. It doesn't have anything to do with the update to infobox, or with embedding - rather, it's a combination of quirks in infobox lighthouse and infobox NRHP. In infobox lighthouse, the coordinates_display parameter only affects coordinates that are added with the latd, latm, etc. parameters. Display data for coordinates added using the coordinates parameter needs to be added to the coord template directly in the template invocation.

In infobox NRHP, the coord_display parameter is passed through to the coord template using the code. This only returns "inline,title" if the coord_display parameter is completely absent from the template invocation. If coord_display is present but does not contain any data, the code will return a blank value instead. Your edit fell foul of both of these quirks, so the infobox code wasn't passing any display data to coord at all.

You can fix the infobox NRHP problem by using  instead. It isn't possible to change infobox lighthouse so that coordinates_display affects coordinates though. Hope this clears things up. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 09:08, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for for the digging. If someone wants to change the template, they can since that is probably a good idea.  I suspect that this type of problem may exist in more template combinations.  I was thinking that some way to say the coordinates were already set would be a solution.  But it is not.  That's because in some cases the coordinates for the article and the NRHP infobox should be different.  Like when the article is about a site and only one feature is NRHP listed. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:17, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Data (coordinates or other) should not be repeated in this template, if the parent template in which it is embedded already includes that data. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:25, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Engineers
Can an "engineer" parameter be added, for use either instead of or in addition to "architect"? I'm thinking for example of bridges, which may or may not have an architect but will almost certainly have an engineer, and the engineer is more likely to be historically significant. For a specific example: Broadway Bridge (Portland); Ralph Modjeski is inserted in the infobox as "architect", which he was not, but there's no other parameter for him. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 03:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * could you just move that information up to the infobox bridge template? that one supports engineering. Frietjes (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That worked in this case (although I used the "designer" parameter rather than "engineering"). However, I wonder if there might be other cases where that approach might not work. Be that as it may, the immediate issue is solved. Thanks. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 00:20, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I can see the utility of adding say  to this template, but in most cases, it is embedded in another less generic template, so it seems this one is just a summary of the NRHP information, and does not need to duplicate the other infobox? Frietjes (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Colons
The colons should be removed form the end of each label (so we would have, for example, "Area" not "Area:"), to match the style of most other infoboxes on Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * No objections so making edit request. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:24, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Could you post your proposed code in the sandbox? Thanks — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 14:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no "proposed code"; I'm just asking for the removal of colons from labels. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:32, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * see sandbox. Frietjes (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I could spend 10 minutes going through the code removing colons, then checking it against the test cases to make sure I didn't break anything. But then there's not much in it for me. It seems only reasonable that you should do the actual work if you're the one making the request. — <span style="color: #194D00; font-family: Palatino, Times, serif">Mr. Stradivarius  ♪ talk ♪ 11:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

construction
I was wondering if perhaps a parameter on primary construction material could be added. I was recently searching through articles on old churches, and it would be great if the infobox listed construction materials so people wouldn't have to sort through paragraphs of text on history and design. For instance, if the article on Grace Church (Manhattan) listed plaster and lath, and the article on Trinity Church (Manhattan) listed brownstone. I don't even think the Trinity Church article mentions its construction materials.-- ɱ   (talk)  16:05, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You could use Infobox religious building and embed the NRHP infobox into the bottom of it to accomplish this. For info on how to embed this infobox, see the documentation.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:00, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Redlinked category issue
Pulaski Skyway has a redlinked category, Category:Historic district contributing properties in USA New Jersey Hudson County being added through some template. The category is poorly named, and I can only assume it's being automatically created by the infobox. Any assistance on getting the name fixed, and then creating the appropriate category is appreciated.  Imzadi 1979  →   14:58, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know the ins-and-out of the template, but it's probably coming through . Chris857 (talk) 16:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * fixed [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pulaski_Skyway&diff=597251314&oldid=597229150 here] until I can find some time to rewrite the autocat feature. Frietjes (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Infobox airport
I just added an option (yes) which will allow this template to be embedded in non-infobox-based templates, like infobox airport. the problem is that the "child=yes" feature in infobox assumes that the parent box uses two-columns. since infobox airport uses several columns, this doesn't work. however, the borderless option does work (see Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport). feel free to revert/discuss a different method if there is a problem, but please fix Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport if you do. one possible alternative would be to change infobox airport to make the core use two columns, but with subtables for the multicolumn parts, but that would require a more invasive change. Frietjes (talk) 16:49, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Accessibility issues
Taking Empire State Building as an example, the red background/ blue link text colour combination used in the "NYC Landmark" header has very low contrast and thus fails WP:MOSCOLOUR and WP:COLOUR, and WCAG 2.0's "AA" category. The blue link on dark blue ("U.S. National Historic Landmark") also fails WCAG "AAA". Such backgrounds should be changed to pastel shades, after testing for compatibility with WCAG guidelines, or be replaced by coloured borders or icons, or be removed. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:12, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Infobox legislature was recently switched to border colours. this seems to be a simple way to fix the issue. Frietjes (talk) 14:44, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * This remains unresolved. How are we gong to fix it? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:42, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Infobox legislature was recently switched to border colours. this seems to be a simple way to fix the issue. Frietjes (talk) 17:31, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * So you said, but the matte remains unresolved... Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:35, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * generate a modified version in the sandbox and make an edit request to resolve the matte? Frietjes (talk) 17:55, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "matter". It remains unresolved. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:00, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

Governing body - what does it mean exactly?
The definition of Governing body in the doc is "Services that are governing the place". Does this mean the owners or operators of the place, or who gave the place the designation? Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:01, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * The owners.-- ɱ    (talk)  15:20, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Infobox park sensibly has a set of parameters for these various roles. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:23, 19 July 2014 (UTC)


 * I've always used that field to indicate either the government agency with current administrative jurisdiction for the site ("U.S. Forest Service", "Oregon Department of Transportation", "Corbett School District"), or simply "Private" if it's privately owned (with some exceptions for prominent private entities such as universities, historical societies, etc.). Your second option would be kind of meaningless since it's always the National Park Service that is the final word on designation. I agree that definition in the documentation is confusing at best. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 15:27, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for the quick feedback! It helps me a lot. I agree the definition should be better worded. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 15:37, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Contributing properties
Under Template:Infobox NRHP, it says that CPs of a historic district shouldn't get the NRHP banner on the infobox, but the CP articles I've been working on, Beechwood (Vanderlip mansion) and Sleepy Hollow Country Club both have it. I am using the nrhp_type=cp parameter, so either the infobox coding has changed or something's wrong with my infoboxes. Does someone know how to fix this?-- ɱ    (talk)  15:22, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The NRHP banner will appear any time the refnum parameter is filled in. To indicate the refnum of the umbrella historic district, as you seem to be intending, use the partof and partof_refnum parameters. So you only want to use refnum if the property is individually listed on the National Register, which some properties can be in addition to being CPs. I've made the changes to both Beechwood and Sleepy Hollow Country Club for you. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 17:46, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, thanks!-- ɱ    (talk)  17:53, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Redirect category
Category:Historic districts in USA New Jersey Hudson County is a redirect category that is populated by this template. Can someone either fix the template so it instead populates Category:Historic districts in Hudson County, New Jersey or else fix the articles? Timrollpickering (talk) 08:49, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
 * fixed the articles. Frietjes (talk) 16:03, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 5 November 2014
Please remove the duplicate  from parameter data13 to remove this template from the maintenance category. I believe that will fix the error. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

– Jonesey95 (talk) 00:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ That was a result of a fix I made earlier. --  Gadget850talk 00:45, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Image size
Can you remove " ", the default image size? It looks too small to my preference. Therefore,  scale can automatically vary, depending on user's display preference. --George Ho (talk) 16:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 17:35, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|<span style="color:#FFF;background:#00f;display:inline-block;padding:1px 1px 0;vertical-align:-0.3em;line-height:1;font-size:62.5%;text-align:center;">'''TALK

Update URL for Elkman's tool
Need to have the URL for Elkman's fantastic NRHP Query updated - the tool is alive and well at http://www.elkman.net/nrhp/infobox.php, but the link in the NRHP Template page is pointing at a www2 address (http://www2.elkman.net/nrhp/infobox.php). Thanks! Ba11zooka (talk) 16:40, 13 April 2015 (UTC) ✅ Valfontis (talk) 23:32, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

refnum cannot have ref without a number
This edit by Dudemanfellabra means  can no longer have a reference without a number. It produces a strange string with  (Strip marker). I don't know anything about NRHP and whether it makes sense to have a reference without a number, but many articles do this. A search on currently produces 71 hits and most of them are from this issue, for example Thomas Shiels House. I placed a shortened version of its infobox here. Can somebody who knows more about NRHP fix this or suggest a fix, either editing the template or the articles? I removed one reference [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Frost_Place&diff=prev&oldid=690697343] before investigating what was happening. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:35, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * NRHP infoboxes should have a refnum, and boxes missing a refnum should be added to the "NRHP infobox needing cleanup" category. The template issue with a reference but no refnum needs to be fixed, and so do the articles.  I'll whittle away at the latter. Generic1139 (talk) 17:25, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Not strictly true that the infobox should always have a value in refnum. When the infobox is used for an HD contributing property that is not individually listed, then the parameter will be empty. See e.g. St. Mary's Cathedral (Portland, Oregon). &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 17:43, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, correct, though if the listing is a CP, then the partof_refnum should be present. The logic that adds the cleanup category has been correct in the past. Generic1139 (talk) 21:02, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking at this. I have fixed all "QINU" errors from unrelated causes. There are now 59 search hits on QINU: 4 valid occurrences and 55 on . PrimeHunter (talk) 02:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I changed one of the expressions to restrict the match to the start of the string, '^%s*(%d+)', which means the start of the string followed by any space followed by digits. hopefully this didn't break any existing uses.  the other option is to use module:unstrip to try to unstrip the refs before transformation, but in the end it would probably be better to move the entire string replacement into one lua module so you can split the string and operate on each part separately. Frietjes (talk) 21:59, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Great. The articles now omit the QINU stuff when they are purged. I have copied a list of current search results on if somebody (not me) wants to do something with them. They should automatically disappear from the search after some time. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Walde-Carter House
 * Burton Commercial Historic District
 * Tabor Congregational Church
 * Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art
 * La Casa Primera de Rancho San Jose
 * Bryce Building
 * California Quadrangle
 * Thomas Shiels House
 * Grapevine Commercial Historic District
 * Port Oneida Rural Historic District
 * Inspiration Point Shelter House
 * Hyer-Knowles Planing Mill Chimney
 * Crane-Phillips House
 * Marrow Bone Spring Archeological Site
 * Weatherford Downtown Historic District
 * North Topeka Baptist Church
 * Mordecai Lincoln House (Lorane, Pennsylvania)
 * Eighth Avenue Historic District
 * Nolan River Bridge 303-A of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway
 * St. Joseph's School (North Adams, Massachusetts)
 * List of New Jersey Transit stations
 * Babcock Building, South Carolina State Hospital
 * Warder Mansion
 * French Worsted Company Mill Historic District
 * William J. Bryce House
 * Old Hall County Courthouse (Georgia)
 * East Brenham
 * South Boulevard-Park Row Historic District
 * Downtown Buda Historic District
 * Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad Passenger Station
 * Cotton Belt Railroad Industrial Historic District
 * Main Street Historic District (Chappell Hill)
 * Elizabeth Boulevard Historic District
 * Fayetteville Historic District (Fayetteville, Texas)
 * Markeen Apartments
 * Mineola Downtown Historic District
 * Butler Place Historic District
 * Kerr Community Center
 * Stephen F. Austin Elementary School
 * Our Lady of Victory Academy (Fort Worth, Texas)
 * Dr. Richard Thornton House
 * City of Alliance Central Park Fountain
 * Central Handley Historic District
 * Swedish Farmsteads of Porter County, Indiana
 * Building Number 29
 * North Slope, Tacoma, Washington
 * James H. and Molly Ellis House
 * Paddock Viaduct
 * Burnet County Courthouse
 * Pollock-Capps House
 * First Christian Church (Fort Worth, Texas)
 * Lancaster New York Historic District
 * Charles Johnson Farm
 * Merchants' National Bank Building (1895), Baltimore


 * Thanks. I had also saved a list and am working though them. Generic1139 (talk) 01:29, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks to for that edit. I've also modified the code to add the cleanup category Category:NRHP infobox needing cleanup to these articles, so look for it to be populated as the job queue catches up. Articles that had a blank refnum parameter already showed up in that category, but now ones that have something weird like just a ref or anything that is not a number (more precisely, that begins with a number) will show up. If something goes crazy, please feel free to revert my edit and let me know, so we can try to figure out what happened. Thanks for pointing this out!--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 07:59, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Minor problem with banner lines
Here is an oddity that caused some confusion, leading some editors to do the wrong thing. For the non-HD partof case...

If refnum is blank and nrhp_type is blank, the designation bar doesn't appear.

Setting nrhp_type to something wrong, in most cases, shows "Invalid designation" in the bar.

But, some editors have tried to make the bar appear by setting nrhp_type = National Register of Historic Places. If refnum is blank and nrhp_type = National Register of Historic Places, then the designation bar appears (as U.S. National Register of Historic Places).

If the refnum is then added, the designation banner appears twice, both times as U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

What should happen is setting nrhp_type = National Register of Historic Places should show "Invalid designation" in the bar. It would keep editors from wandering down the wrong path if, when none of the possible reference numbers are provided, the bar said "missing reference number". But showing the Invalid designation in all invalid cases is also fine. Generic1139 (talk) 21:58, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

No parameter for official website
The documentation mentions using the URL template for formatting official-website links, yet there is no website or url parameter as with most other infoboxes. Should such a paramter be added? Or are official websites supposed to go under another parameter? – void  xor  20:37, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
 * voidxor, seems like a reasonable idea to me. would be useful for pages where this infobox isn't embedded, like Fort Scott National Historic Site. Frietjes (talk) 14:07, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * okay, added an optional parameter, website. hopefully this isn't controversial. Frietjes (talk) 14:26, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Works great! Thank you! – void  xor  01:32, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Sculptor/Artist
Is it possible to replace the parameter and table field "Sculptor" with one called "Artist", or add a new parameter/field? I have come across a small but non-negligible where a muralist's or painter's work is part of or the entirety of the historic significance of a listing (e.g. Detroit Industry Murals, Ponce YMCA Building, Astor Building), and it is desirable to use the infobox to state the artist's name without having to contradict the Sculptor label with a parenthetical (as at Ponce YMCA Building). &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 04:25, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Error message and tracking category for unsupported parameters
I have added error tracking for unsupported parameters. See. A red error message appears when you Preview the article, between the edit screen and the rendered preview. In the category, the articles are sorted by the name of the parameter that is unsupported. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:23, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Linking to the United States in every infobox
Would there be any objection to unlinking it per WP:OVERLINK? Since the infobox gives an exact location as well as coordinates, I do not believe the link provides any additional context. &mdash;Xezbeth (talk) 09:24, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Caption text size
In this edit, Illegitimate Barrister increased the text size in the photo caption from 90% to 100%. I have two things: (a) I'm not sure I agree with this change. The smaller text size served to visually distinguish the caption from the other text in the infobox when we have no graphic indicators (lines, whatnot) to separate them. (b) However, if we do go with the 100% text size, should we not do the same to the map caption? &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 21:23, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The caption text in other image elements, such as [[file:]] is smaller than article text The caption in the infobox should be the same as any other image caption. This change should be reverted and discussed.Generic1139 (talk) 01:16, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

And now User:Frietjes has increased the text size in the map caption too. I would revert this for discussion in line with the comments above, except the template is protected. I'm concerned that we have template editors ignoring discussion. &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 04:45, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Ipoellet, I must have misread your comments. I thought you just wanted them all to be the same.  in any case, I refactored the top block of the template to use a single captionstyle parameter for consistency, and saved the old version temporarily in the sandbox.  you can see any differences between the current and old version on the test cases page. Frietjes (talk) 13:23, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
 * , pardon me if I was a little too sharp in my last comment; you didn't deserve that sort of tone. The side-by-side comparison you have provided in the testcases has been most helpful in clarifying for me what my concern is. I find that the larger caption size is preferable when the caption is separated from the tabular portion of the infobox by the locator map. However, when the locator map is absent (or when the map has a caption itself), the smaller caption size serves to distinguish it from the tabular text below. I'm tempted to suggest using the larger size with italics to distinguish captions from the tabular text, but that approach seems to be precluded by MOS:CAPTION. Instead, is it perhaps possible to insert a light gray horizontal line (perhaps not quite reaching all the way to the line of the box frame) between the map caption and the tabular text, and then use the larger text size for the captions? &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 04:12, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I cannot find a way to add a grey line, but one way to more obviously separate the caption from the tabular text would be to just add a header similar to the significant dates one, saying something like "Basic information". I am inclined to just leave the infobox how it is, though.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Designated other2 pos
Is "Designated_other2_pos" still set to "bottom", as the doc says it should be? I had to include the line in the infobox for Trinty Church Complex in order to make the NYCLPC date render. BMK (talk) 05:47, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
 * The default is "both". The documentation does not say "bottom" is the default.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Engineer parameter
Was there never an "engineer=" parameter? If there was, it seems not to exist now. It is used by me in Draft:General Norzagaray Bridge article and if I recall correctly it may be used in other articles. There is administrative Category:NRHP engineers which tracks persons credited as engineering NRHP-listed works. An engineer, distinct from a builder or architect, may be listed in the NRIS field defined for architects, builders, or engineers. There are, , and articles in architect, builder, engineer categories (counts of which update only occasionally). (By the way I note at the documentation that a "sculptor" field is supported, which must be quite rare.)

Could "engineer" please be added to the infobox code and the documentation? I could do the latter if it is added to the code. -- do ncr  am  13:28, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ I also added it to the doc, but I did not take the time to find an example. If you could add one in place of what I did, that would be great. Also if you could find a sculptor to add, that would help as well.--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 08:37, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Can we also add a artist parameter as I suggested above? &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 16:49, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I have just added a set of parameters, customarchitect_title and customarchitect. These can be used for any custom title you please and will be displayed beneath the architect and engineer if they are present. I have also added an error category for infoboxes using the sculptor parameter, which can't be more than a handful. Using the error category, I plan to convert those infoboxes to use this new custom field, so we can get rid of the rarely-used sculptor parameter. Does that work?--Dudemanfellabra (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ That works great for me. My only (minor) reservation is that it might be a bit complex for an editor who is not in the know about how this infobox works. But that can be left aside for now - Thanks! &mdash; Ipoellet (talk) 04:03, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I found my way to an old stub article needing the parameter, and added that as an example, formatted as:
 * Example format — engineer = Gunvald Aus , as used here
 * (That's about Gunvald Aus, structural engineer of huge Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, distinct from architect Cass Gilbert and builder Turner Construction.) -- do ncr  am  03:12, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Problem
This template appears to create a bottom-of-page link to non-existent categories. See the current Fort Dearborn article for an example. The red-link category link to "Historic district contributing properties in Chicago" is inserted into the category box, apparently by the current form of this template. Can this be fixed? GenQuest "Talk to Me" 21:25, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * From the template's documentation:

Historic district articles are autocategorized into a state-level category, Category:Historic districts in STATE, which are all listed in Category:Historic districts in the United States by state. This categorization uses the locmapin parameter; if locmapin is left blank or not included, the article will be placed into Category:Historic districts in the United States. Since this is a top-level category, it is desirable to move articles down to lower, more localized categories. Most times this can be fixed by simply adding a state name to the locmapin parameter, but this will cause the locator map to be displayed. If, for whatever reason, the location map should not be displayed, there is a workaround:

nocat – Setting any value to this parameter will cancel all autocategorization and allow you to manually categorize the article.
 * Example format – nocat = yes.

This will suppress autocategorization and still allow no locator map to be displayed. This is also a useful fix for when the locator map displayed doesn't have a category yet. For example, Location map Boston exists, but Category:Historic districts in Boston does not. For this case, nocat can be set, and Category:Historic districts in Massachusetts can be added manually to the article.
 * --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2016 (UTC)