Template talk:Infobox Russian inhabited locality/Archive 2

Automatic insertion of fact tags
This is a bit silly. It is perfectly possible, or should indeed be the normal case, that the infobox summarizes information that is already referenced in the article body. If an infobox contains unreferenced information, let people add fact tags manually. --dab (𒁳) 06:01, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, in reality the vast majority of the instances of this infobox does not summarize anything in the articles. People enjoy inserting pointless infoboxes too much, often forgetting even to check whether all of the fields they copypasted from elsewhere have been updated. Fighting the infobox creep is a rather pointless endeavor, but at least we can do our readers a favor by explicitly marking the fields for which no citation has been supplied. And it's not like it's hard to get rid of the fact tags&mdash;just add the sources!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); June 21, 2011; 13:24 (UTC)
 * I agree with Dbachmann. I've just come across the same thing in Kazan. Official designation of Kazan as a city rather than, say a town, is likely to be in Russian and therefore not verifiable by the vast majority of en.wiki readers.  But that's not the whole point - Kazan is the state capital and has a population of over a million, is it really necessary to "warn" readers that it's description in wiki as a "city" requires a citation before it can be taken seriously? If there is a reliable source that provides english-language designation of Russian inhabited locations, could you save my time and tell me where I may find it? -- Timberframe (talk) 19:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Umm, it's not about a "city" vs. "town" (there is no difference in Russian between the two); it's about the difference between "urban" and "rural", which is important. There is no single tag in this template which couldn't possibly be referenced. That the sources are most likely going to be in Russian is way beyond the point&mdash;according to our guidelines, the language of the source does not matter (although, of course, if there is a choice between a source in English and a source in Russian, and both are of comparable quality, then preference should be given to the source in English), and if you can't verify it, you can always ask someone who can.
 * Anyway, I've provided a source for Kazan. If you happen to stumble upon any other similar examples where requesting a citation seems silly, please feel free to let me know directly. It only takes five minutes to address. And remember, if anything is challenged or likely to be challenged, the citation is required.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 13, 2011; 20:09 (UTC)

Thanks, Ezhiki. I think you made a couple of my points very well for me. First, nobody is going to challenge the location cat in the majority of cases so the built-in assumption that a ref is needed - to the detriment of the info box's appearance - could be re-considered. Secondly, having to ask for a Russian-reader to track down, and evaluate, sources for the location cat doesn't make the info box editor- or reader- friendly. Surely this is an instance where we can WP:AGF on the part of the editor. -- Timberframe (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the cat can indeed be challenged in the majority of cases. There are over 150,000 inhabited localities in Russia, and only ~2,500 of them are urban (and only a handful of those, like Kazan, are immediately obvious). Consider Magas, for example. It's a town of 524 people (yes, fewer than a thousand), and a capital of another republic&mdash;surely it is reasonable to ask whether the place is indeed considered urban or rural? Also, some of (now-defunct) federal subjects had their administrative centers in a rural locality, so, once more, it's a valid question.
 * As for asking a Russian-reader to track down and evaluate the source, that is exactly what you are supposed to do per our guidelines. You probably wouldn't be able to evaluate most of the references in Wikipedia articles anyway, even those in English, because they are offline and not available in all libraries, or online but behind a paywall, so what's so different about the sources in foreign languages? It's just the way things are done, and it works, or we would have mandated using only publicly accessible online sources. Imagine what an "encyclopedia" we'd be building with such an approach!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); July 13, 2011; 20:43 (UTC)
 * A better verifiable one! Bogdan Nagachop (talk) 19:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

2013
I would like to join the protest against this silly feature. I would fix it myself, but I don't really have so much time, and I'm concerned that I'd break something up. No other template does that, as far as I know, and some infoboxes look downright silly (I came here from Kaliningrad, which has "City" on the very top, and a few more scattered inside). Also, entries like Postal Code or Dialing Code are already linked to appropriate (presumably sourced) Wikipedia articles -- what's the point in religiously submitting references for things which are 1) rather common knowledge, or easily verifiable by Google 2) quite unlikely to be challenged 3) supposed to be referenced in the article text, anyway? Even if you think that the type requires citation, you'd better hard-code a reference to a census website (if there's one), than cn. Let us AGF on our editors, as Timberframe said. I could understand requiring citation for some more obscure data, such as name of the major, but hard-coding CNs is really over-the top. It's as if MediaWiki would insert a CN for every full stop not followed by . In the end, it will become pointless and just annoy everyone. No such user (talk) 07:18, 29 August 2013 (UTC) As for "imposing spurious tags to the readers", I assure you it's not the intent. In the past year alone, I must have addressed hundreds of those tags by adding a reference, and I've seen others (including anons) add unreferenced factoids and then returning to add a source in the next edit. Maybe not all such edits were motivated by seeing a "citation needed" tag automatically appear after the first edit, but even if some of them were, it's a net positive.
 * "No other template does that" is a non-argument. Facts are either sourced or they are not. If they are not sourced and can be challenged (and all fields in the infobox which carry this feature can be), then they can and should be marked as unsourced, per WP:V. If they are sourced in the text, then copying the source reference to the infobox gets rid of the "citation needed" tag easily. Census source is already coded in (but can be overridden when necessary). And with the amount of crap people insert in the articles with these infoboxes, AGF can take us only so far. In any case, AGF should never be invoked at the expense of verifiability. As for the example of changing the MediaWiki software to insert a citation request after every period, it is a typical reductio ad absurdum argument. As you well know, in the text one citation may serve the whole paragraph, so an assessment by a human is always necessary. In the infobox, each field contains one and only one fact, and it is known beforehand what kind of fact it is supposed to be and whether it should be sourced. Automated markup of unsourced statements makes it immediately obvious what is missing&mdash;I know I rely on this feature all the time! As for the ugliness of the citation needed template, it is by design&mdash;it's an incentive so people would want to add a source. It was not designed as an incentive to remove the citation tags.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 29, 2013; 12:13 (UTC)
 * Reductio ad absurdum is actually a valid logical argument; you possibly meant slippery slope. I'm not going to pursue either, however: as with many things in life, the right amount of sourcing is a question of WP:CONSENSUS, common sense and good measure, and not everyone would agree as to the definition and either. However, I (and other editors above) argue that it has been well overstepped. The "no other template does that" argument is simply an affirmation of [implicit] consensus -- one of core principles of Wikipedia -- that not every trivial statements needs a citation, and if citations are not necessary in overviews (per WP:LEAD), they shouldn't be necessary in infoboxes too. WP:V says (emphasis mine) that
 * Most of the entries in an infobox are not likely to be challenged, and you should not challenge them by default. We seem to differ on interpretation of "likely to be challenged": I take it to mean that a reasonable person can doubt veracity of the statement, not that a template or a bot can mechanically find that a citation is missing. I came here because my knee-jerk reaction upon seeing that "City" as a Wikipedia reader was "OMG how lame". I don't need or want a source that Kaliningrad is a city, thank you.
 * I admire your commitment to citations and verifiability. You might rely on automated markup of unsourced statements, but in this case you're imposing your approach to everyone who uses this template (Somebody Else's Problem), and imposing spurious tags to the reader.
 * Anyway, we can agree to disagree, but I also feel the issue is ripe for a RFC. No such user (talk) 06:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * What I find curious is that none of the editors who think the line has been well overstepped here don't actually edit the articles in question. They see a handful of "citation needed" tags, they find one or two facts which they find obvious, and something inside them cries to remove the tags instead of spending two minutes to add a citation (which in some cases is already available in the text or even on other lines of the infobox, as was the case with Kaliningrad). As someone who edits these articles day in and day out, I can assure you that the requests for citations there are very reasonable. People insert "facts" to those infoboxes from all kinds of "sources": random and questionable websites (easily found, as you said, by googling for ten seconds), the Russian Wikipedia (where anything is seldom sourced, ever), or from "personal experience". It really is a problem, and the citation requests expose it quite well. Even the phone and postal codes which you don't believe can be challenged are routinely incorrect. Of course, when they come from an inferior source, they might still be incorrect, but at least someone for whom their correctness is truly important would be able to see that the source they came from is not of the highest quality. In reality, it's not all as trivial as you believe it is...
 * What I find curious is that none of the editors who think the line has been well overstepped here don't actually edit the articles in question. They see a handful of "citation needed" tags, they find one or two facts which they find obvious, and something inside them cries to remove the tags instead of spending two minutes to add a citation (which in some cases is already available in the text or even on other lines of the infobox, as was the case with Kaliningrad). As someone who edits these articles day in and day out, I can assure you that the requests for citations there are very reasonable. People insert "facts" to those infoboxes from all kinds of "sources": random and questionable websites (easily found, as you said, by googling for ten seconds), the Russian Wikipedia (where anything is seldom sourced, ever), or from "personal experience". It really is a problem, and the citation requests expose it quite well. Even the phone and postal codes which you don't believe can be challenged are routinely incorrect. Of course, when they come from an inferior source, they might still be incorrect, but at least someone for whom their correctness is truly important would be able to see that the source they came from is not of the highest quality. In reality, it's not all as trivial as you believe it is...
 * If you must file an RfC, it is, of course, your right. It's quite possible the people who care about visual appeal more than about verifiability and those who aren't familiar with the peculiarities of these articles and assuming they are no worse than anything else in Wikipedia will be in the majority. In that case I'll simply start adding such tags manually and/or removing uncited bits altogether. That sure will take care of an occasional silly tag appearing after "City" in articles like Kaliningrad, but whether such approach is going to lead to an improvement over current situation in thousands of other articles only time can tell.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 30, 2013; 12:18 (UTC)
 * Prompted by your comments, I have reviewed the fields which currently default to displaying a "citation needed" tag when no reference is provided. I don't see why any (except one; more on that below) of them should not be marked as uncited when there is no reference. For every single one, if a tag were to be inserted manually, there would be no justification in the policies for removing it (but do feel free to prove me wrong on that one), so automating this job ultimately saves time on markup in favor of actually working on the article. If that's not a benefit, I don't know what is.
 * The one parameter where I have my doubts is the inhabloc_cat parameter, which is the one responsible for displaying "citation needed" after "City" in the Kaliningrad article, which brought you here in the first place. That parameter is designed to hold one of the three values: "City"/"Town", "Urban-type settlement", or "Rural locality", which are the three major groups of inhabited localities recognized in almost every federal subject of Russia. This parameter is further clarified by the inhabloc_type parameter, which actually holds the specific type within that group. That one should definitely be sourced (it's neither obvious nor easy to find), but each such type can fall into one and only one wider category, which means that as long as the type is referenced, referencing the category as well becomes redundant (and when it's not referenced, displaying two "citation needed" tags in the infobox's header is an overkill). Now, the "City" category is seldom divided into other types (although in a few federal subjects it is), but those tend to be the major cities (like Kaliningrad) for which the statement is indeed obvious and can be verified by pretty much any other reference used in the article. With that in mind, I'll leave the mechanism for supplying a source untouched, but will suppress the "citation needed" tag for the inhabloc_cat parameter. If anyone sees that as a problem, please let me know.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 30, 2013; 15:03 (UTC)

Flag, Coat of arms, and Skyline image
Usually flag is horizontal and coat of arms is vertical. The size of the flag in the current infobox is displayed too small. I borrow the code from Infobox Russian federal subject to make a sandbox of the infobox. The sandbox displays the flag and the coa visually more balanced. Also I modified the code for the skyline image so that when the image is absent there would not be an empty row below the type of inhabited locality and above the map.--Quest for Truth (talk) 16:48, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

The sandbox code is at Infobox Russian inhabited locality/sandbox and some test cases can be found at Infobox Russian inhabited locality/testcases.--Quest for Truth (talk) 16:52, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't mind the formatting aspect of this change at all, but when I viewed some of the existing articles with this template, the value supplied by the flag_caption and coa_caption parameters was being overridden by a generic bolded "flag" and "coat of arms" text. Clearly, more testing is needed.
 * Please also note that the value supplied by those parameters will not necessarily comply with the "flag of " and "coat of arms of " scheme (that scheme doesn't work too well even in the federal subject box, from which you borrowed it); in fact, most of these symbols are not an attribute of the locality, but of the municipal formation that locality is a part of. While the information about the municipal formation is normally included in the article about the locality, it's important to differentiate the entities. There are cases where locality proper would have own symbols which are different from the municipality's symbols. Anyway, the bottom line is that a separate parameter to supply the captions was there for a reason and an auto-generating solution will not work for localities at all. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 10, 2014 ; 17:03 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. At first I didn't aware about the optional caption parameters, but now they are added and they are displayed if present to replace the default caption. Here is an example. The auto-generating links are also removed.
 * I found that when federal subject is absent, there is an empty row below the map of Russia and above the coordinates, as in the above example. So I made some minor changes to the bottom map. Welcome to tell me if you have any other opinions. --Quest for Truth (talk) 18:11, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking time to retest this; much appreciated. When looking at the new test cases, I've noticed the following:
 * The captions are now in bold font, but there is no need for that. Only headers and labels are supposed to be bolded.
 * The reason why the captions are in their own label/data section is to keep them aligned in the infobox. In your testcases, the captions jump up and down depending on the size of the image. It's not really a problem when there is only flag or only coat of arms present, but it looks kind of ugly when both are included. This is best seen in your Chernushka testcase.
 * The federal subject was supposed to be implemented as a mandatory parameter, but it seems that had been overlooked. Thanks for fixing the empty row problem; that is definitely an improvement!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 10, 2014 ; 18:45 (UTC)

Questions on this template and Russian political divisions in general
I am working on some articles and in the process, Abakan troubled me due to this infobox. The part I am trying to understand is the Administrative Status section: Under which it states Abakan is the "Federal Subject" of Khakassia (no problems), "Administratively subordinated to" City of Abakan (that seems not logical or redundant to the nth degree), "Capital of" (no problem), "Administrative Center of" City of Abakan (Again superfluous)

If one could enlighten me or verify my thoughts it would be appreciated and apologies if it seems silly. speednat (talk) 04:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * The Republic of Khakassia is administratively divided into thirteen units. Eight of those units are districts and five are Cities (Towns). The Cities are, in other words, administrative units equal in status to that of the districts (and do not overlap). They are each organized around an urban locality with the city (town) status and may have other inhabited localities (both urban and rural) in their jurisdiction. What this means is that the territory of a "City of X" (an administrative division) would not necessarily be identical to the territory of a "city of X" (an inhabited locality). Now, Abakan does not have any other localities in its jurisdiction, but it does not necessarily mean that the territories (and especially the purpose!) of the administrative division and of the city proper are identical, and since the names of these administrative divisions and of the city proper are the same, I can very well understand your (or any other reader's) confusion. Your most recent edit to Abakan does, however, introduce more problems than it solves, so I'll make a point to ref the entities you mentioned to appropriate sources. I may also ask you a few questions about what it is exactly the sources you added contain; I hope you don't mind!
 * Two other things to keep in mind. The above deals only with the administrative incorporation aspect. The municipal aspect is similar but completely separate (a setup very much unique to Russia). Second, the systems of administrative divisions in Russia are federal subject-specific; there are no unified regulations on the federal level and the differences between federal subjects may be quite significant.
 * Does this address your questions? If you have other questions, I'll be happy to elaborate further. Your questions are by no means "silly", by the way. The convoluted (and often unnecessary) complexity of the Russian administrative structures can be rivaled by very few other countries. Many Russians themselves would be having a hard time explaining them properly, which makes explaining them from an encyclopedic point of view (and in a language which is ill-equipped to convey all the intricacies of a very foreign setup to boot) doubly challenging. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 14, 2014 ; 12:16 (UTC)
 * The main thing that the added sources contain is verifiability. As I work through articles, I am a nut for ferreting out incorrect, obsolete, unreliable, unverifiable... or hard to verify references. So I believe on Abakan, I switched the time zones because the ref that was used did not seem to contain any useful information regarding the time zones. The Law 20 was easily replaced with a very easy to obtain encyclopedia, and/or oxford edition of a book. In hindsight I could have left both ref's up as I realized when I was nearing completion and had the "Law 59" to deal with and could not find any easy references that would corroborate that information, that I then was able to understand what that reference referred to. I believe I rewrote it a bit easier to understand format. Again on that I could be wrong and when I get to my library I will do a bit more research off of the beaten path. In regards to the template and the "ref = harv" being added, I noticed that you took them out. I don't agree with that and will add them back but will explain( I will wait a day or so, so that you may respond). It does not remove or damage any functionality by adding that parameter, but it does add the ability to work in a better way (or different if you desire). If I am wrong about funtionality. Please think about it and let me know. I do believe that Abakan as it is looks better, functions better as an encyclopedic article, and is easier to verify. I am not done yet, though so I plan on adding some depending on what I can find to increase the article. Thanks for your response. speednat (talk) 14:12, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I don't quite agree with your main premise. The main problem I saw is that you seem to be, to some extent at least, treating the statements sourced to "hard to verify references" as if they were unverifiable. That's not a valid approach. I myself is all for replacing obscure references in a foreign language with good academic English-language sources of the same scope and quality, but it is the "same scope and quality" which are the key words here. For an indisputably academic subject which is extensively covered in Russian but barely (and often inadequately) covered in English, English-language sources of a comparable quality are often very hard (and even impossible) to find. So with that in mind, since Wikipedia is supposed to be a repository of all human knowledge, non-English sources do not present a problem, even if it is extremely difficult for the vast majority of editors to verify them. It's only when it's 100% impossible to verify a claim that the reference must go (or can be replaced with a more accessible source of a lower quality).
 * If you have doubts that the source being cited says the same thing it's supporting, by all means make a note of that on the article's talk page. If your request is not addressed within a reasonable amount of time, if you make an honest attempt to verify a claim (by posting additionally on, for example, WT:RUSSIA, or asking Russian-speaking editors to look into the matter elsewhere), then removing/replacing such a claim is of course not a problem. But that's not the case here. What's more (and I sincerely mean no offense, but it must be said), you are making corrections to the lines the purpose of which you don't even fully understand, based solely on your best judgement (you did not know, for example, that the "City of Abakan" is an administrative division, which happens to have its administrative center in the city (=populated place) of Abakan, and you probably did not know that Abakan is not, nor can it be, the "administrative center" of the Republic of Khakassia, but it is its capital). Again, this somewhat cavalier approach may be OK in an abandoned article where questions go unanswered, but Abakan is not such an article. You can't use vaguely similar statements in the 1993 edition of EB to reference how the city is administratively incorporated in the 2010s, for example. The law used as a reference to support that claim was only passed in 2004, and it has gone through numerous amendments since then! EB can't possibly be an adequate replacement here.
 * Regarding the reference style, there is, of course, nothing wrong with Harvard-style citations. Problem is, the article never used this style before, and the referencing templates used there are designed the way they are because they are used predominantly in articles which also never used this style. Amending the population template for the sake of only one article completely disregards the fact that doing so leads to breaking style consistency in hundreds and hundreds of other articles.
 * I don't mean to sound harsh, so if I came off as rude at any point, I apologize. My first concern is always with the accuracy of the data, as well as making sure that the sources being used are appropriate. It is in that spirit that I made my most recent edit to Abakan. I will be more than happy to discuss with you any additional concerns you might have.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 14, 2014 ; 15:04 (UTC)
 * I will defer, to your more up-to-date sources until I access my library and such and have a bit more time. As it was, I spent a lot of time translating back and forth and I'm a bit burnt out on it. However; in regards to the ref= parameter, (without trying to sound antaganistic) how does it break articles. If the article does not use the ref parameter to create an anchor then adding one will not hurt it. That is just common computer science logic. A program runs with 5 variables a,b,c,d,e and uses these to compute whatever. The author adds an easter egg into the 6th variable (let's say "f") to show off his signature. No harm comes from it..... other than a couple of bytes of used up memory or actually bits. But you get my point, and the ref = harv should be added. If I am wrong show me the page that breaks, as I, like you, strive to help produce a competent and well running wiki. As far as the references go, like I said I will defer; however that same page "non-english sources" does say to provide English quotes when neccesary and since this is the "english" language wiki if at all possible utilize english language sources. I understand what you are saying in that "some" of the information is better sourced by the original russian language but I do not believe it all is. speednat (talk) 15:38, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Time and time again, I make (and then break) a promise to myself to never do any template editing before I have my morning coffee! You are, of course, absolutely correct that adding ref=harv to a template is not going to break anything unless that parameter is explicitly invoked; and it's my sleepy eyes which are to blame for seeing something that's not there (like breakage of other articles). A bigger point, however, is that there are very few (any?) articles which both make a use of this template and use Harvard citation format, which makes the addition kind of moot. What's more, the vast majority of the articles about Russian inhabited localities use the same format Abakan uses, which is exactly the reason why the Census reference templates (as well as the templates referencing the laws supporting various administrative/municipal statements) are set up the way they are. Wikipedia's guideline regarding formatting of the references does ask that articles use the same citation format whenever possible, but it also states that switching from one format to another is to be avoided in articles which already are using a consistent system (even if it's one without templates). If you are planning to create new articles about Russian inhabited localities and to use Harvard formatting in those, that is absolutely your right to do so (and in that case adding ref=harv to reference templates to have this option makes perfect sense), but otherwise the idea is to stick to the format the article you are editing is already using.
 * Regarding WP:NOENG, I believe you are misreading it. A translation is actually required only when one is quoting a part of the text from a non-English source. Nothing is being quoted in the Abakan article, which simply points to the source, so that requirement does not apply. It's the "Citing non-English sources" section of NOENG that applies here, not the "Quoting non-English sources" section.
 * What NOENG does say, however, is that in case of a dispute, a translation of an applicable portion of the source may be requested. If you are indeed disputing any of the claims, I will be more than happy to provide such a translation (along with the original, if you can read it). You certainly won't be the first person to request one!
 * Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 14, 2014 ; 17:09 (UTC)
 * One last point and then I will bow out for now. On the article Abakan, after changing the references to the way that you state they should be, the reference is entirely in cyrillic lettering and russian language. The bottom line is, this is an English wiki. I understand the need for foreign sources, but can you not at least translate all of the neccesary terms. Considering you state that you are bilingual, it would be a lot easier (and more accurate) for you to do rather than for myself or someone else to clean up after you. I am surprised that I need to bring this point up to you as you seemed logical and coherent in your discussions. This is near the end of my day, so I am getting a little more tired and to the point. speednat (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean? I've just taken another look at Abakan, and every single Russian ref has an English translation following it in parentheses. If you specifically point me to one that doesn't, I'll be happy to fix it, because I completely agree that even though such translations are not required by our guidelines, providing them significantly improves user experience. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 14, 2014 ; 19:04 (UTC)
 * Note #6 (does say Moscow, but I don't thing that is the important piece of info), #7 thanksspeednat (talk) 19:31, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks; will be fixing these promptly!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 14, 2014 ; 19:36 (UTC)

Ability to override the location map with another location map
I have hacked in a custom location map in Krasino, Arkhangelsk Oblast, but it would be better if I could just say Russia Novaya Zemlya and Krasino on Novaya Zemlya. I don't think there are many of these, so it's probably not worth it to change PosMapFS to use the "Administrative district" information as well. but, that would be another option. Frietjes (talk) 13:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Use Wikipedia-wide standard color for infoboxes on settlements etc.
Change |headerstyle=background:#A3EEA3; to | headerstyle = background-color:#cddeff 78.55.12.169 (talk) 14:20, 14 October 2017 (UTC)

Commons category in infobox footer
Seems to be broken: see e.g. Smolensk, Chelyabinsk, Khabarovsk. Double sharp (talk) 04:08, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Never mind; this seems to have been fixed since my previous comment. Double sharp (talk) 03:43, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 August 2018
This part:

produces extra whitespace under the "image_skyline" image. I suggest changing this code to

—&#8288;andrybak (talk) 20:04, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:30, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

IB settlement wrapper version
I created a version of this template based on Infobox settlement in the sandbox, it can be used to replace the current version if deemed an improvement. The test cases can be seen here.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 21:04, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Rural settlement field not displaying
, now that the infobox template has been converted there is a problem with the article Puksoozero. In the infobox the fields "rural_settlement_jur" and "rural_settlement_jur_ref" don't display. Can this be fixed. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:55, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * This seems to be a widespread problem with the rural localities articles. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * It should be back in every article now.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 05:31, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks . Puksoozero is now fine. However I fix reference problems (working on the P's) and I'm running into other reference errors caused by fields that don't display. In Priargunsk the field "urban_okrug_jur_ref" isn't being seen. All those red reference error messages on the test case page are caused by fields not being picked up by the template. StarryGrandma (talk) 06:51, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Fixed urban_okrug_jur_ref, but the other testcase refs don't show up because they're not defined in the wikicode of the page, so the error messages are to be expected.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 07:38, 5 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks again. I expect the list of reference errors has gotten shorter! StarryGrandma (talk) 07:52, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

OKTMO ID
| code1_name             = OKTMO ID | code1_info              = https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_Russian_inhabited_locality/sandbox&oldid=909639460 TerraCyprus (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

- could you have a look? I did it for the other two Russian place templates (federal subjects and the districts), but this template here I cannot edit. TerraCyprus (talk) 17:34, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I endorse but I can't edit this either. --Trialpears (talk) 09:00, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
 * ✅. Please update the documentation to mention the OKTMO code, and others which are not currently documented. I have just listed the P764 Wikidata property there. For the rest, you're the experts. — JFG talk 17:02, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Unsourced data
There is no problem with importing from Wikidata information that is self-evident, like images, identifiers, etc. However, this template imports unsourced data for fields like area, elevation, twinning, etc. There's an example at Ozyory, Moscow Oblast. The Wikidata/2018 Infobox RfC showed a clear consensus on the issue of importing only verifiable data, and no challengeable data should be brought in from Wikidata when it is unsourced there. I propose removing any Wikidata that is not self-evident and not guaranteed to come from a reliable source. --RexxS (talk) 16:31, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I fully support this, we have data of bad provenance being automatically imported.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Nothing happened so far, and if nothing happens for a couple of days I am going to revert to the pre-TfD version. WP:V is clearly above any consensus at TfD.--Ymblanter (talk) 12:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Support as an outside observer with no stake in this. Wikidata should only be auto-imported in certain narrow use cases where we can rest assured that it is reliable and sourced (I'd prefer to completely prohibit Wikidata use on enwp except for interwiki links and authority control, but that'll never happen). This is not one of those cases. &minus;&minus;&minus; Cactus Jack 🌵 22:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I restored the template; a random check shows it functions properly but I will go into more detailed check later.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * since you have reverted the TfD decision, I will ping those who participated in in the prior discussion. I believe the conversion to a wrapper and the use of wikidata are two orthogonal issues.  we don't need to revert to the no-wrapper version to remove the wikidata references. Frietjes (talk) 14:56, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with Frietjes. It also appears that the Wikidata calls were added after merging the templates not during it. and that the reversion to the pre-TfM version has been done by one of only two editors who objected to such a merge. "Revision as of 23:06, 25 November 2018" seems to be the last without Wikidata calls. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * As soon as the issue (importing unsourced data or data sourced to Wikipedia) is fixed everybody is welcome to revert my changes. I do not know how to fix it myself.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * What was the issue that caused for the restoration of the template? And more importantly, how is it only unique to 3447 Russian inhabited localities and does not cause problems to 524,232 other pages? --Gonnym (talk) 15:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how to show it with the diff, but Ozyory, Moscow Oblast (mentioned above) is the use case. With the previousl version of the template it was showing the area of the city taken from Wikidata, where it is referenced to the Russian Wikipedia. It is unclear what this area means; it could be the area of the town proper, or it could be the area of the town of oblast significance of Ozyory which is the former Ozyorsky District, or even the area of something else, and the source is bad anyway. I guess it is a generic problem of Infobox settlement, but I have no use cases for it outside Russia, and for Russia, I knew the infobox we were using oreviously did not have such issues.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:06, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The root problem appears to be that the "bad" version was using calls like this: . Those calls just bring in the wikidata value regardless of sourcing. For a more acceptable example of using wikidata in infoboxes, see Infobox person/Wikidata, where the wikidata call looks like  . That wikidata call uses Module:WikidataIB, which retrieves data only if it is sourced to a non-Wikipedia source. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. Now may be someone will fix Infobox settlement. I am afraid this is a bit above my current lua skills.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:57, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I restored the TfD version, without the use of Wikidata figures for the area, as some users find it objectionable. In any case, the use of Wikidata figures should not be used as an excuse to restore someone's favorite version of the template. If you want to change the whole design back again, start a TfD.--eh bien mon prince (talk) 17:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I am sorry but I am not going to start TfD to remove clear policy violations (this policy is in fact one of our pillars, and we specifically have consensus that import of unsourced and badly sourced data from Wikidata is not allowed). If I notice that the template violates this or other policies I will revert it to the stable version again. And will go to ANI, as I have done this time.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You did not merely "remove clear policy violations" (something Underlying lk has now done) but reverted to your preferred version of the template, contrary to the clear consensus at TfD. As I said above "the Wikidata calls were added after merging the templates not during it" - you could as easily have reverted to the post-merge, pre-Wikidata version Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Next time, when I discover that the template has been showing false information for over a year in several thousand articles, I will go straight to ANI requesting long-term blocks for disruption. I was asking for a month to correct this fuckup, not a single user who voted to delete the template was interested.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The problem of inclusion of unsourced wikidata is still present. I have removed nearly all of the unsourced wikidata calls from the sandbox version of the template. Can someone please take a look at the test cases page, and maybe add a few more test cases, to ensure that the template still works as intended? If would like to reinsert wikidata calls that limit wikidata inclusion to sourced data (see above for example), that would be fine as well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:12, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks for your work . I am not sure I can help, but I can have a look next week if you give me some pointers to the test cases. I am afraid most users here are interestuing in making noise but are not really interested in doing anything to correct this massive disruption.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Please comment on content, not on contributors. The test cases are at Template:Infobox Russian inhabited locality/testcases. They compare the live version with the sandbox version, given the parameter values that are provided. The current testcases do not provide a comparison of the live template, which pulls information from Wikidata, and the sandbox, which mostly does not, since the Wikidata calls depend on the PAGENAME. You have to use Special:ExpandTemplates or some feature of Testcase table that I don't know about. I have asked for help at Module talk:Template test case.
 * That said, I put the first test case, using the live template and the sandbox, into Special:ExpandTemplates, and the sandbox renders fine, leaving out the Wikidata information. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:45, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * So your response to me pointing our your improper behaviour, going against consensus to restore your personally-preferred version of the template, is to threaten to disrupt Wikipedia to make a point? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:34, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Getting you topic-banned from infoboxes will be in fact making Wikipedia better.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Getting you topic-banned from infoboxes will be in fact making Wikipedia better.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

North Ossetia–Alania with correct name
I couldn't change from North Ossetia-Alania -> North Ossetia–Alania (with ndash hyphen). comp.arch (talk) 09:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , thank you for your report. This has been fixed: Special:Diff/987811866. From your contributions, it appears that you have been trying to edit the article Beslan. For future reference, please include links and diffs to articles which are affected in your messages, so that other editors can understand what you are trying to do better. —⁠andrybak (talk) 11:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

push_pin maps
This template accepts pushpin_map but not corresponding ones. Need at least pushpin_map_caption and pushpin_outside in Orsk. ? MB 20:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Added without testing (yikes!). Please try them in the article to see if they work. Any editor is welcome to revert and ping/trout me if I made a bad mistake here. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * , looks good in above article. Thanks. MB 21:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Add a parameter to cancel flag border
I've discovered the flag of Irkutsk is a non-quadrilateral flag, which shouldn't filling into grey border, so I suggest introducing flag_border parameter in this template. -- Great Brightstar (talk) 02:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

OKATO/OKTMO
This template converts the OKATO to OKTMO ID. Unfortunately, in these cases, OKTMO does not appear: Nikolayevka, Kursk Oblast, OKTMO 38620412161 (OKATO 38220812012), Nikolayevka, Kursk Oblast, OKTMO 38620412221 (OKATO 38220844005). These are special cases: two localities with the same name in the same selsoviet. I suspect that there is an OKATO/OKTMO wikilist from which the template derives its information. I haven't coded a template in my life, but maybe it's better to use a simple automatic link, e.g. to classinform.ru? 13:35, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

2021 Census
Similar to the Russian federal subject infobox, this page needs to be updated with new fields for 2021 population data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.20.217.197 (talk) 15:14, 25 September 2022 (UTC)


 * , is this something you're able to do? I'm afraid I'm not well versed in this type of stuff. IncredibleDryMouth (talk) 05:51, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 22 July 2023
Per MOS:CITEPUNCT, put commas before reference tags, not after. Specifically, implement the edit represented by this diff:. See testcases to compare. Hairy Dude (talk) 14:33, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ * Pppery * it has begun... 21:28, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 August 2023
Add parameters similar to those for the 2010 census for the 2021 census. Template:Ru-pop-ref includes the citation for the 2021 census. Kges1901 (talk) 14:29, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 16 January 2024
Change the "Administrative district" link text in the "subdivision_type2" parameter to simply "District". There is no ambiguity as to what kind of district is intended, and the "administrative" part just adds unnecessary bloat. HappyWith (talk) 20:13, 16 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Are you familiar with the Russian subdivision? Have you ever heard of municipal districts? Do you know what is the difference between administrative and municipal districts? Ymblanter (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I have heard of municipal districts, though whenever I see them they are defined as being coterminous with the administrative districts (eg: Sudzhansky District). The link in in the infobox goes to Districts of Russia, which in its lead defines itself as an "administrative and municipal division" anyway. That article isn't called "Administrative districts of Russia". I assume you're asking me these questions rhetorically though, so please explain what the problem is. HappyWith (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Sometimes they have the same area, sometimes they do not. There is a good reason why this infobox exists for over 10 years, and nobody tied to change this. Ymblanter (talk) 20:50, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I see, but it's odd that it links to Districts of Russia in that case. Should that article maybe be moved, or have administrative districts of Russia split off? Not really sure, thank you for the information though. HappyWith (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template..  P.I. Ellsworth &thinsp;,  ed.  put'er there 02:11, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Local Languages
I cannot get the local language name e.g Ingush or Adyghe to display on this template- please help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ala.foum (talk • contribs) 10:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Could you please specify which article you are having trouble with? Name in the local language is specified using the loc_name1..loc_name4 set of parameters; the name of the language itself goes to loc_lang1..loc_lang4 set of parameters.  I have never experienced any troubles with these parameters, so either you are not doing something right, or you've found a bug that eluded me.  In either case, more information is needed, please.  Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:28, December 28, 2009 (UTC)

Linking Federal Subject Maps
The Russian version of this template has comprehensive map links - i.e a map of Russia with the Federal Subject highlighted in dark red and a detailed map of the federal subject showing the city location - While this has been done for some regions this has not been completed for all - please can somebody fix the following:

1. Omsk Oblast 2. Chelyabinsk Oblast 3. Rostov Oblast 4. Volgograd Oblast 5. Perm Krai 6. Khabarovsk Krai 7. Orenburg Oblast 8. Tyumen Oblast 9. Tula Oblast 10. kanti Mansi Autonomous Okrug 11. Mari El republic 12. Amur Oblast 13. Chechen Republic 14. Sakha Republic (Yakutia) 15. Kamchatka Krai 16. Sakhalin Oblast 17. Republic of Khakasia 18. Karachay-Cherkessia

Sposibo Dobrovo - Thanks in Advance —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ala.foum (talk • contribs) — Preceding undated comment added 13:09, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I've asked a person in ru_wiki to create these locator map templates. Once they are up in the en_wiki, I'll tweak this template to make sure they are displayed automatically in appropriate articles.  Thanks!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:58, December 28, 2009 (UTC)