Template talk:Infobox country

adding Indicators
Hello, I was thinking of adding additional indicators to the infobox (from UN bodies) such as the happiness report and etc. Do you agree? 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 06:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I think that only GDP and HDI data doesn’t cover everything, I was thinking of adding maybe another indicators from the UN reports 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 06:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Nikkimaria do you agree? 2A01:73C0:86A:DEBA:C5A9:DBCF:3562:4611 (talk) 14:12, 20 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Which specific additional indicators do you want to add and why do you believe these to be significant? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:06, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Nikkimaria
 * I base my opinion on several articles published on the subject that claim that the HDI and GDP data are not enough to see the full picture of a certain country. I thought to add the happiness report which includes data on per capita income, education and life expectancy. In addition, it measures also other things that aren’t measured in HDI and GDP such as the difference between generations.
 * Harvard business school :
 * IMF:IMF
 * other sources:
 * Articel
 * articel 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:B45F:F2DC:BCAD:3D16 (talk) 02:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I fully agree that HDI and GDP don't give a full picture of a country. But no indicator will, and particularly not a composite indicator. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Nikkimaria
 * First of all, you are right.
 * But in my opinion we can add the index (which is established by the UN and is considered the most accurate).
 * And beyond that, many researchers believe that the index is better than HDI or GDP. It also includes GDP data, life expectancy eduction and more...
 * In the French Wikipedia, for example, there are other indicators besides HDI and GDP. And I think nothing bad could come from adding another indicator that adds more information and light on the country. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:B45F:F2DC:BCAD:3D16 (talk) 02:28, 21 March 2024 (UTC)


 * There is certainly potential harm from overloading the template with information that is not meaningful to most readers - it's meant to be limited to key facts at a glance. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @Nikkimaria
 * True, but even so there is not much data,
 * in the French Wikipedia there are several more indicators regarding a certain country which gives more information.
 * I think that, after all in light of the above, it might be profitable to add, and after all we want to give the reader some comprehensive information about a particular country. (What the HDI and GDP do not fully show).
 * maybe we can get another opinion from other editors. Also, the UN doesn't publish many indexes about a particular country's economic/development.

147.235.216.48 (talk) 03:30, 21 March 2024 (UTC)


 * @BootsED, Phoenix7777 what do you think? Do you agree with my statement? 2A01:73C0:86E:6120:6CC9:C45B:1530:8814 (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * To be honest I had not considered the happiness index to be added to the infobox before you mentioned this. I think it is certainly worth looking into. However, I would state I believe a democracy index would be more important to add to the infobox before consideration of a happiness index owing to the many reasons I have previously given in an earlier post I made on this page. BootsED (talk) 21:58, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @BootsED
 * Hello, as I said many researchers claim that HDI and GDP do not give a complete picture.Harvard In addition, many researchers believe that the happiness index is a better index ,because it includes additional data as well as life expectancy, GDP per capita education and corruption.Columbia university
 * IMF
 * As I have already said, in my opinion, adding another index can only broaden the reader's point of view ( the French Wikipedia, for example, added more indicators besides GDP and HDI).
 * Regarding the democracy index, I have an opinion on the subject, but I know it is not published by the UN, unlike the happiness index, which is published by the UN like the HDI.
 * Can you please read the articles that I added and express your opinion.World economic forum
 * thank you. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:655A:291F:C391:6239 (talk) 23:16, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would support removing these parameters. Moxy 🍁 23:36, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @BootsED what is your opinion? 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:C8D9:98C3:D3E8:CE70 (talk) 02:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think it is worth looking into. Again, I think an democracy index would be more prudent to add before a happiness index, but I would wait for more consensus before making any changes. BootsED (talk) 02:44, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Alright, @ TylerBurden @ Juustila @Dönde94 what is your opinion? 37.142.165.10 (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Whatever. Juustila (talk) 06:55, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @BootsED I don’t think there is an objection of adding it, at the end it’s UN’s index that covers more than just HDI and GDP. 2A06:C701:42A5:A00:1B8:4B89:89C3:8025 (talk) 01:57, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * @BootsED should we put it to a vote? 147.235.215.100 (talk) 06:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Greenhouse gas emissions
I am proposing to add greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the country infobox.

GHGs include any gases which contribute to climate change. Different gases affect our climate in different ways, the most impactful GHGs being carbon dioxide and methane. Although different gases contribute differently, conversion factors known as global warming potential can be used to sum their contributions, and express the total in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). This allows for an objective measure of countries' contributions to climate change.

Our World in Data provides a complete list of national emissions in CO2e here

I believe readers would value this information in the infobox, given the increasing impact of climate, international agreements (most importantly the Paris Agreement), and the geopolitical significance of GHG emissions.

I am interested to know what you think. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:12, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * It's an important statistic, but with regard to inclusion in the infobox, is it more significant than any of zillions of other statistics, such as live births per thousand, life expectancy at birth, literacy rates, homicide rates, density of airborne particulates, percentage completing various levels of education, cars per million people, poverty rates, percentage of population incarcerated, opiate death rates, arable land, access to fresh water, etc.? I suppose all of these can be included, but infoboxes probably shouldn't extend indefinitely. Largoplazo (talk) 08:53, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Statistics can be interpreted in many ways and in my opinion the more complex they are the more ways there are to create confusion. How many people actually understand what greenhouse emissions are, how the statistics are created and what they mean? Using them would, I think, result in their misuse to make political points. That is less of a problem with vert simple statistics such as population per sq km. Also, agree with Largoplazo, what makes greenhouse emissions so special? Roger 8 Roger (talk) 09:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Largoplazo and Roger 8 Roger - thanks for your replies! I'll respond to all the above points here:
 * On importance: I agree that not everything can be included in an infobox. To be overly inclusive here would defeat the purpose. To provide a quick, simple summary of facts, there needs to be some threshold of importance to be considered for inclusion. My view (which is shared by many around the world) is that climate change is one of the most important problems the planet is facing. There are countless examples of how climate change is impacting people's lives now, and how it will impact them into the future. To provide one example, to illustrate the scale of this issue - Indonesia's capital city Jakarta needs to be moved because of climate change. So I don't believe climate change can be left off the list of important statistics. I would even suggest some facts in the current infobox are perhaps not as important as this one... but I won't give an example since I don't want to pick on any of them!
 * On complexity: I believe the metric is quite easy to understand. It's a simple measure - it's merely the total amount of emissions produced within a particular country each year. It's a much simpler concept than GDP, for example, which is included in the infobox (let alone Gini coefficient, which even economists struggle to understand). So I don't believe this is too complex a statistic to be useful to readers, and should not be ruled out of the infobox.
 * On politicization: my feeling is that anything and everything can be used to feed into political arguments. Climate change is no different. However, the purpose of Wikipedia is to inform and educate people, and this process is a necessary and beneficial part of the political process. I feel we should not be afraid of our work being used in political debate - rather, I would be afraid of our work not being used in political debate.
 * Let me know what you think.
 * 20WattSphere (talk) 11:24, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Though I mentioned poverty indexes and suggested that they'd be extraneous, I do see that the GINI and HDI parameters are present. Even so, I can make the case that like every other parameter in the infobox, they tell us something basic about the condition and nature of the country: What are its capital, currency, form of government? Is it large or small? Who populates it? What religions do they practice? Are they (this is where GDP, GINI, and HDI come in) economically developed, and are the people rich or poor? None of these gives me a sense that they were included for the purpose of raising anybody's consciousness about some issue. None of them amounts to "Look at what this country is doing to the planet". In contrast, greenhouse gas emission isn't really a basic national characteristic, and your stated reason for your proposal was consciousness-raising regarding an agenda (albeit one on which I'm in agreement). Largoplazo (talk) 14:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This is something that generally not covered in these topics. Moxy 🍁 15:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I think GHG emissions is quite a basic question about countries (similar to HDI and Gini). To be clear - I am not proposing this out of advocacy. I am proposing this because I think it's an important fact about countries (and companies actually, but that's another story).
 * Every time I read about a country, I wish their annual emissions were in the infobox. Some examples of the value it would provide include:
 * GHG emissions relates to the question of "are they rich or poor", since many highly-developed countries consume a lot of fossil fuels. Does the country import or produce fuels, or do they struggle to obtain energy?
 * It also provides a measure of what countries' economies are like. Are they a manufacturing country, do they make steel or other commodities, or does their economy mainly provide services? Do they drive cars, or ride bikes and trains.
 * It indicates whether they are likely to struggle to meet the Paris Agreement or other international obligations.
 * 20WattSphere (talk) 20:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Looking at List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions, I don't think these points make a lot of sense. The raw numbers correlate primarily with population, and the per-capita numbers are a mixed bag - they don't correlate well to either level of development or level of manufacturing. As for the third point, understanding that requires a level of context that would not be available simply by presenting a number. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point about population size - I think per-capita emissions would be a much better choice. That's also quite readily available.
 * Per capita emissions seems to vaguely correlate with HDI - but there's a lot of variation, which is a large part of why I'm interested in including it. If it was perfectly correlated with HDI, for example, then it wouldn't be worth including, since HDI would be readily convertible to emissions intensity. So I think it's a different enough metric, and an important enough metric, to include. 20WattSphere (talk) 07:58, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I strongly support adding emissions per capita and global rank (lowest to highest) in brackets. Potentially this stat is of greater educational value (or of more interest) than many stats already included. The consensus of the scientific community is that unabated GHG emissions and subsequent Climate Change will very likely result in unrivalled environmental, economic and geopolitical upheaval ("Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability". Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
 * The other somewhat unique aspect of this stat (if provided with a rank) is that it provides a measure of a country’s “outward” performance. Eg, what is this country doing for the global community, rather than what it is going for its own community (GDP per Capita, Gini, HDI).  The Good Country Index does this more holistically and robustly but emissions per capita is a start.
 * In response to others comments.
 * I don’t think it’s complicated, particularly if rank is added. Read the article on Gini (already included) if you want complexity.
 * Regarding the statement that data should not be added as a means to advocate change, I agree with the statement but dies it really applies here? Emissions per capita data has very high educational value. How that is used to advocate is unpredictable, there’s no guarantee it will be a useful tool for advocating for emissions reductions (it may actually be used by diplomats of comparably low emitting countries to argue against emissions reductions!).  It’s just interesting data, and in of itself doesn’t advocate for anything.
 * Regarding the risk of cluttering the country info box, this is valid. Priority must be given on merit, to matters of most importance.  Being such a threat to the environment, economy and geopolitics, climate change information and data regarding emissions should potentially take priority over some existing stats. Certainly I think its addition is justified, if the infobox becomes unruly lowest priority should be cut. RichoWildman (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I am strongly in favour of including CO₂ emmissions since Climate Change is probably the most critical risk issue facing not only mankind, but also the entire planetary ecosystem. We are already at the threshold of +1.5°C warming - beyond which the planet is at risk of crossing one, or more, "tipping points" which risk pushing the climatic system into uncharted territory, with the potential to lead to profound global climatic sytem shifts. For example: References In short, climate change presents an existential risk to life on Earth, with the potential to render economics as we know it largely irrelevant. As such, it would be irresponsible not to include CO₂ emmissions in Template:Infobox_country. To omit climate change indicators only plays into the narrative of denialists.
 * 1) There is growing concern that the Gulf Stream may collapse within a couple a decades, well before the end of this century. If this happens, that could, paradoxically, (notwithstanding an increasing average global temperature) lead to a  dramatic plunge in temperature in Western Europe.
 * 2) In the Arctic there is a progressive depletion of sea ice to such an extent that the long-sought Northwest Passage is becoming a viable route for commercial shipping. As the white ice is replaced by the dark sea, Earth's albedo (reflectiveness) is increasing - not only in the north polar waters, but also on the landmass of Greenland - generating a positive feedback loop - accelerating the rate of Climate Change.
 * 3) Antarctica, previously thought to be largely immune to the ravages of climate change, is now found by researchers to also be under great risk of contributing significantly to global sea level rise. Unlike sea ice at the north pole - which has little impact on global sea level - land-based glaciers at the south pole have the potential to dramatically impact global sea-level rise. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. The Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) is accelerating - increasing in speed by 40% over the past 40 years - generating large-scale eddies that draw-in relatively warm waters from the higher latitudes - leading to increasing melting at the perimiter of Antarctica. The ice shelves that surround Antarctica act as a "girdle" that block the land-based glaciers from sliding into the Southern Ocean. Current research also shows that salty sea water is increasingly penetrating under these retaing ice shelves - leading to a rapid increase in the melting under the ice shelves which - when coupled with increased melting of surface ice due to climate change - means that the ice shelves that surround Antarctica are being melted both from above and from below. Already, just one land-based glacier (Thwaites), roughly the size of Florida, responsible for 4% of sea level rise in the recent past, holds the potential to raise sea-lvel by 0.6 m (2 feet). To put this in perspective, if all of Antarctica were to melt (no one is predicting this in this century) that could potentially translate into a sea-level increase of something well-over 60 m (200 ft) - but, if that happened, the increase would be far more since other glaciers around the world including, most notably, Greenland would mean that sea level rise would be far greater. I have seen estimates that suggest that if all the ice on Earth melted, sea level would rise by over 90 metres (300 ft). Of course, if that happened, the oceans would expand in surface area and all of the world's coastal cities - as well as many inland cities - would dissapear beneath the waves.

Besides, we can't control what we don't measure. While there is, to some degree If Wikipedia took a lead in condensing the disparate sources of data into, maybe the following: This would really help to ensure that these key indicators are being measured and tracked.
 * Gross national CO₂ emissions
 * Per Capita CO₂ emissions
 * CO₂
 * Methane
 * etc.

There are, actually a number of sources for reliable data, including: Enquire (talk) 22:08, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Our World in Data's CO₂ emissions
 * The IEA's annual CO₂ Emissions: CO₂ Emissions in 2023
 * United Nations Environment Programme's annual Emissions Gap Reports: Emissions Gap Report 2023
 * The IMF's Climate Change Indicators Dashboard.


 * Thanks for this comment, and appreciate the list of sources. Also keen for a breakdown by gas, and per capita. I agree, this is an extremely significant and measurable part of civilisation, and is fundamental to understanding countries. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:12, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
 * We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?
 * Enquire (talk) 21:38, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The purpose of infoboxes isn't to highlight issues critical to mankind. They aren't a WP:SOAPBOX, and all the reasons I'm seeing here for including this information there screams "SOAPBOX". Largoplazo (talk) 22:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You could make an identical argument for excluding any other indicator. Take GDP for example - is Wikipedia advocating for countries to emphasize their consideration of GDP? You could make that argument, but I would argue GDP is just an important number to understand what's going on at a macro level in a country. Just like GHG emissions. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:34, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Just to add - virtually every large company now reports publicly on their GHG emissions. Are they advocating for policy change? No, they are responding to investors' demand for information on an objectively important metric. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The investors are demanding policy change. Largoplazo (talk) 03:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You're telling me shareholders of fossil fuel companies want policy changes that would financially harm themselves? I don't see any evidence of that. Yet, fossil fuel companies all report their emissions, because it's a useful metric for investors to understand their operations. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You're telling me that they want those figures for funsies? Largoplazo (talk) 09:50, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Of course not. They want those figures so they can better assess risk (including policy risk). This is so they can do their job better, by more accurately valuing company stocks. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * So investing in a company with a low greenhouse gas output carries less risk? In other words, lower outpupt would be financially beneficial to investorsnot harmful? Largoplazo (talk) 12:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, a company with lower GHG output carries less risk (all else being equal). Whether this is beneficial for you depends on whether you're trying to buy or sell the stock. GHG output reporting allows transparency and better financial decisionmaking (and prevents investors having to put resources into estimating it). Some reading:
 * 20WattSphere (talk) 22:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm looking at all the reasons being given here for why a greenhouse gas indicator should be included and they're all advocacy-related. Largoplazo (talk) 03:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Providing information is not the same thing as advocacy. If it was, most of Wikipedia should be deleted. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Every argument being given here is couched in advocacy, so please stop turning around and responding to me, when I note this, that it's all just in the spirit of neutrally providing information, just because. Largoplazo (talk) 09:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Obviously many people here want climate change to be solved, so you could argue these arguments are couched in advocacy. But in my view (and I would argue that WP:SOAPBOX supports this) that doesn't mean WP should choose not to convey information when there is demand for it - even if the demand is due to a political* viewpoint. Nobody's asking for infoboxes to take a position on climate change, just to say where emissions are coming from.
 * * Saying that climate mitigation is political is also kind of a stretch - we have international agreements on this. Unless you live outside the United Nations, your government agrees that climate change should be mitigated too. 20WattSphere (talk) 21:39, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

CO2 emissions per capita
I made a proposal to include greenhouse gas emissions in the infobox (see thread above). Users were not convinced, and I'm happy to accept that.

Instead, I'd like to suggest CO2 emissions per capita. I think this is preferable because it is adjusted for population size, making it more relevant to understanding a country's economy. Using CO2 only is also more clear and understandable than GHGs.

By way of explanation, I think it would be valued by:


 * Students of energy, since emissions are mainly produced through energy consumption (link)
 * Students of politics and international relations, since climate change is an increasingly important issue in international relations
 * Students of development, since more developed countries have higher emissions per capita (link)
 * Students of economics, since emissions are correlated with GDP (link)

If Wikipedians like the idea but disagree with the particular metric, I think the above readers would also be very interested in carbon intensity, which is total kilograms of CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP (link)

Keen to hear your thoughts. 20WattSphere (talk) 08:33, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Earier, I disagreed with the idea altogether. The reasons I stated weren't particular to the metric you'd chosen. Largoplazo (talk) 09:45, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Would you care to elaborate? I did respond to a number of your points above. 20WattSphere (talk) 10:31, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * And you didn't change my mind about any of them, so my points remain as already stated. Largoplazo (talk) 12:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * For other editors' benefit, these were that:
 * It is not a basic fact about the condition and nature of the country (my reply: it is a similar fact to GDP etc. in that it's a metric which provides an overall measure of a country's energy use, industry and economy)
 * Infobox fields are not for consciousness-raising regarding social issues (my reply: I'm suggesting this because I think many readers would be interested, not to advocate for any political idea)
 * 20WattSphere (talk) 08:42, 12 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I supports your suggestion and think it is a good idea. ArmorredKnight (talk) 10:19, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * We cannot control what we do not measure... How to escallate this?
 * Enquire (talk) 21:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

should info box of country include information regarding if goverment is authoritarian
There is a discussion in the article about China, that should be general and actually in this talk page. The question is regarding what information should be included in the info box of a country. And more specifically should the infobox include information if a goverment is authoritarian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:China#RfC I suggest to move the discussion and the vote/consensus to this page as is should be a general question that related to all pages about countries and their infobox 85.65.237.103 (talk) 13:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)


 * We should simply follow the sources..... This may or may not include political systems..... sometimes they'll use more accurate terms. I've always thought we should have a different parameter for political system versus government. Moxy 🍁 13:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Moxy, it is a request for comment. I want to know the community opinion about this subject. Do they think that such information should be included in the info box or not. 85.65.237.103 (talk) 14:13, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is not a request for comment. It is a note about a related RFC. We should have a normal discussion here about anything more general, and if no consensus comes out of it, then the wider community can be asked via RFC. Primefac (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * ok, let see if there is a consensus here and if not lets go to wider community. I didn't know about this rules, so thanks. 85.65.237.103 (talk) 14:24, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No, no one has agreed to move here. What you are doing is called WP:FORUMSHOPPING. Remsense  诉  16:09, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If we are to have this discussion on the template talk page, we should have it more generally (rather than in the context of the label "authoritarian" specifically). I think the government field in each instance should be direct, concrete, and non-contentious. It should describe the forms or structures of government. Labels or characterizations should be left to the body of the article, where they can be sourced, attributed as necessary, and presented according to their due weight. The government field in the infobox should address issues like whether a government is a unitary or federal system, how the executive power is held, how many legislative houses, and so forth. For example, the USA infobox is good: "Federal presidential republic." JArthur1984 (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * In other words, I do oppose including "authoritarian" in infoboxes, but for grounds not limited to that specific characterization. JArthur1984 (talk) 14:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I previously suggested putting in a Democracy Index within infoboxes to partially solve these issues. BootsED (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It would not solve the fundamental problem whatsoever. That is to say, while the index is in a very shallow sense a "quantification" of what is generally a very qualitative and non-parameterizable concept, it only does so by averaging the views of experts' responses to a poll—e.g. the same process we are already capable of doing. Just because it's a layer of abstraction doesn't mean it makes something that shouldn't be presented in an infobox magically presentable or more useful. Remsense  诉  20:51, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree that this would be a useful addition to the userbox. My favorite measure of democracy is the V-Dem Democracy Indices - as far as Ican tell, they appear to be much more thorough than rivals such as Freedom in the World. I support adding the V-Dem index. 20WattSphere (talk) 04:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * How does it do anything other than aggregate poll results? How is that actually quantitative? Including it in an infobox as a number would be outright disinformation. Remsense  诉  04:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't aggregate poll results at all. As per the wikipedia article linked above, "each indicator is coded independently by at least five country experts". This isn't some public opinion poll, it's academic research produced by political science experts.
 * Calling it "disinformation" is outrageously hyperbolic. It's the same type of metric as HDI, which is already included.
 * Note that many of these things have already been discussed under "Adding Democracy Index in infobox". 20WattSphere (talk) 06:20, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It aggregates the results of experts polled, does it not? It's not measuring and normalizing anything actually quantifiable like HDI does. It's not the same type of figure, so yes listing it alongside other concrete figures and pretending like it belongs constitutes disinformation in my view. Remsense  诉  06:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree it is far more subjective than something like HDI. I also don't see the value of a democracy index in the infobox, we should not presuppose the ideal of a state is to achieve perfect democracy. On the wider topic of the thread I feel similarly, I am not a fan of drifting from a strict constitutional/structural political framework in the infobox. This has however been a long-disputed topic with local consensuses sometimes differing, and in general is part of the difficulty of fitting complicated topics into infoboxes. CMD (talk) 07:11, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't think including this information "presupposes" any agenda. It is simply information.
 * My feeling is that including a simple number would be much more efficient than a debatable and complex assessment by individual Wikipedians, in order to convey the type of information we want to provide people. 20WattSphere (talk) 09:27, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Nonsense on its face; presentation always matters and there's no such thing as "just information", that's what WP:NPOV is about. And yes, the information is anonymous area experts being asked "on a scale of one to five, how unencumbered was this election". It's not quantitative information, even though they've squeezed it into such a presentation. It's not a useless figure, but it is disinformation in an infobox as such because it's totally unclear to the reader that it's not actually measuring anything unlike any number it is displayed next to. Please address the core point. Remsense  诉  16:37, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with your view and @Remsense's view. Earlier in the thread noted my view of a structural government framework (citing the USA article's "federal presidential republic") as a very good model that I would like to see repeated.
 * Following the same logic, I would not support including any sort of political index in the infobox, whether one of the two "democracy indices" mentioned here or some other kind of political index. This is the sort of thing that belongs in article bodies, in my view.
 * I am a proponent of keeping the infobox focused, and suggest avoiding trying to distill political characterizations into a handful of adjectives, or the faux-objectivity of a numerical ranking from thinktanks or advocacy groups. JArthur1984 (talk) 13:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Where are you getting the idea that the results are aggregated in some way?
 * HDI is fairly objective, but the choice of the particular indicators is subjective. You could argue for all sorts of things to be included, but the designers of HDI chose the indicators they chose. It is precisely the same with the V-Dem index. 20WattSphere (talk) 07:45, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure. but at least it's theoretically possible for "average life expectancy" to be empirically measured. Plus, HDI has maybe a couple dozen numbers that go into it in a way that's not totally obscure to the average reader, whereas V-Dem has hundreds of poll questions asked of anonymous area experts. Remsense  诉  16:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Thinking of proposing new parameter for political system..... as seen over at China we have a whole bunch of editors not familiar with the decades long talks on other pages. Moxy 🍁 22:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I think renaming it to something like "structure of government" may solve a lot of these problems. Remsense  诉  23:14, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As I noted in a separate discussion on this page, you have to be fairly bright (at very least, you need to understand integrals) to understand how Gini coefficient is calculated. But I think many readers find it useful regardless. I'm sure GDP is similar, all people need to know is high number = good.
 * If your objection is more that it relies on qualitative data, well, that's what we currently have with non-expert assessments like "Unitary Marxist-Leninist one-party Socialist State". At least an index is produced by a large team of academic experts. 20WattSphere (talk) 22:57, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sure. I think both "qualitative" and "abstruse in derivation" means "no good for infobox", but I am aware how other parameters may be one or the other to some degree. Remsense  诉  23:01, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I can see the argument that both those factors are not ideal for top-level information about countries. But there is another factor which I think should also be prioritised, and that is importance. Democracy is one of the most important factors about a country, in politics, business, sociology and many other fields of work and study. If readers can't easily see a country's democracy index, I don't know that we can say they're getting a comprehensive overview. 20WattSphere (talk) 13:39, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes. Descriptions of related aspects of a country's government are usually very important, and should generally be present in the lead, and maybe even having its own well-developed section in the body. I also think this kind of information is deeply important, which is why I want to treat it with the nuance it deserves, in prose. I don't want it to be misrepresented through a presentation dressing it up like an empirical statistic like GDP, life expectancy or surface area. Infoboxes are only good at presenting certain kinds of information. The lead in general is supposed to be a summary of the most important aspects of an article's topic, and an infobox is designed for at-a-glance data that don't require much context or nuance to understand. That is why this figure does not belong anywhere near the infobox: it is qualitative at its core, and also abstruse. It is disinformation as such. Remsense  诉  14:26, 30 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I respect your opinion, but it is still absurd to call it "disinformation" to say that agency X gave something a rating of Y. 20WattSphere (talk) 01:21, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Feel free to act as if I used whatever term you would prefer that ultimately means the same thing, then. Remsense  诉  02:32, 4 May 2024 (UTC)
 * My comment was about your meaning, not word choice. 20WattSphere (talk) 03:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In that case, I would not understand what it means to respect my opinion and simultaneously find it absurd, but I genuinely appreciate it regardless. Remsense  诉  03:51, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

ISO 3166
I think the should list all of the ISO 3166-1 codes in the infobox, in addition to the alpha-2 code (e.g. IR for Iran).


 * Not seeing any reason to include that level of detail. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:11, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I have mixed feelings. It appeals to the data nerd in me. But the value of the alpha-2 codes is that they're familiar due to their use for top-level domains. Where are the alpha-3 codes used, that the general reader would likely encounter them? I momentarily answered my own question with "the Olympics", but realized that these aren't the codes they use. That might make them more confusing than useful, as when a spectator who's seen DEU here expects Germany to be coded as DEU in competition and doesn't know what GER is. Would they be as useful as international vehicle registration codes? Largoplazo (talk) 12:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Derivation/split proposal: Infobox political period
While I think this template is fine in its expressed use cases, it's also often used for periods of military occupation, e.g. Soviet occupation of Manchuria, for which I feel it is inadequate for the purpose. My best attempt to create a scope for a new infobox type that was neither too bloated nor too specific to use was "political period", basically. Much demographic information we're used to reflexively having like language could be deemphasized, and additional parameters could be available like occupied_by—the edit wars this will specifically cause are worth bearing for a coherent presentation, I think. Remsense 诉  06:34, 4 May 2024 (UTC)


 * This infobox is designed to represent a geopolitical entity, and its fields are tailored with that scope. (The current spin-off to international organization is done by switching quite a few fields out, but there are enough shared fields that it is workable.) It is not appropriate or that useful for a period of time, and its use in Soviet occupation of Manchuria seems an example of misuse. It can be used for an occupying body, eg. Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, but the historical period article Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945) does not use it. I can't think of any infobox template that is used for historical periods, they usually have sidebars linking to other periods of history instead. CMD (talk) 04:48, 6 May 2024 (UTC)


 * IME there are quite a few historical-period articles using this template, although I would agree it's not well suited to that. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:50, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Do you feel a new template would be worthwhile, or would it cause undue complication or bloat? Remsense  诉  05:00, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * If there was a new template, it should have a very different feel to reduce confusion. An experience I remembered prompted by Nikkimaria's comment, Green Ukraine used to use Infobox country in its lead, and this raised questions about the topic of the article despite the text being quite clear. (I moved the infobox down to an article section.) CMD (talk) 06:06, 6 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I could not agree more. I think I'll try experimenting with a design. Remsense  诉  06:07, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Date standard
AFAICR, there used to be national preferred a date format included in Template_talk:Infobox_country in the past (i.e. dd/mm/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd. In any event, I feel that this would be a valuable addition to the infobox. Enquire (talk) 22:21, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Unsure as to what value that adds. It's not something we're likely to discuss in the article so it doesn't belong in the infobox unless it meets some kind of specific exception. Plus some countries, such as Canada, don't have a single preferred one and happily intermix multiple formats. And ultimately I don't see how it helps a reader understand the country. Canterbury Tail talk 01:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Sovereignty
Can the parameters for  and   be expanded so that multiple ones can be added to a certain country's infobox?

For example, I should be able to add the different periods when a country was a vassal of various different empires at various points in its history. That would require the addition of a  parameter for these too. Antiquistik (talk) 09:29, 23 June 2024 (UTC)


 * It's meant to be for the current status, with the established dates able to handle the date or dates that sovereignty changed leading to the current status. This assumes of course that it is a political entity passing between different sovereigns or similar, the infobox format doesn't map well onto more abstract notions. CMD (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Sovereignty as we know it today is a reasonably modern concept (began approximately in the 17th century). I think to use the term for periods before then would be anachronistic. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 00:15, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In this case, could new parameters be created which would indicate whether an ancient or mediaeval state was a vassal or dependency of another state and the periods during which their vassaldom or dependency lasted? Antiquistik (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 July 2024
I'd like to please request for the tag to be added so I can nominate this template for merging with Infobox settlement. PK2 (talk; contributions) 07:36, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now:, please file the nomination first, then I will add it. Primefac (talk) 16:00, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I've just filed the nomination now. I've also included Infobox political division in this request as well. PK2 (talk; contributions) 09:36, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Primefac (talk) 12:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Gini colors and accessibility
I have two concerns with how this template uses color in the Gini section. I've added a new set of testcases so y'all can try out my changes in the sandbox or experiment with alternatives. Once there's consensus for how to address these MOS:COLOR accessibility issues, I'll make a formal edit request.

Over-reliance on color (red vs green)
Using the distinction between red and green as the sole hint that "high is bad" is... not great. Even readers with full color vision are going to miss this sometimes. Few will click through to Gini coefficient, then resume reading the infobox understanding that Gini measures inequality and high means unequal.

The solution I'm trying is to use more descriptive category names, e.g. " high " becomes " high inequality ". The category name is already on its own line, so there is enough space.

Gini may be an imperfect measure of inequality, but as long as we're including it and expressing its valence in colors, we might as well explain what it's trying to measure.

Low contrast (orange)
Orange on white-ish is hard to read due to low contrast.

So, what color could be used to indicate a neutral sentiment?
 * Darker orange – reads as brown to me, losing the "okayish" connotation that yellow/orange have when near green and red
 * Azure – fits with the change-indicator color scheme, but looks more like a link than a sentiment
 * Gray (AA) – fits with the other change-indicator color scheme, used for the population row
 * Darker gray (AAA) – not distinct enough from black to indicate anything
 * No color – normal text, close to black

I'm trying the gray, even though we usually aim for AAA-level contrast in templates. Jruderman (talk) 12:38, 20 July 2024 (UTC)