Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 5

A name change is not a disestablishment
In the article Burkina Faso, there is a use of Infobox Former Country for Upper Volta. This causes the article to show up in Category:1984 disestablishments, which is silly, since the 1984 event is just a renaming (the revolution was 1982). I am not sure what's the correct way to fix this. Is Infobox Former Country even the right template for a renamed country?  Randall Bart    Talk   19:00, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Microformat upgrade- no visual impact to template
This change allows wikipedia to emit data in the form of microformat metadata, as do other infoboxes such as these and and these. The change should have no visual impact and introduces non functional classes to elements of the table. These classes are recognized by external microformat parsers to retrieve information in the cells.

Requested changes:
 * 1) class="infobox geography" → class="infobox geography vcard vevent"
 * 2) In the following class line, class="mergedtoprow" → class="mergedtoprow fn org summary"

These changes have been in effect on page Gojoseon using a sandbox version of this template for two weeks with no complaints. Thank you. -J JMesserly (talk) 05:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what these do but I trust that you know what you are doing! ✅. Martinmsgj 10:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Maybe in a year when microformat aware browsers are commonly available, it will be exceptionally clear what the benefits are.  Now you have to install special add ons for different browsers, so it is an extreme niche feature at this point. Further info and instructions here if you want to quickly see the new functionality in a browser. Regards, -J JMesserly (talk) 15:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Dash spacing fix
Per WP:DASH,  -->   (i.e., take out the spaces). Dabomb87 (talk) 04:58, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Does that look better now? &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:52, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Another autocategorisation problem
In cases where a country was established in xxxx BC and lasted until yyyy AD, people are (quite reasonably) including " AD" in the year_end value. This results in the article being incorrectly tagged as "yyyy AD disestablishments" instead of "yyyy disestablishments". (Examples: Han Dynasty and Satavahana) —Paul A (talk) 07:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Documentation fix
I've merged the contents of the "/Blank" page with the main template documentation. Requesting de-transclusion of it from the main template. New code is in the sandbox. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The instructional content which has been left is unnecessary as well, as the pages it refers to have been merged with the main /doc page. Request that the sandbox be fully synced. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes bug
The recent changes (30 June 2009) do not work in the Opera browser as shown by this screenshot (notice the double border):



I am requesting a reversal unless the fix for it can be found quickly. Mnmazur (talk)
 * Reverted for now. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:26, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll check out the code and see if I can find the problem. Mnmazur (talk)


 * Should be fixed now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. --- RockMFR 20:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Coordinates
What do the coordinate parameters do (the latd, longd etc)? I tried adding them, but didn't see any change. This is not given in the documentation so I'm asking here.  C h a m a l  talk 11:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * They actually don't do anything. The template code does not mention them at all. I'm not sure why they are in the doc... --- RockMFR 01:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Capital
The link of the word "Capital" should direct to List of former national capitals instead of List of historical national capitals. Rubenescio (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:50, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Rubenescio (talk) 13:08, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Add ru interwiki, please
ru:Шаблон:Историческое государство--Sergei (talk) 08:35, 18 July 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ Language links are on the (unprotected) Template:Infobox Former Country/doc page; you can add them yourself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 14:32, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Sync with sandbox
Requesting re-sync with sandbox, which sets the default infobox width to 22em (which is what infobox defaults to). This was changed without discussion to 180px, a change which was not accepted in the MoS. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:04, 23 July 2009 (UTC)


 * ✅ Changed 180px to 22em. Let me know if there are any problems. Plastikspork (talk) 03:08, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Disappearing flags
&mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   08:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC) In the case of several articles such as Austria-Hungary, German Empire and Soviet Union, when there are more than 4 flags ("succeeded by"), the flags are almost invisible. They are being cut off to the right. Can this be fixed? I took this problem to the Village Pump (where all the fine details about this problem can be found), but perhaps I should have brought it here first? Thank you for any help you can give. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   03:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm working on a bandaid for this in my sandbox. I've found that if a bad entry is added along with a bad flag image name, the rest of the flags appear normal without being cut off.  Could this be a clue to what might be wrong with the template code?
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   21:59, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

I just found a fix for this problem, but I do not have the power to edit this template. Can someone help me? &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   06:07, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

This is a bit complicated. The widths of the columns that show the flags toward the bottom must be decreased just a bit for the flags to be fully visible. If you remove the protection, I'll be glad to make the changes. If you prefer, you can just copy the source from this temporary template I created to troubleshoot the problem. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   06:42, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. If you have a browser like mine, IE7, the flags at the Austria-Hungary page will be almost invisible and cut off to the right. See the difference in my User Sandbox.  That sandbox is connected with the temporary template I created at Template:Infobox Former County (I left the "r" out of "country"), and the temporary template has been repaired.  The trick is changing the width of the two columns from 100% to 90%.  These are located toward the bottom of the source code.  One is just above the p# series of up to 15 flags, and the other is located just above the s# series also up to 15 flags.  Try it – you'll like it!
 * PPS. Okay, I did say this was a little complicated. As for the width command above the p# series, there are two of them.  You'll only want to change the first one that is to the left and directly under colspan="2" .  Further down, just before the s# series, is the other width that needs to be changed.  This time there is only one, over to the right just before the "style" tag.  Change both of these to 90% and the template will be good to go.

I have taken the liberty of moving your sandbox code to the correct place Template:Infobox Former Country/sandbox. There is also a comparison of the two templates on Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases. Feel free to use these standard subpages in future.

Well done for getting your hands dirty and trying to fix this template! As for the request itself, it seems not so straightforward. On Internet Explorer, your new version looks much better as you say. However on Firefox, I have to say that the current version looks better. So perhaps the best fix has not been found yet. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:56, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much, Martin! I was wondering what it might look like in other browsers like Firefox.  I just tweaked the widths to 95%, which still looks good in IE7.  How does the 95% appear in your Firefox?
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   02:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. In case you're wondering which widths are involved, I've nowiki'd the source section into my sandbox. The two width's that adjust those flag columns are highlighted in bronze.

To briefly recap: I happened across this template on the Austria-Hungary page. In my IE7 browser, the "Succeeded by" flags toward the bottom of the template are almost invisible. They are cut off on the right. I troubleshot this template and found a fix (in IE7). Having received no answer from the above editor, I would like someone with a Firefox browser to confirm that the template found at Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases, the one on the right, is acceptable in Firefox. Specifically, is the flag section toward the bottom of the template acceptable? If it is, then it's time for an administrator to make the two small changes that will fix the Template:Infobox Former Country. You will find the bottom part of the code nowikified on this page, and the two widths that must be altered are highlighted in bronze on that page. Thank you very much in advance for a speedy solution to this problem! &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   17:41, 9 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Running Firefox 2.0.0.14 on Linux, and the flags on the right (13 of them) all look complete to me. Hope that helps. W.stanovsky (talk) 05:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * That's great, W.stanovsky! Now all we need is an administrator to make the two width changes in the template.  Thank you very much!
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   06:42, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅. Please let me know of any problems. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 17:09, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you again, Martin. Now, I'm not sure what's happening, not sure if it's because of my inexperience or what, but something very weird seems to going on.  The first thing I did was to check a few pages in namespace.  I checked three articles, Austria-Hungary, German Empire and Nazi Germany, and the flags are still cut off. So I copied the infobox templates from the German Empire and Nazi Germany to the Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases page, and on that page both of these templates were okay – all the flags are visible.  What the heck am I doing wrong?  It's as if there are two  templates – one that works for the testcases page, and another that gets called by the articles in namespace.  I don't get it.
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   05:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. I thought that maybe somehow the articles in namespace were calling a cached version of the template, so I logged out, cleaned it up and rebooted. I checked the same three articles and the flags are still cut off, but only in namespace, not on the testcases page.  What's up with that?


 * I just used the Purge function on the three article pages and it worked. All is copacetic!
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   06:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

(out) Okay, Martin, I've checked several articles that use this template. All look fine with one exception, the Second Polish Republic. I've placed this one in Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases and tried altering just the 2nd width command. I tried 94% and 93%, but had to go to 92% to get the best image in IE7. If that looks okay in FireFox, then please make this change to the Template:Infobox Former Country. &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   07:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

This problem is almost resolved, however there is still at least one instance (perhaps more than one) on the Second Polish Republic page where the lower flags are only partially visible in Internet Explorer 7. They are still cut off to the right. To fix this, the second width, as shown by the sandbox version on the Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases page was decreased from 95% to 92%. There are two widths that have previously been adjusted by an administrator, and they can be found nowiki'd in this sandbox highlighted in bronze. The first width near the top can be left alone. If you scroll down to the 2nd width highlighted in bronze, that is the width that needs to be changed slightly to 92%. The trick is to ensure that the alteration is also viable across browsers, for example in FireFox. If it still looks good in FireFox, then this one more slight decrease to the 2nd width in Template:Infobox Former Country ought to completely resolve this problem. Thank you very much! &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   12:13, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yo Paine, could you either update the sandbox so that all that needs doing is sync'ing the template with it, or explicitly identify the added code needed and what it is intended to replace? Danke,  Skomorokh   19:45, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, Skomorokh! I just changed the second width in my sandbox, and of course the 2nd width is already down to 92% in the Template:Infobox Former Country/sandbox, so that when you see the box on the right in Template:Infobox Former Country/testcases, the flags toward the bottom of the box are fully visible.  Thank you so much for your help.  Can you tell if that second box (in "/testcases) looks okay in FireFox?
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   04:23, 21 September 2009 (UTC)
 * PS. The code is toward the bottom. In my sandbox toward the left side I have highlighted in blue all of the "image_p#" codes, as well as the single "image_s1" on that page.  The width to be changed from 95% to 92% is in the code between "image_p15" and "image_s1" lines, and it is highlighted in bronze.

(out) Skomorokh? Martin? Where did ya'll go? Is there anybody around who can check the sandbox version in FireFox and help us put this one to bed? &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   20:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Aloha, sorry haven't been monitoring help requests in the past few days. I'm afraid I am not very template-literate and so am not an ideal admin to be handling this, but seeing as there's no one else at hand I'll give it a shot. I'm not sure exactly what I am supposed to be looking for, but I can't detect any major visual differences between the boxes in /testcases in Firefox 3.5.3. The small flags are consistently formatted, nothing appears cut off; I can probably find a way to take a screenshot if you like. Shall I go ahead and replace Template:Infobox Former Country with http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Infobox_Former_Country/sandbox&oldid=313148167 ? Skomorokh   19:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)


 * (stick the editrequested tag back up if you're happy with it).  Skomorokh   20:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, Skomorokh! There is a diff in IE7: The flags toward the bottoms of the templates show differently. The flags in the template on the left are about 1/2 cut off to the right (they go off the template). The flags on the right are shown much better and are only just barely cut off on the right. So yes, the sandbox version of the template is ready to replace the existing working version. Thank you so much for your help in this! &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   00:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * No problem, done. Thanks for your interest, and sorry it took so long to sort out.  Skomorokh   00:38, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't give it a second thought; there was no hurry. I'm just glad to see that all the flags are now fully visible for readers.  Thank you so much for your help!
 * &mdash;  .`^) Paine Ellsworthdiss`cuss (^`.   07:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Start and end years
I've come across a few places now where the inclusion of the start and/or end year into the events list causes problems. I'm pretty sure that the template used only to force these values in if there was no  or   supplied (though I can't find any evidence that that was ever the case, looking through the history).

Now I know that there are almost 2000 pages transcluding this template, so it'll take some effort to make it the case, but how would people feel about that functionality — only passing  and   into the events list if there is no date argument to match?

The main occasions where it would be useful are where we only have vague dates (where the way the category addition works requires us to enter  and provide a   argument without "the") or where there are a couple of significant events before or after the existence of the independent territory which are worth noting. (I mainly work on states of the Holy Roman Empire, where this isn't unusual.)

Thoughts, anyone? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 22:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

transcluding categorization is evil
We should avoid having templates force articles into categories. For example, Kingdom of Kongo is duly categorized into Category:Former monarchies of Africa. This template additionally puts it into Category:Former countries in Africa. This is unwanted, because the former is already a subcategory of the latter. dab (𒁳) 15:20, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Likewise, I would prefer it if it didn't force articles into Category:XXXX disestablishments, since not all former countries are "former" because they were disestablished (they became subdivisions instead). --Ptcamn (talk) 23:50, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * But their time as an independent entity ended, hence the "disestablishment". Back to the first comment, what would be better, just the monarchies category or the countries category? - 52 Pickup   (deal)  07:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

What is worse it has a global switch _noautocat which fails to switch of some of the content caegorisation, but does turn of the only categories you should transclude, maintenance. Rich Farmbrough, 17:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC).

established/disestablished categorization problem
This template is putting Ajuuraan State in Category:States and territories established in 14th century and Category:17th century disestablishments instead of Category:States and territories established in the 14th century and Category:17th-century disestablishments. --Pascal666 12:34, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 * There will be a constant influx of this kind of problems, as long as autocategorization is in place. --Latebird (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Margin bug
On pages where this template is transcluded, like Kingdom of Navarre, it causes a huge white margin, about six times as wide as a line is heigh, to appear between the text and the infobox, much wider than is usual or desirable for infoboxes. 82.139.87.198 (talk) 01:18, 17 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I believe part of the problem is that this template uses nested tables, and it's not clear why there are so many nested tables. If someone wants to take a stab it fixing it in the sandbox, go ahead, otherwise I will see if I have some time later this week.  The code is a bit complicated, so it will probably take a bit of time to unravel it. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  21:44, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Impossible to pipe links?
I often work on disambiguating dab-links. For instance, on the article for Federal Republic of Central America. In the template, one of the succeeded by nations is Los Altos. The link points to the dab-page Los Altos. The correct target would be Los Altos, Central America. Normally, I'd try to pipe it to Los Altos, but this doesn't work. Nor does it work by omitting the set of. I've seen in other templates that the displayed text only displays text before a set of parentheses. So I tried putting Los Altos (Central America) instead (both with and without the, but this also displayed the full text and thus didn't solve the issue. Can this be solved? -Lilac Soul (Talk • Contribs) 12:13, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a bit of a hack, but try: Los Altos, Central America|Los Altos . I will perform the edit on the article in question to show you what I mean. The only other option would be to add "link1", "link2", ... options to the template. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  19:14, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks! -Lilac Soul (Talk • Contribs) 19:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Link flag icons?
Could someone please link the flag icons for preceding/successive empires? So that they go to the article instead of the image page when clicking on them? Gary King ( talk ) 21:27, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ — Andrwsc (talk · contribs) 21:48, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Accessibility improvement
editprotected When reviewing the featured article candidate Principality of Stavelot-Malmedy I found an accessibility problem relating to its use of Infobox former country: the template does not allow the invoker to specify the alt text for the major images, as required by WP:ALT. (The small flags are purely decorative and do not need alt text, as per WP:ALT .) To fix this, please install : it adds support for new arguments flag_alt, coat_alt, image_map_alt, and image_map2_alt, and marks the little flags as being purely decorative. I have tested this in Template:Infobox former country/testcases, and I'll document the new behavior once the edit is installed. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 10:48, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I took the liberty of the proposed behavior; please revert that documentation change if there's any problem with installing the template change. Eubulides (talk) 06:06, 28 December 2009 (UTC)
 * ✅ —Th e DJ (talk • contribs) 13:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Year_end field generating category for year of disestablishment
The infobox in Warsangali Sultanate had been erroneously filled in with the year of disestablishment as "present", apparently to indicate that it was presently disestablished, thus generating Category:Present disestablishments (see this CFD discussion) One reason of many why templates aren't a good way to apply categories...but is there a way to change the code so that only numbers are accepted as entries in that field? postdlf (talk) 14:02, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Limited number of successor states
Funny that it should say as an example "not every single state formed after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire should be listed in the infobox for the Ottoman Empire. Such a list is better described in the article text. Instead, only the official successor state would be given (Turkey)". I came here looking for information because I'm precisely trying to do that ! (There's no reason given for this, actually : the Ottoman empire had a lot of successor states, but then so did Austria-Hungary, which is given here as an example of the opposite). I've put most of the successor states, but I can't make the last three appear. Is is technically possible ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 13:48, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Interwikis
How to add interwikis on the template page itself, not documentation? --Renessaince (talk) 06:11, 24 July 2010 (UTC)
 * To prevent an overhead because of such minor edits of templates, interwiki are deliberately trascluded via /doc subpages, see Template documentation. These metadata are placed to /doc, but are relevant to a template itself. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:56, 1 August 2010 (UTC)