Template talk:Infobox former country/Archive 6

Bullets instead of hyphens
Why not to use bullets • in lists as Spanish Wikipedia does? See e.g. es:Segunda República Española. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:56, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Could use Demonym line
Nt. -LlywelynII (talk) 13:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Updates to redirects needed
Since the name of template got changed, there needs to be some updates to the redirect pages in the code. See for the new code. Thanks, --Funandtrvl (talk) 23:30, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 00:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

image_map2_alt missing a close-brace
There's a close-brace missing in the call to the named argument. I've corrected the code in the sandbox, but it's probably easier just to search for the name of the argument and add an extra  after the pipe. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 23:08, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
 * ✅ Skier Dude  ( talk  00:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No Categories when in Userspace
The template creates cat-entries. But when in Userspace (e.g. for sandboxing; there are a lot of them clearly), the Cats should be disabled. Could it be done: -DePiep (talk) 15:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Using "_noautocat = indeed" into documentation, with a strong recommendation (and then, no alternate cats introduced)
 * Automate namespace=User ==> no cat.
 * I could add some code to disable all categories outside of main article space. The other option is to have a bot add "_noautocat" to all non-userspace transclusions.  I agree that it should be made clear that we don't want the cats in user space.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  20:32, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Waw! If you can "add some code to disable all categories outside of main article space" -- that solves my all. Didn't think it could be that easy. Please go ahead. -DePiep (talk) (I will read the source. Adding date & time) -DePiep (talk) 22:00, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, see ns0. I will wait a bit to see if there are any objections, so please ping me in 24 hours if I forget. Or make an edit request. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  23:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Waiting 24h or 24 days is OK. Go as you like. I just discovered Ns0 :-) -DePiep (talk) 08:14, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Ceterum censeo... Please do not add content categories through templates at all. It confuses people and breaks bots. --Latebird (talk) 08:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That is what I profess, Latebird, after a tough learning process. But is it in a guideline? -DePiep (talk) 14:34, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Removing the auto categorization completely is a good idea as well, but would probably need some level of discussion. See next thread. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Remove automatic category generation
Having this template generate categories is a bit problematic for various reasons. The primary reasons being unnecessary obfuscation, potential for error, and need for special handling outside of article space (see above). Are there any objections to making a WP:BOTREQ to add the categories to each article, then remove the categories from this template when it has completed? Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 02:13, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I would certainly support this. There are lots of instances where the year_start and year_end parameters create categories such as Category:C. 1069 BC disestablishments. If there was a way of overriding this that would be a start. This seems to have been brought up before. Tassedethe (talk) 08:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not use this template, but the idea sounds good to me. In building and using other such templates, I learned (at an expense) that autoadding of content cats is difficult to motivate and to use. The builders presumptions are not those of the user (hey, I was still coding from the wrong end, back then. Today however... ;-) ). If it's botable, that's is a smart option. -DePiep (talk) 09:12, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Paedia, 26 October 2010
Please change all instances of  to   and all instances of   to.

This will allow removal of borders on non-rectangular flags, e.g. →. See Template:Infobox former subdivision.

Cheers, Pædia 01:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be better to limit the height, rather than the width? Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  03:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Never mind, you are just asking to make the border optional. I'm not sure about the syntax, but I agree with this in principle. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  03:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, now I am confused with the syntax. Why not use a different syntax?  The syntax you are using would have me type "border=border" to turn on the border?  In addition, it is a one for all option.  I would actually support removing the borders entirely.  I am disabling the edit request for now.  Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk)  03:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No, the default should have a border, with  as optional. Please see Infobox former country/testcases and Infobox former subdivision/testcases. Cheers, Pædia 20:37, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't that be ?  The current sandbox implementation would make "border=yes" also turn off the border.  Also, there are so many images with borders here, I'm not sure you want to be adding this parameter to all of them.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  03:48, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Mea culpa. Actually, we are both wrong. It could be →. Cheers, Pædia 16:40, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, it's okay to have a blank field in an image, e.g., Flag of Nepal.svg works the same as Flag of Nepal.svg, so both Flag of Nepal.svg and Flag of Nepal.svg would work. So I was right :) In any event, I basically added this feature, but made it more fine grained, in that it can be used to turn off the border on individual images (e.g, border_s1=no, or border_p2=no).  If for some reason this isn't what you wanted, let me know.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! For some reason, I could not get  to work, but   does work. Your way is perfectly fine; I just thought that it would be more work. Cheers, Pædia 16:49, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Geographical coordinates of capital city
The "coordinates for capital city" section was removed 04:35, 20 July 2007 for being "redundant the city article itself should have this information, plus it is causing the country entries to appear on Google Earth", but still remains in documentation. Should this code be re-added, as is still in Infobox former subdivision, or removed altogether? Cheers, Pædia 05:30, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Unrecognised State
In the infobox on former unrecognised state, the input for status is Unrecognised state which is really just a direct to List of unrecognized countries which itself is a redirect to the final destination at List of states with limited recognition, a featured list article. Does anyone know how to streamline this to correct the error, or is it page specific. One example of this can be seen on Riograndense Republic, but there are more. Outback the koala (talk) 02:46, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Line 109 currently reads

|Unrecognized |Unrecognised |Unrecognized state |Unrecognised state |Unrecognized State |Unrecognised State=
 * and should be changed to

|Unrecognized |Unrecognised |Unrecognized state |Unrecognised state |Unrecognized State |Unrecognised State=
 * to effect this bypass, please. Note this is the second set of instances of the string unrecog, if you search the source; the first set is around categorisation. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. My template abilities are not as refined. Outback the koala (talk) 22:14, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Done. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 23:20, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

bloat
So, there is the paramenter "country", explained as "The country, to which this historic entity belongs today", and then there is the parameter "today", explained as "Present Divisions". What gives?

In other words, this template suffers from bloat. Please throw out all but the most crucial parameters. Nobody likes infoboxes that take up half the screen. --dab (𒁳) 16:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Establishment and disestablishment dates
There are many cases of historical entities (cf. the Emirate of Crete or several Byzantine themes) where no precise date is known, but only the decade or just the century when they were established or disestablished. The automatic category assignment has a problem with these cases, since the relevant categories are at e.g. "States and territories established in the 820s" and not "States and territories established in 820s". This ought to be fixed somehow. Constantine  ✍  10:15, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I suppose one could check to see if the "the version" exists first? Would that work? Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  15:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)


 * You mean, if the category has already been added manually? Yes, of course that would be a solution. Constantine  ✍  12:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I meant check to see if "the 820s" exists, and if so, link to that, otherwise, link to "820s". I don't think we can check to see if a cat is already manually added to the page. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:01, 4 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Funny, I made my way here to complain just about this after seeing this issue in Khazars. Can the fields be split up to do separate tasks? Let me try to explain. For example, can one manipulate the field  to display "7th century" in the infobox, but add "the" when dealing with the category? Same concept with , but adding a hyphen between the century and the word "century" when dealing with the category. —  ξ <sup style="color:#000000;">xplicit  08:00, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The established date one is fairly easy, since it just involves appending a "the", but the disestablished date one is not as easy, since string parser functions are expensive. Basically, the solution would be to create a large switch statement that catches all the possible centuries.  One alternative would be to just have it not add the category, if it doesn't exist, and leave it up to the editors to add the categories to the article.  But, I could take a stab at making it work automatically if there is sufficient interest.  By the way, it appears someone already did this for the 8th and 11th century, which is somewhat arbitrary, so we should at least clean that up. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  03:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are loads of articles with inappropriate categories, see . One with ones with century as above, ones with BCE, ones with date ranges, ones with the day and month... If there could be the ability to turn off automatic categorization that would be a good move. Tassedethe (talk) 03:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There already was an undocumented method for turning it off, namely using "_noautocat=foo". I made some changes to the code, and now it won't add the categories if they don't exist.  This isn't entirely ideal, but it's probably better than the alternative.  The code is in Template:Infobox former country/autocat.  The switch statement for the disestablishment dates is clumsy, and not scalable, but appears to work.  One option would be to just have a bot add the cats for those, and not have them automatically added by the template.  Let me know if there is a problem, or suggestions for improvements.  Thanks!  Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  04:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Autocat
The autocat stuff doesn't quite work, as not all parameters are passed through.

Can someone please change the line 4 from the end from:



to:



, to ensure that the argument  is passed through too? Thanks! — OwenBlacker (Talk) 15:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Will do, that was a recent addition, so I am no surprised that I didn't get everything. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 18:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Confused me for a while, as I'd not looked at the template for some time now. Good work, though; makes it much easier to see how the categorisation works :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 00:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Maintenance categorisation
Something's not quite right about the Former country articles requiring maintenance categorisation — if you look at Kaisheim Abbey and Memleben Abbey, both apparently have something wrong with their  or   parameters, but looking at the source, that doesn't appear to be the case.

I've tried working out what's wrong, but I can't see any cause for this bug. Could someone more familiar with the categorisation take a look, please? — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:22, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I see, I believe that is just a warning that it didn't find the established and/or disestablished category. I will document the "Y" section in the category. For example, Category:States and territories established in 1135.  To fix it, you just create the category (if it makes sense), or add "_noautocat = 1" if want to turn off the autocategorisation, or just ignore it all together.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  17:18, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Aaaah, ok. That makes sense. Thank you; now I know what to look out for :o) — OwenBlacker (Talk) 12:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Unlink request
This template has many subheadings that are unnecessarily wikilinked, as they're just ordinary dictionary words or familiar terms. Could these links be removed please, in line with WP:OVERLINK? I'm thinking of:

Colonies Chris (talk) 10:24, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Motto
 * Anthem
 * Capital
 * Religion (this has an inappropriate piped link to state religion)
 * Government
 * Legislature
 * Currency
 * No opposition, so done. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:01, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Colonies Chris (talk) 22:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Nested tables
Unlike Template:Infobox former subdivision, this template has two nested infobox tables. This seems to be causing CSS formatting problems (if you compare the infobox at Canton of Linth with the one at Söflingen Abbey, for example, you can see the text is smaller in the latter).

Is there a reason for this? I'd suggest the following should be removed from the very beginning and end of the template:

to restore the proper formatting. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 13:33, 14 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Done. Thanks for identifying this problem! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:49, 15 March 2011 (UTC)
 * No problem; thanks for fixing it so promptly. Now just to check usage, to ensure that it's not made anything odd :o)  — OwenBlacker (Talk) 17:44, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

The Missing_map.png image should be substituted with Missing_map.svg --Inkwina 03:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

HDI
You should add HDI to the template. Some countries such as Yugoslavia already got HDI as the country was changed after HDI has been introduced.--180.180.141.119 (talk) 12:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Short-lived states
The code must be tweaked, because it produces problems in cases where states do not have a clear ending date. For instance, the Abbasid Caliphate uses year_end = 1258/1513 and is listed as a short-lived state. Constantine  ✍  09:26, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Native name
The native name has long bothered me. More to the point, its font and apparent dominance over the English name is a problem. This is English wikipedia and as such, the English term should take priority (the native name is afterall almost a piece of trivia), yet the current infobox has the native name not only on top of the English name but the font is the same size. It's both cluttered and confusing.

Can we at least get the font reduced significantly in relation to the English name. cheers --Merbabu (talk) 23:05, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Support I agree. The English name deserves prominence. J IM ptalk·cont 01:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. I have been many times cluttered and confused by the precedence of the "native name", especially when the country had many official names and languages. Ideally, an infobox provides the most useful information to the reader quickly. "Native names" are not high on the list of usefulness. Quigley (talk) 02:58, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - I agree. I think infoboxes across wikipedia are over-bloated and excessively long (often longer than the article they are meant to summarising!). I'd actually prefer to remove things like the native name altogether, but that's not the point of this discussion - I just want to see the English name given prominence. --Merbabu (talk) 03:11, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Conventional long name vs common name
It seems we're in agreement that the English name should come first. The problem is that there may not be a "the" English name. Some countries have more than one: a conventional long name and a common name. For example; the Ottoman Empire or the Sublime Ottoman State; Austria-Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the Austro-Hungarian monarchy; Moldavia or the Principality of Moldavia; etc. Currently only the conventional long name appears. Why not the common name? In fact, why not have the common name as the main name, with the conventional long name second & then native names to follow? J IM ptalk·cont 04:20, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The English name should come first and be of a more prominent font (if the native name is to be there at all). I'd prefer the common name to be the dominant name - I'd even remove long name and native name from the infoboxes all together. But maybe that's a step too far for some. --Merbabu (talk) 04:30, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to disagree and would like this part of the change (showing the common name) reverted. The common name is usually very similar, except for being the form used for categorisation — so we'd have Prussia / Kingdom of Prussia, France / First French Republic etc. I don't see the advantage in listing the common form — it would always be apparent from the lead. And having made the change has affected hundreds of articles, without there being any discussion of the change. Four hours does not consist of adequate discussion. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 11:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

At the start of the template, please effect a partial reversion of recent edits by replacing the template with the sandbox version (diff), so this part of the change can be discussed properly. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 11:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

New version
I have edited the code to display the common name, the conventional long name and then the native name(s) in that order if they exist (i.e. are given to the infobox) in descending font size. If the common name is the same as the conventional long name it isn't repeated. J IM ptalk·cont 16:33, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Historical Events Limit
Is there a specific reason as to why the historical events(event1, date_event1, etc.) of the country is limited to four maximum? If not, would it be possible to slightly raise the limit, say 6 or 7? I personally think it is too low, as I have ran into issues in not being able to add all important events needed. -- Lord Gorbachev (talk) 01:09, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * There are a few occasions where I've used the  and   to get more events in, but it should be relatively unusual to need lots of events in there, surely? Which article is it you're working on, if I may ask? If you want to use the pre/post fields to do that, gimme a yell and I'm happy to help; I can't think of an example where I've done that off-hand. —  OwenBlacker (Talk) 17:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I started working on the infoboxes of the former Soviet republics due to the template specifically for the SSRs being deleted. I ran into the problem while working on the Latvian SSR. It is acceptable at the moment, but there were a couple of other events that I planned on adding, which I see as important events to mention in that overview. -- Lord Gorbachev (talk) 02:25, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Using the event_post, date_post has solved my problem for now. Even in case of such an issue again, I'd still recommend that one or two more event spaces be added. -- Lord Gorbachev (talk) 01:21, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Flag use and Population
Which flags should we use if the former country had more than one flag? And how many years of population should we list?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The most significant flag (usually the one used most recently or for the longest time) is the best one to use in the template, I'd suggest. For years of population; if you have lots of data available, then create a population table in the article. Whilst the template supports up to five years' data, I'd suggest the infobox should only include one or two, unless there's a compelling reason to do otherwise. — OwenBlacker (Talk) 23:20, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Largest city?
Can this be added to the template? It is available of for the current country infobox, and it would sometimes make sense to fill it out. -- Nidator T / C 21:45, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Apparent problem with dates
This template is used in the article on the Federation of Malaya, where the dates are not displaying appropriately. The relevant infobox fields are: "year_start = 1948", "date_start = 31 January 1948", "year_end = 1963", and "date_end= 16 September 1963". These are displaying as "31 January 1948 1948" and "16 September 1963 1963" respectively! I hope someone can fix this (I have no idea if it's also occurring in other articles). Andrew Gwilliam (talk) 10:17, 4 August 2011 (UTC).
 * I've just fixed this in the article. For historical reasons, the template expects the  and   parameters to contain only the day of the year; the year itself is automatically added from   and.
 * If for some reason you need  not to appear within the display value of , you can do something like:

|year_end = 15th century |date_end = c. 1470
 * for example.
 * Personally, I really hate this behaviour, but it would take a fair amount of effort to rectify it in all the articles, even with something like AutoWikiBrowser, so I've never been bothered enough by it to get round to fixing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by OwenBlacker (talk • contribs) 00:32, 3 September 2011

Edit request: Capital to optional, add "Seat of Government" option
Hi, we've been discussing on the East Germany page that calling East Berlin the "capital" may not be optimally NPOV since it was proclaimed so by the DDR, but the West didn't recognize this and insisted on referring to it as just the "Seat of Government". However, Capital is a required field in the template. Could someone edit the template so that Seat of Government can be used instead of Capital? (or maybe even omit the "Capital" field). There used to be a short note in brackets explaining the situation, but this was objected to so these alternative solutions were seen as preferable. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 06:03, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ❌ There does not seem to be consensus that "Seat of Government" would be preferred to anything else. Get a good consensus there first, then come back here if necessary. Anomie⚔ 01:57, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Made capital able to be omitted, there does seem to be consensus for that. But to avoid disrupting the existing purpose of the template, specify omitted to hide it. See Template:Infobox former country/testcases for an example. Please update the documentation as necessary. Anomie⚔ 20:36, 31 October 2011 (UTC)