Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 17

"In office"
Is it just me or are the words "In office" completely unnecessary? —Designate (talk) 14:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)


 * They are not particularly useful I admit, but they do stop the potential of anyone getting confused so really should be kept. It would though perhaps be better if the 'In office' was more like the design on Infobox Royalty which has the 'reign' section at the side in line with 'Predecessor' etc... so that might be something we could do to make the infobox look neater. Shatter Resistance (talk) 15:00, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Template code shortening
Just to let everyone know before I make the change, I'm planning on removing the numbered parameter from Template:Infobox officeholder/Office. I'll be doing this by switching over to use Template:Infobox officeholder/Office v2. There won't be any visible changes but it will make the template code shorter and slighyly easier to read without all those  dotted throughout the template. The Office template will reduce in size from 14,976 bytes to 12,532 bytes and the main template from 50,759 bytes to 46,608 bytes. -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:40, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I 100% agree. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:15, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

honorific prefix
I think the person template is better at displaying honorific prefixes. --IIVeaa (talk) 09:59, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia guideline WP:MOSBIO is very loud and clear about that: "Academic and professional titles (such as "Doctor" or "Professor") should not be used before the name in the initial sentence or in other uses of the person's name. Verifiable facts about how the person attained such titles should be included in the article text instead.." Thus academic titles should not be included as honorific prefix, and an info box is no exception. If you disagree with this guideline, I would recommend you to start a discussion at the talk page of that guideline, this to change the guideline. Talk:Infobox officeholder is the wrong place to perform this discussion. Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 11:40, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Dude, this is a discussion on HOW honorary prefixes should be displayed, not IF they should be displayed. The way they are spelled differ from nation to nation. you can't distill from academic achievement. --IIVeaa (talk) 21:35, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Dude, I don't follow you anymore. Academic titles shouldn't be displayed as honorific prefixes at all. Infoboxes are no exception. What don't you understand about that guideline? Mr. D. E. Mophon (talk) 06:25, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We can replicate the infobox person style of honorifics through the use of  . Connormah (talk) 22:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

salary parameter
I think there should be a parameter stating the salary of the officeholder. NorthernThunder (talk) 07:54, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Infoboxes should summarise key info in the article. I don't think that salary is important or notable enough to include in the lead at all, let alone the infobox. —  Andrew s talk  07:58, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Speaker parameter problems
The speaker parameter seems to only work if it is the first office listed. Can we get it changed so that the template also takes speaker2, speaker3, etc.? In the article I'm working on, Robert D. Blue, he served as Speaker of the Iowa House before serving as Governor, so I can't put "Speaker" in the first slot (I actually need a speaker3 here). Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to change that in the code for the template, so if one of our resident experts could give some help, it'd be greatly appreciated. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:57, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

vicepresident2
When you use the vicepresident2 parameter, the title doesn't display in front of the man's name. Check out Grover Cleveland's infobox, for example. I'd fix it myself, but I don't have the access rights. Thanks, Coemgenus (talk) 16:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * -- WOSlinker (talk) 17:47, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --Coemgenus (talk) 19:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

class-support, please
The first line: should be changed to: This is to allow usages to pass classes, as is recommended by WP:Deviations. Specifically, I've  in mind to allow the removal of the semantically-good, but server-burdening ubl. is another class that may find many uses in such templates. These classes are now defined in MediaWiki:Common.css. Alarbus (talk) 09:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * ✅ -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:14, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Alarbus (talk) 11:22, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The template is going to need further tweaks to actually work with plainlist and hlist. See . It's the same sort of asterisk not-after-newline issue we've see elsewhere. I've not looked, so I just reverted myself. I expect there to be a bunch in such a large template.
 * If you'd like to try this out on a smaller-scale, navbox needs an imageclass for things like to be able to use class="plainlist" instead of plainlist. Alarbus (talk) 11:43, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The deputy param would work with adding div tags (see this) into Infobox officeholder/Office. Would also need adding to the other params and then some testing doing before changing the main template. -- WOSlinker (talk) 13:57, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you sure the div is needed? Where can I see a testcase? — Edokter  ( talk ) — 14:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * See Template:Infobox officeholder/testcases -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:06, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I was actually referring to this edit. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 15:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * See Template:World Heritage Sites in Russia and replace plainlist with plainlist -- WOSlinker (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * (←) From what I can see, the div isn't needed. I tested with and without. (See this diff using the sandbox version.) — Edokter  ( talk ) — 16:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I see, just a new line will do. You'll still need the div in the below section though, remember User talk:Edokter -- WOSlinker (talk) 16:20, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah yes. Thanks for reminding me. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 16:26, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Added a testcase to Template:Navbox/testcases -- WOSlinker (talk) 16:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Where's this at? Hopefully extra divs will not be somehow necessary. I was thinking just a lot of newlines after '=' in the implementation. Extra divs will clutter the template up, and quite likely will cause extra tranclusion burden in large articles.
 * MediaWiki's parsing of list structures per 'first char on line' is going to drive a lot of such changes to templates to get lists working out there. For the most part, I expect passing hlist and plainlist to templates (or aspects of templates such as listclass) will work out for most cases; for a few, we should maintain the {flatlist} and {plainlist} templates to get the class invoked for a specific list.
 * Another aside; I tried to get one of these lists to center in a wikitable cell; can't do it, as an overarching rule is setting left-alignment. This needs some sort of escape hatch. Alarbus (talk) 04:09, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've added some blank lines to some of the params in the sandbox versions:
 * Template:Infobox officeholder/Office/sandbox
 * Template:Infobox officeholder/Personal data/sandbox
 * and the testcases all look fine. Can you just check to see if it would be worth adding blank lines to any of the other params & then I'll see about making the changes live later on today. -- WOSlinker (talk) 10:26, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * {awards} in officeholder/Personal data is one I tried to use in the Hitler article, so that one... and {nickname} is labelled with '(s)', so it, and maybe some of the ones just after that. I expect that most of the fields could reasonably be used with list classes, although stuff already setup with numbered params is probably best left that way. And some do seem inherently singular. I see uses of br separated entries, which I've never seen before, and am thinking they're genuine non-lists; just always formatted as multiple lines. You had reasons for skipping over some, so I'm fine with going with this batch; more can be considered as attempts are made to refactored pages. It's pretty hairy looking in there. Alarbus (talk) 11:15, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Done awards, nickname & a few more in the sandbox . I'd rather wait until later on today when I've got a bit more time before moving to live just incase there are any issues though. -- WOSlinker (talk) 12:13, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * No hurry; I'm off 'til tomorrow in a moment, anyway. fyi, the Hitler tweak will still undo, if you want to give it a go; this too, if you snip the /sandbox... Thanks. Alarbus (talk) 12:25, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've made it live. -- WOSlinker (talk) 19:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I've flipped it 'on' in Hitler, and now see a problem. It's showing in the test cases, too. For instances where a list is not used, but the {param} has been dropped-down, MediaWiki is now generating a paragraph around the item, which results in top/bottom margins of 0.4em/0.5em. See for example "Battles/wars" in both Adolf Hitler and the testcases; the label and param are not vertically aligned with each other, but text like 'Awards' and 'Iron Cross First Class' (in Hitler) are.
 * This needs to be backed-out and another solution found. It's probably going to be quite ugly conditionals on each parameter. another option would be a css rule that zeros the margins... but we don't want the paragraphs for the same reasons the divs were unwarranted. Sorry I didn't see this before. Alarbus (talk) 20:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I've undone it. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Switching from wikitable syntax to html table syntax (as per Infobox) would fix it but that's a bit of work to do. May be something simpler. If not then may take a look later on. -- WOSlinker (talk) 20:50, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And I've backed the use out of Hitler. I see that switching-over to htlm could be useful; it's done, enough for this sort of reason. But it is a lot of work, so I'm fine with things dangling while all options are considered. Gotta go, now. Alarbus (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Spouse vs. Spouse(s)
Can we just have one field for Spouse and a second field for Spouses? —Designate (talk) 04:58, 9 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Is Spouses meant as former Spouses or current but multiple only? --Trickstar (talk) 12:57, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Disappearance support
Currently this template doesn't support disappearances (such as Template:Infobox person) nor does it seem to support seamless embedding (such as Template:Infobox military person), which means that for articles such as Genrikh Lyushkov, it's effectively impossible to use this template without the infobox area looking like a mess or missing informatio in some way (since the classic person infobox template doesn't have the nuance of information this one does). Will either of these things be added? If not, is there some kind of workaround I haven't discovered yet? Julius177 (talk) 01:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Just read this and concur. Note below probably supports this observation. Student7 (talk) 21:17, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Parameter "lieutenant" ambiguous
Notice Simon Bolivar Buckner, a featured article! Anyway, they couldn't decide whether to feature him as a general or as a governor, so they did both! Picture is of a general, details are for governor. "Lieutenant" for this article seems ambiguous. It would have been better to use the full term "Lieutenant-governor." I would suggest that term be adopted. Rather than mess up current usage, I suggest adding the parameter "Lieutenant-governor". Student7 (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion: remove 'signature' field
With the introduction of electronic signing the handwritten name is irrelevant. I therefore propose that the handwritten signature is removed. Thanks!--John S. Peterson (talk) 18:01, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I've spoken out against this field a few times, although my reasoning is different from yours.
 * The images are rarely attributed to a reliable source, as they are supposed to be. As editors upload these images absentmindedly, it just leaves more work for other editors to comb through and fill out the sourcing if they go for GA/FA.
 * The signatures rely on an awkward copyright status of "PD for no real reason".
 * They are usually not real images but false approximations clumsily traced with SVG paths by anonymous editors—there's no justification for this, as opposed to using a photograph of an authentic signature.
 * They're not article-worthy. If there is a rare case of a notable signature (like a few of the Founders), then it can be included normally in the article. If it doesn't fit organically in the body of the article, there's no reason it should go in the infobox, which is supposed to be a stripped-down version of the article.
 * Including it in the infobox template creates the expectation that the signature is supposed to be there, when there would otherwise be no reason for it.
 * I say get rid of the field and include the few useful signatures in the body of the article; scrap the rest. Any image file that's not scanned directly from a reliable image source should just be brought up for deletion. —Designate (talk) 23:38, 27 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree with . Very well said, and not really any point in me trying to say it using different words when my points would be identical. - Sitush (talk) 19:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I DISAGREE. For historical figures it is useful. Eric Cable  |  Talk  16:02, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Other parties and Indian political peregrinations
I've just been searching the archives, eg: this, for information regarding the best usage of the otherparty parameter. Can anyone point me to an example for displaying something along the lines of: 2009-present: INC 2003-2009: BJP 1988-2003: Janata Dal

In the sphere of Indian politics there are a huge number of parties, many of which do not survive for long or are of a highly regional, religious and/or caste based nature. And politicians in that country frequently move from one party to another, sometimes it seems almost at every election. There are also cases where they move from A to B to C (or even A to B to A) without contesting an election in the intervening time. Any examples or suggestions would be appreciated. - Sitush (talk) 19:44, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

U.S. Congressional district renumbering.
We're going through another round of district renumbering in the U.S. and in some cases it's raising questions as a district changes names without changing geographical boundaries. It seems odd to list the predecessor as someone who served in an entirely different geographical region just because the name changed. An example would be Nancy Pelosi, where the predecessor was listed as Ron Dellums although he only ever served in East Bay and she only ever served in San Francisco. They never served the same district. I've seen it a couple of way, sometimes mentioning the district renumbering, sometimes treating it as if they switched districts (and inherited the predecessors). Any thoughts? --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:01, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Please add a tag in the "personal data" section
Please add a "ethinicity" tag in the "personal data" section. --58.83.252.143 (talk) 15:57, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Joe Sestak
Joe Sestak, in retrospect, is a thirty-year Navy veteran who later in life served two terms as a Congressman (as opposed to a long-serving Congressman with a few years in the military). Is there a way to tailor that article's use of this infobox to so that the infobox doesn't bury the lead? 64.136.205.5 (talk) 00:03, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Civilian awards
I added an "awards" line to the VP infobox for Charles G. Dawes (U.S. Vice-Pres., 1925-29) to list the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize he shared with Austen Chamberlain. Although I was careful to enter this line above "Signature", it still appears (rather confusingly) under Military Service. Is there some way of fixing this? Could there be a new line for civilian (or non-military) awards and prizes? Or am I missing some alternative that's already here? Thanks. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:24, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Translating the parameters, but where are they?
I'm working on a Welsh translation of this Infobox. Can someone show me where's the file that needs translating, please? Diolch! Llywelyn2000 (talk) 16:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's in cy:Nodyn:Infobox officeholder/Office and cy:Nodyn:Infobox officeholder/Personal data. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:10, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Diolch yn fawr. Many thanks. PS How about putting those two links in the Talk Page for future translators? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 21:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Conflict with parameters
When combining the Nominee/Candidate and the Assembly Member scenarios, trying to put the candidate situation first and then the assembly member info, the parameter incumbent goes to assembly member info instead of the candidate info, even adding 2 to the assembly scenario parameters (for example, assembly2). A scenario for that situation is, for example, if a person that is an assembly member and is running for presidential or prime-minister eletions. Trying to add the candidate information first messes with the assembly info below. A solution is using the parameters office and office2 to list, but it doesn't sound good at the etymology of words because candidate isn't an office. Unless the candidatures should be only listed when there is no office position taken. Blond (talk) 20:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you have an example article where this is happening or a sandbox with the relevant details filled in? Road Wizard (talk) 21:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I put a infobox at my sandbox with the deatils filled in, about Carlos Galvão de Melo. He was member of the National Salvation Junta, after the revolution in Portugal, then member of the constituent assembly (building a new constitution of Portugal) and later he was candidate to President of Portugal. I was trying to put that details in the infobox when I noticed that some information was disappearing. Blond (talk) 02:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

If someone held an office previously, being a candidate for an office shouldn't be in the infobox. See Template:Infobox officeholder. -Rrius (talk) 05:07, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Alma mater
Was there a discussion of switching or supplementing the Latin singular alma mater =  to "education = ". Infobox person now uses both fields. If a person has three degrees from three institutions, I don't know which one of the institutions nourished them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Here is a list of previous discussions on Alma mater on this talk page:
 * Archive 4 - no consensus to change to Education.
 * Archive 8 - discussion about usage of the parameter.
 * Archive 11 - change to Education discussed but no action taken.
 * Archive 15 - change to Education discussed but no action taken.
 * Archive 16 - discussion about "alma mater" versus "alma_mater".
 * I have no feelings about it one way or the other. Road Wizard (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If they have three degrees from three institutions, list all three under alma_mater, using Plainlist. It's also important that we maintain consistency between all our biographical infoboxes. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:29, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Third opinion
Can people supply an impartial opinion on whether a particular article should have an infobox? At Stephen H. Wendover the argument for is: it provides easy visual access for someone looking for a single fact and contains facts not in the text, such as the calculated age. The argument against is: It repeats facts in the text, and the article is of modest size and the box visually overwhelms it. Both are good arguments so more opinions are needed. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:58, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Request
I've created a handful of new articles today about people who were elected to state legislatures in yesterday's US elections. Since they haven't formally taken office yet, they should not be denoted as incumbents -- however, the "incumbent" line is automatically forced into the box if the outgoing representative is listed in the entry field predecessor =. Whereas if I switch it to succeeding = instead so that they're denoted a member-elect instead of an incumbent member, then for some reason the box automatically forces the office to display as the U.S. House of Representatives instead of the state legislature.

In case it's unclear what I mean, I've provided the two examples at right from one of the articles in question. The first box denotes the correct legislative body, but forces me to designate her as the existing incumbent -- whereas in the second box, Al McAffrey is listed in "succeeding =" instead of "predecessor =", and thus even without any other entry field changing the office is suddenly switched to the U.S. House instead of the state house.

Can somebody fix the coding so that this problem can be resolved? Thanks. Bearcat (talk) 04:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * That's a problem all right. The requirement that you use succeeding instead of predecessor is intended, the changing from the custom house to the U.S. House is not.  *wanders off to take a look at the template code and try to find the problem*  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 09:39, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'll see if I can pry the functions apart from each other. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 12:36, 8 November 2012 (UTC) Strike that. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 13:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Found it. The problem was in the "Congressman" section, where it looks like succeeding was only partially implemented, for some reason.  I removed the partial implementation completely and implemented the much-simpler version from the Senate (the only other section to have it implemented) throughout the template. Code tested and ✅. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 19:08, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I guess everyone is happy?
 * There is a problem with assuming that people reported to have won in the media have not yet taken office, nor may be reported as "officially" won until some certification process. Normally, for legislators, the legislature itself often has to accept the results of the election when they next meet. Sometimes they can be officially referred to as "MP-elect" or whatever. The media is always premature about these things. Wikipedia should not follow their sloppiness. Obama became President-Elect in December 2008 only after someone at the federal level had officially certified the electoral count. He did not become "President" until January 20, 2009. Filling in an infobox to indicate a quicker procedure than is legal should cause problems! Student7 (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Nope - not happy. My fix broke something else, so I reverted myself (see section below).  I'll try to figure it out.
 * The issue of when a candidate should be considered "-elect" is really not relevant to this template or to its talk page unless you're suggesting the addition of a new parameter distinguishing between official and unofficial states of being an officer-elect. (I would reject such a distinction as being unnecessary instruction creep.)  The Presidency is a unique case, but shouldn't need to be discussed until 2016, since Obama's retaining his current position.  --Philosopher Let us reason together. 16:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It's easy to solve for one person. Obama was merely an easy-to-understand example, but hardly typical. Lame duck legislators will meet in several states between now and the time their successors take office. There should not be two people holding the same office at the same time where there is only room for one. This happens for many people in the executive and judicial branches, as well. "Jumping the gun" is a fairly common procedure in Wikipedia. If we are to remain a respected authority, we should not "jump the gun" IMO. If someone wishes to add "and is expected to take office January 3" or however that would look in a template, fine, but there should not be overlapping officeholders. (Actually there was such a problem once. See The Three Governors Controversy). This was hard enough to resolve without templates! :)
 * This applies to other venues as well. An person accused of a crime is merely "accused" until the judge has accepted the decision of the jury. Then s/he becomes innocent or guilty. S/he is not "imprisoned" until actually sentenced to prison and taken there. S/he is not a "felon" unless the statute that was violated was actually a felony, not a misdemeanor. The media doesn't really care. We should. Student7 (talk) 19:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
 * This is a WP:CRYSTAL issue, I know. Saying that someone has left office before they have is an issue, as is saying someone has taken office when they are just an officer-elect and changing districts (where redistricting occured) prematurely.  I created U.S. Election notice for articles that have problems with premature updating - it should be placed as an Editnotice for such articles, as at Steve King.  (Editnotices can only be placed by administrators and account creators, btw.) --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:00, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Update after

 * Someone just used a {{update after|... template in the Florida article. I had never noticed this before. It's too bad that something like this couldn't be inserted into this template. It would notify other editors attempting to change something prematurely that it was already in the queue. It would show up on the article page when actually overdue. Student7 (talk) 21:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting possibility, though it solves a different problem than the CRYSTAL one (section header added for clarity). I would like to avoid using that template within an infobox, but the infobox could be set to generate a Category:Politicians articles in need of updating, as a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating.  As for implementation, we could potentially create a new {{para|term update}} parameter to handle it. --Philosopher {{sup|Let us reason together.}} 22:16, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Telephone, email, and Public Information Officer
We got feedback at Alejandro García Padilla from a non-Wikipedian (visitor/non-contributor/general public) requesting his telephone, email, and public information officer. I strongly believe that this information is quite beneficial to include and there's no harm in adding it to the template.

I need to add the following code to Template:Infobox officeholder/Personal data that allows adding the requested information:



&mdash;Ahnoneemoos (talk) 16:03, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you please explain both why you think it is beneficial and why widely distributing phone numbers and email addresses wouldn't be harmful? -Rrius (talk) 16:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Because these are public servants who's phone and email is already openly published in officlal government websites. See as an example. Alejandro's contact information itself is openly published at . Same with the incumbent Governor at:  I don't see why this would be considered harmful? These are public servants. &mdash;Ahnoneemoos (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Public servants or not, biographies should not contain contact info. Aside from reasons of privacy, Wikipedia is not a directory. Contact information is not encyclopedic. Besides, as you say, it is openly published elsewhere. It is sufficient to link to that site. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 17:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I fully understand that and that's exactly why I wanted to bring it up to attention since it was the general public that requested it and not a Wikipedian. I truly beleive that it is in our best interests to publish said information, since Wikipedia is adaptive and ever evolving. I also truly beleive that we should adapt to our users considering our dwindle on contributors. I wanted to see other people's point of view on the specific case of public servants. Besides, WP:NOTPAPER so information like that can be removed once the person has left office. Regarding WP:BLPPRIVACY that's about personal information from a person's private life and not contact information related to a public servant's service. &mdash;Ahnoneemoos (talk) 17:40, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * WP:Ignore all rules does not mean ignoring what Wikipedia is. Regardless of any adaptiveness or evolution, Wikipedia is not becoming a directory. There is value in being responsive to non-editor's feedback, but that doesn't mean we simply do whatever they want. -Rrius (talk) 17:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand your point of view but the argument here is wether it is beneficial or not for Wikipedia's general public to post that information on an article. I argue that it is beneficial and that we should, therefore, include it. The way I understand WP:NOTADIRECTORY is that Wikipedia should not have an article who's sole content is a list of people that live in an area by name and phone number, but that's not what we are discussing here. Perhaps we should open an WP:RFC on this matter? &mdash;Ahnoneemoos (talk) 18:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The "general public" did not request it. Some guy did. I've seen other people demand fair use photos in biographies, I've seen people ask for help with their term papers, I've seen people request that we add their website to "list of super-awesome websites" or some such thing. You can tell them why we won't post telephone numbers, but we're not going to change the policy on it. At any rate, we're certainly not going to change anything with an RFC on the talk page of Template: Infobox Officeholder. If you want to change the policy, you should be raising the point on the policy talk page. Kafziel Complaint Department: Please take a number 23:42, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * We'd need a stronger argument than one reader's feedback on one article, and wider consensus, before we overturn WP:NOTADIRECTORY. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:54, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Even if you could sustain an argument that adding personal contact details to particular articles is beneficial, a blanket addition of a parameter on a template with nearly 63,000 transclusions is a bad idea. As has been seen with other infobox parameters, once they exist editors tend to try to populate them on every article regardless of whether or not they are appropriate for the situation. I suspect that once we open this Pandora's box we will be letting some BLP violations through somewhere within those 63k articles. As we already have the ability to link to the subject's website (where they may or may not choose to publish their contact details) this suggestion adds little benefit but has the potential for great harm. Road Wizard (talk) 23:43, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I see that an RfC on this issue has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons. Road Wizard (talk) 00:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

"Resting place"
Sorry, if this has been discussed before, but Wikipedia is not supposed to use euphemisms for death. "Burial place" would be fine. S/he is not "resting." S/he is dead! See Words_to_avoid. Student7 (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You are assuming that they are buried. Also it is not a euphemism; you appear to be confusing the different definitions of rest. See items 2 and 5 at rest. Road Wizard (talk) 21:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, the first is WikiPedia's Manual of Style; the second a dictionary entry. MOS trumps. "Entombment" maybe, but not an English euphemism associated with dying. Student7 (talk) 19:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree with OP - "resting place" sounds like a twee American euphemism, similar to "bathroom". = wikipedia as written by my maiden aunt. They're not resting, they're dead. Should be changed to "Interred at". If they weren't buried, they're not "resting"! But "Cremated at" could be added.

BTW rest(5) says it's a euphemism!

John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Thu 10:17, wikitime= 02:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I also agree that "resting place" is not appropriate in an encyclopaedia. "Interred at" is probably better, because it included (according to SOED) "in a ... tomb", not necessarily underground (eg buried). It even includes cremation - one could cremate someone and then inter the ashes in an urn on the mantelpiece. Is there any other more generic (but not euphemistic) term we could use? "Disposal" is perhaps technically correct, but has unwanted negative connotations. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:28, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I can't really think of an all-inclusive term, but I think it perfectly valid to offer several choices, with maximum of 1 accepted (person may still be living!). Even though interment may include cremation, I think we should split it out.  We could have some sort of footnote for people whose ashes were sent into lunar orbit etc. Are there any other methods of disposal, apart from inhumation and cremation/incineration? John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Sun 00:46, wikitime=  16:46, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Several; and every time this FAQ arises, the only suitably generic term found is "resting place". "Resting place" is not a euphemism. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As was pointed out in this short section in September, rest(5) does not says it's a euphemism; that's a definition of "laid to rest". Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

No, it clearly says 'resting' or 'laid to rest' is a euphemism. Tell us more of the methods of body disposal likely to occur: eaten by wolves? vapourised? Meanwhile there is a clear majority in favour of a change in line with WP:MOS John of Cromer in China (talk) mytime= Sun 07:29, wikitime= 23:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You should ask Jeremy Bentham about body disposal. If you assert that Wikitionary says that; please provide a more direct citation. WP:MOS has nothing to support you and there is no "clear majority" (not least because the term is used in many infoboxes, not just this one); and in any case Wikipedia is not a democracy. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Secondly, if four posters here say yea and one says nay, then that is the best part of a consensus. As you know no-one owns articles and everyone is free to make changes as he sees fit. I don't know why you get so hot under the collar about a change which in my opinion and others' is an improvement. I shall make the change myself soon. John of Cromer not in China (talk) mytime= Mon 16:01, wikitime= 08:01, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all, it was you who brought in rest defn 5. There it clearly states it's a euphemism, which wikipedia deprecates.
 * No, I did not; that's not a "more direct citation"; rest defn 5 does not state that "resting place" is a euphemism (because it is not); your count is wrong; I'm not "hot under the collar", but your opinion in only that, and lacks consensus; and Wikipedia is still not a democracy. If you make the change, without first obtaining consensus, it will be reverted.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:29, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Problem with State Assembly member infobox
Hi, I just noticed that the infoboxes of many California State Assembly members, such as John Pérez and Fiona Ma, seem to have picked up some sort of glitch, in which it reads "U.S. House of Representatives" instead of "California State Assembly." I'm not sure what caused this, but I assume it was an edit to this template. If anyone knows how to fix this, it should be done ASAP. Thanks. Delaywaves &bull;&#32; talk  21:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The edit by Philosopher mentioned above included text about House of Representatives so that may be the cause. I can't say for sure though without studying the details of the template code, which I can't do until tomorrow night. Can someone else check into this? If that is the cause it will need an admin to revert or repair. Road Wizard (talk) 21:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I reverted my change - apparently I didn't test it thoroughly enough before implementing it. *sigh*  I'll try to fix it, though I might just have to wait until Road Wizard looks it over before I re-implement any change. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 22:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, I hadn't broken it for the state house, just for the state senate and the state assembly. I think that means that I just wasn't following the   notation closely enough.  It'll probably be best if, instead of trying to repair that compacted and convoluted section, I split everything out, like the state_senate parameter is broken out.  This would also have the advantage of creating manageable chunks of code for any future modifications.  But I'll look at it some more tomorrow. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 23:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm still around, will try to do this in the next few days, sorry for the delay. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 09:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that didn't happen. I'm probably not going to get to this one any time soon, sorry. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 00:00, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

New parameter
Can an admin please add the | boards = parameter from Infobox person to the personal data section of this template? This would allow us to show board directorships (for-profit and not-for-profit) that officeholders hold. Thanks! UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Could you put the relevant code in the Template:Infobox officeholder/sandbox (the template sandbox)? You will probably also need to make changes to Template:Infobox officeholder/Office/sandbox to make things work properly. You can also use the test cases page to see the effects of your changes. If you need any help with the coding, you could try Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have as well. Best — Mr. Stradivarius  (have a chat) 15:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Formatting of name & honorifcs
Not for the first time, I've just from an instance of this template. Please can we tweak the presentation in the template (matching other biographical infoboxes with similar fields; and removing any more such markup by BOT if necessary), so that people don't feel the need to do this, de-cluttering instances for the benefit of future editors, and avoiding compromising the emitted metadata? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:40, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Presumably this is being encouraged by a style guideline or template documentation somewhere. That needs to be found and corrected. The style tweaks should be easy enough: feel free to propose new code for them. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been able to find anything in documentation, and Template:Infobox officeholder/example doesn't have it. I suspect it's just individuals trying to overcome sub-optimal design in this template (see the above example). Perhaps this is a good opportunity to convert to Infobox?

Otherwise, change:



to:



(which is adapted from Infobox person. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:22, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I super-totally agree. I don't like seeing small tags in infoboxes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * The need for this change is illustrated by the fact that I've been reverted at James Cable. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:29, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Can we move forward on this? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:18, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅: please check that this hasn't messed anything up. Cheers. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:36, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * An additional fix deployed due to broken nesting of  tags. Please make sure to test changes in the sandbox before proposing. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:41, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * ... Additionally, this caused an absurd amount of whitespace as the br was using the full line height of the 125%-sized title. I've added a manual tweak to reduce the line-height on the title to 0.6em. This has made James Cable look less broken: please check to make sure that it hasn't caused unwanted artefacts elsewhere. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 10:47, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. The infobox on James Cable has the following:


 * honorific-prefix = Major His Excellency


 * name            =Sir James Cable


 * honorific-suffix = KCVO CMG

with  and   tags. Note my comment above about "removing any more such markup by BOT". Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:42, 6 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Right. That will need to be done first before the line-height hack is removed, as it's obviously commonplace (practically ubiquituous, in fact). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:46, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I've put something up on BOTREQ: Remove inline HTML from Infobox officeholder. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:19, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

It's nice everyone is getting on this and everything, but we seem to have glossed over a significant detail. Current practice is that honorifics are only line-breaked and small tagged if they would already create a line break. For instance, Rehman Chishti has been "Rehman Chishti MP", all on one line. The sort-of adopted proposal creates an odd look by putting a small MP below. That looks fine when it is balanced by small text above it, but stupid without. Further, the proposal has been implemented in such a way that at that particular article (and so, presumably hundreds, perhaps thousands of others) makes the two lines of text overlap. -Rrius (talk) 13:27, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That's not the format used by any other biographical infobox, that I know of. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * So what? Most also have nothing like the look and feel, so the change does nothing to put this one in line with those. And don't point to Infobox person because we both know the difference is recent in origin. -Rrius (talk) 00:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the non-standard look and feel also needs to be addressed; but one thing at a time, eh? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Any chance the partial spaces between the top of the infobox and image/next field in the infobox can be added back. Looks a bit sloppy how it is right now. – Connormah (talk) 23:32, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Any chance the whole thing can be reverted so that the thing that what wasn't broke is no longer fixed? -Rrius (talk) 23:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Were the thing not broke; perhaps. But the thing was broke, and we're fixing it. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * No it wasn't—you just didn't like the html code, which was your problem, but now you've made it everyone else's. From having something that displayed nicely but whose code you didn't like, we've gone to something where the text for the name is smaller, the lines overlap, and singleton post-nominals sit on their own line for no good reason. It was fine, now it isn't, and there is no good reason for it. -Rrius (talk) 00:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that a template that requires multiple inline HTML tags isn't broken. You also appear to have overlooked that I have already pointed out that there is work still in progress. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 01:06, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That is asinine. What you have done is overlook the fact that honorifics are displayed in at least two different ways. Having to use html for one of those two in no way made the template broken. That you would claim something is broken when it allows choices, one of which includes using markup, is bizarre! Do you know what the word "broken" even means?


 * Instead of forcing the choice of line-breaking, why didn't you create an option like "|multiline-honorific=yes" that would have retained the ability to have shorter name+honorific combinations display as they currently do. What you done instead is create a great deal of work for people who will have to fix the hundreds of situations that the bots almost certainly will not. For instance, at Fiona Bruce (politician), it should read "Fiona Bruce MP", with no line break and no small text. Before your unnecessary change, it did. Now that article and hundreds of similar ones for parliamentarians around the world will require a fix that the bot or bots probably won't handle. So thanks. I hope you enjoy having cleaned up code text at the expense of what is actually displayed. Bully for you. -Rrius (talk) 08:23, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't care about the code or whatever, but the way that the name at the top of the infobox looks seemingly squeezed in there is really bugging the hell out of me. Can it be fixed? – Connormah (talk) 02:30, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes; that's what we're discussing, above, and at BOTREQ. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:58, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

A bot finally seems to be cleaning up after the mess, but it is removing the small tags without this template having been changed. Is it still the intention to have the template code shrink the text or not? -Rrius (talk) 19:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, this was done far too quickly and with too little consultation considering that it will affect almost every biography on Wikipedia. Having said that I don't think it's a bad idea in principle, but it's pretty messy at the moment. In my area of Australian politics, I've got a whole bunch of people whose name, which should indisputably be the most significant thing at the top of the infobox, is overshadowed by a giant "The Honourable". The small tags were being used for a reason - if you hate the HTML so much, can you insert a "honorific-small=yes" condition or something? (As for the MP issue, I'm of the opinion that titles that are temporary and only held while elected to a certain position, like MP and Senator, should not be included in the infobox anyway, but that's a discussion for another time. If they are included, they should certainly be both small and after a line break.) Frickeg (talk) 22:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This has been discussed here since mid August; that's over a quarter of a year. It most certainly will not "affect almost every biography on Wikipedia". No names are "overshadowed by a giant" anything. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * That's inaccurate and inadequate. The discussion was started in August, but sat dormant until early November. Then, you recommenced the discussion on the 6th, and "consensus" to make the change was achieved on the 7th. Two days is hardly a quarter of a year. Shortly thereafter, the line breaks were added to the template code. Now, a month and a half later, a bot is finally removing the code. It is also inaccurate to pretend that this is a well-watched page. A decision affecting as many pages as this does should have been much more widely advertised. So that's inaccuracy. The inadequate part is the failure to answer the questions about small text. The small tags were there for a reason, and no discussion was had to eliminate the display of text at a smaller size. In fact, the discussion above more than implied that this would be hard coded into the template. That has not happened. So I ask yet again, does it remain the intention to make that text small in the coding of this template? If not, there will be a lot of reversions of bot edits, and I will be among those reverting. There was never a consensus to eliminate the longstanding usage for biographical articles across the project. You can object to the word "overshadowed", but there is no doubt that the use of an identical font size buries the name, which should be the most prominent thing. The aesthetic choice was made for good reason, and the display should not ruined by some people's obsession with how the code looks in the edit window coupled with a failure to make the obvious change to the code of this template. -Rrius (talk) 03:55, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * The only inaccuracy is that the period was over a third of year, not merely a quarter. That was perfectly adequate. 137 editors are watching this template; if no more than two or three of them   could be bothered to comment, in over a third of a year, then they obviously weren't too troubled by the proposal. Bandying about unfounded assertions that "there is no doubt" is a logical fallacy. This infobox does not exist in isolation. The changes discussed above have brought it into step with the way our other, more widely used, infoboxes display honorifics, and has nothing to do with "how the code looks in the edit window", though it has fortunately removed the inline markup which should never have been used. While there remains (as clearly indicated above) some work to be done, I have no intention to change to make any specific change to how such templates display their content; because that's not my decision. Any decision on changing the way honorifics are displayed by biographical infoboxes in general should be centralised.  Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. There was a one-hour discussion on August 13 followed by a single contribution the next day. Then there was a conversation spanning almost exactly 24 hours from November 6 to 7. It is not as though there was a huge series of contributions that would have popped up on people's watchlists. Moreover, counting on such a short discussion on a page watched by only 137 people is not adequate for making decisions that affect thousands of articles. How you can try to justify that as adequate is baffling. That you could try to trump that up into a three-month discussion is astounding. I sincerely doubt that more than a handful of people who watch this page were aware of the discussion or that many more of the thousands of editors who regularly edit biographical articles did either. As for whether there is no doubt about the display issue, you seem to be alone in not seeing it. -Rrius (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I've just had this change applied to an article which I've done a lot of work on and frankly, it looks ugly having a long title jammed into the same line as the name. Mildly upset, actually Mark.hamid (talk) 12:25, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't you wait for the job to be finished before forming an opinion? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:58, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Possibly because you aren't bothering to answer the question that has been put now multiple times: will code for the honorific-prefix and honorific-suffix parameters be changed to reduce the size of the text? When you've brushed up against answering the question, you haven't quite gotten there. So please answer that simple yes-or-no question. -Rrius (talk) 20:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Status Update

 * 1) Bot run #1 completed:  8,500 articles whose honorific began with and/or  tags.
 * 2) Bot run #2 95% complete:  Articles whose honorific ended in a   .   This is being run as WP:CHECKWIKI error #59, which includes more infoboxes than just officeholder.
 * 3) Any cases that have not been caught will be dealt with after the next database dump.
 * 4) Now that most   tags are removed, the temporary line-height fix (mentioned above) has been reverted in the infobox template code.  Line spacing between the name and honorifics should look normal again.
 * 5) Text-size has been changed in the infobox template code for honorifics. Honorifics text size should look smaller again... should be same size as before when the tags were removed. Bgwhite (talk) 09:16, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Thank you. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Belated thanks for fixing this up. Frickeg (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

Parents
Like infobox person, this infobox should have a parents parameter, rather the shoeing such links into relations or one of the generic parameters. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:11, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This has been previously suggested at /Archive 14, /Archive 15, and at /Archive 16. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:17, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * If there was some way to restrict its usage to parents have articles, I'd like the idea; I don't see any need to list non-notable parents, though. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 10:20, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
 * That's how the parameter is usually used in infobox person. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:08, 20 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing any other responses, so if you can type up the code, I guess we could add this. (Sorry, but I'm not up to take on coding for a major infobox just now.) – Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

RFC regarding signature images in biographies
I've started an RFC over at Stephen King's bio. As it involves information presented through this template, it might be of interest to editors who monitor or work on it. Thanks. § FreeRangeFrog croak 17:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for sharing. As I stated there, I think the signature parameter is useful for people who sign legislation into law, for the people who sign a nation's currency, etc.  However, I don't see any reason to include it for most officeholders. – Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:26, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

order/office parameters
The order or office parameters are used to title a section about an office to which the person has been elected/appointed. For example, Josiah Bartlett has office=4th Governor of New Hampshire. However, if you look at List of Governors of New Hampshire, while he is the 4th unique person to hold the office, he was the winner of the 6th election.

Looking at for precedent, it seems that the usual standard is to keep the same ordinal only when someone serves additional consecutive terms (i.e. Jerry Brown is #34 and #39, but Pete Wilson, who served two consecutive terms is #36 only).

Similarly, at List of Presidents of the United States, footnote 1 states this explicitly, and, for example, Grover Cleveland is #22 and #24 while FDR, having served 3+ consecutive terms, is #32 only.

Is this rule specified somewhere, and should it be consistent across various offices? Is there a better place to discuss this? This came up because of an (I believe incorrect) edit to Levi Woodbury. —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 00:56, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * As Wikipedia reports on the world, we can't just make up the number. For a prominent office like the ones you've listed, it's likely that a numbering already exists - check the official's official website or a historical society reference and see if it has a number somewhere.  – Philosopher Let us reason together. 03:04, 15 February 2013 (UTC)


 * I think that's the right approach. It's the approach we took on List of lieutenant governors of California.  California keeps a count and includes Acting LGs in the list, and therefore, so does Wikipedia.  See here and here. TJRC (talk) 15:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:ICONDECORATION
Would there be any reason to display decorative icons in this infobox's text fields? I am not seeing it but I would welcome discussion. It might be worth updating the template's docs with a recommendation not to do this. --John (talk) 10:50, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If they are used, they should be in separate parameters, not mixed with text. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Decorative" seems like an inappropriately skewed adjective to use. The images seem to be informative: the proper coronets for the noble title held, badges of the viceregal offices occupied. These images have been in those infoboxes for years and hardly seem "mixed in". -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  15:15, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Judicious use of the icons in question is not unreasonable, IMO.  PK  T (alk)  17:02, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * What value would they add to the articles? Was there ever a discussion where it was agreed to add them into the text fields? --John (talk) 17:12, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It would seem we're having that discussion now. I don't particularly care if they're added to text fields or in some other way, but I do see them as being entirely unobtrusive and graphically informative. Quite a few others must feel okay with their presence, given they've been there for years in a number of articles edited by many, many different people over that time. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  19:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * But "entirely unobtrusive" isn't the criterion here. "Graphically informative" sounds awfully like decoration to me. If you disagree, tell me, beyond decoration, what value would they add to the articles? --John (talk) 19:31, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Of course, "graphically informative" and "decorative" are not synonymous. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  00:25, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Why isn't it in all the Canadian Governors-General bio infoboxes? Why the inconsistancy? GoodDay (talk) 00:17, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * They used to be in all but the articles on the first two or three governors general, which have been neglected in many ways for a long time. Since John removed them again, other editors have returned them on some pages, but not others. Hence, it's currently very inconsistent. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  00:22, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * All right, it's obvious there is no prior consensus and no encyclopedic reason to put these decorations into the text fields, and no consensus has been produced here. I'm going to unwatch this and add a note to the template's doc. In general, it's not a good idea to put graphics into text boxes, as Andy said. --John (talk) 08:20, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've no objections to it being deleted from the bio infoboxes-in-question, as long as it's kept in the infobox at Governor General of Canada. -- GoodDay (talk) 11:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * More importantly . Why do 4 of the first 12 Governors General have 2 sets (Canadian & British) of Prime Ministers in their infoboxes (i.e. serving under them)? GoodDay (talk) 12:08, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * John, those images have been there for six years; dozens of editors have worked on those articles in that time and only you have removed them. In that vein, regard WP:SILENCE. Granted, silence is the weakest form of consensus, but a consensus it is nonetheless, which is more than you have to unilaterally impose an all-out ban on these images, especially in light of the fact that not one contributor to this discussion, other than yourself again, supports your move, either. If things were the other way around, your actions would be justified. But, they aren't the other way around, yet; though, you're free to try and make it so. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  19:28, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, Andy, how can we go about adding appropriate parameters? John's made a right mess of things, so far. -- Ħ   MIESIANIACAL  16:28, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Please add fields 2
Should not a field for "ethnicity" be included which is particularly important in many countries especially in Africa (e.g. Hutu, Tutsi) and the Middle East (e.g. Kurds)Patapsco913 (talk) 10:34, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * This parameter exist in Infobox person without causing major issues. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Formatting of name & honorifcs - Christian leader infobox
A discussion has commenced here about the formatting of names and honorifics for Christian leaders infobox as a result of earlier changes made to Template:Infobox officeholder, now archived here. Please discuss at Template talk:Infobox Christian leader. Thanks. Rangasyd (talk) 07:40, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It looks like someone with admin privileges just needs to change "small" to "87% and the non-breaking space to a line break. -Rrius (talk) 08:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Please add fields
Please add the fields "influences" and "influenced" to this template.--76.220.18.223 (talk) 01:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Page is fully protected. Changed request to match.  RudolfRed (talk) 05:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Similar requests on other infoboxes have demonstrated that such parameters can be controversial. -- Red rose64 (talk) 16:14, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The parameters exist in Infobox person without causing major issues. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)
 * NB, there is an RfC about this very point: Proposed removal-- SPhilbrick (Talk)  00:36, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistency–U.S. Senator vs. U.S. Representative
Has anyone noticed that for senators this template outputs "United States Senator" but for representatives it outputs "Member of the United States House of Representatives"? Can we change the latter to "United States Representative"? —Designate (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that is not a good idea. "United States Representative" may have some other meanings, like the United States Representative to the United Nations or United States Trade Representative, see: U.S. Representative (disambiguation). Vanjagenije (talk) 10:21, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Can we add a tag for "religion" that limits its usage?
I can understand the parameter's usefulness for, say, US politics, where politicians are always talking about their own or each other's religious beliefs, but in, say, Japan, the overwhelming majority of politicians, like the rest of the population, don't have especially strong religious views, but practice a mixture of Shinto and Buddhism, and SOME are associated with specific (mostly Buddhist) religious organizations. What brought this particular issue to my attention was that the article on Shintaro Ishihara until last month said, rather uselessly, that the governor was a "member" of "Buddhism and Shinto", but was changed by Shii to say that his religion is "Reiyūkai". "Inaccurate" is not the right word for what had been there before: I would prefer "accurate but completely pointless information". Shii was reverted by DAJF for not citing a specific source. Shii then reverted back and added a source. The problem is that the book was published in 1992 and translated in 2002: even if the translator had checked in 2002 if the information was still accurate (not likely), the book is sorely out of date as I outlined on the talk page. (I can find hundreds of sources that describe Ishihara as loyally visiting a certain SHINTO shrine.)

I would feel more comfortable about the religion parameter if this page specified that an up-to-date, preferably primary source is needed to make a positive/specific statement about a politician's religious views, or that editors should use their common sense and not just add whatever they know about a person's religious views into this template.

Sarumaru the Poet (talk) 01:17, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The documentation is not protected. Be bold. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:03, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Senior judges in Infobox Judge?
Could someone take a look at my week-old question over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law? Repeating it here:
 * What's the correct way to handle federal judges' transitions to Senior Status in Template:Infobox Judge? There seem to be several approaches:
 * Indicate their term ended when they elected senior status, and don't indicate a term of senior status. This seems misleading since it suggests senior status is retirement. But it seems to happen a fair bit.
 * Make no indication of senior status, and treat their term as continuing. This doesn't seem to be done very often.
 * Treat their senior status as new term, and end their regular term when they elect senior status. In my review of about 20 senior status judges, I think I found one example of this.

Thanks. jhawkinson (talk) 15:45, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Module
I think we should add a module parameter so that templates like Infobox Korean name can be embedded in this infobox, rather than sitting awkwardly below it. See, for example,. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:33, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

This will also allow already-adjacent templates to be embedded; compare the voice files on Darren Johnson (using this template) and Corrie Corfield (using . Maybe Frietjes could kindly help? Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:12, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Display blanki & datai (i=1,2,..5) parameter values before Military service
It seems to me these values should be displayed before "military service."

When used now, the personal data parameters blank1 and data1 parameters result in something displayed under "military service", at least in the Infobox Congressman variant. For example, please see Darrell Issa.

Suggest it would be better to display these before "military service." The template does offer |military_blank1 and |military_data1 (to 5.)

Thank you. AndersW (talk) 20:42, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Could political party get a more prominent place in the template?
I have to scroll all over the place to find what political party somebody has, and I can never remember where on the template it is. That information is typically one of the most important things about an office holder. It shouldn't be buried at the bottom. It's especially problematic for politicians that have held numerous different offices, like John Boehner. Chris3145 (talk) 05:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Parents
parents does not appear to be supported. The other "family" params (i.e. relations, spouse, children) are there and seem to be just as likely to be notable/useful as summary info. —&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 23:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

—&#91;  Alan M 1  (talk) &#93;— 23:50, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Please allow some time for discussion. If there is agreeement, or no comment after a reasonable time, please reactivate the request. Thanks &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:55, 7 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems just as useful as the other family parameters. I hope this gets implemented. Graham11 (talk) 02:30, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There being no objection, can this be implemented? Graham11 (talk) 19:42, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ -- WOSlinker (talk) 08:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Member-elect parameter doesn't work for state officials
Russell Ott was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives last night. I tried to set the parameters to display him as a Member-elect, but it didn't work, as it set him up as a US Rep-elect. – Muboshgu (talk) 13:29, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Question for ministerial positions/cabinet members
I wonder what is the best way to link to the cabinet a minister belongs, which in many cases is more interesting than linking to the individual Prime Minister. Parameters cabinet or minister_from don't seem to serve this particular need.

The template documentation and examples did not help me to understand the best way to do that, probably because they currently have a very US-American flavour and ministerial positions are quite specific in the American presidential system, however Infobox minister redirects there and this seems to be the right template.

Does anybody have an idea on how to do that? Place Clichy (talk) 11:16, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Coding problem
I've just taken note of a bug in this infobox's coding, which needs to be addressed.

The situation is that Brady Walkinshaw is slated to take office in January as a member of the Washington House of Representatives. However, the mere act of changing the "predecessor =" field to "succeeding =", so that he's denoted as a member-elect taking office on an upcoming date rather than as the current incumbent, causes the infobox to switch his office to "Member-elect of the United States House of Representatives", instead of the Washington state house, even with "state_house = Washington" still in place.

In other words, "succeeding =" needs to be corrected so that it doesn't override other fields with incorrect information. I'd fix this myself, but I'm not familiar enough with template coding to locate the problem — so thanks in advance for any assistance that anybody is able to provide. Bearcat (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Update: I've noted, additionally, that the "succeding =" spelling behaves correctly in regards to the office being held — but in turn fails to denote the person as a "member-elect" instead of an incumbent; it also causes the person's predecessor to disappear. So there are problems with both versions of the field that need to be corrected. So because this might be a little bit confusing, here's a quick point-form summary of what needs to happen:
 * "succeeding =" (two e's) needs to be corrected to not switch the office to the wrong legislative body, but already behaves correctly by denoting the person as taking office in the future instead of as a current incumbent;
 * "succeding =" (one e) needs to be corrected by denoting the person as taking office in the future instead of as a current incumbent and by displaying the predecessor, but already behaves correctly in not switching the office.
 * - Bearcat (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

BLP is concerned that polygamy is the infobox-enforced default assumption
I'm working with some COI folks that represent a politician, and the BLP has asked through this person, that their infobox stop suggesting they might have multiple spouses. :-)   Currently, the way it works is that there is a parameter in the infobox wiki-markup that looks like this.


 * |spouse = Sig N. Ificantother

When rendered onscreen to the readership, however, because of technical limitations the param-name is changed, and it actually renders somewhat like this.


 * Spouse(s)     Sig N. Ificantother

The BLP has requested that this just say simply Spouse, and although they didn't give me any details, I'm imagining a visit from constituents (or worse &mdash; journalists!) which involves questions about why their wikipedia page suggests they have more than one spouse, and who is it, and what have you got to hide, fess up you so-n-so.

Point being, this may seem minor, but it was the #2 thing on their list of complaints about the article (right after requested removal of a paragraph of unsourced allegations... and *above* a request to remove some negative-but-sourced statement by a political opponent). So this is reasonably important to the BLP in question, and possibly also to some of the other ~52,000 BLPs which we use these infoboxen with.

Suggestion#1, simple fix. Add a parameter |spouse_singular=no, which can be changed to |spouse_singular=yes for cases where the BLP has only been married once (which will then render as Spouse onscreen).

Suggestion#2, recommended fix. Add a set of numbered parameters |spouse1=foo + |spouse2=baz + |spouse3=qux + etc, which are in addition to the existing |spouse=foo,baz,qux param (retained for backwards compatibility). Then, configure the rendering-code so that, in the corner-case where spouse2-thru-spouseN are all NULL/empty, but spouse1=Sig N. Ificantother, the onscreen rendering is Spouse.

p.s. I notice that there was discussion of |parents= in the talkpage sections above... it might make sense to have parent1 thru parentN, for handling BLPs which had complex childhoods. I don't need that for my particular BLP issue today, but I imagine somebody has needed it, at some point. Hope this helps, thanks for improving wikipedia folks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 13:24, 28 December 2013 (UTC)