Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive 5

What information to include, part III
A debate over the inclusion of the monarch in the infoboxes of Canadian prime ministers, as is done at msny PM articles, has re-emerged at Talk:Stephen Harper. Opinions on the matter are welcome, if not necessary! --G2bambino (talk) 03:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Irish prime minister Taoiseach
A user has requested that the word for Irish prime minister ("Taoiseach" according to the user) be included as an option instead of "Prime minister". I've made a copy of this template, Template:Infobox Officeholder1, which implements this change, and it's being used in article Mary McAleese. If others agree to it, I would like this template to be modified in that way so that Template:Infobox Officeholder1 can be deleted as an almost-identical copy of this one. --Coppertwig (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added the fields for other terms to Infobox Officeholder1. I'd ask an admin to copy and paste the code from there to Infobox Officeholder. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement. If we've got German chancellors? we can certainly have Irish taoiseach. GoodDay (talk) 16:55, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added a chancellor field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 17:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅. Happy‑melon 11:48, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Please put doun this language ka:თარგი:ლიდერი —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.117.43.111 (talk) 13:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

HTML/CSS error
At the bottom of this template is the line: this should be So the ; after solid needs to be removed. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Happy‑melon 12:55, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Governor infobox
I would like to suggest that it would be helpful if we add a Vice-Governor section to the Governor infobox since in some countries, like the Philippines, use Vice-Governor instead of Lieutenant Governor pikdig (talk) 15:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've added a copy of the code with the vicegovernor field to my sandbox page. --Philip Stevens (talk) 14:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Happy‑melon 15:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Military service
Perhaps a section can be created in this infobox for an officeholder's military service (since historically so many have had some), using the fields from the Military Person infobox. -- Zsero (talk) 22:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What fields were you thinking of? --Philip Stevens (talk) 14:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Have a look at that template. All the military-specific ones from that template, i.e. branch, serviceyears, rank, unit, commands, battles, awards, and I suppose we may as well throw in allegiance for those office-holders who've been mercenaries or have served in some other country's armed forces (e.g. pre-independence).  -- Zsero (talk) 15:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I've put up a test of how it might work here. --Philip Stevens (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks good. (Except that "allegiance" is unnecessary, since he served in the US Navy.  That field is used for mercenaries and such, where it's not obvious what country they were fighting for.) -- Zsero (talk) 01:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

When the fields from Template:Infobox Military Person were added here, the "nickname=" field was omitted. This is rather widely used in military biographies and becomes lost when the templates are merged. Can someone add it, please? Thanks, Hal Jespersen (talk) 01:16, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

infobox on prominent people in the making of the US?
Should there be an infobox for, say, signers of the the Declaration of Independence? Or any such related group of people who maybe didn't hold office but should be considered separately? Just wondering :) Mathwhiz 29 (talk) 20:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix needed with space character
editprotect The nonbreaking space in "Lieutenant Governor" causes a link to be made that includes the nonbreaking space...see for example David Tod. I don't know anything about parser functions, but perhaps changing

to would work? Ardric47 (talk) 06:11, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm so sorry, that was my mistake from the preivous edit. Here is the code to fix it. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Philip Stevens (talk) 10:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Senator Info Box
If the field for Junior or Senior senator is labeled Shadow Senator as it is with Jesse Jackson instead of directing to the article on Shadow congressperson it directs to an article on the US Senate which makes no mention of what a Shadow Senator is. This needs to be corrected and I'm not sure how to do it. -Vcelloho (talk) 16:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * It can be corrected by not using the senator fields altogether, just as you wouldn't use infobox president for someone who had been president of their class or synagogue. Those are for real office-holders, not make-believe positions.  -- Zsero (talk) 17:27, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The office of Shadow Congressperson is a real position created in the event that DC's right to votes in congress is recognized. Although their office is not recognized by the Federal government it is recognized by Washington DC. They may not have an official claim as senators however they have played an important role in Washington DC's struggle for full representation in Congress. For this reason I believe that the senator info box is applicable to this situation. -Vcelloho (talk) 21:24, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * If D.C. were ever granted the right to elect senators, it would have to do so then. The play-senators would not simply be seated.  In the meantime, this is not a real office, and its "holder" doesn't do anything.  It doesn't matter that the D.C. city council "recognises" them, the D.C. council has no authority to "recognise" people as United States Senators, any more than it can "recognise" people as English Dukes or Japanese Dieticians (pun intended, because this whole subject is a joke).  I can also appoint "senators" with as much authority as D.C., and the Senate will ignore them just as it does D.C.'s.   As the Jewish mother said to her son, "Hymie, by me you're a captain, but by the captains are you a captain?".  -- Zsero (talk) 21:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * These "shadow" Senators and Representatives are elected officials of D.C., but their sole function is to campaign for D.C. becoming the State of New Columbia. They are in no way a member of the Congress (as opposed to Eleanor Holmes Norton). So I would vote in favor of the Senator Infobox not being used in articles for D.C.'s "Shadow Senators." --SMP0328. (talk) 01:09, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Officials of D.C.? They don't claim to be that, do they, so how can we claim it in their names?  They don't play any role in the government of D.C.  (Then again, nor do New York City's Borough presidents, who seem to do nothing all day but grandstand and position themselves for their next campaign for real office. Or maybe that's just Marty Markowitz; I have no idea what any of the other four BPs do with their time, one never hears of them; maybe they hold down real jobs, because their official roles can't be keeping them very busy.)  Still, that is a creative way to look at them.
 * Eleanor Holmes Norton is indeed different. She may not be a real congresscritter, but the Congress officially agrees to go along with the pretense that she is, kinda sorta; by the captains she's a captain, and that has to be good enough for us.  -- Zsero (talk) 01:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * D.C. considers them to be "elected officials" of its government. --  --SMP0328. (talk)
 * OK, that's the word from the Horse's Mouth. Maybe I should campaign for NYC to include an Official Clown among its elected officials.  Then again, we've got Marty.  -- Zsero (talk) 01:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't that the Public Advocate? --SMP0328. (talk) 02:04, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * She at least seems to have something to occupy her time with. Besides, she has the job of waiting for the mayor to walk under a bus, same as the Vice President, and that alone's enough to count her as a jen-you-wine Elected Official of the City of New York.  Everything else she does is just makework while she waits for that day (again, just like the VP).  -- Zsero (talk) 02:08, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * At least the Vice President can become the President. The Public Advocate only becomes Acting Mayor pending a special election. As for this discussion, how about adding a section about these "Shadow Senators" to the U.S. Senate article? --SMP0328. (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * We've just established that they're not senators, they're elected officials of the DC gov't. So they belong on the DC gov't article, not the Senate.  -- Zsero (talk) 02:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I have added a footnote to the United States Senate article clarifying that D.C.'s "Shadow Senators" are not member of the Senate. --SMP0328. (talk) 03:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

You know, you could just use the  field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 15:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Common name or full name used in infobox
I came across this at the Barack Obama article in which the infobox lists his name as his common name "Barack Obama" rather than his full name "Barack Hussein Obama, Jr." After looking at several other articles (e.g. Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Calvin Coolidge to name a few) it came across as the infoboxes using the full name. However when I attempted to make the change I was reverted twice with people stating the infobox contains only the common name. I tried to find a style guide statement about which is to be used but came up short, with the only thing coming close being the John McCain example infobox using his full name while also discovering some articles do use the common name rather than full name (e.g. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lyndon B. Johnson).

Is there an official style on which is meant to be used? –– Lid(Talk) 08:39, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As far as I know, there is not an official style guide for this and it is applied differently across different projects within Wikipedia. Celebrities (George Clooney, Sandra Bullock) always use the common name, not the full name. Historical figures (Napoléon Bonaparte, Sigmund Freud) usually use the common name (the more well known the person, the more likely the common name will be used). It is applied inconsistently within politics, but the infobox usually contains the common name (of course, there are many exceptions as other crap exists.) The consensus for articles dealing with the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election was to use the common name in the infobox.  This has been applied across the board since there were a dozen candidates until now where the field has winnowed to just three.


 * The funny thing is, nobody is clamoring to add Hillary Clinton or John McCain's middle name to their articles and we've never had to attach a note to those infoboxes. But the Barack Obama article is often faced with people who want to remind everyone as many times as possible that his given middle name is "Hussein" which is the reason for the note in that article.--Loonymonkey (talk) 16:27, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Which is odder considering Template:Infobox Officeholder/example uses McCain as the example listing his full name. –– Lid(Talk) 22:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)


 * So is there still nothing on the murkiness of which is to be used? –– Lid(Talk) 11:01, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

TD
Would it be possible to add Teachta Dála along with AM MP MLA ect, thanks -- Barryob  (Contribs)   (Talk)  01:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Happy‑melon 11:26, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

First Lady
I'd like to suggest that the template for First Ladies of the United States be changed to eliminate the term "office." The first lady is not really an office; it's an honorary title. The use of the word "office" may indicate to some that these ladies held an "official" office for the United States. In the past, this distinction wouldn't have mattered, but with a former first lady running for president and in a close race where experience in office has been become a factor, Wikipedia should strive to maintain accurate facts. Kittybork (talk) 04:50, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
 * You can already change office to title, if you think that would be better. --Philip Stevens (talk) 06:13, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem
If you have a look at some of the UK prime ministers Tony Blair, John Major their post is in the order field rather than the offices one it changed it around on Thatchers article but the formatting in the deputy field shows as Deputy -- Barryob   (Contribs)   (Talk)  23:56, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is the code to fix the problem. It also fixes some issues mentioned above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:14, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ I have no idea what the problem was, or how your modification fixed it, but it doesn't seem to have broken anything so I'll trust that you know what you're doing  <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 11:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Alma Mater
What counts as the alma mater? Please post your thoughts at Template talk:Infobox Person. Thanks --Tim4christ17 talk 22:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Image size
If you look at the recent history of Marianne Thieme, you can see the width= and heigth= parameters do not seem to work, the image is displayed in its original size, messing up the whole template. Removing these parameters, and adding "|250px" to the image= parameter fixed it. Comparing with other pages where this template is used, they never use the width and heigth param, so maybe this is the first time someone bumps into this bug, if it is a bug. Maybe one of the more script-savvy editors can fix this permanently? Regards, Mhaesen (talk) 07:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Try using . --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:06, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ambassador field; do we need the flags?
Per some of the arguments at WP:MOSFLAG, I notice that the template uses the modern version of the flags of countries from and to in this field. As this is often leading to an anachronistic result (the flag of the United States has undergone 15 revisions, for example), and is seemingly always redundant in the sense of not adding any information to articles, do you think it would be possible to manage without the flags at all? --John (talk) 04:22, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * As nobody has stated any reason to keep these, in ordinary circumstances I would be bold and remove them myself. As I lack the technical expertise to do this without breaking the whole template, can somebody who know how to please do it for me? Thanks. --John (talk) 19:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is the code to remove the flags. Copy it into Infobox Officeholder/Office, it also puts the Monarch and GG fields above the Prime Minister field. --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:44, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ --CapitalR (talk) 09:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

opponent
Within Infobox Officeholder at Jack Kemp, when I added "|opponent = Bill Clinton/Al Gore", it invalidated the following two lines:
 * predecessor        = Dan Quayle
 * successor          = Dick Cheney

How can I get all three lines to show.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 21:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The Candidate/Nominee section is only to be used for current or ongoing elections, not previous ones, see Talk:John McCain/archive5. --Philip Stevens (talk) 08:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I see the lack of consensus. I also consider Kemp a person whose most important position is controversial.  Some would say it was his highest elected position, Congressman.  Others would say it was his cabinet appointment, Secretary.  I contest that in his case, Vice Presidential nominee is his most important position.  Nonetheless, since there is no consensus, I would like help using the template.  I also think Mondale, Kerry, Dole, etc should have such sections, but none of them served in Presidential cabinets as their final position.  Thus, they don't have Kemp's dilemna.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 12:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, I interpret much of the discussion to say that candidates should not use the box especially if they have withdrawn, but that whether nominees may is an unresolved debate. In the case of Kemp after having read 368 Time magazine articles, 130 New York Times articles, and an assortment of other references, I percieve VP nominee to be much more important in describing him than Secretary.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 12:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Error in template - successor7
There is an error in this template around successor7. See Brian Cowen for an example. <br/ >

Possibly  should read

Snappy56 (talk) 05:25, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spotting that, here is the code to fix it and the topic above. --Philip Stevens (talk) 09:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ As above, I have no idea what the "topic above" was, but I trust you know what you're doing. I notice that this template is getting unbelievably large - perhaps breaking it into a number of sub-templates which are conditionally included would be a good idea, as this would reduce the load-times of most of the articles it's used in. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 14:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Committee assignments
It seems to me that it would be extremely useful to be able to list Committee assignments for legislators, since these are crucial factors in determining the issues that they focus their time and energy on, and what areas of expertise they develop. I was surprised to find that there wasn't a line for this parameter. Cgingold (talk) 13:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What sort of thing did you have in mind? --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a place to list the names of the committees within the infobox, probably under the heading "Legislative committees". Cgingold (talk) 09:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * What else needs to be done to move this process forward? Cgingold (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is the code to do this. --Philip Stevens (talk) 12:10, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ what happened to portfolio2?? <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 13:53, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, you can now use committees for the requested field. I'm not sure what happened to portfolio2 - I don't think that field was in use, but I'm thinking about spliting up the template, so can I put it back as and when I do that. --Philip Stevens (talk) 14:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Request: Add Arabic interwiki
Good day. This is a request to include the Arabic interwiki.

 ar:قالب:معلومات رئيس 

That's all. Thanks. - Omar 180 (talk) 11:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Sub-templates
Following User:Happy-melon's suggestion above, I've created two sub-templates (Infobox Officeholder/Office and Infobox Officeholder/Personal data) that will greatly reduce the size and load time of the Infobox. Here is the new code for the template, and you can see it in use here. --Philip Stevens (talk) 11:01, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ That's a massive improvement. I've also protected the two subpages. <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 21:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Birthname
Have no idea whether this has been mentioned before or not, but could a birth name be added for those whose names are different to those at birth, ie through marriage or if they have changed their name via depot (sp?) Mangwanani (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Listing "birthname" is probably more appropriate in the text of the article, if the name change is significant. Some female politicians already use birth name even after (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, Hillary Rodham Clinton) or sought elected office after marriage (Nancy Pelosi, Mary Bono), and are better known by their married name. Do you have specific examples where you think it is needed? I don't have a strong objection to add it, I just don't see an urgent need for it at this time. The template is getting rather bloated as is.Dcmacnut (talk)
 * how bout when the birthname is the long version of its more known name? In the case of many Spanish politicians, their birth or legal name has like 6 names or more (ie Tomás de Herrera=Tomás José Ramón del Carmen de Herrera y Pérez Dávila, those names are usually used in legal or historical texts, and therefore could be confused with someone else if not provided. mijotoba (talk) 14:22, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Problems on Joe Lieberman
The infobox in Joe Lieberman is messed up. When ever you try and put his electoral history into the box, it puts all his party affiliations in instead. I think this is because the candidate field runs off the party field. Is there a way of stopping this? --Hera1187 (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I had hoped - foolishly perhaps - that the template was now so robust that it would need very few edits. I think you've found one of the few problems with the code. To combat this I've created two new fields  and   that will override the   and   fields respectively. I've also reduced the office code some more, added some more blank fields, and I've implemented User:Hlj request. --Philip Stevens (talk) 07:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is the code for Infobox Officeholder
 * Here is the code for Infobox Officeholder/Office
 * Here is the code for Infobox Officeholder/Personal data
 * ✅ <b style="color:forestgreen;">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 14:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Website
One of the changes since March 2nd removed the website option. Considering it is still listed as an option in the Personal data section, this must have been a mistake... can somebody please put the website option back?--Dr who1975 (talk) 20:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my fault. Thank you for spotting the error.

To fix the problem add this code above the nickname field on Infobox Officeholder. --Philip Stevens (talk) 21:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Yes check.svg|20px]] Done. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)