Template talk:Infobox official post/Archive 1

1
Shouldn't it be something like "first" rather than "conceiver"?- J Logan t: 14:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I have no idea.. I just searched for a seemingly appropriate word in english dictionaries. - $\mathrm{S}$. $\mathrm{Solberg}$ $\mathrm{J}$. 15:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Okay, well if no one minds I'll change it to a word a tad more common for the post, inaugural. - J Logan t: 17:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

2
Could we add an option to add a link to the corisponding "list of..." article for the political post? I think that many people who come looking for an article about a title would want to know who its past holders were, and as of now they have to scroll down to the 'see also' section to find the link. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 01:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Agency name
Can we add a parameter for the agency led by this post? For example, United States Secretary of State is responsible for United States Department of State. It will be useful if this department can also appear in the Secretary's post template. And can we also add some blank parameters for some special items such as the presidential line of succession in United States Secretary of State? Thanks. --Neo-Jay (talk) 00:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Incumbent since field
I noticed the "incumbent since" field doesn't seem to work - the fields are filled but do not display anything. I've done some experimenting and suggest that the following adjustment be made:

! colspan=2 style="line-height: 1.1em; text-align:center"|Incumbent:

Become:

! colspan=2 style="line-height: 1.1em; text-align:center"|Incumbent:

I'd go ahead and make the changes myself but I'm still fairly new here and don't want to act unilaterally, but will be happy to do so if no one objects?--ZedderZulu (talk) 16:51, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Change "since" to "X—present"?
Example, for George W. Bush, it could be: "January 20, 2001—present"

instead of "since January 20, 2001"

Anyone agree?. &mdash; `C RAZY `( lN )`S ANE ` 02:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Box mess
Something has broken this box, I think around the Successor }}, but I can't see how to revert the change. It's messing up a lot of articles. Timrollpickering (talk) 05:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Can people please stop trying to insert a successor option just so they can add post-elects in individual positions? The additions are often mucking up the code and making other pages that don't need them ugly. Please a) discuss it here; and b) only have people with full code experience make the changes. Timrollpickering (talk) 14:26, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Inauguration link
Currently the text "Inaugural" in "Inaugural holder" is linked to Inauguration. But, that article is not really relevant, as it talks about a "a formal ceremony to mark the beginning of a leader's term of office". We should simply unlink this text. --Rob (talk) 03:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, I have unlinked it. Snappy (talk) 20:41, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Multiple fields for position name
While the system of "post" "body" divided by the word "of" which is part of a template typically works fine some posts simply don't contain the word "of" might someone more versed in infobox syntax than I be able to possibly make one, singular "post" field that doesn't require the word "of" to be used. Another solution might be to make the "Nativename" field to, when filled, not require the word "of" if the other two fields are left blank.

Thanks to anyone who can fix this, Aricci526 (talk) 04:55, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Deputy
Can we have a field to change the name "deputy"? So we can have it as "Vice-President:" or whatever is applicable for the article?- J.Logan`t : 09:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

extra 's
I noticed some extra ' marks appearing around John Robert's photograph on Chief Justice of the United States, before the word "Incumbent". I took a quick look at the template but couldn't find a cause. Any ideas? Cmprince (talk) 05:40, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * also see: Lord Mayor of London. Cmprince (talk) 05:47, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This was caused when insigniacaption was blank. I have added an if statement to fix this. Snappy (talk) 14:24, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

The "of" in the template
The "of" in the template is problematic because it appears even when body parameter is empty or not present. For examples, see United States Secretary of Transportation. I attempted to fix, but I couldn't.— Chris! c / t 00:32, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Pending a fix, there is a simple workaround, which I have done for United States Secretary of Transportation. Snappy (talk) 20:42, 10 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have added a fix for the 'of' issue. Snappy (talk) 22:07, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks.— Chris! c / t 22:57, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

US linking
Would it be possible for someone to add the option to make a US-specific succession link? It currently links to Order of succession, but for a US Cabinet post it would be more appropriate linking to United States presidential line of succession, so could there be a way to specify this? Thanks, Reywas92 Talk 18:32, 16 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Is 'Order of Succession' used much in non US infoboxes? If not, then 'Order of Succession' could be unlinked and 'United States presidential line of succession' could be linked to the number as in United States Secretary of State. Snappy (talk) 19:57, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Good idea. Of the pages the template is used on, it seems only the US Cabinet ones would use that parameter. Reywas92 Talk 02:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have unlinked succession. I'll leave it up to you (or others) to updates the other US Cabinet posts as per the United States Secretary of State. Rgds, Snappy (talk) 17:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Appointer parameter
This is an infobox meant to provide a summary of information about political posts&mdash;not the posts' holders. As a result, I find the behaviour of the appointer and nominator parameter puzzlings. Take Leader of the House of Commons. The words "appointed by" displayed in the infobox should be taken to refer to the office, not the current incumbent; that is especially true because the appointer information is in a separate section of the infobox from the incumbent. You would expect "the Leader of the House of Commons is appointed by" to be followed by "the Prime Minister", not "David Cameron (as Prime Minister) . I propose therefore that the template be modified to replace the code for |data4 and |data5 such that only the values for appointerpost and nominatorpost are displayed, respectively. -Rrius (talk) 08:27, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * I coundn't agree more. RicJac (talk) 10:19, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Style?
What does this parameter mean? There is little explanation or guidance. That is, when the readers look at the infobox in the article, they see "Style" instead of "Manner of Address". Accordingly, the input would be "your highness", but other editing inputs such as "tyrant", "elected", "constitutional" might be appropriate. As the template itself does not have explanation, the input line should be removed or the "Style" label should be changed. (Someone with more technical expertise needs to fix/remove.) Thanks. --S. Rich (talk) 18:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)19:00, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the best solution would be to simply add a new parameter for "Manner of Address" below "Style". For someone entitled Excellency it would be; Style - His/Her Excellency, and Manner of Address - Your Excellency. RicJac (talk) 10:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Predecessor
How about also including in the box, a mention to the person who previously held the office before the incumbant by puttting in a predecesso option? The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 21:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. An old request, but I can foresee it being useful in many situations, and would certainly help add at-a-glance context to many articles that include the template. AtomCrusher (talk) 13:51, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Caption
I've put a draft template together for the Mayor of Thames page, and the draft is in my Sandbox. The issue that makes this template unusable for my purpose is that in order to produce a photo caption, I appear to be forced to use the field 'incumbent', and it adds "incumbent" to the caption. In my case, however, I am not showing an incumbent. It won't always be appropriate to have incumbent, as this template also has the fields 'last' and 'abolished', and in those cases, there isn't an incumbent.

Can I suggest that we have an alternate parameter 'caption' that produces text underneath the photo in normal text (not bold). Any thoughts?  Schwede 66  02:00, 19 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Just drawing attention to the fact that this issue is unresolved.  Schwede 66  21:16, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Help
Can anybody help me to improve the Finnish version of the template fi:Malline:Poliittinen virka? I don't know how to use parameters or how it is done.--82.128.222.232 (talk) 16:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Immediate superior
Shouldn't there be a field for the immediate superior since the appointer is not always the office to whom an appointee directly reports. Examples of which are: U.S. ambassadors who while appointed by the President works directly for the U.S. Secretary of State and the service secretaries who works directly for the U.S. Secretary of Defense. RicJac (talk) 20:57, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

nativename and department
Shouldn't the nativename field be in italics or smaller, I mean I understand when the nativename is in a non-Latin alphabet like the President of the People's Republic of China, its very clear what is the native name, but when it is in a Latin alphabet it looks like a run-off name like in Leader of the Opposition (Ireland) or Ambassador of Colombia to the United States. Some articles have chosen to manually add the italics to this field like in Chancellor of Germany (Federal Republic of Germany) or Prime Minister of Sweden, some made it both small and in italics like in President of Croatia or Speaker of the Lok Sabha, I think there should be changes to this field to regulate present and/or future articles.

Also, can anyone add a field to change the default "department" field. in the US departments are used, but in most of the rest of the world ministries are used, so saying that the United States Secretary of State's department is the United States Department of State works, but the Minister of Foreign Affairs of XXX's department cannot be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, specially cause in many countries a department ranks below a ministry or is at the very least not the same thing. At least a ministry field should be added that reflects when this one is used.mijotoba (talk) 02:19, 16 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that organisation might be the most neutral term. RicJac (talk) 16:41, 8 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that the  should be smaller, as is the case with most infoboxes. I will go ahead and implement that if there are no objections.
 * Organization seems a bit too broad (and also suffers from the problem of using British spelling (organisation) vs. American spelling (organization). However, I could implement an option for using or, with both being mutually exclusive. What do people think of that? Since the   parameter does not display a label, it really doesn't matter all that much; making a variable parameter for something that is not displayed to readers, I think, would cause more confusion that it is worth.  Ergo Sum   18:07, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Is this infobox appropriate for sinecure posts?
I am having a dispute over the use of this infobox in these two articles. They are posts in the British system that, while notionally a 'paid office of the Crown', don't exist except on paper. They're only used as a procedural device to allow MPs to resign, so while there is an 'appointer' (the Chancellor), as they have no roles or duties I cannot see how any of the other fields make any sense, and there is little to no point in what is then left. I've tried to note this in 'departemnet', but even that looks stupid. As this is probably the same for all such posts, I think it best to settle this at this level. I've notified the two people who disagree, The C of E and Keith D. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 18:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that a number of the other parts could be filled if needs be. The allegence, date of formation and pay parts could be filled on those articles.  The C of E God Save the Queen!  ( talk ) 18:48, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Nonsense. The purpose of infoboxes is not to confuse readers. Can you even source any of those for these articles? Each one of those would need long explanatory notes before they would make any sense in the context of a sinecure post, thereby defeating the whole purpose of an infobox. Gruesome Foursome (talk) 13:22, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The most misleading part of this is the name and photo of the "incumbent": for all real purposes the significance of appointment ends on the day it's announced. The House of commons web site says "The Member retains the position until the Chancellor appoints another applicant or until the holder applies for release from it." so it is perhaps technically true that Huhne/Miliband are the incumbents as of today's date.  But ideally there would be an official source that confirms that they are still in post.  I suggest if the infobox is to stay, the "incumbent" and especially the photo should be removed.  Sussexonian (talk) 19:03, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Superfluous parameters
I'm going to remove the parameters for "allegiance" and "commands held" as they make no sense in this template. RicJac (talk) 08:18, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 21:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Template:Infobox political post → Template:Infobox official post – Per template's documentation: "This template is intended to be used for a variety of official posts. Although the template name contains the words ”political post”, it is not meant only for ”political offices” per se, but can also be used for civil service, diplomatic, ecclesiastical, judicial, law enforcement, military and other posts of an official and permanent nature." eh bien mon prince (talk) 11:23, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * support as per nom; it appears that the template name defines a scope that is too narrow.  Schwede 66  18:46, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Acting parameter
There should be an  parameter for acting officials. So instead of having to type, it's added automatically.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 19:14, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry to bother you guys, but do you know of a way of implementing this? Thanks.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 22:18, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Where would it appear? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:24, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * In small text, underneath their name; example at Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 22:39, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Try out -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 23:08, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Tested. I've added bold to the text. When do you think will be a good time to move this into mainspace?--Nev&eacute;–selbert 23:18, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Template changes like this shouldn't really be made unilaterally, it would be best to send a note to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Organizations inviting them to comment here. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 06:43, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It all seems rather uncontroversial, . It makes sense just to be wp:bold and do it IMHO.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 18:01, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC about whether there should be a special acting parameter
Should we add an yes parameter for acting officials? So instead of having to type in  manually, it's added automatically.--Nev&eacute;–selbert 14:17, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Sure, don't see any downsides. Enterprisey (talk!) 21:29, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Support - Concur with Enterprisey. NickCT (talk) 21:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. I don't see how adding this functionality could cause any issues - I would think you would be just fine closing the RFC and being WP:BOLD. VanIsaacWScont 22:33, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. This is an easy one.Juda S. Engelmayer (talk) 16:50, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes -- Seems like a good idea, yes. Damotclese (talk) 15:02, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Add jurisdiction parameter
A parameter called  would be useful for positions such as Cardinal Vicar and many others whose jurisdiction is clearly defined (statutorily or otherwise) and can be briefly stated in an infobox.  Ergo Sum  18:01, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Is this in relation to your (multiple) previous suggestions for a new infobox, such as at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 07:30, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * To some extent, yes. I've taken the advice of Chicbyaccident to attempt to modify existing infoboxes to accommodate the new use, before endeavoring to create a new template. That being said, the parameter proposal is related only to the extent that it comes out of that motivation, which is not really relevant to this discussion here. Do you have some input on modifications to this template or are you making the point here that you've made (multiply) elsewhere?  Ergo Sum  11:32, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have put the proposed parameter in the sandbox, here. As I have it now, the parameter would come after the .  Ergo Sum   17:21, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Successor office
I propose adding a successor office parameter, since there is already a precursor parameter (i.e. for the office which existed before it), surely there ought to be a succeeding office as well, especially when the template is used on articles regarding former offices. -- Tærkast (Discuss) 19:38, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 20:16, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Consensus isn't needed if a change is not controversial. WP:ER - I don't believe it to be a controversial change, however, if you do believe it to be, then by all means let's open it up to discussion.-- Tærkast (Discuss) 20:20, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think "successor" is the right term; "precursor" means "what came before", while "successor" means more "who came before". I can't think of an appropriate word, but if there is one then I don't see any issue with adding it. Primefac (talk) 14:41, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's a bit of an awkward wording. Succeeding office? "Replaced by"? -- Tærkast (Discuss) 15:09, 14 October 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the OED "precursor" means "b a person who precedes in office etc." As much as a distinction between precursor and predecessor would be useful, it doesn't exist.
 * And just to satisfy my inner pedant... "successor" means more "who came before" - should be after.
 * As a comparable situation in the succession boxes, John Patten, Baron Patten, "Succeeded by [successor] as [new post title]" might be the unambiguous fix you're after. Cabayi (talk) 09:39, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
 * How about replaced by? Or something along those lines. -- Tærkast (Discuss) 13:32, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I think Superceded by would be a good term to use. -- Tærkast (Discuss) 14:46, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * One, please observe WP:INDENTGAP and do not re-add blank lines after I have removed them. Two, although and  have also commented, you have not demonstrated consensus - indeed, your last two comments above show that you are still suggesting ideas. Three, what is the specific change here? I see no recent edits at Template:Infobox official post/sandbox. Therefore, Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please make your requested changes to the template's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES.. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:12, 5 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Can someone else please take a look, preferably another admin as well? This shouldn't have escalated to this. In addition, I believe I was very clear in requesting a successor post parameter to be added. -- Tærkast (Discuss) 13:27, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Superceded by or Superceding office seems to be good ideas with regards to this. Any thoughts?-- Tærkast (Discuss) 18:30, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * ❌ This is still not a concrete request that is ready to be implemented. You have to decide on a label for the new parameter, establish consensus for it, and make the relevant changes to the sandbox before this request can be implemented. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:31, 22 August 2019 (UTC)