Template talk:UNESCO World Heritage Site row

More images
In order to do not stress the table with too much columns I think it is better to put the link commonscat under the image itself. See a sample layout Special:permalink/524013465. --Vriullop (talk) 13:11, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That might be a nice solution indeed. Could you implement it? effeietsanders 18:15, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Done. --Vriullop (talk) 19:15, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) effeietsanders 15:54, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Feedback after templating the African list
(copy from the talkpage of the African list)

While I'm not against replacing the list with a template that we can use throughout the project, I reverted this recent attempt for various reasons:
 * This is a featured list. I don't think I'm the only one who would highly appreciate discussion before making major changes like these to a priority article.
 * From a 1080p screen, the table font is way too small for some reason and the entire thing is just cluttered. Centering the description isn't necessary.
 * I don't think having the region as the initial sort is the best idea. The name of the site is much more universally accepted than the region name we happen to have come up with.
 * Coordinates would look much better under the region, kind of like how Tobyc75 did it over at List of World Heritage Sites in Western Europe.
 * I don't see the point of an entirely new column for UNESCO identifiers. It's not useful information.
 * I'm trying to find who said it, but we were advised to have the image to the left, after the site title.
 * There are multiple images that weren't appearing under the template. I didn't get the chance to find out why; it's exam week here...
 * Template is missing the conversion from acre to hectare. No separating commas either.
 * In this article, a "reference" column is totally unnecessary. Template should probably allow for its ommission.
 * Separating the criteria with a space or a comma (like it was done here) would be visually pleasing.
 * A ref for the Old Towns of Djenne was removed.
 * Asterisks for Trans-border sites were removed.

A few things about the revert and in general:
 * The edit that replaced the  with " was reverted as well. Sorry about that.
 * I like the idea of having the "Monument on map" thing beneath the coordinates.

Don't take the revert the wrong way, I appreciate the work. I think it was just too bold a move for now. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  06:52, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks again for your input. I responded to some of your input already on the original talkpage where it was list specific or process oriented.


 * "From a 1080p screen, the table font is way too small for some reason and the entire thing is just cluttered"
 * Could you perhaps provide a screenshot somehow, and what you would like to see changed? I'm not sure if I understand correctly what you're referring to. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * File:Screen-WHS-temp-layout-compar.png Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah, I think I get it now. Unfortunately this seems something I get contradicting signals on, so I'd appreciate some more input. But again, this is of course easily changed in the template if people agree on it. effeietsanders 18:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Centering the description isn't necessary."
 * Sure, that can be fixed. Consider it done. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "I don't think having the region as the initial sort is the best idea. The name of the site is much more universally accepted than the region name we happen to have come up with."
 * I think it would be optimal to have the same sorting for all the different World Heritage Lists. It was my impression that since UNESCO itself uses country as primary sortkey and also because the regions on the earth are used as the basis for the splitting of the lists it would be logical to use the country as primary sortkey. But I don't really care much, and would be happy with any sortkey. The question is though whether the description used in the Name column makes much sense as such, because they are not always adequately named (i.e. begin with '18th century'). I'm open for suggestions. It does require quite some work though, so I would appreciate a quick joint decision here. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't think I understand the concern... all of the WHS lists use the exact same table with a few minor differences (like the ref column I mentioned). The Name isn't really something we can change when it's the official one given by UNESCO. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately it doesn't seem that always the UNESCO name is used. While combining the two tables I came across several examples where the match wasn't 100% because of how the articles in Wikipedia happened to be called. Also, the names given by UNESCO are not always designed to be sorted on (as shown by the 18th century example - where the name of the city would make much more sense). It is not a huge concern of mine, but initially sorting on country just seems more logical to me. But if more people disagree on that (more input wanted!), I'd be happy to revise that opinion of course. This is something to agree on as one of the first things though, because it is hard to fix later on - contrary to most other things suggested here. effeietsanders 18:44, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Coordinates would look much better under the region, kind of like how Tobyc75 did it over at List of World Heritage Sites in Western Europe."
 * This is clearly a matter of taste. In most national heritage sites I think the coordinates are being put in a separate column, and I personally prefer it that way too. Not a major issue though, and could be changed any time one way or the other. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As I've shown in the screenshot, it's what clutters the table aesthetically. It makes more sense to have coordinates beneath the location name, or better yet the Site name. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * A problem I have with putting it under the location name is that it is quite unlogical when there are multiple countries involved (up to 10!) or when the location indication is quite long. I don't agree that it has a major impact on 'cluttering', I personally find it more organized because it is the same in all rows, and gives a certain feeling for organization. But maybe it looks nicer if the coordinates column is moved more to the right.
 * "I don't see the point of an entirely new column for UNESCO identifiers. It's not useful information."
 * Consider it as a reference to the official website confirming its status. This is the same method we use for all national heritage sites (see for example List of Monuments of National Importance, National Register of Historic Places and Listed buildings in England. On one side it makes it possible to identify the monument without any doubt (unique identifier) although in World Heritage Sites this is less of a worry I agree, and it allows to build upon the system of lists and refer easily to a monument that way. The numbers are official so there is no problem with original research. For some it might add value, to some it might not - as with all information. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "I'm trying to find who said it, but we were advised to have the image to the left, after the site title."
 * Again a matter of taste I guess. My personal preference is on the right, because I don't like information - image - information. But it is easy to change once the table is templated. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "There are multiple images that weren't appearing under the template."
 * Hmm, that sounds unintentional. Could you give examples? Please do note that some sites have been added because they were not in the list yet, although already recognized. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * What do you mean by "already recognized"? I'd like to point to you the convention we made with these lists over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World Heritage Sites/Archive 1 and Template talk:Lists of World Heritage Sites. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I wasn't referring to inclusion or not because of geographic reasons (I try to stay out of that discussion and just went with whatever limitation was chosen) but I meant sites recognized in the past few years that were not yet included on this regional list. Three examples: "Lakes of Ounianga" (Chad), "Sangha Trinational"(Congo, CAF & Cameroon) and "Bassari Country: Bassari, Fula and Bedik Cultural Landscapes" (Senegal). Those obviously don't have any pictures yet. No images should have disappeared. effeietsanders 18:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Template is missing the conversion from acre to hectare. No separating commas either."
 * Conversion can easily be arranged, consider it done. Not sure how to nicely fix the seperating commas though. Ideas? effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, lack of better words. If you use the conversion template the commas would be added automatically. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, then they have been added (although personally I don't feel quite comfortable about them since they are a cultural choice - in India they would place them differently, but that is nitpicking). effeietsanders 18:52, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "In this article, a "reference" column is totally unnecessary. Template should probably allow for its ommission."
 * Personally I would prefer it if we could use the same structure in all lists. And some of them heavily make use of them, seperating the text from the references. I think that makes sense, but I suggest that as a WikiProject you make a choice one way or the other. Technically it is possible to build in a switch, but that makes the templates harder to understand for newbees. Also please note that while the column may not be in use now, that can be fixed rather quickly by splitting text and references. effeietsanders 11:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Coming from personally editing two of these lists, I can attest to the fact that most of the time there isn't always just one ref per description. That's why I've made sure to keep them in-line and more precise. Some other editors have decided otherwise, for whatever reason. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "Separating the criteria with a space or a comma (like it was done here) would be visually pleasing."
 * If you all agree on that, it is an easy matter of search & replace. effeietsanders 11:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you're missing the fact that the individual country lists and the regional lists are two totally different "species" of lists. The WikiProject has done a great job standardising the regionals but we haven't even touched individual country lists. Although, if we did, we'd probably base a standard on the List of World Heritage Sites of the United Kingdom list because of its status and it's use on other Featured countries' list. Eric Leb 01 (Page &#124; Talk)  17:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't want to suggest that they are already the same, but they could easily be. Since there will be a fully functional template, and since all data is already in an excelsheet ready to be exported, it wouldn't be too complicated if someone would spend some time on it. As long as you don't want to merge in more information. But indeed, lets focus first on the regional lists. effeietsanders 18:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Individual country lists are a good place to start
To ease this discussion can you include a sample row in the template? I can't see what the problem is. In general I do agree that templating the rows could be useful, but I also took a look at the WHS lists back when I created the list for France and was simply appalled at the mess. The regional lists suffer from what appeared to me at the time to be WP:BLOAT. After diving in to the material I realized that the real problem is that there is only one source for anything on any of these pages, and that is the UNESCO itself, which is not perfect. As you already noted, there are differences in the way they handle various lists. There is also a problem with the regional lists because they don't match WP regions. I would suggest creating a sub-project to create good individual country lists, and for countries with only one site make a redirect to the article about the site. In future, all of the WHS data per site should be offloaded to Wikidata for the specialists. The casual reader and tourist is only interested in the cultural and historical aspects, not the politics of the UNESCO - that's what the links are for at the bottom of the page, in my opinion. The added benefit of a row template is that you can ease the transition to Wikidata, by including all of the data (which you should NOT display on the page). Jane (talk) 09:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Jane,
 * Thanks for your comments! Yes, you can find a sample on User:Effeietsanders/sandbox. I hope you can give some feedback on how that would work best. Personally I find the country lists much more tricky to touch, because they involve so many more people - but that is mostly strategy :) If anyone would like to take a country list, I'd be happy to share the excel sheet where I'm working from!
 * I indeed agree with the including more data than what we decide to show, and I'm already doing that to some extent. I don't include everything, because some of it is either rather irrelevant or detailed (it includes years in which it got reconfirmed etc), double (of which the contents gave already been described in one of the other fields, such as the French name) or copyrighted. effeietsanders 09:49, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sweet! I like the map link and the idea of a WHS uploader! That only brings me to something else though, and that is the reference number column. Of course the WHS lists are a lot like the WLM lists, so maybe you should try to reform the WHS lists and the NRHP lists in one go. The NRHP lists do not display the identifier in the lists themselves, because they see this as useless information. They display them in the individual articles in the infobox on the English WP. That said, I am all for displaying identifiers, since that leads to the easiest way for casual editors to contribute, namely giving them a hook to the source data. THE NRHP project suffers from a lack of articles on objects, so the lack of displayed identifier is a real drawback. For the WHS rows I would definitely display them. Here are the column headers for the NRHP lists vs Your mock-up:

I think you should not display the criteria, coords, area, or references in separate columns, and keep the NRHP format, with the exception of the identifier instead of the list order number. Put the coords & map into the Country/Location column, and put the refs into the Description. I really don't get the purpose of the list order number in the NRHP lists. Jane (talk) 10:50, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
 * list order number, Landmark name, Image, Date listed, Location, City or town, Summary
 * identifier, Country/Location, Name, Description, Criteria, Coordinates, Area in ha (acre),	References, Image

My feedback
I generally agree with Eric's comments. While I think a standard template could be good idea, I really like the current layout and do not think a template is really necessary to standardize. As the name of the site is the most important part, it should be listed first, with the image and location after it. The reference can be included in the description and doesn't need a separate column. The ID number is meaningless to readers (I think) and is redundant to the ref link for status confirmation. Also, I like the inclusion of Year and the regular font size, and because I don't expect people to sort by lattitude, coordinates don't need their own column. I know part of this is personal aesthetics, but I do like the how the Africa list is now, which happens to be very similar to the FL I wrote a few years ago List of national parks of the United States. Reywas92 Talk 20:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)