Template talk:United States federal executive departments

Department of Peace
Kickoff of discussion of inclusion of Proposed departments on the navbox?
 * My gut says no, per not a crystal ball. Warrants an article, but not inclusion here, yet. &mdash; MrDolomite | Talk 03:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Have gotten rid of. It's rather unlikely ever to happen. If it was a proposal from someone who had a serious chance of making it happen, that might be another thing.  Morwen - Talk 07:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

New status?
Should there be a category for former cabinet-level departments that have been "demoted"? After all, the Department of the Navy still exists; it's just been placed under the purview of the Department of Defense. Admittedly, the Department of the Navy is, to the best of my knowledge, the only Cabinet-level department to be reorganized this way, unless you count the Post Office. Thoughts? --Micahbrwn 19:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes- and shouldn't the Department of the Army be in there too? 69.145.66.213 (talk) 19:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Change the order?
I was thinking, would it not be more appropriate to order them in the other in which they were created instead of alphabettically? Andy120290 (talk) 18:30, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Removal of icons
I noticed that the template is currently lacking the logos for the respective offices, they were removed by Zzyzx11 (with the edit summary: "See WP:ICONDECORATION - don't confuse readers - they want click on links to the articles, not go to the image description pages of those logos"). I believe there should be a disscusion on the matter before such a drastic change to the template. Cocoaguy ここがいいcontribstalk  Review Me! 04:51, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Why are the logos necessary other than to solely decorate the template? How do they aid navigation or are useful? Just because they are free content images doesn't give you an excuse to have them plastered all over the place. Here the reasons why they should not be included on the template:
 * There are only currently 20 links, not a very long list. Therefore the logos do not really aid navigation so that "some readers can more quickly scan a series of icons due to the visual differences between icon". This is especially true since there is also no line break between each link.
 * Since you have a logo for almost every single link, you are adding them excessively and thus they clutter the page, especially when, again, there is no line break between each link.
 * The icons do not provide additional information. All you are doing is adding the department's logo next to its name. Remember, "one reader's harmless decoration may be another reader's distraction".
 * Remember accessibility? For those using screen readers or text-only browsers, it is also a useless distraction even if you provide an alt text for each image. And what about those with very high-resolution screen monitors that will display the logos too small to be distinguishable?
 * The primary purpose of a navigation box is to list links so that one can navigate between articles, not to "give more info to the user". That is what an article and its infobox is for.
 * Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:45, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, you make good points but i sill disagree:
 * Since there are only 20 links (15 with logos) it does make it easier to navigate through the different departments, if it was the case I don't see why it wasn't changed earlier (nearly 3 years)
 * I just do not see them as cluttered, this issue differs from user to user and must be discussed before changed
 * Yes the icons do provide additional information, they differentiate between the diffrent top level cabinet, I have both a WUXGA monitor and a VGA monitor and the logos look fine on them.
 * There is alt text for the images, the names of the agencies are right next to the logos
 * It does make it easier to navigate between because the different agencies have different logos and are easily distinguishable
 * All of these MOS's you have mentioned seem to be to ridged to be applied here, Cocoaguy ここがいいcontribstalk  Review Me! 15:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Remove icons. They make the navbox clunky and intrusive. They don't help in identifying the departments (small and most readers will identify the departments by name rather than an often obscure seal). It's easy to click on the icon rather than the text in which case you are directed to the image page rather than the appropriate article. Keep then out. Stephen Kirragetalk - contribs 08:46, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Also agree with removal of the icons. They really don't improve the template, too much cluttering. Garion96 (talk) 15:40, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

i know this is not a vote, but I too say remove them. they don't add value, thus have no place. 'cuz we can' or 'cuz it's cool', should not be a justification. further, there is no navigational benefit. --Merbabu (talk) 04:37, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Remove icons. In this context, they are way too small and obscure to provide any new information. --Vuo (talk) 20:06, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to advocate against the small majority here that wants to remove icons. I agree that the icons were frustratingly small. However, removal may have not been the best solution. It was nice that somewhere on wikipedia, you could see all the emblems in one place for those of us with a little more interest in graphical information. They could have been made larger. Another row could have been added to the template showing the emblems for those who may be curious. I know something like that would be time consuming to adjust and make it work, but it would be possible. I'd do it myself if I didn't already suspect that those lacking taste would remove it just for the sake of WP:DONTLIKEIT. I just think there should be a little more effort towards positive contribution to wikipedia, or at least constructive criticism. Not to belittle anyone's contribution in this particular case, but any user with little or no experience could remove content from wikipeda based on personal taste and claim that it's helping. What if every user's contribution to wikipedia was merely removing content? Try improving ideas rather than merely reject them. We can and should do better. Oicumayberight (talk) 02:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The obvious and neutering corollary of WP:IDONTLIKEIT is WP:ILIKEIT. As for removing ideas, that's fine - it's the bad ones that should be removed. Not every idea (even good faith ones) is good or can be improved. "more interest in graphical information" smells suspiciously like decoration. --Merbabu (talk) 13:13, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Remove icons. Looks like someone threw up pizza after having blue paint for dessert. That's decoration (or someone's opinion of decoration) gone mad and/or "because we can" justification. --Merbabu (talk) 13:10, 2 October 2009 (UTC)