Wikipedia talk:Argentina-related regional notice board/Placebox

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First try
I'd like to propose an infobox for Argentine cities. I think we have enough cities with more or less complete data. Any suggestions? --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I thought about it, and couldn't find enough relevant information to add to the Info Box. Of course, I have nothing against it and would defenitelly use it. Just remembered, what about Short Name for the infobox's title and Complete Name? (Buenos Aires=>Ciudad Autonoma..., Jujuy=> san Salvador de..., etc) What About nicknames? (La reina del Plata, La Linda, etc). But I'm not sure how would it look with cities for which it doesn't apply. Other too difficult to get information would be #of cars, age average, economical indexes, alfabetization, etc. Mariano (t/c) 11:23, 23 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's why I kept it minimalistic. The alternative would be a structured set of templates like the Taxobox, but that seems a bit too much. The "name" attribute can contain anything, so it should be possible to write "Buenos Aires (line break) Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires ". Most cities don't have that problem, or nicknames. The "other" attribute is a placeholder that could be used for such annotations, images, etc. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 12:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Go for it! Mariano (t/c) 13:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I would add departments. Maybe in the long run also geographic coordinates. See Getty for how to obtain coordinates. Is the template only for cities or maybe use it for villages => inhabited place in general (maybe sometimes no mayor)? Maybe to preserve flexibility a seperate template for villages can be created. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 07:33, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I think we need a composite infobox, like the taxobox used for animal species. I wanted to avoid this. :) Maybe a box with two subboxes: one for common invariable things like the name, province, founder and common variable data such as mayor and population (all of which can be gotten easily), and another subbox for more "technical" data such as coordinates, area, density, and eventually other stuff. Let me see what I can do. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 12:46, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Update: There's an infobox used in the WikiProject Cities, but it seems a bit too detailed. What do you think? I'd prefer a composite like this, which takes some time getting used to, but in the end allows for customization. First a header with the basic data, then a section for population and demonym, then another for area, density and coordinates, then one for "history" (foundation date and founder), a "current" box (mayor and political party, possibly other stuff), and finally a closing. All of these are optional (except the header, of course) and more can be added later. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 13:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how templates can handle empty variables. The animal system seems to allow easier drop of an item if it is empty. With composite-box it is also easier to change things later, e.g. "city-people" can step by step replaced by "city-people-version-2008" if an update is necessary. Lack of flexibility is already an issue in the language-box - someone wanted to automatically link all ISO languages code to the official entry in the Ethnologue, but some languages have more than one ISO code. My current statement would be: Composite might be more work, but is more flexible and future proof.

It seems the structure can be used for other countries too. Is there a Latin American notice board? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:54, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Templates do not handle empty variables; if you don't specify, you get the raw form,  , in the rendered text.


 * The problem with generalizing is the customized title, with the flag and the use of a link to the cities and provinces articles specific to the country (as in the first example of the infobox above). But the rest is perfectly usable for any country. I can see a general version of the header like this:


 * I'm trying to understand what happens if a parameter value contains another template. It seems we could define one template in terms of the other. That'd be more or less like subclassing in object-oriented programming, or doing a closure... never mind. I'll try at the template sandbox and see what happens. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 16:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * See a working test at Rosario. The templates with an -ar suffix are Argentina-specific, but they are based on more general templates. I haven't included the mayor, because I'm wondering whether to have "Mayor: Miguel L." or "Authority: Mayor Miguel L.". The latter doesn't look that compact, but probably leaves more room for corrections later. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 17:29, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

i would prefer table form. left col the names of the items, right the entries. for department: "Department: Rosario" not Rosario Department. ... but well, that's all minor. hope you make good progress with the unerstanding of the template technique. :-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 20:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Status (as of 22:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC))

 * (example moved below, updated)

The -ar subtemplates are specific for Argentina; for example, city-header-ar works on top of city-header by filling in the country-specific attributes. However, city-poli-ar does not have a matching, general purpose city-poli; each country has different types and levels of administrative divisions and it's too difficult to generalize. There's a city-poli-ar-ba specifically made for Buenos Aires (the "province" attribute is of course filled in with Buenos Aires, and instead of "department" it says "partido"). Tobias Conradi proposes that we split it further, but I'm afraid we'll end up making it too general. On the other hand, since a template becomes useless or at the very least untidy when a datum is missing, splitting everything up might not be so bad. I'm wondering whether we can get data on population density for all cities (in many cases it will be difficult to find the area!). The city-authority is a preliminar version; maybe we could have ...

My original idea was to make an infobox for Argentine cities. Generalizing up to some point is easy; more would compromise the ease of use. Each country should "subclass" from a few general templates, but it's not very handy to have a whole hierarchy of (abstract) meta-templates. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 22:32, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

more general placebox

 * instead of city use place, to allow use for towns, villages, parts of towns, mines,... [biology=taxobox -> geography=placebox?)
 * split the province,department etc stuff. then it can also used by other countries, and there is no problem with BsAsProvince which has no departments
 * placebox-province
 * placebox-department
 * placebox-municipality
 * variabls
 * taxonomy uses same variable name for diff hierarchy levels:


 * placebox-province|name=....

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 17:12, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Situation map
This is a proposal for the format of the Situation maps for Cities and places in Argentina.

The original map is not very good (it lacks of rivers and geographical accidents), but we don't have any better one. Send me an e-mail if you want me to send you the PSD or XCF project. Mariano (t/c) 12:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Well it does help locate the city, doesn't it? I personally think it's fine, compact and to the point. I'll take care of the template(s). I'm not really thrilled by the profusion of templates we need, BTW... --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 12:38, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * i would not care too much about maps. hopefully the wikimap project will make progress and maps can be server generated. But well, this may take some time. :-) Tobias Conradi (Talk) 21:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * As you can see in Rosario, adding a map is simple (it doesn't even need tags). We don't need to have maps for each and every city right now, anyway. One of the nagging problems is the fact that the "coordinate" templates cannot be included in the value of a parameter of another template. That means we'll have to duplicate the three coordinate templates (coor d, coor dm, coor dms). I think I'll do that now... --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 21:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Wrapping up


The example given below renders as on the right.



I split city-area into a different template, and made city-coor as a general coordinate lookup service (copying from coor). I think pop density should be split too. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 22:18, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I have to argue with the coordinates sistem...
 * Why do you have coor and text? not always having names is best, you could give

and then use inside the template another template, say -32.95111°N, -60.66639°W = -32.95111°N, -60.66639°W, wich formats the coordinates itself.
 * One more thing, I don't see the need of shrinking the letters, nor the box itself. I mean, it doesn't have to look like Toronto's article, but it could be a bit larger.
 * Are we including official foundation date?. Good work, Mariano (t/c) 06:13, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops, just remembered: telefone code? Mariano (t/c) 06:15, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'll add the phone code. Shrinking the letters is an obsessive thing of mine - I'll take that out. Unfortunately, you can't include a template call inside the value of an attribute of another template call, and using templates to define other templates is strongly discouraged (Avoid using meta-templates), even though I did precisely that before. The help page is not exactly helpful - doesn't cover weird examples. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't despere! you can always put the entire code of one template in your template! What means that you cut&paste coor dms into your city-coor template. Its not the nicest thing to do, but it workas. Mariano (t/c) 11:53, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I've been taking a look at other cities, and I think it would be good to find a way to separate the properties from the values like in 2 columns for better visualizaiton. As an example, Toronto has a City infobox (Canadian City template) with things separated left and right, and more space between non-related topics, that makes the hole thing more readable. f course, since they use one only template this is a lot easier, but I think this can be done anyway. Tell me what you think, I can give you a hand with it if you agree. Mariano (t/c) 13:53, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I personally like what the box looks like now, with properties and values as plain text, but I'll accept suggestions. The task of changing the sub-templates would be relatively minor. Separating the sections would be a matter of inserting empty space. I'd like to keep the templates flexible, that is, without too much of a structure. The coor thing is, do we really need degrees, minutes and seconds? Only up to minutes? Or just degrees, for an approximation (especially if we can't find the exact coordinates for some obscure little city)? Should we copy/paste all three coor d(m(s))?


 * I'm also thinking we could get rid of parameter names mostly... --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 14:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * use all three. nice lookup service:

http://getty.edu/vow/TGNServlet?nation=&english=Y&find=rosario&place=&page=1
 * nevertheless, it looks not good. I personally prefer decimal notation, because it is easier to read.
 * should the coor thing go more top? should it be without saying "Location"?
 * not sure whether Mariano read my statement above: I too prefer table format.
 * if we make such general flexible templates, we should move from "city" to "place" or "placebox". the latter maybe little longer, but makes more clear that it is an infobox.
 * Tobias Conradi (Talk) 18:00, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, Tobias, I read your comments. Table format can be achieved (I think/hope so) even with multiple mini-templates inside start-end templates. I will give it a try (we can always roll them back if necesary)
 * I would use also seconds for the location. If the problem is the space in the infobox, we can show only to minutes, but have the link to seconds. you can always set the seconds to 30 if you don't have the information (middle point).
 * I agree with the denomination of the template to place or location instead of city, but for that we have ot have something really flexible, and polished. Mariano (t/c) 07:26, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Place, location, placebox
If we're going to change the names, I suggest we do it now. I've used the box in a couple of places already. In truth, not all subtemplates should be changed; for example, city-poli-ar has province and department, which of course applies only to cities/towns, and city-authority has mayor and political party. But the area, density, population, demonym, coordinates, an possibly phone code and (still not included) postal code, can be applied to places other than municipalities. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 10:40, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * dept and province also applies to villages, gold mines etc. I suggest something like placebox-province and placebox-department. there are maybe 20 subdivision terms that can be used all over the world. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 14:25, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can start renaming the aproppiate templates. Tell me if you need to delete any. It would be good to promote the set of templates so people know they exist, say in Template talk:Infobox City. Mariano (t/c) 11:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

place/location/box:
 * place is shorter than location (pro place)
 * place has meaning of "plaza" (againt place)
 * box is used in other boxes (pro -box)


 * Take a look at the placebox at work: Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Placebox-begin. The city-specific parts I left unchanged, the rest were renamed. Mariano, what you should delete is Argentina-city, which is redundant and useless now. You can also delete the moved subtemplates (city-people, city-density, city-area, city-start, city-end, I think). As for advertising, maybe Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities would be better, but the Infobox talk page might be used to advertise this one as an alternative... --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:06, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Cooked. If I over-deleted sometihng, I can get it back. Mariano (t/c) 08:15, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Table formated
I think I got it right. Please, check Rosario, and tell me what you think. It might be good to created template city-situation or city-location-map with the content: |- |colspan="2" align="center"|. Hope you all like it. Mariano (t/c) 10:49, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Something's not right. The header and the rest should be in separate sections; I'll fix it (following the species Taxobox model, it should be easy). In keeping with said model, I'll also rename "-start" to "-begin". --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:03, 30 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Done, please check. What now? --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:33, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Template:Language
....the above template makes extensive use of if statements. I did not know this is possible in templates. -> That means we could better create an integrated placebox. If it has not several partial templates we could also use a longer name, e.g. "Infobox place" to be more in line with other Infoboxes. If the above problems with non-filled variables can be handled with if/else statements, we don't need a splitted template? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 15:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)