Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Archive 5

Historical countries / states
I propose that Historical States DO NOT go under the modern Country, but get their own level. They should have their own administrative unit hierarchy, and not try to link to the modern states, except horizontally. Perhaps there should even be a formal first level split (Current Countries and Historical states).

WikiProject Geography


 * WikiProject Current Countries
 * WikiProject Chinese provinces
 * WikiProject Finnish provinces
 * WikiProject French départements
 * WikiProject French régions
 * WikiProject German districts
 * WikiProject Japanese prefectures
 * Wikiproject Japanese districts and municipalites
 * WikiProject Mexican states
 * Wikiproject Latin America countries
 * WikiProject Philippine LGUs
 * WikiProject Swedish counties
 * WikiProject Swedish provinces
 * WikiProject Swedish provinces in Finland
 * WikiProject Historical States
 * WikiProject historical provinces in Finland
 * WikiProject Prussian provinces
 * WikiProject Prussian districts
 * WikiProject Prussian counties
 * WikiProject Prussian civil registration districts (descendants would be the City articles, no sense in repeating the history)
 * WikiProject Cities
 * WikiProject London
 * WikiProject Toronto
 * WikiProject Chinese Cities

As to the issue of duplication, especially history, the Historical States articles would be more detailed within the applicable timeframe and the Current Country articles would be more an overview with a link to the historical page(s), if there a relationship (ie, border changes didn't affect the relationship between historical and current). With Current Countries like France, Belgium, etc., there may not be a need for separate Historical States. Germany, Austria, Russia and Finnland would, however. Bwood 21:45, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that historical entities should not be given the template prescribed by this wikiproject. We should look at historical states on the whole, while we look at existing states as they are now (e.g. by listing the current leader, area, etc.) Go ahead and start WikiProject Historical States and will discuss there. --Jiang 05:58, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * I'll work out a rough template and start the project. - Bwood 01:20, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Public holidays
It was mentioned in /Archive2 that the Germany article had split off public holidays into a Public holidays in Germany page. There is also a Public holidays in Australia page, which currently duplicates the table in the Australia article. I suggest this format be used for all countries, and therefore changed in the template, as these tables are always going to be too large for the main article when completed. Angela. 03:09, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. The holiday table is irrelevant for the vast majority of readers of a country article. It is too trivial for the main article on a country. -- Tim Starling 03:59, Feb 29, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree, if the country article is fairly developed, it's a reasonable move. -- User:Docu


 * Looks like an overkill to remove a nearly empty table and to add it to an even more empty page Holidays in São Tomé and Príncipe -- User:Docu

It seems to me that one could also mention in the template that the word 'public' can be omitted from those article names because the title inherently refers to states that sponsor them. In fact, Tim has already done that for holidays in Croatia. For tables that are incomplete, having them in a separate page makes it possible to insert a stub note. Also, moving the list of links to these pages from holiday to a List of countries by holidays seems like a to-do item... --Shallot 13:28, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't Holidays_in_Sweden redirect to Tourism_in_Sweden?


 * Exceptions or disambiguating links should be made for countries that have both pages. It seems to me that not many countries will/should have a "Tourism in " page, because that looks like a magnet for promotional material copying and pasting and flood of marketingspeak :) --Shallot


 * For reasonably short country articles which could keep the starter until there is sufficient info for a stub. In the meantime "Public holidays in X" could redirect to the section (e.g. São Tomé and Príncipe ). -- User:Docu


 * That's reasonable, too. --Shallot


 * Actually, now that I looked at the STaT holiday page, it's completely empty! That might as well be deleted, and left only as a link on the main country page, like its culture and music subpages are. --Shallot

Is there any preference over whether it should be "public holidays in..." or "holidays in...". The public holidays article redirects to holiday anyway, so I thought that just using "holidays in..." was best, but Adam Carr objected to this on my talk page.


 * Re Holidays in North Korea - this suggests a tourism article and seems in rather poor taste given that people are starving in N Korea. Perhaps it should be Public holidays in North Korea. Adam 13:18, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I agree the empty tables are not a good idea, so I've deleted the Holidays in São Tomé and Príncipe one I created. Angela. 17:11, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)


 * Maybe if we used "of" rather than "in", then it wouldn't hint at tourism? I accidentally did that already for the Bosnian page. Not sure if it sounds too strange to native English speakers, though. --Shallot 18:34, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * I much prefer public holidays - we have a Holidays in Cambodia article - it does sound like tourism to a British English speaker. Secretlondon 05:35, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Public Holidays in Blah or Public Holidays of Blah, though? James F. (talk) 05:43, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * I think in rather than of. Secretlondon 22:53, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Footers: functionality, aesthetics and standards
Mediawiki:Southeast Asia is ugly. It pops out of the page too much. What are we to do about Europe? Having both the EU and European countries listed will prove unwieldy. --Jiang 22:07, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your assessment. You may show us your better version of the footer by editing the page ;-) -- Timwi 22:10, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I dont like change. Dont want me to mass revert, do you? --Jiang


 * If you're just categorically against change, then no. But certainly you're not going to tell me you actually preferred the previous look? Personally, I thought that was very much uglier. -- Timwi 22:26, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No, I really think the new look is uglier. That can be easily undone, but we now have to decide whether we want to include all the countries in a region at the bottom of the article. --Jiang 22:36, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * There's certainly no harm in having them. I thought we're only disputing the layout. What would be the best place to start a vote on which layout is to be preferred? -- Timwi 22:41, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How about what I did to Template:East Asia? The thing is not to have it pop out of the page conspicuously. --Jiang


 * I don't think threatening a mass revert is useful, Jiang. Even if the outcome of the vote was to decide to go back to the minimal line and Countries of the World - Asia thing, this can be done by changing the MediaWiki namespace. Morwen 22:49, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * Neither is reverting my alternative pro-status quo version (ie MediaWiki:East Asia). What are all the categories to be done? --Jiang


 * I can't parse either of those sentences. I haven't reverted anything of yours.  Morwen 22:54, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)


 * No you haven't. Never said so. Refer to the page history.


 * I'm asking about the categorization schemes used. Apparently, you have one for the "Commonwealth of Independent States" and another for "East Asia". How do you determine which level, geographical or political, to use? Why CIS and not Eastern Europe? --Jiang

So are you going to use geographical region or political alliances? Southeast Asia could be incorporated by ASEAN. Please choose one type of categorization for all. --Jiang 22:55, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Summary (please edit if I misunderstood something)


 * Jiang prefers this layout over this one
 * Jiang wonders what criteria will be used to determine what countries belong to a certain region or group of coutries. Is this correct? If so, in my mind these two issues are completely separate from each other. The current discussion on the layout of the page footers is aimed at the first issue, and has nothing in itself to do with coutries, geography, or politics. The second issue is with content, not layout, so will not interfere with it because I have no clue about those topics. -- Timwi 20:07, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, these are two separate issues. Apparently, at Canada, both the commonwealth and north america boxes have been added. What kind of organizations should we include? Some alliances are closer than others. --Jiang

Personally I prefer the previous layout over the present version. However, I think it's more efficient to use msg instead of text within the country articles.

The summary box do indeed not add very well, e.g. Greenland, Norway. Further, the Template:EU countries may suggest that the Council of Europe has something to do with the EU. The Template:EFTA includes EEA which is misleading, e.g. on Switzerland, and we might as well pick another international framework at the bottom of this country page.

If we would use the previous layout with the msg:formatboxes, it might simply meantime that we'd have to add a horizontal line and Countries of the World to some of the countries, where we'd have a problem with several msgs -- User:Docu

Adding footers of all the trade pacts and alliances is ridiculous. If there's no close relation like the EU, then a footer doesn't belong. Please suggest what should remain, or should I revert back to the original country-continent listing?--Jiang 04:54, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I would just like to place my opinion that the number of footers on country pages is becoming quite ridiculous. was added to all Southeast Asian country pages which already included the SEA footer. This is ridiculous. Both lists are virtually identical with only East Timor missing in ASEAN. (Look at Malaysia and Singapore: both have SEA, ASEAN, APEC, and the Commonwealth footers!) This much footer does not add value to a country page but does add to the bandwidth. We've already decided to move the public holidays table to a separate article. I believe the country page footers is a step back in this regard. Only the geographical footer deserves to be included. (I'm actually tempted to revert much like Jiang suggests.) --seav 11:11, Mar 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * I firmly agree. Probably just the geographic footers should remain, and perhaps a simple list of organisations to which the country belongs. Matthewmayer 14:55, 14 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * One footer should indeed be enough. -- User:Docu


 * I just changed it like that for .hr. I listed several main organizations the country is interested in, and the rest is linked through the normal (Factbook-provided) list at a subpage. If only MediaWiki:Continent didn't have to have &lt;br clear=all&gt;, there's too much spacing... --Shallot 12:16, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)


 * From an aesthetic standpoint there are too many footers. The pages (such as New Zealand; the location of footer revert-wars) look ugly and unprofessional.  Having links to every country in a geo-political organization is redundant to the organization page itself.  From a usability perspective, I suggest abandoning the geographic regional footers as well.  What makes more sense is providing a link to the region "Southeast Asia" but then providing direct links to all of the near geographical neighbors.  Look at Burma.  I was doing research on the country and discovering that Bangladesh was the direct neighbor to the East was difficult.  Although the information could and should be added to the geography section, for user convenience having all neighboring countries in the footer would make a lot of sense. -- Chevan 13:22, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, I agree that having so many footers is UGLY and detracts from the usability of the pages. Just way too much marginally relevent information. Much better to simply provide a link to the lists. Bkonrad | Talk 14:15, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Since no one seems to be objecting, I will remove all the non-geographical footers this weekend. --Jiang 22:36, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I object. Keep geog. footers as well as external territories (if any) and at least one major international association FOOTER. Please don't delete hours of hard work. --Cantus 22:53, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "one major international association"? Examples? Having spent "hours of hard work" is not a legitimate reason for inclusion. It's the product, not the effort, that counts. What do you say about these footers taking too much space and being too redundant? --Jiang 23:49, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * My wish is that in these footers you could have a [Hide] link as you see in regular TOCs, where you can hide the box content. A footer with hidden content should be default. That way it would take much less space, barely a line, and you could have many. This would have to be petitioned to the mighty powers of Wikipedia though. --Cantus 00:45, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Having footers that hide is a reasonable option, but wouldnt that be similar to clicking a link to a page that contains a listing of the member countries (like box on .hr)? We wouldn't be having a footer for all UN member countries, would we? Where do we draw the line?--Jiang


 * It's definitely not the same going to a different page than just unveiling info in the same page. There's such a huge difference. --Cantus 01:02, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree its not the same -- It is less obtrusive to have them in links to separate pages. I have not seen any good reason for including anything other than footers for the immediate geographic region. I'm not sure what possessed you to go and add them to all the pages, but I'm sorry to say it was a wasted effort (IMO). I REALLY REALLY HATE the way the pages look with all that marginally useful clutter at the bottom. Bkonrad | Talk 01:21, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I remain puzzled as to why it bothers you so much to have these little boxes sitting at the BOTTOM of the page, hardly getting in the way of ANYTHING in the article. Are you *that* preoccupied with the BOTTOM of pages? I think these footers are devilishly clever little things that give the user a lot of extra info. --Cantus 03:16, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * It causes extra scrolling. What extra info does it give? How is the footer vital? Most are these are just trade pacts with little relevance. Would you make a UN footer? --Jiang 03:56, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * If there are no further arguments in favor, I will be removing the unimportant treaty footers in 1.5 weeks. --Jiang 04:54, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Please do, now that we got entire screens full of footers, e.g. Egypt. -- User:Docu

I think a geographical footer+summary box of international organisation participation, as at Croatia, is much easier on the eye than the mishmash of footers at United Kingdom, for example. Matthewmayer 23:11, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the summary box for int'l organizations is redundant and unnecessary. Why is it vital that the links to these organizations be included? We should move all the intl org listings from the politics articles to the foreign relations articles. --Jiang 23:49, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * It's not vital, but it's moderately useful and not intrusive. They're already listed in the foreign relations article (and that section of it is linked from the same little box), but it makes no less sense to list them in such a short format on the main article than it does to list any other analogous item, and that's the basic trait of the main country articles. Anyway, when a country is member of something, that's immediately relevant to the country's article; that other countries are members of the same thing isn't, really. --Shallot 12:24, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Some footers, such as Mediawiki:Europe has dependencies listed. What is the criteria for incluing dependencies? Why was Hong Kong and Macau removed from the East Asia footer? --Jiang 00:55, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Regarding cluterring footer problem, can we go to voting process now? I don't think the debate is fruitful. It is rather a matter of preference. Some people like clear, compact interfaces but some like to have more options. -- Taku 03:53, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)


 * I like the Croatian format, (indeed, prefer it to lots of footers). However if pages are changed it should only be when such a box is created. At the moment they're just being deleted (see Talk:United_Kingdom), without a Croatia-style replacement box.


 * Is this a reasonable compromise? If these boxes are not being created, my preference is for keeping the footers. As they are at the end of the page, they don't displace other information and (personal, subjective) look quite nice.


 * PS: Please don't take this critically - I think good work is being done here! -- EuroTom 22:08, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

If we implemented categories for each of these organizations, then a box would not be necessary. Let's do that instead. The categories tags are now conveienetly located at the bottom of articles - around the same place as the footers. --Jiang 23:18, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * The new redirects to templates are very ugly. Categories require the information to be right at the top of the page, whereas a box can go at the end and thus be more comprehensive.


 * I don't think they're direct substitutes at all. We need at least a summary box - as Shallot says, they're useful and, if at the bottom of the page, not intrusive. -- EuroTom 16:18, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Categories are listed at the bottom now, where the footers are. I don't see your point. If we made a category for each (i.e. "member of the Commonwealth") then this would automatically state that the country is a member of the Commonwealth. The categories serve the same use as Shallot's box. --Jiang 23:17, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I really like the footers, they're helpful and useful navigational aids and at the end of the article, so they don't clutter the content. Personally, I don't find any of them obtrusive, even when more than one (or, indeed, several) exist on the one page. I think they should all stay. OwenBlacker 20:43, Jun 5, 2004 (UTC)


 * That doesn't address the issue of scrolling and relevancy. The real reason why they're there is because they look pretty. That's the reason you gave and that's not a legitimate reason. --Jiang 23:28, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * They're certainly relevant, if they prove useful links and information about the ties with other countries. I'm not sure scrolling is that much of an issue (none of them is awfully tall) and they don't add a large amount to the page weight. I may have misread between the lines, but it feels to me as though you dislike them quite strongly and are clutching at straws to find reasons to get rid of them. I apologise, if that's not the case, but surely if several people find them useful, they should stay? OwenBlacker 00:11, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see how they are "relevant" and "useful". Can you elaborate? If a country is a member of an organization, then why not just say so? Why add a footer? Add a "foreign relations" section if need be, as one is missing for most countries. If an alliance or pact is closely related (e.g. the EU), then I agree that the footer is "relevant" and "useful" for browsing purposes, but for NAM, Commonwealth, APEC, OECD, etc., the footer fails to explain the relationship, other than these countries are part of the same trade pact. This would be relevant on the article of the organization itself. If there is some other relation to be explained, do so in the text. It is not so much that one or two is causing harm, but that a whole bunch of these add up and together take up too much room for too little gain.


 * When there is no consensus, the status quo wins. That means they should not stay. You may by all means try to convince me and everyone else until there are no straws left. The footers are even less functional now that categories have been put in place. --Jiang 00:24, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would agree with standardisation, but only on footers/issues that specifically already have consensus here, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries, to include or exclude. Otherwise a disputed conformity should not be enforced. The claim that dispute implies the status quo 'wins' and "that means they should not stay" is, IMHO, completely unjustifed.

If there is substantial debate on an aspect of standardisation then there is no basis for implementation of that aspect. In these cases, contributors to pages should decide on a case by case basis. I expect that through such an approach, general consensus would be reached over time on difficult issues through custom and prevalence. Those feeling particularly strongly about the issue could make their case on the respective pages, altering only ones that are not disputed.

Consensus requires an overall agreement in contributors, not simply a perception of general support for your position.

I believe on a case by case basis, you would also find much support for the removal of many of the footers and other features that are viewed as undesirable. I have recently changed my views on the suitability of some of the footers and would support removal of many that you cite. However, this must be done cautiously, with definite agreement - simply providing rebuttals to concerns is not sufficient for consensus (even if you later turn out to be correct).

In the light of this, I would also support any move to form a definite list of style aspects with the ability to list individual preferences for discussion and vote, similar to Vfd. Disputed issues and features could be left to mellow through different practice on a page by page basis.

I believe most people support standardising formats, so this is unlikely to lead to widespread disparities. Doing so would solve any potential problems of difference in perceptions of usefulness, aesthetics and suitability. -- EuroTom 01:07, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I can see your point about when there are several but, even so, I think they're a helpful guide to international relationships to an extent (certainly, as you say, with things like the EU and NATO). I'm inclined to agree that OECD and so on are less useful. I think it's more that part of the beauty of Wikipedia is that hyperlinking makes it easy to get lost in Wikipedia for some time and that footers like this are a good way of co-ordinating one's time loss ;o)


 * If you're happy for the status quo to remain, at least for the time being, I'm happy to stop arguing the point :o) -- OwenBlacker 01:10, Jun 6, 2004 (UTC)

Footers page
I made a page that lists all of the different country footers floating around: WikiProject Countries/Templates/Navboxes. I actually included every footer on the page so that they're easy to compare. -- Walt Pohl 22:43, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Important Footers
While I couldn't give two hoots about footers such as Europe, Asia, etc. and large-scale organisations such as the commonwealth, I believe that some footers are warranted.

The European Union footer shows all other member-states at a glance, as well as linking to them and showing the EU flag. I believe this is necessary for each and every member-state page.

The NATO footer is necessary, as each NATO member's page should immediately show who all the other partners are. This is a military alliance with huge influence - members are prepared to go to war alongside each other and participate in action at the behest of other members. There's also the mutual defence clause. I argue that simply mentioning and linking NATO in member's articles is insufficient.

There's not much else I consider too necessary, apart from locally applicable footers such as the counties of Ireland and equivalents elsewhere (handier than having to click on category). Series of articles aren't really a problem. Unless I am mistaken, the footers issue has only come into play with countries having gazillions of footers on their pages. In the case above, most European countries would have two footers. No, I don't think things like Francophonie deserve a footer, only link and mention in the article. NATO above is different.

Zoney 17:20, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Isn't NATO about the defenc/se? The country article about the topic is generally at "Military of .. " rather than a section of the main one. Thus the footer should, if somewhere, be on the Miliary article -- User:Docu

Location of articles on states
What is the current policy on the location of articles on states? I cannot find it here. Spawned by Talk:East_Germany, I propose the following:

Examples: The reasoning behind this is that many common terms are inherently POV: for example both mainland China and Taiwan claim to be the legitimate Chinese government, and by putting one at 'China' the implication is that the other is illegitimate (note: EXAMPLE, I know China is actually about neither state). Thoughts? &mdash; Jor (Talk) 22:07, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
 * Place an article on a state at its proper (English) name, with a redirect from any colloquial terms for it.
 * If no official English name exists, use the common translation of its official name (as per the CIA Factbook).
 * France: official name is Republique de France, English French Republic. Article at French Republic with a redirect from France.
 * North Korea: official name is Democratic People's Republic of Korea, so article goes there. Redirect from North Korea.
 * Egypt: official name is Arab Republic of Egypt, so article goes there and Egypt is a redirect.


 * We go by Naming conventions (common names). What if a link to the common name refers to a historical predecessor state of the current one? Being redirected to a article on the current state might create false implications. China, Macedonia, and [Ireland]] are exceptions to the rule, but why change all of the articles to accomodate these exceptions? --Jiang 00:35, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Of footers and Orcs
Firstly, my position on these footers is that they are ALL unnecessary clutter.

I understand why their advocates like them. They provide single click access from one member of a group to all the other members of the group. They also, therefore, provide a list of all members of the group. And they are maintained in a single page on MediaWiki. Sounds all very attractive.

However, they also break one of the basic tenets of Wikipedia. Simplicity. Let me explain this by example. For this I will reference Malaysia, as it currently suffers from four ugly footers:, , and.

Each of these footers is also well covered by an article in its own right. e.g. is more than adequately explained at Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Furthermore, each of the Wiki articles contains a definitive list of its member states. So why do we duplicate that effort at ? To allow "one-click" access to each member state? Not a good enough reason in my opinion. Instead, we should be making sure that, in this example, the article on Malaysia includes a link to APEC, in correct context, within the body of the article (not there at present).

If we allow these message blocks to proliferate the question becomes one of "where do you stop?". Which trade associations do you list for a country, and which not? Which geographic area gets listed, and which doesn't? And the problem does not only beset countries and other geographical areas. Did you know we had a footer for Orcs ? Should we add this list to the article for New Zealand???

I fear that it is too late to rid Wikipedia of these abominations (the footers, not the Orcs), and I am firmly convinced that we are the worse for their existence. I strongly advocate that we all take to them with Occam's Razor. - Gaz 06:48, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I understand why some people like the geographically oriented country boxes. They engable one-click navigation for a sort of pedia-browsing that a number of users might engage in (going from country to country within a geographical region).  And as much as aesthetics are a matter of taste, I can understand why some people find the boxes more aesthetic than "See also" lists (they allow for a more compact listing than the usual bulleted list).
 * But the multiplicity of boxes that happened when boxes for treaty organizations started appearing is simply absurd.
 * So absurd, in fact, that I suspect that much of the present multiplication of boxes has not been done in good faith, but rather done by those who, not liking them at all, have determined to use them badly in hopes of generating a popular backlash against them.
 * I don't have any names in mind, but if this has in fact happened, would the parties responsible please stop. To edit in bad faith, adopting strawman policies so that one can complain about them later, is one of the worst sorts of abuse of wikifaith. Shimmin 14:11, 8 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I'm pleased that Shimmin doesn't have any names in mind, but were he to find some, one would probably be mine. I created the MediaWiki:APEC footer and added it to each member state. But NOT in bad faith, more as an example of what WILL happen with these abominations. I have not continued with other treaty organisations as that WOULD be in bad faith. I am actually very surprised that others have not removed APEC and its friends much earlier. I suppose decisions like that take their time on Wiki.
 * If the community decides that these abominations should be removed then I will be more than happy to shoulder my share of the work to remove them. More than happy. - Gaz 03:39, 9 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think the present solution (removing most footers, but not the main ones) is quite satisfactory. I really love the footers, actually, but if there are too many it will just be ridiculous. I would like to propose a general guideline for which footers to include or not: If the context is so immediate that it will be noted in the first sentence of the article, include the footer.. For instance you might begin the article on Portugal with "Portugal is a republic in Southwest Europe and a member of the European Union". (The actual article doesn't begin thus, but it's possible, it could.) So add those footers. There is no way that anyone would start out "Portugal is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries" or something like that. So those contexts are not immediate enough to have footers. Of course, a slight bit of usefulness gets lost when we take away these footers, but I really think it's gained back in simplicity. (Oh, and this "proposal" isn't to say that this should be decided on a country-to-country basis, of course. We should have consistency. I really think you would do this fine without this suggestion, anyway. Just adding a point.) -- Jao 06:27, 19 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I really like some of the footers too and believe consensus should be reached before eliminating them all. -- EuroTom 16:26, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think a solution is to move these to the daughter articles - NATO to military, APEC to economy, NAM to foreign relations, etc. --Jiang 06:31, 19 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think that that's a good comprimise.
 * So, should we make up a list of ones that we can 'annoint' as suitable for the main country pages, or should we leave it to the likelily resultant innumerate edit-wars to resolve?
 * James F. (talk) 08:58, 20 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Now that we have a categorization system in place, I think we should just revert to the old format and move even the geographical footers to 'Geography of...' articles. --Jiang 21:45, 31 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Just to 'brag' a little: I've started doing my part, by replacing the Template:Monarchies box with Category:Monarchies (itself containing the box, which may now be replaced by a link to said category for all the relevant country articles). So far, as a test, I have done the change to Andorra, which now contains two remaining footers. --Wernher 20:38, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

GDP
As there isn't much of a list at Gross domestic product where List of countries by GDP redirected, I updated the redirect to List of countries by gross domestic product.

However List of countries by GDP is included in the template and List of countries by gross domestic product isn't based on PPP, thus I suggest we remove the (PPP) reference from the template. Alternatively we could have the template/a redirect link to Gross_domestic_product -- User:Docu

Introduction
Should the first bolded name in the introduction of a country be the official English-language name, or the conventional English short form? The former seems more popular, but was questioned in this recent discussion at Talk:East Germany:


 * I think it should certainly remain at East Germany, and that a disambig at the top is unnecessary, but that the intro should be changed to "The German Democratic Federation (GDF), commonly known as East Germany", exactly like we have on East Timor. Actually I think all country articles should begin with the official English-language long form. We indeed have that at France or Finland or whatever. (I don't think we need original-language forms in the intro, we already have them in the table.) But again, that's for the intro, not the article title. -- Jao 20:54, 5 May 2004 (UTC)


 * i failed to note the native name in the box, that may obviate it in the intro. Badanedwa 03:58, May 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * I can't help but wonder why nobody complained about the suggestion here for a week, and then when I decided to go through it, it was reverted in eight minutes. Wik is welcome to explain why the current version is better. -- Jao 13:54, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Read up on this page, this has been discussed months ago. East Germany is the most common name, that's why it's naturally first. The usual format should be ", officially , is...". --Wik 14:09, May 13, 2004 (UTC)


 * I really believe there should be a convention on this in the project, in stead of this discussion arising every now and then. -- Jao 14:38, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


 * It should start with the official name, as is the case for almost all entries. We also use full names to start biographies. As long as we include the common name afterwards, nothing is being obscured. --Jiang 20:33, 13 May 2004 (UTC)


 * as stated in Talk:East Germany, this is also my view. this is an encyclopedia, not a collection of slang and common talk. Badanedwa 00:02, May 14, 2004 (UTC)


 * Agreed - e.g. "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland [...] [a]lso known as simply the United Kingdom ([or] UK)".
 * James F. (talk) 09:02, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Multi-part articles
I'm sure this has been discussed before, but why are country articles largely divided into as many as 8 sections (Military of, geography of, etc)? Yes, merging them would lead to long articles, but this is not a bad thing - articles can be broken down into sections for ease of editing, and, as is often cited, Wikipedia is not paper. And most encyclopedias I can think of have long country articles instead of 8 or 9 short country articles. It's particularly jarring on something like Serbia where the list of articles includes a wealth of articles that don't exist - something that shouldn't happen in a see also section.

Can we consider combining the country articles into larger single articles? Snowspinner 15:08, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

The template for the Serbia page needs some work, it does not the standard template properly. Deus Ex 17:26, 20 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Actually, the subpages for Serbia don't exist because it's presently a subnational entity and someone was overenthusiastic when adding those links. I'll go get rid of them now. --Shallot 17:50, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Most of these articles such as economy and politics have significant content so combining them is unacceptable. Not all information need be included on the main article page. For Serbia, all the US gov't PD text is at Serbia and Montenegro for the sovereign state, so the article should not replicate the countries template.

Communications and transportation just contain CIA raw numbers and should be all merged to "Communications and transportation". --Jiang 01:04, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

OK, but I think my basic point is being missed here - I think that there should be one long country article with a nice TOC for individual countries - not multiples. Snowspinner 01:05, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Languages
I see that some countries have stated languages as "official languages" although they haven't formally no language. (Perhaps simply entered them and forgot removing official.) Perhaps, as an intresting info, we could state the domestic or traditional language in the country if they don't have offical ones. Or is it someone that don't like this? (For the case of Sweden there are six languages that can be native used in courts, authorities, etc., spoken since pre-historic times, before the nation's birth.) I don't think this is bad information. CIA fact book usually state domestic languages.

(Personally, before I got aware of this I didn't belive that Jiddish and Romany was spoken in Sweden and could be native in general courts!) // Rogper 00:08, 31 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Just label these languages de facto, as is done at UK. --Jiang 21:42, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

Categories
As well as categories by continent and country categories we have some cross country ones. eg I made Category:Public holidays by country. There is also Category:Militaries which seems to be listing militaries by country. We probably need a X by country category which they could all be part of. Secretlondon 05:33, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Orphaned Categories
There's a large pile of unclaimed country categories in Category:Orphaned categories. I'd welcome anyone who'd like to weed these out. Please spread the word to other relevant geographically oriented WikiProjects if you could. You don't need to delete them there if you don't feel like it -- adding a parent category is enough. Thanks. --ssd 06:49, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Placement of link to the foreign relations articles
I think we should move the links to Foreign relations of ... from the Miscellaneous section to the Politics section. It's not perfect, but better than the misc section. --Shallot 14:33, 19 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Given that there have been no objections in several months, I'm going to implement this. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   23:06, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Economy Sections
The economy sections of most countries need to be guided by some sort of a common theme that allows a reader to find something out about the country's economy at a glance. Currently a great deal of countries have Economy sections that simply talk about the last five or six years of economic development without really giving a big picture overview. Specifically, a reader would want to know the GDP (total and per capita), the major industries, a tiny bit of history, perhaps some comparison with other nations. Part of the reason could be that this article is wishy-washy about what to include in the Economy section, instead of coming out and defining the facts that should be covered. --Ilya 07:57, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd say it should also hint at the major trade partners, and the main economic impediments, if any. For European countries, comparison with other countries could usually be limited to the comparison with the EU average. --Shallot 20:32, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Country-Specific Infobox Templates
I was wondering whether there was going to be a set format, mainly a naming convention, for a template for country-specific infoboxes. For example, Croatia uses Template:Croatia Table. There started to be discussion about it at Template_talk:Croatia_Table, but I couldn't find any follow-up discussion.

I propose the following:

Template: Infobox

(It's been days since I first started writing this post, so I can't remember if there was anything else I wanted to add. So, just post your opinions on what I have here....) GPHemsley 11:15, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Do those 🇦🇩 above stand for variable substitution or actual invocation of Template:country, as it is rendered? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   11:50, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * Variable substitution. For example, Template:Cayman Islands Infobox. GPHemsley 12:07, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Personnally, I'd prefer a more general template, e.g. Template:Infobox Countries, but as there are still problems with links built with variables in templates (they used to work in Test), the "per country" solution may be a reasonable temporary solution. -- User:Docu


 * Actually (and this is probably what I left out above), the theory was to have the specific country template to contain will all the information. So, Template:Cayman Islands Infobox would contain only  or whatever the variables are. So, essentially, you take up the least amount of room&mdash;and you make the use of the template uniform. GPHemsley 21:16, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Infobox look
By Cantus 03:09, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hello. About a day ago I changed the look of the Infobox country table to something a little bit more modern, elegant, and easier on the eyes. Jiang reverted me saying he disagreed with the change and wanted me to take it to the Talk page.

So I'm now putting my proposed Infobox look here, so everyone can say whether they agree with the change or not.

It is important to say that this format has already been implemented at a number of articles, and has been well received by the community. --Cantus 03:09, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)


 * Where has the format been implemented? It's just ugly. --Jiang 03:18, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * What exactly you don't like and what do you think should be changed? "Just ugly" isn't very constructive. --Cantus 03:58, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)


 * I concur with Jiang. It's just a worse version of the original. Ambi 03:59, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * tables are easier on the eyes. the new format requires mental construction of the old table in order to process the information. --Jiang


 * Perhaps you missed this because of the second sentence, so I'll repeat the question: where has this format been implemented? --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   00:44, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I actually prefer Cantus' new version. The slight grey background gives it a good separation from the page, the border lines for the cells are more subtle, and the text is easier to decipher. &mdash; siro &chi;  o  23:20, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

i dont see gray. i see white. the old version had gray behind the flag/coa though --Jiang 23:37, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think that a prerequisite to this change would be to have a bot ready to do the change should we agree on it. This differs significantly enough to cause a noticable lack of harmony among country articles. Having said that, I don't think we need all these changes. Perhaps the less white background is not a bad idea, but why the less black border? And the smaller font? It looks very... pastel. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;

What browser is Jiang using?
This is what I see (Safari, Mac OS X 10.3) (except for the links which should NOT be underlined, but because of some bug in Wikipedia I can't remove them; this has been ongoing for the last couple of days). --Cantus 23:27, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)



This is what I see (IE 6.0). The beige background and underlining are due to my own settings, but no cells appear. Yes, Cantus's version looks nice on his browser but given that so many people use IE... --Jiang 23:55, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)



I have IE 6.0, and I see dark borders between the cells in the European Union table, but I *don't* see them (or actually I see light border that are very hard to discern) at Template:European Union table. So my guess is that there's a problem with the stylesheets loaded depending on whether the page is an article or a template. Aris Katsaris 00:52, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support Cantus layout Yes or No and Why
No. It appears correctly on my computer but it doesn't on others, and the pages are ultimately designed for non-Wikipediaholics. Juppiter 01:25, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes. More elegant. Cleaner. Titles easier to see when bolded. More modern. Non-stressful to the eye. --Cantus 23:14, Oct 2, 2004 (UTC)

No. No table borders mean that it's difficult to tell one line and one column from another. Everything seems crunched into one cell. --Jiang 23:23, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As much as I dislike Cantus's way of doing things, I do actually like the new format better than the old one just for the reasons Cantus outlined. So I vote "yes", providing the problems with the new layout in other browsers are fixed (I use Opera and IE6&mdash;no problem there).--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 02:01, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Wow, now that I see how it looks in IE, that is an issue, but I still have to vote pro. Or rather, I vote that we should attempt to emulate the look, as seen in the screenshot above, if not with the current method. But I like the look. --Golbez 02:19, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

I find the extra lines of boxed tables generally cluttersome. In the examples shown it is pretty clear what goes with what (this is only a two-column table anyhow). @dupuy 05:16, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

It's over-designed. I'd consider a compromise... --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   11:47, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support:
 * 1) Cantus
 * 2) Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 02:01, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * 3) Golbez
 * 4) @alex
 * 5) &mdash; siro  &chi;  o  23:18, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

Oppose:
 * 1) Jiang
 * 2) juppiter
 * 3) Joy &#91;shallot&#93;

The Poll
When will the poll end?! Should we take a poll on *that* ? Juppiter 04:34, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * I believe most (if not all) parties agree that the layout the way I see it in my browser is the way to go. I believe most agree that, until the layout displays as intended in all major browsers, the change cannot proceed. We need people to modify my layout, so that it displays properly (as seen in my screenshot) in other browsers. --Cantus 05:15, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * Good point, get the IE folks on it, it displays fine in Firefox &mdash; siro  &chi;  o
 * For the record, I don't quite like how it looks in Firefox. :) --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;

when name etymology gets unwieldy...
... it needs to be split off from the lead section. Peripheral or even tangential information regarding how a country is named isn't really lead section material, it can be summed up nicely in a "Name" section just below the ToC.

I've done that, or seen it done and maintained it (don't recall in all instances), in Slovakia, Belarus, and just now in Ukraine. It seems reasonable, as no one has really complained in the past cases. I therefore propose that we explicate this possibility on the project page. --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   21:07, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In Angola someone named the etymology section "Origin and history of the name". --Joy &#91;shallot&#93;   11:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)