Template talk:Infobox company/Archive 11

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Owner

Hi there, when a sale to another company/Merger with a company is pending antitrust/regulatory approval, should anything be added to the infobox to say that the sale is pending, thanks. Pepper Gaming (talk) 18:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

By default, no. Pre-sale agreements are always very vague and only state intents rather than actual processes. Owner/parent fields change with actual change of ownership. Lordtobi (✉) 18:12, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: thanks because it doesn't say that anywhere on here, also because you can edit templates can you add that on here, thanks. Pepper Gaming (talk) 18:23, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Is it a common error? Owner reflect current stands and parent is for "current and former" parents, which excludes possible future parents, so I believe the exclusion is implicit and does not need to be stated explicitly. Lordtobi (✉) 18:27, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: what are you on about by 'possible future games'? and what does the 'no' mean, is it a question or something? Pepper Gaming (talk) 20:11, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Pardon, I wrote unclearly. Original statement fixed. Lordtobi (✉) 20:22, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Today's news that the purchase of House of Fraser by C.banner has collapsed is a timely reminder there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip. Cabayi (talk) 20:52, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

References

Thanks @Lordtobi: I wanted to know because of the current matters of the Disney-Fox merger that's happening and was wondering if any info about sales to other companies/mergers with other companies that are currently pending into the owner box and I also came here because over here because I was keeping adding 'sale to Disney pending' to the owner box. Once again thanks. Pepper Gaming (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

@Cabayi: the house of Fraser takeover is irrelavant as to why I came here, I came here because of something involving the Disney-Fox merger. Sorry i'm not intrested in that since it's also irrelavant to the Disney-Fox merger, you can remove that if you like. Pepper Gaming (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I believe Cabayi was giving an example of an announced acquisition that was suddenly called off. Trivialist (talk) 22:24, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

@Trivialist: thanks, @Cabayi: sorry if sounded rude by asking you to remove it. Pepper Gaming (talk) 11:36, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

"intl" parameter

Our documentation says "intl: Set positively (true, on, etc.) to switch applicable labels from American to international terminology, otherwise omit this parameter.", however looking that the code reveals that it only changes "Income" to "Profit" if intl is true/yes. Do we really need that parameter? If consensus shows that we don't, I will see myself removing it shortly. Lordtobi (✉) 08:01, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

It could be done more simply without the intl parameter, just checking if the profit parameter is used instead. -- WOSlinker (talk) 11:18, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

| label27 = {{#if:{{{profit|}}}|[[Net income|Profit]] |{{longitem|[[Net income]]}}}}

True, but why would we want this differentiation anyhow? I don't think that "Net income" is a term exclusive to the U.S. (as the intl description states), so we can use both parameters synonymous to "net income", breaking no template usage and having all displayed infoboxes aligned (in terminology). Lordtobi (✉) 11:23, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

So is this parameter still in use? I can't see it in the notes and I'm getting a Warning at Black Sheep Brewery? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:48, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The parameter was removed as of 4 March. Lordtobi (✉) 20:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Ah ok, thanks. I thought that might have been mentioned or discussed here. Is it now ca ase of manually removing all relevant instances? Martinevans123 (talk) 20:45, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Where you come across an intl tag, feel free to remove it. It does not harshly break anything in the article if it stays but obviously shows the edit preview error message. Lordtobi (✉) 20:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Ok. Could a bot do a global purge? Or is that not really worth the effort? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Technically PrimeBOT could do the trick, but as you say, it's not worth it to set a bot's eyes on this. Category:Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters is currently also full of pages with other problems related to this infobox. I might do a cleanup run tomorrow or so. Lordtobi (✉) 21:01, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:11, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• Okay, so I had begun a manual run, gone through all of U–Z, but then I read the category tag line: "The following 200 pages are in this category, out of approximately 12,091 total." (emphasis mine). Maybe this is worth a bot configuration after all. @Primefac: Do you think you could configure PrimeBOT to remove deprecated/invalid parameters from company infoboxes and get it approved? Lordtobi (✉) 18:27, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

  Get me a list of parameters that need removing (10+ instances each?) and I'll put something in. Primefac (talk) 21:15, 2 May 2018 (UTC) (please ping on reply)

As far as I can see, the most common ones are:

Extended content
slogancompany_sloganurlintlcurrent_statusalexaCEOcoordinatesopenedcloseddissolvedemployeesusersheadquartersmarket cap

However, many pages are just all over the place, and removing just the most common mistakes would hardly clear the aformentioned category. Do you think it would be possible to instead make PrimeBOT scan that category and remove everything from the respective infoboxes that is not part of the valid parameters? Valid ones are:

Extended content

| name = | logo = | logo_size = | logo_alt = | logo_caption = | logo_padding = | image = | image_size = | image_alt = | image_caption = | trading_name = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | romanized_name = | former_name = | type = | traded_as = | ISIN = | ISIN2 = | industry = | genre = | fate = | predecessor = <!-- or: | predecessors = --> | successor = <!-- or: | successors = --> | founded = | founder = <!-- or: | founders = --> | defunct = | hq_location = | hq_location_city = | hq_location_country = | num_locations = | num_locations_year = | area_served = <!-- or: | areas_served = --> | key_people = | products = | brands = | production = | production_year = | services = | revenue = | revenue_year = | operating_income = | income_year = | net_income = <!-- or: | profit = --> | net_income_year = <!-- or: | profit_year = --> | aum = | assets = | assets_year = | equity = | equity_year = | owner = | members = | members_year = | num_employees = | num_employees_year = | parent = | divisions = | subsid = | module = | ratio = | rating = | website = | footnotes =

Lordtobi (✉) 21:45, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Ping @Primefac, in case you didn't see my response. Lordtobi (✉) 20:59, 4 May 2018 (UTC)

(I'm watching the page now, fwiw) The main issue with removal all invalid parameters in infoboxes via bot is that while something like |slogan= is not a valid parameter, |formername= is really just a misspelling of |former_name=, which is valid. In other words, it's a huge context issue and historically bots that don't take into account spelling issues are rarely approved. But you're right, the last time I did this (Task 26) I actually needed a second run, but it did get the cat down from 7k to 2k pages (though of those 2k pages there were about 1500 different "invalid params"). If removing these params can feasibly get the cat from 12k down to even something like 4k that would be worthwhile from a cleanup perspective. Primefac (talk) 18:12, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Would it be possible to first have the bot dacpitalise all parameters, replace space with underscores, check for the most common exceptions (such as "url" instead of "website"), and then remove all invalids? Given that all those that would be removed didn't work prior to the removal either, there wouldn't be much of a loss when misspellings are removed. People who watch and curate these pages may be free to reinsert those correctly afterwards as well. Lordtobi (✉) 20:19, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

I mean, I guess so. I think one could make the argument that the most likely candidates for messed up params would be the caps (which, by the way, I tweaked in the "good params" list for readability). So yeah, I could probably make the argument to blanket-remove the deprecated "most used" ones you've listed above, and fix any "obvious" ones like |revenue year= instead of |revenue_year=. It would leave blatantly wrong ones in place, but it would likely cut down the category size by more than half (or more if we're lucky). I still don't think (based on Task 26 linked above) that I would get blanket approval to remove all invalid params unless there was a pretty strong consensus here. Primefac (talk) 03:07, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Did you consider using TemplateData monthly error report? [1] lists non-TD params (e.g. saying |intl= has 4663 instances, ~articles. Other reported "N" (Not defined in TD) I have just added to the TD list, like regular parameter |homepage=, this will say "Y" next month. Also, when knowing those top x parameters (not a parameter, highly used), one can easily see if that is a spelling error -- so the bot should not delete these or fix spelling. - DePiep (talk) 20:38, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Good point. Actually I totally forgot about this discussion; Primefac, any update? Lordtobi (✉) 20:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Eh, this kind of fell on the backburner for me as well.

There are ~1740 bad parameters in use by this template. 96 have 10+ uses, 40 have 20+ uses, 20 have 50+ uses, and 12 have 100+ uses (with the top winners being |homepage= at 43k and |location_country= at 20k). I think asking for even 40 params is a bit excessive, but fixing and/or removing the top 20 would definitely be doable. I could probably put the BRFA through in the next few days if that's acceptable. Primefac (talk) 23:22, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, I did not want to stir this up, I just happened to arrive here researching the |intl= parameter, via the 11k unk parameter category.

Trouble updating TemplateDatea: could not add existing param synonyms: |embed, ISIN2, location_country, homepage=. These are OK already, but should be added so that they do not report in TD report next September 1. So, these should not be in PrimeFacts list. (Before, I already encountered a JSON error in TD, I cleaned that up [2]).

A similar check could be: are all defined parameters (all usable in the template) listend correctly in #invoke:Check for unknown parameters? Improvements in here would clean up Category:Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters (0). -DePiep (talk) 05:46, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

You make a good point, and I would of course be checking the top 20 uses to ensure that it wasn't a TD error (and the params were actually not in use). I found this out last night with {{infobox person}}, which also suffers from a serious case of bad params and has four of the top "not supported" actually used by the template! Primefac (talk) 13:10, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I checked: the parameters list for #invoke:Check for unknown parameters (84 params) is equal to those used in the template. IOW, the unk parameter checklist is OK. (unless parameters are deprecated etc.). -DePiep (talk) 12:07, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• BRFA filed. Primefac (talk) 01:10, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Profit

@Primefac:, @Lordtobi: I unfortunately just noticed the intl parameter has been deprecated after reverting its removal from an article. Whoops Using profit in place of net_income still shows Net income when rendered. Am I doing something incorrectly (example), or is there consensus for profit → net income? Personally, I prefer the term profit for the sake of the general audience. →‎ GS →‎ ☎ → 11:17, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, "profit" has always rendered as "Net income" as long as intl is no or not present, and that was also the only change the parameter did, which is why it was deprecated. I wouldn't be opposed to have "Profit" render as the default, but do you think that "net income" is not understood well by a large portion of readers? Also, for the record, I will strictly oppose chaning the rendering term depending on which parameter is used (i.e. "net_income" -> "Net income" but "profit" -> "Profit" as overwrite), as people will start exchanging the parameter baesd on personal preference. Lordtobi (✉) 11:28, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: Thanks for the quick reply. I'll be upfront and tell you I'm out of my depth when it comes to suggesting technical changes to this template, so I won't oppose your expertise. As for profit vs. net income, my view is strictly anecdotal. Outside of people engaged in finance in the US, perhaps Canada too, I would say profit is used more and understood better by laymen. Also, I've never heard financial media like CNBC or Marketplace use the term net income. It's also used in popular chants/slogans in US politics, e.g. People over profit. Globally speaking, we may be outliers. What do you think? →‎ GS →‎ ☎ → 11:55, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, let's hear what others think, though. I'm splitting this into a seperate section, if you don't mind. Lordtobi (✉) 13:15, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Requesting permission to edit template

Moved to Talk:Nike,_Inc.#Requesting_permission_to_edit_template (Diff). Primefac (talk) 14:25, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

"affiliated"

I am cleaning up incidental bad parameters now [3]. For financial terms, I mainly follow the Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/PrimeBOT_28 (Primefac) list. re CEO and president etc, I try to save these as |key_people=. All doubtful parameters I remove.

However, there is one parameter that might be a useful addition: something like |affiliation= [4]. It could be a porte-manteau for any loose connection, in addition to parent and owner. As with many parameters in this template, it requires editor's care to apply this one correctly. Lordtobi -DePiep (talk) 10:44, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

@DePiep: I think it would generally be hard to define what this parameter is actually supposted to contain; just "any loose connection" is not going to cut it. Furthermore, it could easily become a parameter that people could interpret very differently, and that's usually nothing we'd want in an infobox. Infoboxes are for key information only. IMO, strong affilitations, plus context, should suffice when in the lead. Lordtobi (✉) 11:20, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Well, "any loose connection" is talkpage talk only, more to the point is in addition to |parent= and |owner=. And given the variety of companies we need to cover, an exact fixed definition is not needed (like, we also have |key_people=). Then, if a strong affiliation is in the lead, I agree, it is also important enough to be in the infobox. This is up to the editor, not the infobox, to maintain (decide which info should be in the lede/infobox). Infobox should not forbid it. -DePiep (talk) 11:45, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

BTW, airline companies can have "alliances". I'd say the infobox should have this info. -DePiep (talk) 11:48, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

This would again lack the context required to state how the companies are affiliated; the term in general is really vague. I'm not covinced that using the lead for this info (with context) is not sufficient. Lordtobi (✉) 12:14, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes the term is "vague" (i.e., not defined tightly). That is because the infobox nicely covers many situations. And of course, "context" is not in an infobox, it should be concise in description. This is easily handles by adding a qualifier ofr description in the data input.

"key number(s)"

I also see this: a company may have other key numbers, like # volunteers, # students, # shops. The infobox could have a generic parameter + label option, like: |key_number=, |key_number_label= (e.g. create: "Number of students 12.000"). Again, it is up the to the editor to restrain to "key" info but let's not forbid it per template. -DePiep (talk) 11:54, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

We have |num_locations= and |num_members= for such things. Students are unusual for companies, is a university page incorrectly using a company infobox? Lordtobi (✉) 12:10, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Why is |num_locations= an accepted key number and other examples are not? How is that dictated for all 60k companies? A wide generic template like this should have wider and laxer coverage. -DePiep (talk) 14:12, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Because locations are something lots and lots of companies have. Students usually not. If you allowed anyone to insert anything it will result in auniformity and a new target for vandalism. Lordtobi (✉) 14:17, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

No that's not vandalism. Every parameter is open for vandalism. But maybe if you mean: used outside of intention. That's about edit quality adding, applies to every parameter (as we can see today in the {{Infobox company}} usage).

All in all, you can't have it both ways. Either you accept, for example, |affilliated= being a well-defined word and so self-resticting and useful, or you accept an open parameter to cover any reasonable company essential (even with free labeltext option). "not much companies have students" is both true, and does not imply that it is irrelevant or wrong infobox info. Hell, there even is higly dedicated |aum=. Cuyrrent set of parameters is skewed and does not cover the aim of the template (that is, any company). -DePiep (talk) 14:26, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't know why AUM is included in this template and I find it hardly necessary. However, it's been here longer than my account so I cannot just remove it. Generally, infobox templates should cover as many broadly-necessary information while over all being concise. Lordtobi (✉) 16:49, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 18 September 2018

Please add a parameter of "gross margin" expressed in percentage along with the "net income" parameter. Net income often expressed in a huge number that many Wikipedians might find it messy and disturbing. It's also difficult to fetch an exact net income figure. -- It's gonna be awesome!✎Talk♬ 08:26, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit template-protected}} template. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the guidance. --It's gonna be awesome!✎Talk♬ 09:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

I propose to add a parameter of "gross margin" expressed in percentage along with the "net income" parameter because net income often rendered in a huge number that many Wikipedians/readers might find it messy and disturbing. It's also difficult to fetch an exact net income figure but gross margin. Since gross margin and net income are interchangeable, it's reasonable to place it beside "net income" attribution to directly and truly reflect a company's financial status instead of having reader to count by themselves with calculators.

Please let us hear you by leaving your precious opinions! Thank you! --It's gonna be awesome!✎Talk♬ 09:21, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Generally, I incline to not include any new parameters in the infobox as its infoset is already pretty large. However, I find your argument convincing, and thus will stay neutral in this discussion. However, should you achieve consensus, I could go ahead and add it to the implementation. Lordtobi (✉) 15:04, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

To me, "its infoset is already pretty large" is not strong enough as an argument. Itf there are additions p[ossible that would highlight any main descriptor, we could add them. In this case, I don't know if this is a core descriptor for financial situation. There are loads of $-descriptors, wood & trees. -DePiep (talk) 15:20, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. Too few people work to keep the financial data updated as it is, so adding another field that will stay out of date (and requires a different source than the standard financial statement accounting numbers) does not make sense. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:43, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Good argument, well described. -DePiep (talk) 19:22, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing opinions! In my humble opinion, gross margin of a company is generally updated by financial specific websites, e.g. gross margin of Microsoft., as gross margin is an important indicator of a company's financial status. Furthermore, by having gross margin in the infobox, the needs to include or update revenue and profit will be diminished as gross margin is already a combination of them. (I propose because one day my mom and I was having lunch while watching TV and a stock analyst in a TV program analysing why some people often chose the wrong company to invest, which got me impressed. ) So true, we should not judge a company simply based on how big the revenue or profit is. --It's gonna be awesome!✎Talk♬ 05:18, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Please read wikipedia:wikipedia is not. gross margin is not a comparable data to the general public. A gross margin of a car company and a software company such as Apple's iPhone, is not comparable. It may comparable among the same industry. But adding such parameter with either became "Excessive listings of unexplained statistics" WP:INDISCRIMINATE, or toward WP:original research on trying to explain that statistics. Also, if gross margin was added, so why not debt-to-equity ratio, profit to asset ratio? To make a clear cut, would be allow people to make their own research on stock market, or read Bloomberg and Reuters data. Matthew_hk tc 18:34, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

• While we are at it, do the current financial parameters fit these requirements? Is this list complete & to the point?

| revenue      =
| operating_income =
| net_income   = <!-- or |profit= -->
| aum          =
| assets       =
| equity       =

I have no issue in here (I am not familiar with accounting numbers), but we should be critical and consistent. BTW, while cleaning up Category:Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters (0) I met hundreds of unknown financial parameters (usually removed them). - DePiep (talk) 07:46, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

i often omit revenue and operating income which for a bank, what is revenue, is the profit margin of the interest rate in and out or something else? Also the ratio of turnover to cost of production /cost of sale varies in industries to industries . For operating profit, not all company had a balance sheet and income statement that listed EBIT or EBITDA well, as well as if operating income equal EBIT/EBITDA, how to treat extraordinary item? Sometime company listed some cost and profit as extraordinary event, but still part of those events could counter in industry. Just they may thinking listing them extraordinary would be better to show figure. |net_income=, |assets= and |equity= are minimal sufficient data to me to update without judgement of which number on the source to c&p (or in some case, need simple calculation of adding current and non-current asset if the balance sheet omitted total assets), while it would be good if asset management company had an actual |aum= that i can copy from external source.

Or in short, infobox was too small to list out all figure that should relevant , which instead it should direct people to read the annual financial report, quarterly report themselves. Matthew_hk tc 15:51, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 October 2018

Please copy/paste /sandbox into live code.

Change: |website= adds the wikidata-pencil to edit wikidata entry, when not locally (enwiki) provided. Consensus here. -DePiep (talk) 20:58, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:55, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Trouble with this infobox on another page

I'm having trouble with this infobox on the page Smith Electric Vehicles. Please see the discussion on Talk:Smith_Electric_Vehicles#Technical question on website in infobox. ExcitedEngineer (talk) 10:46, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Stupid WikiData... I've hidden the content on the page in question. Primefac (talk) 10:53, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Removal from this template really wasn't necessary.... --Izno (talk) 14:41, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

When Wikidata is read & shown, a "pencil" could show (i.e., edit-at-wikidata link). Some WP:Wikidata template/module. Quite sophisticated for these situations. -DePiep (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Indeed. There needs to be some indication that it's coming from WikiData, or there will be other instances (not listed here undoubtedly) where the wrong information is posted and regular editors don't know why. Primefac (talk) 16:10, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I am happy to summon the venerable RexxS to implement his favorite module for the parameter. :) --Izno (talk) 16:43, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Trawl Category:Wikidata templates (77). Use Category:Templates using data from Wikidata (800). My bad experiance#1: WP:WIKIDATA and this category do not differentiate between main/talk/help/etc.

Nor wrt input: local-enwiki/wikidata/hide/... -DePiep (talk) 20:21, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

@ExcitedEngineer, Primefac, Izno, and DePiep: I've made a small modification in Template:Infobox company/sandbox that indicates when the data is pulled from Wikidata. The pen icon has the tooltip "Edit on Wikidata" and clicking on it takes you to the relevant entry on Wikidata. You can see it in action at this diff for Smith Electric Vehicles. The real problem in this case is that Chrome doesn't like the url http://www.smithelectricvehicles.com/ although Firefox, Opera and IE11 are happy enough with the insecure site. The domain is for sale, so my inclination would be to remove the statement from Wikidata. --RexxS (talk) 23:20, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Removing it would be incorrect. The property can take an archive URL qualifier, so I wonder if it wouldn't be better to do some hacking in Module:Official website to a) be usable here and b) emit the archive URL when present and/or c) have something like Module:Citation/CS1's |deadurl=unfit. --Izno (talk) 23:34, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Do I understnd this is a www.smithelectricvehicles.com -- chrome issue, but not specific to {{Infobox company}}. So the sandbox proposal can go live. We agree? Meanwhile, for Smith_Electric_Vehicles we could either remove it from WD or use the archive URL (local and/or atg WD). - DePiep (talk) 09:12, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@Izno and DePiep: I've added an archive url to Smith Electric Vehicles (Q1720353). I'll go write a function call now to mimic {{Official website}} that can read the archive url and use it for the link. --RexxS (talk) 15:01, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@Izno: Module:WikidataIB now has a function that returns a formatted url like {{URL}} but takes it from Wikidata if no local parameter is supplied. If the local parameter is "NONE" or "none" then it returns nothing. If an archive url is present in Wikidata it uses that to link to:

• {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getWebsite |qid=Q1720353}} → www.smithelectricvehicles.com/ 
• {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getWebsite |qid=Q1720353 |url=http://www.example.com }} → www.example.com
• {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getWebsite |qid=Q1720353 |url=https://www.example.com }} → www.example.com
• {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getWebsite |qid=Q1720353 |url=NONE }} →

I'll test it a bit further before committing it to the main module. --RexxS (talk) 17:04, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Maybe add the pencil to {{Official webgsitye}}? And, reading the comment in the module sandbox: "getWebsite fetches the Official website (P856) and formats it for use in an infobox"-- can it be used as stand-alone too, especially in {{Official website}}? - DePiep (talk) 12:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

I've fixed it so that the pen icon only displays when the data is actually sourced from Wikidata. It can be used as a stand-alone, and it's easy to wrap a template around the call – you could make a template containing something like:

• {{#invoke:WikidataIB |getWebsite |qid={{{qid|}}} |url={{{url|{{{1|}}}}}} |noicon={{{noicon|}}} }}<noinclude>{{documentation}}</noinclude>

The problem with trying to get it to work with {{Official website}} is that {{Official website}} expects to display a fixed text, either "Official website" or supplied via the |name= parameter. It would be wasteful to make another call to Wikidata to fetch the site url again, just for the display. For use in infoboxes, I would recommend using this getWebsite call in Module:WikidataIB or wrapped in a suitable template. --RexxS (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, great. I learned that the module is aimed at infoboxes ("IB" duh), so we should not overaim into non-IBs. -DePiep (talk) 17:35, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have mentioned that Zyxw already added the code to make the pen icon appear to Module:Official website in August, so that module seems to be working as planned. It's a good option for using in External links sections and it's very robust. --RexxS (talk) 18:51, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

No need to say sorry, I clearly did not research the issue. I have not noted the August change. All I can claim is that earlier here, I wrote that the pencil button is Quite sophisticated for these situations, as you proved & improved. -DePiep (talk) 19:17, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

former type

As I understand it, when the 'defunct' parameter is set, then 'type' appears as 'former type'; the link is piped to List of business entities. However, this is a redirect. Could the link be changed to go directly to List of legal entity types by country? Colonies Chris (talk) 15:00, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

 Done - FlightTime (open channel) 15:06, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

So, |type= is for legal form or by ownership? state-owned enterprise, private, public are by ownership, but they all could be Società per azioni.? Same in China, Chinese: 股份有限公司 (company limited by shares) could be an entity that entirely owned by private citizen and unlisted, or as public/listed companies that shares can be freely traded, or entirely owned by government-owned companies . Would the link itself was wrong? Matthew_hk tc 15:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

As well as the page List of business entities was only moved to List of legal entity types by country by Rjlabs this year. Despite the content seem became a listed of name by country for a long time. Matthew_hk tc 16:02, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Matthew hk: Generally, it should be by ownership. For example, "Aktiengesellschaft", "Société à responsabilité limitée" and "Limited liability company" are all ambigous in terms of ownership, so "Private", "Public", "Subsidiary" and rarely "Division" (as you porposed also "State-owned", but could be handeled the same as Subsidiary) give a much clearer meaning for readers lacking the knowledge regarding legal company types. Lordtobi (✉) 16:45, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

So, A German company having type=Aktiengesellschaft is ambiguous? I think the error is here, not there. -DePiep (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

In Germany Aktiengesellschaften are public, but in Switzerland they can be both. Lordtobi (✉) 19:39, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes. Is what I said. So, the problem is in the template, not in the claerity of being "AG in Germany". Current 'solution' (requiring extra & specific documentation parameter definition) is not helpful nor clear. -DePiep (talk) 19:59, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Deutsche Postbank is an AG and a subsidiary (NOT a public, but a subsidiary of a public/listed company). So, the link to the list is totally wrong. Matthew_hk tc 13:32, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Empty category

I have emptied Category:Pages using infobox company with unsupported parameters (0). First, bot Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/PrimeBOT 28 brought it down from 11.500 to 2,250, then manual edits made it to zero. Impressions: Maybe {{Chinese name}} could be incorporated (instead of added below the infobox), and there clearly is a need for some "horizontal relationship" (sister companies, associations etc.), and for some 'denomination/characteristics' specifier. -DePiep (talk) 10:48, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Wow. After reaching an actual zero on October 7, there have been added 7 (already removed) and 16 (current) pages in this category. That is an average of two articles per day. Could it be about editor-friendliness? Clearness of parameters? -DePiep (talk) 06:43, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

From what's currently in the cat, it looks like people not understanding how infoboxes work. There are a few "revert to last versions" that undid our changes, but otherwise it's newbies changing things like |defunct= to |relaunched=, which seems perfectly reasonable even though it does nothing. Primefac (talk) 10:23, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Changing |defunct= to |relaunched= (not a parameter) does change something: it removes data from view, and it introduces an unknown parameter. All in all, my main experience & impression is (also after I have edited ~2500 of these intfoboxes) that the current parameter set is not intuitive nor easy to apply. For example: financial, location, kernel factual, history data: quite ad hoc (non-systematic) names and even meanings. IOW, maybe the whole parameter set can use a review & redesign to be more editor-friendly. -DePiep (talk) 15:02, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

When is a set of infobox parameters ever as intuitive as so you do not even have to check the documentation on what fields are valid? If people don't know how to properly insert the template, the visual editors has everything they need to find out what fields can be filled. Lordtobi (✉) 15:34, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

"not even have to check the documentation" would be an ideal situation -- other end of the range of possibilities. But in this case: parameter naming & meaning is (needlessly) confusing. Why exists |hq_location= next to |location_city=, |location_cuntry=? in finance, more often the year is added in () backets not the dedicated parameter. You don't have to believe me, just watch what the editors do. Needlessly complicated. -DePiep (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Lately there has been a push (especially in the biography infobox community) to get away from the "all-in-one" parameters in order for better data management (e.g. in rugby bios we went from just "teams" to "teamA", "teamB", etc). It's a lot easier for someone new or unfamiliar with the code (or VE) to see |num_employees_year= and put the information there, rather than guessing that it should go at the end of |num_employees= in parentheses. Primefac (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear; I meant it "does nothing" in that "it doesn't do the thing that the user thinks it does". My particular find/example, in deference to the above conversation, is an example of a user not knowing how an infobox works, and (I assume) just assuming that any given parameter will show up if entered. I suppose my reply was to look more in detail at why these parameters might be getting added. Primefac (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

I've seen & edited & built many many infoboxes, for example through Category:Unknown parameters (275). Recent years, I never met an editor-unfriendlier one like this one. Stop saying "it's the editors' fault". It is template-programmers fault. BTW You have not responded to my "Why exists..." line. -DePiep (talk) 19:58, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

ffs, I'm not trying to throw anyone under any buses, and I'm not saying it's all the editor's fault. What I've been trying to say is that we should figure out why these parameters aren't being used properly. It could be poor template params, it could also be people being thick. It could also being previous edits being reverted and it's nobody's fault.

As for your question, I don't know, because I didn't really think about it. Primefac (talk) 20:10, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'll have a night or two over this then reread the thread. TBH, my "Why exists..." point is a bit of core. -DePiep (talk) 20:25, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposal re Headquarters

There are companies whose "legal" (or registered) headquarters, e.g. where they are registered for tax purposes, is different from their "effective" (or principal executive offices), e.g. where the CEO, CFO operate from. Many of these companies are tax inversions, and some are very large, and include examples like Medtronic, Allergan, Mylan, Shire, Michael Kors, and Accenture.

Should we rename Headquarters to "Registered Headquarters", and create a new field after "Registered Headquarters" of "Executive Offices"?

thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 00:57, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Britishfinance, the field should be used for the physical location of a company, orr simply, what it says on the "Contact us" page of that company. When registered elsewhere (e.g. Tencent based in China but registered on the Cayman Islands), this can be mentioned in the prose with a reliable source attached. I don't think renaming the parameters is necessary, so I'd oppose such actions. Obviously, this may be open to further comments. Regards. Lordtobi (✉) 01:14, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Lordtobi, that used to work for companies that were in small Islands but is was unambiguous as to their true headquarters. Now Allergan calls itself Irish, the SEC lists is headquarters as Ireland, and Allergan's global accounts are based in Ireland's GNI accounts (and not the US). And yet, no Allergan execs live in Ireland. Same with Mylan, who is legally a Dutch company (and part of Dutch GDP), but in practice a U.S. company; and many others. I think that "contact" is too vague now and can cause confusion. I see evidence in the infobox of these companies of editors switching the locations (or, more common now, listing the separate locations under their own sub-headings). These companies on their websites and annual reports use "Registered Headquarters" and "Executive Offices" (or versions thereof). The concept of a "Registered Headquarters" is unambiguous (and legally defined, and referencable to Sec 10-Ks etc.) so is not WP:OR. The concept of "Executive Offices" is becoming more common, and where listed on the company's website (more common), is also unambiguous and not WP:OR. The current label is open to interpretation and is not capable of showing the correct, unambiguous, position.Britishfinance (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Britishfinance, "headquarters" really isn't a term that should be defined by Wikipedia, as it is a matter for the companies themselves. For example, you claim Allergan is registered in Ireland but not actually based there, however, their website clearly states that they are headquartered in Dublin, and reliable sources seem to agree. The company also appears to be a merger between a US company and an already Irish company. To assume tax inversion without reliable sources backing that up appears to be OR, too.

For Accenture, when given that headquarters is where the execs are, see that their CEO is based in France, CFO in Georgia, COO in Belgium, others in London, Singapore, New York City... (sourced with their LinkedIn/Twitter profiles). So where would their operational headquarters be? Then, Medtronic says that their "principal executive office" is in Dublin, which would mean that their executives are actually there instead of the US.

You also haven't provided any sources that they are committing tax inversion, which in several of these cases I would say is wrong, since pre-existing plc companies bought non-public U.S. companies and assumed their name. My point still stands that we should use whatever the company says (or, if necessary, what reliable sources say) their headquarters location is. If sourcable (through reliable sources), other primary operating locations can still be included via a separate section. Lordtobi (✉) 15:07, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Lordtobi You can go onto the Wiki articles for the individual companies in question for their history regarding inversions (e.g. Allergan's real name is Actavis, which was a US inversion, who then bought Allergan Inc. but renamed the merged group as Allergan plc). But, your response outlines the problem. For all the above companies (Allergan, Accenture, Medtronic), their legal, SEC 10-K, tax-registered headquarters is Ireland. And yet, there is a case that their real headquarters is not Ireland. You are proving the case. My understanding of the infobox is not meant to be a place where a "judgement" is not taken by an editor regarding a headquarters (the infobox uses the term "headquarters"), it should be an unambiguous fact. However, as you see yourself, while the only unambiguous fact is the "Registered headquarters" (per legal SEC 10-K filings), whereas many companies list the "Executive Offices" separately. Using one field in the infobox called "Headquarters" is therefore not appropriate in my view; or at a minimum, it would need to be re-defined as the "Registered Headquarters"; however I think it would be helpful to add the "Executive Offices". thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 15:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Britishfinance, let's take my Accenture example again. Where are their "executive headquarters" when their actual executives are scattered all around the world? In that case, they do not have an "executive headquarters" location, or we would need to set it to "Planet Earth" (or, if one of them flies to Mars or the Moon, change it to "Milky Way"). It's not our job to re-interpret a company's information, we stick to reliable, secondary sources (see WP:V). If these sources say Allergan is based in Dublin, we have no reason to say they aren't. Again, you have not provided any sources that support your statements (that they are not actually based in Ireland). Such actions, without reliable sources, are definetly original research. Lordtobi (✉) 15:44, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Lordtobi For some firms, they do no list their "Executive Headquarters". For example, Allergan, list two headquarters - Ireland and US here [5]; but list the US headquarters as where their Executive Leadership reside here [6]. Even through their legal headquarters (for SEC 10-K purposes) is Ireland. I can show the same issue with Medtronic and other inversions - a separate "Registered Headquarters" but a second "Executive" Headquarters that is not the "Registered Headquarters". The current single label of "Headquarters" does not work in this case and creates ambiguity as to what headquarters is being referred to? We should clean this up and recognize that for many large companies (and I am sure smaller ones), there is a "Registered HQ" (the legal one) and an "Executive HQ". Are disputing that this exists?, or are you disputing that he current infobox label covers it? Britishfinance (talk) 16:07, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Britishfinance, if I read correctly it says "U.S. Administrative Headquarters", which would mean that those depict their administrative headquarters for the U.S., not global headquarters (whether administrative or not). The Morning Call summarizes it as "At Allergan, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, for tax reasons but operating in Parsippany, N.J., [...]". The Irish Times also describes the Madison location as "Allergan’s US headquarters". Thus, by default, Dublin would qualify for the headquarters parameter in the infobox, and Madison be outlined in prose. You may also discuss in the article's talkpage whether it would be better to insert Madison into the infobox instead (local consensus). In either way, an {{efn}} note could also be added to outline the respective other headquarter briefly. The current solution for Medtronic, if properly sourcable, would also work. This can be applied to all tax-inverted companies, where sourcable. An additional paramter is not really necessary here, as it is a very small and localized problem. Lordtobi (✉) 16:22, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Lordtobi But that is my concern, the infobox should be unambiguous and not require debate or consensus from editors. Even if a consensus was reached for a company, it might not be stable and another group could change it? The only unambiguous method is that we re-label "headquarters" to "Registered Headquarters" and define as the legal corporate headquarters (e.g. which is always sourceable and clear, per Sec 10-K filings). Then we could also add another label (I know, nobody wants more infobox labels!) which would say "Executive Headquarters" (or "Operational Headquarters"), which would be defined as only being necessary where the company defines it as different from the "Registered Headquarters". You are right that this is a smaller subset of companies that are affected, but some of these are very large companies, and I felt it was something that the infobox could be more specific on. However, if it is felt that that the current system continue, then so be it. thanks Britishfinance (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Britishfinance, but then we come back to my first point where companies are legally registered in some essentially tax-free country but claims its headquarters to be where its primary operating offices are, in China. Headquarters do not always mean the same thing. Other problems arise when looking at KingsIsle Entertainment, which is registered and has its executives based in Dallas County, while the majority of staff and self-claimed headquarters are near Austin. We could apply neither proposed parameter to this company's Austin location. What I'm trying to say is that not every possible solution works for every case, and a very localized problem should not bear changes globally, even if your approach to this is noble. Keeping it simple works for the vast majority of articles, and exceptions for the rest. I believe the solution on Medtronic works just fine for your purposes and is unambiguous, and if you wish, we can make this part of the guideline, in the likes of "If the company has multiple headquarters, such as one legally and another for operations, you can list them using {{Unbulleted list}} and append in brief which function each location has. Each location must appear in reliable sources." Thoughts? Lordtobi (✉) 09:58, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

Lordtobi I think you make the correct point there is always going to be an element of judgment/consensus required for identifying the functioning headquarters of certain companies, and that for the overwhelming number of companies this is not an issue; however, where it does arise, it would be interesting to capture it. There are many big companies for which this is the case (e.g. Michael Kors is a British Virgin Isles company), and where it happens, material financial consequences ensue (e.g. different tax rate, the company operates under different legal status etc). A simple test I use in WP is whether a major news channel researcher (e.g. the BBC), in checking a WP page, would find a piece of information useful (both in content and verifyiability). I think it would be helpful if the infobox of Michael Kors was clear that it had a "Registered HQ" field (showing the BVI) and an "Operational HQ" (showing the consensus on the "Real" HQ). The issue of judgement/consensus, as you point out, could still apply to the executive or operational headquarters, but wouldn't it be nice to capture the unambiguous legal headquarters. The act of creating a "Registered HQ" field could also prompt editors to double check as to whether they have picked this element up properly in the fact base of the company? thanks. Britishfinance (talk) 10:29, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Actually, some tax haven had special name in their laws for offshore company such as "exempted company". Make no sense to call AsiaSat, APT Satellite Holdings and many many Hong Kong and Chinese company that listed in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong as truly "Bermuda company", "Caymans Island company", it may somewhat make sense to call them foo holding company. Sometimes it is notable in media those listed company had to filing merger notice in both "offshore heaven" and Hong Kong, or file lawsuit in "offshore heaven", but not all are well related to tax evasion purpose, as the subsidiaries not tax resident in those sub-nation as well as dividend are not taxed by the law of Hong Kong. Matthew hk (talk) 15:42, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

But some more notable example would be Fiat Chrysler Automobiles headquarter in SEC filing, is in London, certainly not matching the lede which call the group "Italian and American multinational corporation ". However, need more source to dig out the US operation headquarter and Italy operation headquarter and/or the actual global headquarters. On top of this shit, the company is incorporated in the Netherlands. Matthew hk (talk) 15:45, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Matthew hk Very interesting ! So, do you think that it would be good to capture the legal Topco of a company on the infobox (as "Registered HQ"), and move the consensus debate to its "Operational HQ"), or as Lordtobi feels, do you think that the current system is fine. I do sympathize with Lordtobi's argument, however, where a company's true legal Topco can be known (which it always is for a public company), I feel that it would be of encyclopedic value to note to record it separately (and move the consensus debate issue to the "Operational HQ" label). Our discussion, at a minimum, shows that we could tighten up the wording and description around what "headquarters" means in this infobox. thanks Britishfinance (talk) 16:21, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

And i agreed with Lordtobi, most company did not need to have two parameters, and in some case, company moved their headquarter to a suburb of a metropolis that administratively it was part of another city (for example Greater Rome = the former Province of Rome, Greater Manila, Greater Athens) , the wording of two proposed parameter did not fit to the situation . And {{ubl}}. {{aligned table}} already done the job. Renaming the existing parameter would cause way many verification job. e.g. Tencent the holding company actually an offshore company, so did Baidu, Alibaba Group (all Caymans). It is a hell list of company to add back the actual city of the offshore company and verify the location of the actual operating headquarters. Matthew hk (talk) 16:26, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

• Leave template as is is my opinion. At least for companies traded publicly in the US (regardless of where legally domiciled), the "address of principal executive offices" can easily be sourced from their SEC filings (see the Mylan example here), and this is the city that should populate the "headquarters =" parameter. The country of legal domicile, if different, should be discussed (and sourced) in the article text (and can also be gleaned from the leading two characters of the "ISIN =" parameter in the infobox). UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:34, 11 December 2018 (UTC)

question

I'm trying to create a company infobox in my Sandbox. The 'Show options' panel displays the reordering 'up' and 'down' arrows but it is disabled. Can we change the order of the information that is displayed in the infobox? Is it because I'm working in my Sandbox that I can't change the order of the fields? Please help. Thanks! ShiningStar9 (talk) 10:55, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

ShiningStar9 No, the order is fixed so that the infobox looks the same everywhere it's used. "Show options" & the arrows are a part of the Wikipedia:VisualEditor, not the infobox. Cabayi (talk) 11:26, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the information, Cabayi! ShiningStar9 (talk) 14:09, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

warning message

the warning message is missing a link:

preview = Page using Template:Infobox company with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"

should be

preview = Page using Template:Infobox company with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"

 Done – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Total liabilities

I think we should add a Total liabilities (|liabilities=) along with |liabilities_year= row to the infobox. I don't see why their isn't one and I think the extra information it would provide could be beneficial to readers. We could even go as far as to calculate the equity from the assets and liabilities etc., but I don't see any need to do this, but we could. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 04:36, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

For terminology, i often confuse, total assets should equal equity plus all the debt, in turn net asset should equal equity (minority interest is another thing). People should easily know total debt by making rough calculation by looking at total and net assets.

for the confusing part, you mean "total debt" or "total debt + equity" for " Total liabilities"? Matthew hk (talk) 08:25, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• Is there a distinct difference between total liabilities and net liabilities? The latter is already included in the template. Lordtobi (✉) 08:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: I don't see "net liabilities", are you sure it's in the template? – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 21:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

BrandonXLF, upon further review, it is indeed not in the template. I was probably on the wrong page, sorry. Lordtobi (✉) 07:16, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose this addition. This is just another parameter that will rapidly fall out of date, and it is not one that is commonly reported on in sourced articles (unlike assets, revenue, or equity, I have never seen a ranking of companies by liabilities) UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:59, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

The data is essentially on every financial statement of listed company. However, on news report, only company with risk of closing down would get attention by having an article for how much the net current debt or debt to equity is. As i said before in other thread, too many data is relevant but adding too much data to the infobox, would confuse people, as company from other industry can't compare directly. Despite by common sense, if total assets (|assets=) in infobox listing 1000M, but equity (|equity=) listing 1M or negative, by rough calculation we know what level the debt is, just we don't know what level of current and non-current debt. Matthew hk (talk) 17:22, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@UnitedStatesian: We could even just have the infobox just add it automatically add the missing ones by doing, "total liabilities = total assets - total equity", "total equity = total assets - total liabilities" and "total assets = total equity + total liabilities". – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 21:06, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@BrandonXLF: You was asking to add total liabilities, now you correct yourself to request net liabilities? Matthew hk (talk) 05:24, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@Matthew hk: Why do we want to use net liabilities? – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 14:13, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

I don't think the infobox can be coded to do that calculation, since the parameters usually contain a mix of numbers, text and references. The html code is not a spreadsheet. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:27, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

@UnitedStatesian: I could do it easily, it should work like 99% of the time. – BrandonXLF (t@lk) 04:08, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Would love to see in the sandbox once you have it set up; let me know. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:10, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Defunct company

How should this infobox be used with a defunct company name and is no longer used? For example, Lantiq was bought by Intel in 2015 and Intel is no longer using the Lantiq brand. Should it be listed as a subsidiary of the previous owner, or Intel? Initramfs (talk) 15:05, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The documentation explains how to use |defunct=, |successor=, and related parameters. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:01, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: he is referring to |subsid=. For my answer. It would be too long to list all defunct |subsid= or even current subsidiary for a mega corporation. May be i would add Inter as |owner= and |parent= in Lantiq as well as stating the status in |defunct=, |fate=, but not vice versa. Matthew hk (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The OP did not refer to |subsid=, and I can't think of a reason to use |subsid= in the Lantiq article, which is why I did not mention it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

"Should it be listed as a subsidiary of the previous owner, or Intel?"Matthew hk (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

• Extending from the above, whether a company that has been acquired is defunct usually depends on whether the company continues to operate (under its old name or a new one), or had its operations merged with another company. If I read this source correctly, the company was merged with Intel's related businesses into a new division known as the Connected Home Division, in which case Lantiq would be defunct as of April 16, 2015, its successor being the Connected Home Division. Had it been the other way around, e.g. the company renamed "Intel Lantiq" or whatever, but contining to operate as the same company, it would "just" be a name change. Lordtobi (✉) 17:11, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Slogans

I'd like to revisit slogans. I know after this discussion it was removed, but I think it makes sense to allow it (of course all the usual requirements apply: must be sourced). In particular I notice that on many pages it is put into one of the two caption fields, which is even worse. I think it is just as valuable to have (again, if it can be sourced) as many of the other fields, such as key_people or num_employees. Thoughts? UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:08, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I dislike slogans for several reasons. For one, they do not provide any information to the user and instead just act as advertising for the company. Furthermore, slogans are nothing firm, they could change with every announcement, and keeping up with this stuff is wasted tile and resources. When you say "it can be sourced", I must assume that you are talking about primary sources, because I've rarely ever seen something like that covered in reliable, secondary ones. Slogans being stuffed into image captions is also not a good reason to make room for a dedicated parameter. Lordtobi (✉) 14:47, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Agree slogans are self-promotional and should not be included. MB 15:31, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I do mean reliable secondary sources. And I just don't see how they are different from the logo, which seems to me to be just as self-promoting: just a slogan in pictoral form. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Logos make for a clear visual identification of a company. The slogan is just a bunch of non-identifying words that are rarely original. Lordtobi (✉) 19:02, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

I also note the {{Infobox brand}} has |tagline= as an allowable parameter, so there is a consistency argument as well. UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:16, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Other stuff exists. If anything, I would ask for that template's parameter to be removed for the same reasons. Lordtobi (✉) 20:26, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Previous discussion (2008), another previous discussion (2009), and a discussion at Infobox organization (2018). All against slogans in the infobox. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:07, 10 March 2019 (UTC)

Pay ratio

We should add a parameter for pay ratio (aka Wage ratio), a very useful metric about employee inequality within companies which is now required in SEC filings [7][8] due to Dodd-Frank.[9]. For more info., see [10]. --David Tornheim (talk) 12:23, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

David Tornheim, I think such numbers differ greatly between key individuals within a company, so there would not be a single number assignable to that field. It can also change at any moment and with every change in management, and it is usually not reported on outside of notable cases (1$ takeouts, or 1000% surpluses in the big companies) and SEC filings, which are usually not published with private companies. Lordtobi (✉) 13:04, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

No there is a single number calculated per Dodd-Frank for publicly traded companies who file with SEC. E.g. McDonald's is 3101:1 [11]; Walt Disney 1,424:1 [12]; Linde Plc 1,629:1 [13]. The Dodd-Frank bill makes it pretty straightforward to report. --David Tornheim (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: In fact, a number of our articles for big companies already have sections dedicated to this with the exact number:

• JPMorgan_Chase#CEO-to-worker_pay_ratio
• Procter_&_Gamble#CEO-to-worker_pay_ratio
• Alphabet_Inc.#CEO-to-worker_pay_ratio
• First_Data#CEO-to-worker_pay_ratio
• Wells_Fargo#CEO_Pay_Ratio
• Goldman_Sachs#CEO-to-worker_pay_ratio
• Citigroup#CEO_Pay_Ratio
• CIT_Group#CEO_Pay_Ratio

--David Tornheim (talk) 13:47, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

David Tornheim, in that case I think it makes sense, yes. If there is no opposition from other users I can implement this later today. Regards, Lordtobi (✉) 14:11, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Lordtobi: Thanks. Do you think median pay and CEO compensation could (or should) or should be added too, since all the data is included with the pay ratio calculation? CEO compensation could go under the "key_people" parameter. Median income could either be separate or be included with the "pay ratio". I have only limited familiarity with how parameters are used for infoboxes. I'm not trying to make things more complicated. Doing just the "pay ratio" parameter would be much appreciated. --David Tornheim (talk) 14:23, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Being listed in SEC filings is not nearly enough to justify inclusion in the infobox; there are many numbers in SEC filings and we don't list them all. The wage ratio is not a figure that is commonly reported on for most companies. Toohool (talk) 16:56, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. SEC is US only. This is not common enough to be consider a "key" piece of information about most companies that belongs in the infobox. Anything significant about a particular ratio (e.g. it caused a shareholder action) could be covered in the article. MB 17:17, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Nice metric, but very limited use. But a good idea for wikidata property. Jklamo (talk) 11:49, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Profit field

If a company has a loss, it there a good way to show that in the net_income field. Just using a minus sign (-) before the number doesn't stand out very well. Genesco is an example. MB 00:14, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Maybe currency templates should be amended to display the text in red when the number is negative? Lordtobi (✉) 18:15, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

I looked into this a bit more and am more confused. It looks like and are supposed to indicate if the number is a gain or a loss (in which case a minus sign is superfluous). Is that really intuitive? Until reading the documentation for those templates, I though or meant that, for instance, the profit increased or decreased from the profit in the prior year. MB 15:06, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

People had argued with me that () and color red is not clear (e.g. net income: (1,000) which i admitted it may against the MoS of color), which i end up use the word "negative" instead for absolute no confusion. Or may be the infobox need a flip of net assets or net liability (net assets in negative), as well as net profit or net loss (negative net profit).

For the second problem, a decrease in net loss (e.g. 10M net loss in 2016 to 1M net loss in 2017), by absolute value sense, -1 is less than -10, or it is an increase. So for this part i don't know which presentation is better. Matthew hk (talk) 15:16, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Archives?

Hi, all. Is it possible to add a field to indicate where the archives for a company are held? Not sure if you would want this or not, but there is a lot of other hyper-specific information in these fields and is a field that would really help researchers out.

Thanks for considering!

Emjackson42 (talk) 19:52, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

You may add as an second external link in the infobox. But it would just led to argument on which url should be merit as the second link. You can also add as further reading section in the article under the main body of text. Deutsche Bank for example, have an archive of their annual report and publication back to 1980s (or earlier) by digitization. Matthew hk (talk) 20:08, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Matthew hk. I added it as the first URL since the company (as it was known) is defunct. Here's the use case: Lord & Burnham. Emjackson42 (talk) 13:45, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

We need to find a more neutral term than "trading name"

I'm specifically referring to this edit on 16 August 2012 by User:Mr. Stradivarius. This goes to one of the major points of divergence between American English and British English: in American English, the primary connotations of the word "trade" are international trade, informal bartering, and certain types of craft professionals. But the term is not generally used for commercial transactions. Which is why Americans use the phrase "doing business as" and refer to "business hours" instead of "trading hours."

I see two ways of fixing this. We could go to a dual term like "trading name/doing business as". Or we could go to "trade name," the current compromise article title which is actually used in a significant minority of American states (Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, and Washington). --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:15, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Some context: this is the edit where I made the change, and this is the protected edit request I was responding to. I personally don't mind what is used, although if I had to choose something, I would follow the trade name article title. User:Czarkoff might also wish to comment if he is still around. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 09:00, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

Agree that we should use "trade name" instead of "trading name". The parameter itself should also be renamed, which would require an AWB/bot. Lordtobi (✉) 21:29, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

I've added the param to the template, updated the /doc to reflect the change, and added a tracking cat just to see how many pages need changing. Note that |trading_name= still works for the moment. Primefac (talk) 13:40, 20 July 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 2 August 2019

I need to create an article for company information, need permission to edit the template Instafeed Social Networking (talk) 11:43, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not done, you do not need to edit this template to create a company article, rather use the template on the target article. Furthermore, edit requests are not meant to give you permission to edit but rather for you to request specific changes to be made to the template. Lordtobi (✉) 11:54, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 3 October 2019

Please change the usage of {{wdib}} in this template to use the following parameters:

• |rank=best This ensures that we use the highest-ranked official site if multiple are present and one has a preferred rank.
• |maxvals=1 This ensures that we don't try to include multiple URLs in |url= for {{#invoke:WikidataIB|function}}, which is only meant to hold one URL and has strange behavior when multiple are present.

A good test case for these changes is Publicis Sapient; if you remove |homepage= from {{Infobox company}}, it tries to show both values for the official site property on its corresponding Wikidata item as the same link. Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 02:27, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Can you please make your proposed changes in the template's sandbox so that they are easy to test? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:35, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 04:51, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Logan, do you have an active example with this issue that I could test the sandbox against? Regards, Lordtobi (✉) 07:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for putting the code in the sandbox, which allowed for easy testing at Publicis Sapient. It looks like it works. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:34, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

TfD notice

@Lordtobi, since the TfD discussion is about Template:Infobox company/wikidata and not this template, could we maybe remove the TfD notice here? Seems to be unnecessary clutter on every single company page we have. – Thjarkur (talk) 18:42, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Þjarkur, Twinkle did this for me, so I would assume that it is standard practice. That said, I too think that the clutter is unnecessary. If you feel like removing it, you can wrap the TfD notice in a noinclude. Regards, Lordtobi (✉) 18:50, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

This is a merger discussion, and thus both templates should have the notice. Primefac (talk) 12:59, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

@Primefac: Please wrap it in a noinclude. It makes no sense to clutter every company article with that notice. Moreover the notice obstructs content on mobile devices. 180.151.92.126 (talk) 15:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

The template is no longer in use as the discussion has concluded. There is nothing to wrap in a noinclude left. Lordtobi (✉) 15:40, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Headquarters appears two times when using parameter location

It seems like this template now shows two locations for headquarters when the parameter location is used. See for example Equinor and Datsun. Tholme (talk) 21:28, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

I also saw the problem reported by Tholme. As an aside, the parameters "successor" and predecessor" don't seem to work anymore. I already commented on that on LordTobi's talk page. --Urbanoc (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

I believe that I have fixed both of these problems in the sandbox. The location stuff was complex (see above), and the predecessor/successor error was a simple oversight in the new code. The new version can be tested by previewing with /sandbox after the template name in articles including GTE and Bugatti. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:00, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Template edit request: add "Market Capitalization" for public companies.

Greetings,

I'd like to add a "Market Capitalization" value for public companies.

This datum is interesting and widely available for major companies (i.e., Apple, IBM, Amazon, GE, etc) and a ranking for worldwide capitalization is in the media very often.

The value is essentially the product of number of stock times the stock price. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abacatabacaxi (talk • contribs) 14:29, 14 November 2019 (UTC)