Template talk:Infobox company/Archive 13

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MOS:EGG issue in company "type"

I'm proposing to update the documentation of this template to better demonstrate what company "type" means in this infobox. You can see examples of how "type" is currently used at Walmart, Target Corporation, and Cargill, and the current documentation for that parameter at Template:Infobox company#Type.

The issue is that many people reading about a company are unlikely to understand the uncontextualized use of "type" in an infobox when the only word that follows is "public" or "private". The meaning may become clear on a clickthrough to public company and private company, but that violates MOS:EGG. (This issue is extremely similar to the one described in MOS:EGG's example.)

Instead, the documentation on this template should advise using "public company" and "private company" (my emphasis). You can see how this would look in this reverted edit. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, very sensible move, Ed. Tony (talk) 01:34, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Why are you doing this. WiinterU (talk) 02:35, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Especially now. Because everyone is used to it just being Public. WiinterU (talk) 02:35, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

I started the discussion because I think it contradicts the manual of style? I'm not sure who "everyone" is supposed to refer to there. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 05:13, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

We are dealing in the context of an infobox about a company and in the entry of referring to the type of that company. In this context, I think "Private" and "Public" are not amibiguous and do not need the suffix "company". IceWelder [✉] 10:19, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Anyone who reads "Public company" still won't know what that is and will still have to read more. WiinterU (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@IceWelder: "Type" is ambiguous/unclear because I'm not confident that a large majority of people are going to understand that there are different company types. In addition, readers understand that they are looking at an infobox for (say) "Walmart". They do not see the wikicode to understand that it's built on a generic infobox shell for all companies.

@WiinterU: Correct, and that's why we have hyperlinks. This situation is exactly like the example described in MOS:EGG: you don't have to know what parton in particle physics is, but you do need to know that there is a link that will go to a specific article that will explain it. In this infobox right now, what a reader sees without a mouseover (desktop) or preview tap (mobile) is .... public. Or private. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

That's not entirely correct. They see Type: Public or Type: Private (note also I've piped the correct links in). Primefac (talk) 17:56, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@Primefac: the incorrect links were the point. What a reader sees is a bluelink to "public" or "private" shorn of nearly all context—MOS:EGG in a nutshell. I'm open to the solution below, which instead adds "company" to the type field. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 18:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

You've missed my point entirely. They don't just see "public" or "private", they see "type: public" or "type: private". It's not just one of two random words in an empty void of which they must ponder the meaning. Your generic assumption that "a large majority of people" do not know the definition of "type" is... weird. (please do not ping on reply) Primefac (talk) 19:45, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for the ping; I assumed that was a courtesy. :-) Type is also uncontextualized in that context. It could easily be swapped with, say, "industry" in this infobox. That's why I'm also fine with Jonesey95's solution below—giving context to one of the two sides will help readers. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 20:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

No worries about the ping (I watch the page, which you wouldn't know). I'm not particularly bothered with how things shake out consensus-wise (much like Jonesey below) - I was mainly attempting to straighten out what I thought was a bit of fuzzy logic - so I'll go back to lurking. Primefac (talk) 20:09, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. It's only an EGG if the intended meaning is not clear from the context. But in the context of the company infobox it's clear that a company is being described, hence there is no need to repeat the word "company". Gawaon (talk) 14:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

A different/compromise option could be to change the label to "Company type". See the sandbox version of this test case. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:02, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: This would also solve the EGG issue, and I'm a little ashamed to say I didn't think about modifying that field instead. Thank you for proposing this. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I neither support nor oppose this change, but I am happy to implement it if there is consensus. I just thought it might help editors here reach a consensus. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:23, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Basically, with this logic, Moana should really be Moana character. Not everyone knows who Moana is. Just like no one really knows what Public companies and Private companies are. If they want to know, they can click the blue link. It isn't that hard to understand. WiinterU (talk) 18:29, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

There is something we need to do before this gets resolved. Do not edit any articles to "comply" with moss:egg. WiinterU (talk) 18:36, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@WiinterU: Article titles are handled by Wikipedia:Article titles, an entirely separate policy. MOS:EGG applies to article content. We do not structure hyperlinks so that a reader needs to click through to understand what's being referred to. In the example you bring up, an article that includes a link to Moana should make clear where the link is going to go, whether that's through how the link is piped or included in the context in the sentence around the link. We do not need to explain exactly what it is, but we do need readers to understand what they may or may not choose to navigate to. I.e. that they would be going to public company and not public. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:38, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Your missing the point entirely. I was talking about how Moana would look like in a page, not the title. WiinterU (talk) 20:31, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for partially misunderstanding, but the rest of my comment addresses why that's not the case even in an article. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:08, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, we aren't getting anywhere by arguing. I have a Google Form linked here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOjQ5XasmA5l0oIxdFSIEoB5rI_JU6osiGVKGO4GhYAckxXQ/viewform?usp=sf_link. WiinterU (talk) 19:08, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

This form doesn't collect your email and is completely anonymous. WiinterU (talk) 19:10, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

What is this Google Form for? And why are we using an off-wiki proprietary tool? Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:12, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

For oversight to see how we feel about this situation. WiinterU (talk) 19:22, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Is there a polling service we can use here? WiinterU (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Consensus is not built by vote-counting, so we don't need any kind of polling tool. If there is no consensus for a change, that's that. IceWelder [✉] 19:45, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

The poll does not affect if we make an outcome. It is simply a checkpoint for seeing how we all feel about this. WiinterU (talk) 20:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

No, it's useless. Hardly anybody here will participate in it, so you won't get any meaningful results. Gawaon (talk) 03:41, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

I know this is a little off-topic but the person who posted this "I think the change is a little silly personally, but I'm too afraid to comment publicly w/o knowing the full situation. Sorry if there has been any hostile comments towards you, and thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. You're appreciated, cheers!" is really really nice. I really appreciate the kind words from them and I would like to thank them for this. If you are the one reading this who posted that, thank you! WiinterU (talk) 01:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm not clear where this comment was? And if you feel I've been hostile towards you, I apologize. I genuinely can't imagine which comment that would have sprung from. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 04:01, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

I maybe shouldn't have copied the entire comment. It was from the Google form I set up. You weren't acting hostile towards anything. I apologise if I was acting hostile. WiinterU (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion seems have become a little sidetracked. Are we still looking at the original proposal or did we switch to discuss Jonesey's variant? As for my two cents: I still think that any change in this regard is unnecessary, although I would not be entierly opposed to amending the field title (especially since it would not result in thousands of required edits). IceWelder [✉] 22:32, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

That would make the most sense. WiinterU (talk) 23:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Support Jonesy's "Company type:" version. It would at least have consistent results instead of depending on people to manually update every company article to do Public company or whatever. And if we decide it was a bad idea after all, then it would be easily undone by a single edit instead of thousands.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:00, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

As I said above, I also support Jonesy's proposal. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 19:42, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Hooray, consensus! I have made the edit to display "Company type" instead of "Type". Happy editing, all. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I might be a little bit late. However, I do support this change as well. WiinterU (talk) 23:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Fixed-value for type?

Since we're already here: The documentation asks to use one of four values for this field, yet we allow free text. Should we maybe change it to a fixed-value field that always links and renders to the type correctly? IceWelder [✉] 23:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

I believe that would be a good idea. Another issue I've found is that some pages aren't up to date. Take Princess Pictures for example. It says "type" and not "company type". I think those infoboxes just need updating. Or, maybe you already covered that. WiinterU (talk) 23:30, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Check out WP:PURGE for more the slow-to-update template issue. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 07:57, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

There are more than 50 different values for type in use. The sandbox is available for editing by anyone. As for articles not being updated, that takes time. You can refresh them by clicking Edit and then Publish if you really need to. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

This might be off topic but I've been struggling. One of the hardest things to do is finding out if a company is a subsidiary or a division when editing a page where it is not specifically stated and the company type section is not used. If it is wholly owned by a person or entity it will usually be private. Another hard thing to find out is what a company traded as before it went defunct. I had to use old SEC documents from the 1990s and early 2000s to find many and add them to their respective pages. Unfortunately, some companies went defunct before the SEC started to document this online. Any solutions to either issue? WiinterU (talk) 05:44, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Rename tracking category

The template calls check for clobbered parameters to populate Category:Pages using infobox company with ignored parameters. This should be changed to instead populate Category:Pages using infobox company with conflicting parameters to match the ~50 other categories — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 18:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Sure, why not. Primefac (talk) 15:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:CFD/S — JJMC89 (T·C) 17:46, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Good for future reference, but when all it involves is two edits I don't really see why I shouldn't just handle it myself. Primefac (talk) 18:57, 20 February 2024 (UTC)